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Q: How to display comma delimited JSON value as a list? Say I have an array like this: var ARTISTS: Artist[] = [ { "name": "Barot Bellingham", "shortname": "Barot_Bellingham", "reknown": "Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture", "bio": "Some bio here...", "friends": "James, Harry, Bob" } Is it possible to display values for the key “friends” as an unordered list where each friend would be it’s own list item, e.g.: <ul> <li>James</li> <li>Harry</li> <li>Bob</li> </ul> I do realize the "friends" would be better stored as a nested array in order to display as a list, but I'm looking into this as a potential workaround for another issue. Thank you! P.S. I'm using Angular 2. A: You can use String.prototype.split() to get an array of friends. var arrayOfFriends = Artist[0].friends.split(", "); // arrayOfFriends = ['James', 'Harry', 'Bob'] From there loop over the array and create your list
FILED July 27, 2016 TENNESSEE WORKERS ' COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD Time: 1 :04 P.M. TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION WORKERS' COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD Lazaro Valladares ) DocketNos. 2015-01-0117 ) 2015-01-0118 v. ) ) Transco Products, Inc., et al. ) State File Nos. 91964-2014 ) 39859-2014 and ) ) Williams Specialty Services, LLC, et al. ) ) and ) ) Abigail Hudgens, Administrator of the ) Bureau of Workers' Compensation, ) Second Injury Fund ) ) Appeal from the Court of Workers' ) Compensation Claims, ) Thomas Wyatt, Judge ) Affirmed and Remanded - Filed July 27, 2016 In these consolidated interlocutory appeals, an employer and the Second Injury Fund present procedural issues questioning the trial court's denial of motions to dismiss the employee's claims and motions to alter or amend status conference orders. Additionally, the Second Injury Fund questions the trial court's authority to set a scheduling hearing sua sponte. Following a show cause hearing, which was set when no party requested a hearing within sixty days after the filing of dispute certification notices, the trial court held a status conference that resulted in the employee's being allowed more time to file a request for an expedited hearing. The trial court's orders instructed the parties to participate in a second status conference if the employee did not file a request for an expedited hearing by a specified date. Following a hearing on motions for dismissal and other motions by the employers and the Second Injury Fund, the trial court denied the motions and set a scheduling hearing. One employer and the Second Injury Fund have appealed. We affirm the trial court' s denial of the various motions and remand the case for further proceedings as may be necessary. 1 Judge Timothy W. Conner delivered the opinion of the Appeals Board, in which Judge Marshall L. Davidson, III, joined. Judge David F. Hensley filed a separate concurring opm10n. Allison Lowry, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Second Injury Fund Joseph Ballard, Atlanta, Georgia, for the employer-appellant, Transco Products, Inc. Chadwick Rickman, Knoxville, Tennessee, for the employee-appellee, Lazaro Valladares David Weatherman, Memphis, Tennessee for the employer, Williams Specialty Services, LLC Factual and Procedural Background On May 27, 2015, Lazaro Valladares ("Employee") filed two petitions for benefit determination with the Bureau of Workers' Compensation ("Bureau"). In the first petition, he alleged he slipped on gravel and fell on October 2, 2014, resulting in work- related injuries to his left arm, low back, and body while in the employment of Specialty Services, LLC ("Specialty Services"). In the second petition, he alleged he slipped and fell in the rain on November 5, 2014, while in the employment of Transco Products, Inc. (" ransco Products"), which caused work-related injuries to his right leg, left shoulder, 2 and body. 1 Both petitions included the Second Injury Fund ("SIF") as a party. Employee alleged he reported both injuries to his employers. He apparently neither sought nor received medical care following the October 2, 2014 incident. After reporting the second incident, he was provided a panel of physicians by Transco Products. 3 He was seen twice by Dr. Rickey Hutcheson, the physician he selected from the panel, but he declined to return to Dr. Hutcheson after the second visit and requested that he be provided a different physician. Since that time, Employee has received medical care from a physician he selected on his own who was not authorized by Specialty Services or Transco Products. Except for Employee's indication that he has had surgery on his cervical spine, there is no information in the record regarding the nature or extent of Employee's medical treatment. 1 No testimony has been given in this case and no affidavits or declarations made under penalty of perjury have been filed with the trial court. Accordingly, the limited facts presented herein are taken from the documents filed with the Bureau that are included in the technical record on appeal. 2 The two claims were consolidated by the trial court. 3 In numerous places throughout the record, reference is made to Employee's not having been provided a panel of physicians. However, it appears to be undisputed that he was given a panel as a result of his second alleged injury and that he chose a physician from that panel. 2 Following the filing of the petitions and unsuccessful efforts to resolve the claims through the Bureau's mediation process, dispute certification notices were filed on July 20, 2015. Because no party filed a request for hearing in either claim within 60 days of the filing of the dispute certification notices, on November 24, 2015, the claims were placed on a dismissal calendar for a show cause hearing, which was scheduled for December 21, 2015. 4 At Employee's request, the parties agreed to continue the show cause hearing to January 12, 2016. Following the hearing, the trial court issued show cause orders that extended the time for Employee to decide how to proceed until January 29, 2016 and scheduled a status conference for that date. These orders required Employee's attorney to inform the court during the January 29, 2016 status conference how Employee intended to proceed and addressed the dates by which requests for an expedited hearing or an initial hearing were to be made: If [Employee's attorney] informs the Court at the Status Conference that his client intends to file a Request for Expedited Hearing, the Court will enter an order requiring that he file the Request for Expedited Hearing within five business days from January 29, 2016, or, failing such, his claim will be dismissed without prejudice. If [Employee's attorney] informs the Court at the Status Conference that his client requests an Initial (Scheduling) Hearing, the Court will schedule [the claims] for a Compensation Hearing. Following the January 29, 2016 status conference, orders were entered noting Employee's request for additional time to obtain an expert medical opinion and the SIF's objection to the request and its own requests that the court schedule a compensation hearing. The trial court granted Employee until February 29, 2016 to file requests for expedited hearings, stating in its February 5, 2016 orders that "[i]f [Employee] has not filed a Request for Expedited Hearing on or before February 29, 2016, the parties shall call . . . on March 10, 2016, to schedule a Compensation Hearing and the attendant deadlines." In addition, the orders provided that, should Employee file requests for expedited hearings on or before February 29, 2016, "the Court will not conduct the scheduling conference on March 10, 2016." The orders allowed the parties "to engage in discovery at this time .... " The February 5, 2016 orders were not appealed. Employee did not file a request for a hearing, and on March 4, 2016, the court clerk issued docketing notices setting an initial hearing on March 10, 2016. However, prior to the March 10 hearing, but more than 30 days after entry of the February 5, 2016 4 See Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-21-.12( 1) (2015) ("Immediately after a dispute certification notice has been filed with the clerk, either party seeking further resolution of any disputed issues shall file a request for a hearing .... If no request for hearing is filed within sixty (60) calendar days after the date of issuance of the dispute certification notice, the clerk shall docket the case and place the case on a separate dismissal calendar for a show cause hearing.") 3 status conference order, the SIF filed a motion to alter or amend the February 5, 2016 status conference order and for entry of a dismissal order. The SIF contended in its motion that the trial court had no authority to set an initial hearing, arguing that "since no request for hearing has been filed, it is the position of the SIF that this matter can only be set sua sponte by this Court for a Show Cause hearing." The SIF requested the trial court to "alter or amend its Status Conference Orders insofar as those Orders [and the subsequent Docketing Notices] set this matter for an initial/scheduling conference on March 10, 2016, and instead set this matter for a final show cause hearing on that date for entry of an Order of Dismissal in accordance with this Court's Order of January 13, 2016 .... " (Brackets in original.) On March 8, 2016, the SIF filed a "Motion to Set Final Show Cause Hearing on March 10, 2016, or, in the Alternative, to Continue Initial Hearing." On the same date, the SIF filed a "Supplemental Motion to Alter or Amend Status Conference Orders and to Set for Final Show Cause Hearing." The SIF again asserted in its motions that "since no request for hearing has been filed, it is the position of the SIF that this matter can only be set sua sponte by this Court for a Show Cause hearing." The SIF requested that, rather than conduct an initial/scheduling conference on March 10, 2016, the court "instead set this matter for a final show cause hearing on that date." At the March l 0, 2016 hearing, the parties announced they were in agreement to continue the initial/scheduling hearing. Based on the parties' discussions with the court, the court continued "the Initial (Scheduling) Hearing" to March 29, 2016 and allowed "[a]ny party wishing to file written opposition to the [SIF's] motions [to] do so no later than March 22, 2016." The trial court's March 11, 2016 order stated that Employee's counsel "shall further report on his client's medical progress during the ... hearing." Additionally, the court's order stated that the court "informed counsel that, at the motion hearing, they should announce their clients' positions as to whether a bifurcated hearing on the disputed legal/causation issues in these claims is in order to move this claim forward more expeditiously." Thereafter, Transco Products filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, asserting that the dispute certification notice filed in the claim against it limited the issues to "whether Employee is entitled to a second opinion following the selection of his authorized treating physician." Contending Employee was not entitled to a second opinion, Trancso Products asserted that Employee could not prevail against it without such opinion and that the claim against it should, therefore, be dismissed. Specialty Services likewise filed a motion to dismiss asserting "the mere fact that Employee fell at work is not sufficient to maintain an action against (Specialty Services] when there is no evidence of any resulting injury." In addition, Specialty Services adopted the SIF's motion to dismiss. Alternatively, Specialty Services moved the court for a more definite statement of the claims asserted against it. 4 Employee filed a response to the SIF's motions, requesting that the trial court "schedule these matters for a Compensation Hearing." Because both employers filed potentially dispositive motions, to which the Practices and Procedures of the Court of Workers' Compensation Claims allows an employee thirty days to respond, the trial court issued a docketing notice on April 11, 2016 scheduling an in-person hearing to address all pending motions on May 18, 2016. On the scheduled hearing date, Employee filed a response to Transco Products' motion to dismiss, requesting again that the trial court "schedule this matter for a Compensation Hearing." Following the May 18, 2016 hearing, the trial court entered an order denying the SIF's motion to alter or amend the status conference orders. The trial court determined that "it is not required to await a party's request for an Initial (Scheduling) Hearing, but may schedule an Initial (Scheduling) Hearing sua sponte if it deems such is necessary to move a case toward an efficient and timely conclusion." Additionally, the trial court determined the SIF's argument for dismissal of Employee's claim was based on "an incorrect interpretation of the Court's January 13, 2016 order," and was without merit. Finally, the trial court set an initial hearing for June 15, 2016 "at which time it will schedule the Compensation [Hearing] and attendant deadlines in these claims." Similarly, the trial court denied Transco Products' motion to dismiss, determining that although "the Court considered Transco's motion unopposed," the lack of opposition to a motion does not require the court to "automatically grant the relief moved for." Determining that Transco Products' Rule 12 motion was "based on the allegation that [Employee's] [petition for benefit determination] ... failed to state a claim recognized by law," the trial court concluded that Employee provided "a short and plain statement communicating that he sought workers' compensation benefits for the described work- related injury." The trial court also determined that the dispute certification notice did not limit his request for relief to a second medical opinion, but sought "a new treating physician and, potentially, other remedies for Transco's failure to provide him a panel of physicians." The trial court considered "it appropriate to review the [dispute certification notice] in considering whether [Employee] has sufficiently stated a claim," and concluded that "[c]learly, [Employee] seeks remedies other than a second opinion." The trial court also denied Specialty Services' motion to dismiss and its motion to alter or amend the status conference orders. However, in light of Employee's counsel's agreement during the May 18 hearing, the trial court granted Specialty Services' motion for a more definite statement, ordering that Employee "file ... a more definite statement regarding the alleged injury he sustained in the course and scope of his employment [with Specialty Services]." On June 7, 2016, the SIF filed a motion to stay the proceedings pending an appeal, asserting that "[i]n the event the Appeals Board modifies or reverses [the trial court's] interlocutory order, it would be in the interest of judicial economy and efficiency to stay 5 the Initial Hearing and further proceedings in this Court until prompt resolution of the appeal." The trial court granted the motion and stayed "all further proceedings in these claims pending the completion of the [SIF's] appeal" and cancelled "the Initial (Scheduling) Hearing scheduled for June 15, 2016." Both the SIF and Transco Products have appealed. Standard of Review The standard we apply in reviewing a trial court's decision is statutorily mandated and limited in scope. Specifically, "[t]here shall be a presumption that the findings and conclusions of the workers' compensation judge are correct, unless the preponderance of the evidence is otherwise." Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-239(c)(7) (2015). The trial court's decision must be upheld unless the rights of a party "have been prejudiced because findings, inferences, conclusions, or decisions of a workers' compensation judge: (A) Violate constitutional or statutory provisions; (B) Exceed the statutory authority of the workers' compensation judge; (C) Do not comply with lawful procedure; (D) Are arbitrary, capricious, characterized by abuse of discretion, or clearly an unwarranted exercise of discretion; or (E) Are not supported by evidence that is both substantial and material in the light of the entire record." Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-217(a)(3) (2015). Like other courts applying the standards embodied in section 50-6-217(a)(3), we will not disturb the decision of the trial court absent the limited circumstances identified in the statute. Analysis Transco Products 'Appeal In its brief on appeal, Transco Products raises two issues, which we have restated as whether the trial court erred in allowing Employee to present oral argument at the May 18, 2016 hearing in opposition to Transco Products' motion to dismiss, and whether the trial court erred in determining that Employee sufficiently stated a claim for relief. We find no merit in either issue. Whether Trial Court Erred in AlJowing Oral Argument Opposing Transco Products' Motion to Dismiss Rule 4.0l(B) of the Practices and Procedures of the Court of Workers' Compensation Claims provides the following guidance with respect to the time within which a party must respond to a dispositive motion: 6 If a dispositive motion is opposed, a response to the motion must be filed and served . . . on or before thirty calendar days after the filing of the dispositive motion. The response shall be in writing and shall state with particularity the grounds for the opposition. If no opposition is, filed, the dispositive motion will be considered unopposed. Employee filed a response to Transco Products' March 18, 2016 motion to dismiss the morning of the May 18, 2016 hearing, which was significantly more than 30 days after the filing of the dispositive motion. Transco Products objected to the late filing, and the trial court refused to consider the written filing, stating it was "going to consider the motion to be unopposed" in accordance with Rule 4.0l(B). Nonetheless, the trial court allowed Employee's counsel to argue his position at the hearing and granted Transco Products' request for time to respond in writing to the Employee's oral argument. However, in its June 2, 2016 order denying the motion to dismiss, the court noted that it "does not consider the term 'unopposed' as used in Rule 4.0l(B) as a requirement that it automatically grant the relief moved for. The moving party must still show entitlement under the law to the relief moved for." The trial court did not address Employee's oral argument in its order denying the motion to dismiss, but determined that the motion to dismiss was based on Employee's alleged failure to state a claim for relief under Rule 12.02(6) of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. Transco Products asserts on appeal that "if any rational[] basis exists to grant an unopposed motion, the Trial Court is bound to grant said motion." Transco Products has cited no authority in support of this argument. Neither Rule 4.0l(B) nor any other applicable rule prohibits a trial court from deciding motions on their merits. Likewise, the Bureau's regulations do not prohibit a trial court from considering the merits of an unopposed motion. Cf Rochelle v. Oscar Mayer Foods Corp., No. 01-S-01-9207-CH- 00087, 1992 Tenn. LEXIS 748, at 12 (Tenn. Workers' Comp. Panel Jan. 19, 1993) (Local rules of practice requiring a response to an opposed motion to be filed and providing that the court may dispose of the motion as unopposed if no response is filed "do[] not prohibit any court from deciding questions on their merits."). Accordingly, under the circumstances presented, we discern no error in the trial court's allowing Employee to orally express his opposition to Transco Products' motion to dismiss at the hearing. We also find no error in the trial court's decision to consider the merits of the motion despite the lack of a written response. Whether mp loyee Sufficiently Stated a Claim for Relief The second issue Transco Products raises on appeal is whether Employee stated an actionable claim against it. In its brief on appeal, it asserts that "[t]o test the sufficiency of Employee's pleading, [it] filed a Motion to Dismiss to determine whether Employee has set forth a valid claim for which relief can be granted." Noting the trial court's reliance on Trau-Med of Am., Inc. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 71 S.W.3d 691, 696 (Tenn. 2002), 7 and asserting that the trial court "essentially equates Employee's [petition for benefit determination] to the filing of a complaint," Transco Products contends "the sparse facts contained within the [petition for benefit determination], without more, do not survive a Motion to Dismiss." In analyzing this issue, the trial court noted that Employee filed his claim against Transco Products by completing a petition for benefit determination. The trial court observed that "[w]hen read as a whole, [Employee's] petition for benefit determination against Transco states that he injured his 'right leg, left shoulder and body' when he 'slipped and fell in rain while carrying [an] MRI panel' on '11/05/2014."' The court concluded that "the petition for benefit determination filed by [Employee] provided Transco a short and plain statement communicating that he sought workers' compensation benefits for the described work-related injury. Accordingly, Transco is not entitled to dismissal under Rule 12.02(6)." We agree. In order to commence a cause of action within the applicable limitations period, an injured worker must timely file a petition for benefit determination. Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-203(b ). A petition for benefit determination is defined as "a request for the [Bureau] to provide assistance in the resolution of any disputed issues in a workers' compensation claim." Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-21-.02(19) (2015). We have noted that a petition for benefit determination is the general equivalent of a complaint because it initiates the process for resolving disputes whether or not benefits have been paid. See Duck v. Cox Oil Co., No. 2015-07-0089, 2016 TN Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 2 (Tenn. Workers' Comp. App. Bd. Jan. 21, 2016); see also Black's Law Dictionary (6th ed. 1990) (defining a "complaint" as "the original or initial pleading by which an action is commenced" and a "petition" as "a formal written application to a court requesting judicial action on a certain matter."). 5 This means that, when faced with the type of motion to dismiss as was filed in this case, the trial court will consider whether, assuming the truth of the employee's averments, the employee can prove no set of facts entitling him or her to relief. 6 5 In his concurrence, our colleague argues that the filing of a petition for benefit determination and a dispute certification notice "occurs before the point in time at which the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure have attached to the process." While we agree with this statement in the abstract, we find nothing in the statute or regulations that prohibits a trial court from examining these filings once the Rules of Civil Procedure are applicable, as they are here, to determine their sufficiency in the context of a pending motion. Moreover, our colleague asserts that "the analysis fails to address the procedure established in the Reform Act for presenting disputed issues to the trial court." We disagree. Nothing in the statute or regulations prohibits a party from utilizing Tenn. R. Civ. P. 15.01 or Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-239(b), as applicable, to amend such filings by use of a motion, as opposed to filing a request for expedited hearing. Indeed, the trial court in this case granted an employer's motion for more definite statement, thereby giving the employee an opportunity to amend the allegations in his petition for benefit determination. 6 Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 12.02(6) governs motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon 8 As noted above, Employee's petition for benefit determination naming Transco Products as a party alleged an injury to his "right leg, left shoulder and body" when he "slipped and fell in rain while carrying [an] MRI panel" on "11/05/2014." He characterized the disputed issue as the "right to medical treatment under Tenn. Code Ann. 50-6-204." He indicated that he had not been provided a panel of physicians, identified the doctor he had seen for the injury, and described the medical care provided to include "x-ray of right leg, MRI." In addition, he indicated that the SIF was involved. The trial court determined Employee's petition sufficiently stated a cause of action and declined to dismiss the case. Taking the assertions in the petition as true for purposes of Rule 12.02(6) as we must, see Bell, 986 S.W.2d at 554, we find no error in the trial court's denial of Transco Products' motion to dismiss. The Second Injury Fund's Appeal The SIF presents two issues on appeal. First, it alleges the trial court erred in setting the cases for an initial hearing when the parties did not request a hearing. Second, it alleges the trial court erred "in failing to dismiss [Employee's] claims in accordance with [the trial court's] prior order(s)." Following the trial court's issuance of the June 2, 2016 order denying the SIF's motions, the SIF filed a motion to stay the proceedings pending its appeal, representing that it would timely appeal the trial court's June 2, 2016 order. The motion to stay the proceedings noted that the trial court's June 2, 2016 order scheduled an initial hearing on June 15, 2016, and asserted that "[i]n the event the Appeals Board modifies or reverses this Court's interlocutory order, it would be in the interest of judicial economy and efficiency to stay the Initial Hearing and further proceedings in this Court until prompt resolution of the appeal." On June 8, 2016, the trial court stayed the proceedings, finding "that a stay of these proceedings serves the interest of judicial economy." The June 8, 2016 order cancelled the June 15, 2016 initial hearing and arguably rendered the SIF's first issue on appeal moot. We note, however, that although Rule 0800-02-21-.12 does not explicitly authorize trial courts to schedule initial hearings where no party has requested a hearing, nothing in the regulations precludes a trial court from doing so. Specifically, Rule 0800-02-21-.13(1) requires parties to participate in an initial hearing "no more than thirty (30) calendar days after a request for hearing is filed," but the rule does not preclude the possibility that such a hearing could be scheduled by the court earlier. Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-21-.13(1) (2015) (emphasis added). It is which relief can be granted. Such a motion challenges only the legal sufficiency of the complaint or request for relief, not the strength of the proof. See Bell ex rel. Snyder v. Icard, Merrill, Cul/is, Timm, Furen & Ginsburg, P.A., 986 S.W.2d 550, 554 (Tenn. 1999) ("Such a motion admits the truth of all relevant and material averments contained in the complaint, but asserts that such facts do not constitute a cause of action as a matter of law."). Thus, a trial court should grant a Rule 12.02(6) motion to dismiss only when it appears the employee can prove no set of facts in support of the claim that would warrant relief. Doe v. Sunquist, 2 S.W.3d 919, 922 (Tenn. 1999). 9 consistent with common practice, applicable regulations, the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, and the need to control its docket and the progress of cases to allow a trial court to set a scheduling hearing in the absence of a request by a party to do so. The SIF's second issue questions the trial court's failure to dismiss Employee's claims pursuant to the trial court's January 13, 2016 order. In its brief, the SIF states "[t]he position of the SIF is that [Employee's] claim should have been dismissed for failure to show cause after being given a multitude of opportunities to do so." We note that a show cause hearing was held on January 12, 2016, and that the trial court issued a show cause order the following day granting Employee "time to decide how to proceed .. . until January 29, 2016, on which date the Court scheduled a telephonic Status Conference." No one appealed the January 13, 2016 show cause order or the February 5, 2016 status conference orders. Rather, the SIF filed motions to alter or amend the status conference orders on March 7, 2016, which the trial court denied in the order on appeal. Focusing on the trial court's explanation in the June 2, 2016 order on appeal addressing why the January 13, 2016 show cause order did not mandate dismissal of Employee's claims, the SIF contends that "based on the totality of the circumstances, it is clear that [Employee's attorney] in fact communicated to the Court on January 29, 2016, that he was filing a Request for Expedited Hearing, not a Request for Initial Hearing." Asserting that "[s]ince [Employee's attorney] was ordered to inform the Court which of the two hearings he intended to pursue and the Court did not schedule a compensation hearing at that time, an inference should be drawn that [the attorney] communicated to the Court he was pursuing an expedited hearing." As noted in the SIF's brief, "no audio recordings of either January hearing were preserved." Beyond what the transcripts of the March 10, 2016 and May 18, 2016 hearings and the trial court's orders reveal, we cannot know what the "totality of the circumstances" might be, nor can we draw inferences concerning what a party or counsel communicated or represented to the court without the aid of transcripts of the proceedings or orders identifying such communications. It is the responsibility of the appealing party to ensure a complete record on appeal by either filing a transcript prepared by a licensed court reporter or, alternatively, filing a statement of the evidence. See Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-22-.02(2). Here, transcripts of the March 10, 2016 and May 18, 2016 hearings were filed with the trial court, but neither transcripts of the January 12, 2016 and January 29, 2016 hearings nor a statement of the evidence presented in those hearings was included in the record. We are unable to discern the "totality of the circumstances" as suggested by the SIF without such transcripts. Moreover, the January 13, 2016 order upon which the SIF relies included the following language that the SIF contends bound the trial court to a specific course of action that it failed to take: 10 If [Employee's attorney] informs the Court at the [January 29, 2016] Status Conference that his client intends to file a Request for Expedited Hearing, the Court will enter an order requiring that he file the Request for Expedited Hearing within five business days from January 29, 2016, or, failing such, his claim will be dismissed without prejudice. If [Employee's attorney] informs the Court at the Status Conference that his client requests an Initial (Scheduling) Hearing, the Court will schedule this claim for a Compensation Hearing. In the order on appeal, the trial court addressed the January 13, 2016 order and concluded it did not mandate a dismissal of Employee's claims, stating "the condition precedent in the order for the Court's imposition of the five-day deadline to file Requests for Expedited Hearing never occurred; therefore, the Court was not under a self-imposed mandate to dismiss [Employee's] claims because he did not file Requests for Expe~ited Hearings within a deadline that never came into effect." The January 13, 2016 orders were interlocutory in nature and did not resolve all of the issues or claims before the trial court. Thus, they were subject to revision by the trial court at any time before entry of a final order. See Tenn. R. Civ. P. 54.02 (An "order or other fonn of decision is subject to revision at any time before the entry of the judgment adjudicating all the claims and the rights and liabilities of all the parties."). Here, the trial court did not modify the January 13, 2016 order; rather, it interpreted its own order as not requiring dismissal of Employee's claims on the sole basis of Employee's not requesting an expedited hearing. Not knowing the "totality of the circumstances" as communicated or represented by the parties in the January 12, 2016 or January 29, 2016 hearings, we cannot say that the trial court erred in interpreting its own orders and denying the SIF's motion to alter or amend the February 5, 2016 status conference orders, or in denying the SIF's motion to dismiss Employee's claims. Discretion to Control Docket Before concluding, we must address the trial court's observations that "a majority" of the Appeals Board in Smith v. The Newman Group, No. 2015-08-0075, 2015 TN Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 30 (Tenn. Workers' Comp. App. Bd. Sept. 21, 2015), held that trial courts have the discretion to control their dockets. Specifically, the trial court observed that "a majority of the Appeals Board held [in Smith] that trial judges in the Court of Workers' Compensation Claims possess discretion to control the pace of litigation in their courts to ensure equitable and efficient disposition of the claims litigated therein." The trial court reiterated the point a second time, noting that "the majority in Smith held that a workers' compensation trial judge has broad discretion to manage its docket." 11 While we were divided in Smith as to whether the trial court acted within its discretion in denying an employer's motion to dismiss following a show cause hearing, the observations made by the trial judge in this case reflect an overly narrow construction of our views expressed in Smith. Consistent with well-established law, we were then, and are now, unanimous in our belief that a trial court has the necessary discretion to control the pace of litigation through the use of case supervision and docket 7 management. But we are also unanimous that such discretion is not without its limits. In Smith, we differed over where the discretionary line should be drawn under the particular circumstances presented in that case, but not over whether such discretion exists. Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the trial court did not err in denying Transco Products' motion to dismiss Employee's claim or in denying the SIF's motions to alter or amend the status conference orders or to dismiss Employee's claims. We additionally conclude that the trial court's decisions did not violate any of the standards set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-217(a)(3). Accordingly, the trial court's decisions are affirmed and these consolidated cases are remanded for any further proceedings that may be necessary. -~ W. Conner, Judge rs' Compensation Appeals Board 7 See, e.g., Sissom v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., No. M2011-00363-WC-R3-WC, 2012 Tenn. LEXIS 411, at 3 n.2 (Tenn. Workers' Comp. Panel June 20, 2012) ("trial judges have been charged with controlling the pace of litigation through the use of supervision and docket management which will ensure efficient disposition of civil cases"); Lewis v. Dana Holding Corp., No. W2010-01863-WC-R3- WC, 2011 Tenn. LEXIS 461, at 9 (Tenn. Workers' Comp. Panel June 6, 2011) ("[a] trial court has broad discretion in managing its courtroom and docket"). 12 TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD Lazaro Valladares ) Docket Nos. 2015-01-0117 ) 2015-01-0118 v. ) ) State File Nos. 91964-2014 Transco Products, Inc., et al. ) 39859-2014 ) and ) ) Williams Specialty Services, et al. ) ) and ) ) Abigail Hudgens, Administrator of the ) Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, ) Second Injury Fund ) ) ) Appeal from the Court of Workers’ ) Compensation Claims, ) Thomas Wyatt, Judge ) Concurring Opinion - Filed July 27, 2016 I concur with the conclusions in the lead opinion that the trial court did not err in denying the motions at issue. Additionally, as noted in the lead opinion, the Appeals Board is unanimous in our belief that a trial court has the necessary discretion to control the pace of litigation through the use of case supervision and docket management and in our belief that such discretion is not without its limits. I write separately to express my opinion that it was error for the trial court to analyze Transco Products’ motion to dismiss under Rule 12.02(6) of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. In my opinion, the appropriate procedure Transco Products should have followed to present its disputed issue would have included (1) properly identifying the issue in the dispute certification notice filed with the Bureau, and (2) requesting that 1 the trial court hear its dispute on an expedited basis in accordance with Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-239(d) (2015). Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0800-02-21-.02(19) defines a petition for benefit determination as a “request for the [Bureau] to provide assistance in the resolution of any disputed issues in a workers’ compensation claim.” It further provides that “[a]ny party may file a petition for benefit determination, on a form approved by the [Bureau], with the [Bureau] at any time after a dispute arises in a claim for workers’ compensation benefits.” Id. The form approved by the Bureau provides a checklist from which the petitioner can select the type of relief being requested, and it includes an area for the petitioner to explain any disputed issues in addition to providing information about the employee, the employer, the injury, the insurance carrier, and whether the Second Injury Fund is involved. Although the Appeals Board has equated a petition for benefit determination to a complaint filed with the clerk of the court to commence a civil action, see Duck v. Cox Oil Co., No. 2015-07-0089, 2016 TN Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 2 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. App. Bd. Jan. 21, 2016), it is essentially a fill-in-the-blank document and checklist intended to initiate a request that the Bureau provide assistance in resolving disputed issues in a workers’ compensation claim. Once a petition for benefit determination has been filed, the parties are required to participate in alternative dispute resolution measures designed to help the parties resolve claims by agreement. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-236(b) (2015). If the parties are unable to reach an agreement, the mediator prepares and issues a dispute certification notice, “setting forth all unresolved issues for hearing before a workers’ compensation judge.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-236(d)(1). However, “[n]o party is entitled to a hearing before a workers’ compensation judge to determine temporary or permanent benefits . . . unless a workers’ compensation mediator has issued a dispute certification notice setting forth the issues for adjudication by a workers’ compensation judge.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-236(d)(3)(A). See also Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-203(a) (“No request for a hearing by a workers’ compensation judge . . . shall be filed with the court of workers’ compensation claims, other than a request for settlement approval, until a workers’ compensation mediator has issued a dispute certification notice certifying issues in dispute for hearing before a workers’ compensation judge.”). Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-239(a) provides the procedure for “a party seeking further resolution of disputed issues” to present those issues to the workers’ compensation judge. This section provides that such party “shall file a request for a hearing,” and subdivision 50-6-239(b)(1) limits the issues that may be presented to those “issues that have been certified by a workers’ compensation mediator within a dispute certification notice.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-239(a), (b)(1) (2015). Here, Transco Products identified “compensability” as an issue in the dispute certification notice, but it did not include as a defense or as a disputed issue whether the petition for benefit determination fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Instead of 2 requesting an expedited hearing to resolve the disputes identified in the dispute certification notice, Transco Products filed a separate motion to dismiss grounded in Rule 12 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, which presented an issue that was not included or identified in the dispute certification notice. In its brief on appeal, it asserts that “[t]o test the sufficiency of Employee’s pleading, [it] filed a Motion to Dismiss to determine whether Employee has set forth a valid claim for which relief can be granted.” Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-239(c)(1) provides that the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure “shall govern proceedings at all hearings before a workers’ compensation judge unless an alternate procedural . . . rule has been adopted by the administrator.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-239(c)(1) (emphasis added). “[T]he phrase ‘proceedings at all hearings’ as used in section 50-6-239(c)(1) encompasses all filings made by the parties as a result of any request for or notice of a hearing filed after the issuance of a dispute certification notice.” Syph v. Choice Food Group, Inc., No. 2015- 06-0288, 2016 TN Wrk. Comp. App. Bd. LEXIS 18, at 13 (Tenn. Workers’ Comp. App. Bd. Apr. 21, 2016). The filing with the Bureau of both a petition for benefit determination by any party and an initial dispute certification notice by a workers’ compensation mediator occurs prior to any request for or notice of a hearing before the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims. Thus, the filing of these documents occurs before the point in time at which the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure have attached to the process. It necessarily follows that, at the time both a petition for benefit determination and an initial dispute certification notice are filed, neither is subject to the requirements applicable to a civil complaint or an answer to a civil complaint as contemplated in the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. In these consolidated cases, the analysis by both the trial court and in the lead opinion applies the pleading requirements of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure to Employee’s petition for benefit determination, but that analysis fails to address the procedure established in the Reform Act for presenting disputed issues to the trial court, focusing instead on whether the information in the petition for benefit determination states a claim upon which relief can be granted. In my opinion, this is an incorrect analysis. Neither analysis addressed whether Transco Products identified the issue in the dispute certification notice or whether Transco Products initiated the appropriate procedure for presenting the issue to the trial court by requesting an expedited hearing pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-239(d). In my view, the purpose of the expedited hearing process is to allow any party the opportunity to have the trial court hear and resolve disputes over issues included in the dispute certification notice concerning the provision of benefits. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-239(d)(1). Transco Products failed to comply with section 50-6-239(a) when it did not request an expedited hearing, and it avoided the prohibition in section 50-6-239(b) against presenting issues not certified by the workers’ compensation mediator by filing a motion to dismiss under Rule 12 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure. While I agree that the motion to 3 dismiss should have been denied, in my opinion, the trial court erred in analyzing Transco Products’ motion to dismiss based on Rule 12.02(6). 4 TENNESSEE BUREAU OF WORKERS’ COMPENSATION WORKERS’ COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD Lazaro Valladares ) Docket Nos. 2015-01-0117 ) 2015-01-0118 v. ) ) State File Nos. 91964-2014 Transco Products, Inc., et al. ) 39859-2014 ) and ) ) Williams Specialty Services, LLC, et al. ) ) and ) ) Abigail Hudgens, Administrator of the ) Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, ) Second Injury Fund ) ) Appeal from the Court of Workers’ ) Compensation Claims, ) Thomas Wyatt, Judge ) CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of the Appeals Board’s decision in the referenced case was sent to the following recipients by the following methods of service on this the 27th day of July, 2016. Name Certified First Class Via Fax Via Email Address Mail Mail Fax Number Email Chad Rickman X chad@loringjustice.com Joseph Ballard X Joseph.Ballard@thehartford.com David Weatherman X David.weatherman@zurichna.com Allison Lowry X Allison.Lowry@tn.gov Thomas Wyatt, Judge X Via Electronic Mail Kenneth M. Switzer, X Via Electronic Mail Chief Judge Penny Shrum, Clerk, X Penny.Patterson-Shrum@tn.gov Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims Matthew Salyer Clerk, Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board 220 French Landing Dr., Ste. 1-B, Nashville, TN 37243 Telephone: 615-253-1606 Electronic Mail: Matthew.Salyer@tn.gov
Courtesy of the NAACP, with over 37,000 likes and 23,000 retweets. But this meme isn’t limited to them, it originates with a Washington Post article, based on research by political science professors at the University of North Texas. From there, it got picked up by countless media outlets, including The Hill, Business Insider, Vox and SF Gate. The amount of shares on social media are too numerous to count, but include major and influential voices like Joy Reid, Arianna Huffington, Will Bunch and Joe Scarborough, who repeated this claim as fact. Did hate crimes really rise 226% where Trump held his rallies? Let’s examine the evidence. The Flawed Washington Post Study Since this statistic originates with the Washington Post article, let’s look at their methodology. The professors examined the counties which hosted 275 Trump campaign rallies in 2016 and used the Anti-Defamation League’s “HEAT map” to compile data about hate crimes in the subsequent months. They found that hate crimes rose 226% in relation to “comparable counties” that did not host a rally. However, there are serious flaws with this study. The ADL’s HEAT map is not a good source to analyze hate crimes, because it’s not a list of hate crimes. It includes a list of “extremist and anti-Semitic incidents,” which are often not crimes at all. If you download their data (click on “download selected data”) you can see all the events they include. A great many are simply examples of free speech and/or rude and offensive behavior. Here are some examples: They list literally hundreds of instances where (generally far right) activist groups distributed fliers or other propaganda material. Some of these had slogans which were fairly benign (“America First,” “Defend America,” “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Victory,” “Better dead than red”) while others were outright racist or anti-Semitic (“Join the KKK and fight for race and nation,” “European roots, American greatness”). Approximately two dozen League of the South members held a flash demonstration on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A juvenile received images of Hitler to her cell phone from an unknown number. Anti-Semitic comments made in a Snapchat group. In a soccer game, a 13 year old was told “stop following me Jew” by another player. During a sermon, a priest made anti-Semitic comments about Jewish liturgy. However offensive one might find these events, they are not hate crimes. So long as groups and individuals are just distributing material, protesting or being jerks they are within their first amendment rights. Hate crimes involve credible threats or damage to persons or property, and include acts like vandalism, intimidation, burglary and assault. While the ADL’s list includes these acts, they also include many things that don’t qualify as crimes, just read through the list yourself. More than half appear to be examples of offensive speech, not crimes. The purpose of the ADL map is to identify what they feel are disturbing racist or anti-Semitic acts, but this is not at all the same as identifying hate crimes. For that, the FBI data on hate crimes should be used, yet it wasn’t used in the study. Thus, the study cited in the Washington Post is based on flawed data for its stated purpose. The study also says they compared counties with Trump rallies to “comparable counties”. They don’t explain how they do this, but it’s very suspect. For example, what is a comparable city/county to Las Vegas/Clark County? Vegas is by far the largest city in Nevada, and there’s no city of equivalent population for hundreds of miles. What ever is chosen will certainly not be “comparable” by any reasonable standard. Trump tended to have rallies in urban areas, which one would assume would have higher instances of these acts than the “comparable counties” around them. A far better method would be to compare the same city/county before and after a Trump rally, a method which will be done here. In order for a study on hate crimes to be taken seriously, it must use the FBI Hate Crime database, or an equivalent (which doesn’t yet exist). The Washington Post article does not use such data, and I could find no other source which attempted to check Trump rallies with such data. Which meant I had to do my own study. The Meme Policeman Methodology For this analysis, I took the list of Trump’s presidential campaign rallies. These began in 2015, but only the ones during 2016 up until the election were used, as that’s what the meme references. There were 275 total rallies, but some cities were visited multiple times, giving us 223 total cities/counties to analyze. The hate crimes data was taken from the FBI database from 2015 and 2016 in order to compare hate crimes for each year for every area. If you click on Table 13, it breaks down each state’s reported hate crimes by the local reporting agency. If the thesis of the meme is correct, the rhetoric of the Trump rallies would register a noticeable uptick in the amount of hate crimes in these areas during 2016 compared to 2015. FBI hate crimes statistics come from various participating law enforcement agencies around the country who provide them with data. Generally, it’s cities providing the data, although some states also have counties listed, and occasionally other agencies like universities, parks, highway patrol or airports will also report. Thus, it’s often a bit complicated to find data for a particular campaign rally’s area as there could be multiple reporting agencies. For each rally, I included data for the city, county and any other relevant reporting agency nearby. Sometimes this was simple, as in New Hampshire, where only cities are listed. Other areas were more complex. For example, for Trump’s rally in Miami I included data from Miami Beach, North Miami, North Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County. In some cases, Trump had two rallies in nearby towns or cities in the same county. For those, I only included the county once, as to avoid double counting. If this sounds like a lot of work, it was! There was no way to automate the process, as each rally location had to be researched for county and possible universities, airports and parks. For more info on how to find and sift through FBI hate crime data like a ninja, see my instructional video. Results Of the 223 cities and towns Trump had rallies in, over 1/3 (86) reported zero hate crimes for all of 2016. Over half (127) reported one or less. Considering the relatively low frequency of these crimes, statistics for a given area can be wildly misleading. For instance, Tampa, which Trump visited more than any other city, had hate crimes rise by a whopping 300%! But this is because it went from 1 incident in 2015 to 4 in 2016. Meanwhile, hate crimes in Las Vegas, where Trump visited 4 times, plummeted by 40% (48 in 2015 to 29 in 2016). Thus, beware anytime you see hate crimes stats for a local area or even state, as these can fluctuate dramatically. The amount of Trump rallies evens out these fluctuations a bit, but it should still be taken with skepticism. Here are the combined results for all the cities and counties Trump had campaign rallies for in 2016: 2016: 1,450 hate crimes 2015: 1,433 hate crimes Far from the meme’s and Washington Post’s claim, the increase in hate crimes in cities/counties where Trump had rallies was just 1%. Furthermore, it could be credibly argued that hate crimes actually declined in these areas when factoring increased reporting and population. If you click on the “participating agencies” section of the FBI data, it shows the number of agencies reporting the data and population covered. In 2016, there were 257 more reporting agencies than 2015 (15,254 vs. 14,997) covering a population of 5.9 million more people (289.8M vs. 283.9M). This means that the 2016 data included 2% more people, so we’d assume a 2% increase in hate crimes all things being equal. It’s sort of like comparing real and nominal prices. So a 1% increase is arguably a 1% decline. Either way it’s looked at, hate crimes remained essentially flat. This data proves nothing about the influence Trump rallies have on hate crimes, except that they appear to have no influence. Overall, hate crimes increased by 4.6% throughout the country from 205-16. This means that the areas Trump visited actually fared better than the rest of the country on average. Of course, this small statistical correlation can’t be attributed to Trump, but it further knocks down the narrative of the meme and Post article. More Context If one is inclined, just about any narrative can be created by examining hate crime statistics. For example, anti-Hispanic hate crimes increased 15% from 2015-16, which out of context could be attributed to Trump’s rhetoric. But anti-black crimes declined by 1%, and anti-white crimes increased by 17%. The Trump rhetoric narrative also collapses when we see that white offenders actually declined by 3% in 2016, while Hispanic offenders increased by a whopping 40%! However, lest the pro-Trump crowd get too excited, many of these narratives flipped in 2017 (the latest data available). Anti-Hispanic crimes rose at an even faster pace (24%) than anti-white crimes (3%) and this time white offenders increased by 20%, although Hispanic offenders increased again more than any other group by 38% (but still committed far fewer hate crimes than whites). Of course, we also need to factor in the increased reporting agencies in 2017, which covered 6% more people, which tempers these numbers a bit. It becomes clear that things get quite complicated and nuanced! One interesting narrative that is never reported is that the least amount of hate crimes happen in some of the deepest parts of Trump country. Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas all had less than 10 hate crimes reported in the entire state during 2017, with Mississippi registering just 4, a decline of 60% from the year prior. These are supposedly the most racist areas of the US, yet have the fewest hate crimes. Compare them with Democrat strongholds like California, with a whopping 1,270 hate crimes in 2017 or Washington with 613, a strikingly high number considering their population. Yet, even this narrative collapses when we look at other red states like Kentucky (432) and South Carolina (94), who had huge percentage increases in hate crimes in 2017. Historical context on hate crimes (not adjusted for population) Conclusion The purpose of pointing out these different narratives is to show how manipulative these sorts of statistics can be. Depending on one’s agenda, almost anything can be hyped up without context. But if we step back, the reality is that hate crimes are far lower today than they were two decades ago, particularly when factoring in increased population, and are not at alarming levels historically. This could change in the future, of course, but for now the fear is not based on facts, but media hype. Regarding this particular claim, it’s completely detached from reality and the facts. Any researcher who understands hate crimes should know to use the FBI database, not the ADL’s. The fact that this was published by one of the nation’s largest newspapers and shared heavily by the media elites is shameful.
10/11/2018 A truck bearing pro-Trump stickers was torched after the owner left the vehicle at a bar parking lot in Vancouver, Wash., overnight. Johnny MacKay told KOIN News the incident occurred late Monday night, after he opted to take an Uber home after having a few drinks, leaving his Nissan Titan pickup in the Garage Bar and Grille’s parking lot. During the night, Randy Sanchagrin, who lives near the bar, told the local station he heard an explosion. He then exited the house and began filming what turned out to be MacKay’s truck being engulfed by flames. “By the time I ran back to the street it was so bad there was no getting close to it,” Sanchagrin told the local outlet. SEARCH AMAZON USING THIS SEARCH BOX: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. About Patterico Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh" E-mail: Just use my moniker Patterico, followed by the @ symbol, followed by gmail.com
Cochylimorpha nomadana Cochylimorpha nomadana is a species of moth of the family Tortricidae. It is found in China (Xinjiang), Afghanistan, Iran, Russia (the Caucasus and south-eastern part of European Russia), Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The wingspan is 22–31 mm. Adults have been recorded from wing from July to August. References Category:Moths described in 1874 Category:Cochylimorpha Category:Moths of Asia
Q: How do I create a network from connected links I have a bundle of links in 'some' networks. I need to find out which ones are connected to each other i.e. I need to find out which links are not connected to the 'main' network. I have been working on a flood fill recursive method, which effectively goes from link to link, finding out which ones are connected, and recursively doing the same. But the numbers are quite high, and my machine just bailed, so I wondered if there were other, better, or more efficient, ways of doing this. Using arcpy Thanks in advance A: I used FME 2013 NetworkTopologyCalculator. Phenominal, took 4 seconds...
2.. Introduction {#s1} ================ This article describes a simple formula for calculating the mutual information between random variables where one or both of the variables take values in a metric space. This is relevant to neuroscience because electrophysiological data, whether spike trains from single neurons or collections of spike trains from a population of neurons, can be naturally considered to take values in a metric space \[[@RSOS140391C1],[@RSOS140391C2]\]. It is, in turn, useful to be able to calculate information theory quantities for these data as part of an investigation into effective coding theories of neurodynamics or as a tool for quantifying the relationship between the activity of different neurons or different neuronal populations. However, the relevance is not limited to spike trains, it extends to other electrophysiological data types, such as calcium or electroencephalogram traces. Indeed, non-coordinate metrics or similarity measures are also used, for example, in genetics and biochemistry \[[@RSOS140391C3],[@RSOS140391C4]\], in image analysis \[[@RSOS140391C5]\] and in information retrieval \[[@RSOS140391C6]\]. The aim here is to address two difficulties associated with estimating mutual information on metric spaces. The first difficulty is that information theory is most typically applied to problems where the data are either discrete or take values in an integrable manifold. The second difficulty is that many approaches to estimating information theory quantities can demand an unrealistically large amount of data. The second of these difficulties has been addressed in the past by the Kozachenko--Leonenko estimator \[[@RSOS140391C7]--[@RSOS140391C10]\], but, in line with the first difficulty, this estimator is derived specifically for an integrable manifold or using a local effective dimension. The aim here is to provide a simple approach to a Kozachenko--Leonenko estimator which applies to metric spaces. With this extension, mutual information can be calculated for the broad class of important data where there is a similarity measure, but no coordinates. The particular application which motivates this article is the problem of calculating information theory quantities for spike trains. Three different types of neuroscience experiment could be considered typical. In the first, the activity of a neuron or group of neurons is recorded from the brain of an anesthetized or restrained animal while that animal is being presented with a series of stimuli. The challenge is to estimate the mutual information between the stimulus and the neuronal activity during the presentation. In the second, neuronal activity is recorded while an animal is moving freely in an arena and the mutual information is to be estimated between the position of the animal at a given time and the neuronal activity in a temporal window centred on that time. In the third example, the mutual information is to be estimated between temporal slices of the spike trains produced by different neurons so that this can be used to measure the relationship between those neurons, for example, at different times during development. Estimating mutual information is not straightforward in any of these examples because there is no obvious coordinate system for describing neuronal activity. One approach to solving this difficulty is to discretize the spike trains, turning individual fragments of spike train into sequences of ones and zeros with each bit accounting for the presence or absence of a spike in a corresponding time slot \[[@RSOS140391C11]\]. However, the amount of possible words is huge and so this approach is bedevilled by the large amount of data it requires. One response to this problem is to exploit what is sometimes called the birthday problem and to look at coincidences \[[@RSOS140391C12],[@RSOS140391C13]\]. However, the proximity structure of the space of spike trains is poorly approximated by examining the coincidence whereby two spike trains are discretized to the same sequence of ones and zeros. Here, it is proposed that, instead, one of the many metrics or similarity measures on the space of spike trains be used to define proximity \[[@RSOS140391C14]--[@RSOS140391C20]\]. 3.. Method {#s2} ========== Two simple formulae for mutual information are presented in this article, one for the mutual information between a discrete space and a metric space and one for the mutual information between two metric spaces. These two formulae are intended to cover, respectively, the first and the second and third neuroscientific examples described above. There are two main steps to deriving these formulae. Firstly, probabilities are estimated using a simplified version of the Kozachenko--Leonenko approach \[[@RSOS140391C7]--[@RSOS140391C10]\]; this estimate of probability involves terms that depend on the volumes. In the second step, these volumes are estimated using the probability distribution as a measure. 3.1. A formula for the entropy {#s2a} ------------------------------ Consider estimating entropy for a random variable X which takes values in a space $\mathcal{X}$ with probability mass density p~X~(x). Given a set of N outcomes, {x~1~,x~2~,...,x~N~}, the entropy is estimated by $$H(X) \approx - \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}p_{X}(x_{i}).$$The problem here is how to calculate this quantity when p~X~(x) is not known. To do this, the approach given in \[[@RSOS140391C7],[@RSOS140391C9]\] is followed in spirit but modified to avoid any quantities that rely on coordinates; the aim is to derive a formula for metric spaces. This will require that a region B(x~i~,V) with volume V is chosen around each data point; this region will ultimately be specified using the metric, but for now it is supposed only that there is a such a region for each data point. Now, consider the probability P~k~(x~i~) that the region B(x~i~,V) contains precisely k points; it is $$P_{k}(r_{i}) = \begin{pmatrix} N \\ k \\ \end{pmatrix}F_{i}^{k}{(1 - F_{i})}^{N - k},$$where F~i~ is the probability mass contained in B(x~i~,V). This means that $$\langle k\rangle = NF_{i}.$$This quantity can be estimated from the data $$\langle k\rangle \approx \#\lbrack B(x_{i},V)\rbrack,$$where \#\[B(x~i~,V)\] denotes the number of data points in B(x~i~,V); that is for any $B \subseteq \mathcal{X}$ $$\#\lbrack B\rbrack = \|B \cap \{ x_{1},x_{2},\ldots,x_{N}\}\|.$$This means that $$NF_{i} \approx \#\lbrack B(x_{i},V)\rbrack.$$Now, the probability mass function is approximated by assuming that it is constant in the ball $$F_{i} \approx Vp_{X}(x_{i}).$$This means $$NVp_{X}(x_{i}) \approx \#\lbrack B(x_{i},V)\rbrack$$so $$\log_{2}p_{X}(x_{i}) \approx \log_{2}\#\lbrack B(x_{i},V)\rbrack - \log_{2}N - \log_{2}V$$or $$H(X) \approx \log_{2}N + \log_{2}V - \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}{\#\lbrack B(x_{i},V)\rbrack}.$$This assumption is the same as the one used in \[[@RSOS140391C7],[@RSOS140391C9]\]; in \[[@RSOS140391C9]\], some care is given to justifying this as an approximation; here, though, it is introduced only with the general justification that the variation in p~X~(x) should be modest if the region spanned by B(x~i~,V) is small. The formula for the entropy, equation ([3.10](#RSOS140391M3x10){ref-type="disp-formula"}), is similar in spirit to the one given in \[[@RSOS140391C7],[@RSOS140391C9]\]. However, it is not identical, and is, in fact, simpler, because here the probability is estimated using the expected number of points in a ball rather than the size of the ball that contains a given number of points; the latter requires the trinomial, as opposed to the binomial, expansion. Also, of course, the approach here is chosen because it makes it possible to avoid quantities that are only defined on integrable manifolds. 3.2. Estimating the volume {#s2b} -------------------------- The problem with this is that there may not be an obvious measure. Certainly in the case of spike trains there are no good coordinates and so there is no way to calculate the volume of a region based on the usual sort of coordinate-based measure. However, a probability distribution always defines a measure: the volume of a region can be defined as being equal to the probability mass it contains, $$\text{vol}\, B = P(x \in B).$$This volume can be estimated from the data $$\text{vol}\, B \approx \frac{\#\lbrack B\rbrack}{N}.$$ This gives a trivial estimate of the entropy: differential entropy is zero if the probability distribution is used as the measure and the approximation used here is exact in this case: if V =h/N for some integer h≤N $$H(X) \approx \log_{2}N + \log_{2}\frac{h}{N} - \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}h = 0$$as \#\[B(x~i~,h/N)\]=h by definition. Thus, using the probability as a measure for estimating information theory quantities would be useless if the aim was to estimate entropy. In fact, the entropy is a measure-dependent quantity whose value changes if the measure is changed. This is perhaps less important when a particular relevant coordinate system distinguishes a measure, but generally the significance of the entropy is not clear. The mutual information, however, does not suffer from this problem, its value is independent of the measure used. Furthermore, from the perspective of the approach taken in this article, it involves more than one distribution which means that one distribution can be used to give a measure while calculating estimates for the other distributions. Here, two cases will be considered: in the first case one random variable is discrete and the other takes its values in a metric space; in the second case both random variables take values in metric spaces. In addition, an estimate is derived for the Kullback--Leibler (KL) divergence between two distributions over the same metric space. 3.3. The mutual information where one random variable is discrete {#s2c} ----------------------------------------------------------------- In many electrophysiological experiments, stimuli from a discrete corpus are presented repeatedly while spike trains are recorded. In this situation, the stimuli are represented by a discrete random variable and the response by a random variable taking values in a metric space. This situation is considered here; the situation is more general than the neuroscientific application, but, for convenience, the terminology is based on that application. Let $\mathcal{S}$ be a discrete set representing the stimuli and let $\mathcal{R}$ be a set of responses, which may be spike trains or sets of spike trains recorded from multiple neurons. For simplicity, consider the situation where each element of $\mathcal{S}$ is presented an equal number of times, n~t~. Let $n_{s} = \|\mathcal{S}\|$ be the number of stimuli, so the total number of data points is N=n~t~n~S~. The metric on $\mathcal{R}$ is used to define the regions that are required around the data points. For a point r in $\mathcal{R}$ define an open ball $$B_{\epsilon}(r) = \{ t \in \mathcal{R}:d(r,t) < \epsilon\}.$$Next, let B(r,V) be the open ball B~ϵ~(r) with ϵ chosen so that B~ϵ~(r) has volume V . The total probability p~R~(r) will be used as a measure and the volume V fixed at V =h/N for some h≤N. This means that B(r,h/N) is the open ball around r which contains h points. With this measure H(R)=0. The same measure can be used for the conditioned probabilities; that is, for calculating H(R\\|S=s) using the conditioned probability p~R\\|S=s~(r). Hence, $$\begin{matrix} {H(R\|S = s)} & {\approx \log_{2}n_{t} + \log_{2}\frac{h}{N} - \frac{1}{n_{t}}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}{\#\left\lbrack {B\left( {r_{i},\frac{h}{N}} \right)} \right\rbrack}} \\ & {\approx - \log_{2}n_{s} + \log_{2}h - \frac{1}{n_{t}}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}{\#\left\lbrack {B\left( {r_{i},\frac{h}{N}} \right)} \right\rbrack.}} \\ \end{matrix}$$Thus, averaging over $s \in \mathcal{S}$ $$\begin{matrix} {I(R;S)} & {\approx \log_{2}n_{s} - \log_{2}h + \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}{\#\left\lbrack {B\left( {r_{i},\frac{h}{N}} \right)} \right\rbrack}} \\ & {\approx \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}{\frac{n_{s}\#\lbrack B(r_{i},h/N)\rbrack}{h}.}} \\ \end{matrix}$$ This formula is the same as the one proposed in \[[@RSOS140391C21]\]. However, it is derived there in a convoluted way which leaned heavily on intuition, whereas here the derivation is straightforward and can be easily extended to the case where both $\mathcal{S}$ and $\mathcal{R}$ are metric spaces. It is pointed out there that although the estimate given in \[[@RSOS140391C9]\] is derived using coordinate-based quantities, it can be used to give a formula that applies in this case. Numerical experiments in \[[@RSOS140391C21]\] comparing the two formulae gave very similar results. 3.4. The mutual information where both random variables take values in metric spaces {#s2d} ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If $\mathcal{S}$ and $\mathcal{R}$ are both metric spaces, the marginal probability mass functions p~R~(r) and p~S~(s) give volume measures and with these measures H(R)=H(S)=0. These same measures also induce a measure on $\mathcal{R} \times \mathcal{S}$, the space where (R,S) takes its values. In other words, p~R,S~(r~i~,s~i~) is estimated by considering regions around (r~i~,s~i~) whose volumes are calculated using the measure p~R~(r)p~S~(s) induced from the marginal spaces $\mathcal{R}$ and $\mathcal{S}$. Thus, a square is used to define the regions: $$S\left( {r_{i},s_{i},\frac{h_{1}}{N},\frac{h_{2}}{N}} \right) = \left\{ {(r,s) \in \mathcal{R} \times \mathcal{S}:r \in B_{R}\left( {r_{i},\frac{h_{1}}{N}} \right),\, s \in B_{S}\left( {s_{i},\frac{h_{2}}{N}} \right)} \right\},$$where h~1~/N and h~2~/N are the volumes chosen for $\mathcal{R}$ and $\mathcal{S}$. Now, under the induced measure $$\text{vol}\, S\left( {r_{i},s_{i},\frac{h_{1}}{N},\frac{h_{2}}{N}} \right) = \text{vol}\, B_{R}\left( {r_{i},\frac{h_{1}}{N}} \right)\text{vol}\, B_{S}\left( {s_{i},\frac{h_{2}}{N}} \right) \approx \frac{h_{1}h_{2}}{N^{2}}$$so $$I(R;S) \approx \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}\log_{2}\frac{N\#\lbrack S(s_{i},r_{i},h_{1}/N,h_{2}/N)\rbrack}{h_{1}h_{2}}.$$Thus the mutual entropy depends on \#\[S(s~i~,r~i~,h~1~/N,h~2~/N)\] which counts the number of stimulus--response pairs (s,r), where s is one of the h~1~ points closest to s~i~ and r is one of the h~2~ points closest to r~i~. It is instructive to consider what happens when the two variables are independent. By definition, B~R~(r~i~,h~1~/N) contains h~1~ points out of N; as R and S are independent this means the average number of points in B~S~(s~i~,h~2~/N) which are also in B~R~(r~i~,h~1~/N) is h~1~h~2~/N so $$\frac{N\#\lbrack S(s_{i},r_{i},h_{1}/N,h_{2}/N)\rbrack}{h_{1}h_{2}} \approx 1.$$ The formula includes two integer parameters, h~1~ and h~2~, which need to be chosen; large values for these parameters reduce the accuracy of the approximation in equation ([3.7](#RSOS140391M3x7){ref-type="disp-formula"}) where the probability is taken as constant throughout the region, whereas taking a smaller value reduces the accuracy of the approximation in equations ([3.6](#RSOS140391M3x6){ref-type="disp-formula"}) and ([3.12](#RSOS140391M3x12){ref-type="disp-formula"}) where the mean or volume is estimated by counting. 3.5. The Kullback--Leibler divergence on a metric space {#s2e} ------------------------------------------------------- The approach described in this article also gives an estimate for the KL divergence. Consider two random variables R and S on a metric space $\mathcal{X}$ with probability mass functions p~R~(x) and p~S~(x). If {r~1~,r~2~,...,r~M~} and {s~1~,s~2~,...,s~N~} are sampled from R and S then the KL divergence is estimated by $$d(R\|S) \approx \frac{1}{M}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{M}\log_{2}\frac{p_{R}(r_{i})}{p_{S}(r_{i})}.$$Now, as before $$MVp_{R}(r_{i}) \approx \#\lbrack B(r_{i},V)\rbrack.$$However, in this case, the other distribution on the same space is used to measure the volume. If the volume is chosen as h/N, then B(r~i~,h/N) is the ball around r~i~ chosen to be large enough to include h points from {s~1~,s~2~,...,s~N~} and \#\[B(r~i~,h/N)\] is the number of points from {r~1~,r~2~,...,r~M~} in the ball. The usual formula then gives $$d(R\|S) \approx \frac{1}{M}\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{M}\log_{2}\frac{N\#\lbrack B(r_{i},h/N)\rbrack}{Mh}.$$It is easy to check that this formula gives an alternative derivation of the formula above for the mutual information between two random variables on metric spaces. 4.. Conclusion {#s3} ============== The formula derived here is very simple and is derived without any reference to coordinates on the sample space. It is intended that this demonstrates that the Kozachenko--Leonenko approach applies to metric spaces. The Kozachenko--Leonenko formula presented in \[[@RSOS140391C9]\] relies on a manifold structure in its derivation, but in its final form it is also applicable to metric spaces. It seems unlikely that the performance of the estimates here will be different from the performance of that formula. In the estimates here, the distance or similarity measure is only required to order the points. Although electrophysiological data are used as a paradigmatic example, the formula can be applied to any pair of random variables taking values in metric spaces or indeed any space with a similarity or distance function suitable for defining regions surrounding each data point. As such it could be used in a straightforward way to calculate, for example, the mutual information between local field potentials and spike trains, or between the position of an animal in a maze and a neuronal population response, or, indeed, between two collections of images, or between images and text. The estimate provided here relies on an approximation in which probabilities are replaced by counting how many data points fall within a region in space. This makes sound intuitive sense, but it has not been proved here that the estimate is a good one. Indeed, no principle has been described that would allow the volume of the regions to be chosen to sensibly balance the two competing requirements: small regions to reduce the error in assuming the probability is constant throughout the region and large regions so that counting-based estimates are robust. There are two ways in which these difficulties will need to be addressed: theoretically, in demonstrating that the estimate converges under sensible conditions, and practically, in demonstrating that the estimate is accurate and not overly sensitive to the choice of volumes for the sorts of data that are likely to be of interest. Hopefully, the simplicity of the approach described here will aid further development. I am grateful to Karoline Weisner and Alonso Espinosa Mireles De Villafranca for useful discussion, and to Jonathon Victor, who suggested the extension to the Kullback--Leibler divergence. Funding statement {#s4} ================= I am grateful to the James S McDonnell Foundation for financial support through a Scholar Award in Cognitive Science and to the Elisabeth Blackwell Institute for a Senior Fellowship. Conflict of interests {#s5} ===================== I declare I do not have any competing interests.
positive. k*(-113/60) Simplify ((hh*(-3/2)h)/(hh/h(-6)))/(h(-2/3)/hh/(h*(-5/4)h)) assuming h is positive. h*(-85/12) Simplify yyy(-3/2)y/y*10y(2/7)/y(-8) assuming y is positive. y(-3/14) Simplify (s(-1/6)/(s/s*(-3/5)))/((ss(1/3))/(s/(s(-3)ss))) assuming s is positive. s*(-11/10) Simplify t/(t/(tt*(-15/2)))t/(t9/t) assuming t is positive. t(-27/2) Simplify sss/s*(-8)ss/s(-11)s assuming s is positive. s*25 Simplify (cc(-3))(7/2)(c(2/9))(1/17) assuming c is positive. c(-1069/153) Simplify d(3/8)ddd(-2/5) assuming d is positive. d(79/40) Simplify (h/h*(-1/11))/hhh(-3/4)(h*(-2)/h)/(hhh0) assuming h is positive. h(-205/44) Simplify (uu*(8/7)u)/(u((uu*(-3/4))/u)/uuu)(uu(-4))/(u/(uu/(u*(-2/11)/uu))) assuming u is positive. u(23/308) Simplify ((o(-4/7)o)/o0)/((oo*(-6/11))/(oo/o*(1/5)o)) assuming o is positive. o*(1068/385) Simplify ((c/(c(c/(c*4c)c)/cc))/(c/c*(-4)))/((cc*2c)/(c/c(-4/5))) assuming c is positive. c(-21/5) Simplify a*7a((a(17/4)aa)/aa)/aa assuming a is positive. a(57/4) Simplify ((nn*5nnn)/n((n/n(2/5))/nn)/n)(-1/11) assuming n is positive. n(-38/55) Simplify (s/(s/s(3/5)))3 assuming s is positive. s*(9/5) Simplify (vv(-1/16))/((v1/v)/v) assuming v is positive. v(31/16) Simplify ((d0)16)26 assuming d is positive. 1 Simplify i*(-9)i(-17) assuming i is positive. i(-26) Simplify (((kk(kk6)/k)/k)/(k(-3/4)/k))/(k/(kk*2k))(16/3) assuming k is positive. k(99/4) Simplify (p*(-4)p/(pp(-4)))(1/23) assuming p is positive. 1 Simplify l(5/6)/lll(-7/2) assuming l is positive. l(-8/3) Simplify t/(t15/t)(t/(t/(t*(2/3)t)))/t assuming t is positive. t*(-37/3) Simplify ((bb*14b)/b12)11 assuming b is positive. b*44 Simplify ((gg(2/13))/g)/g(-6) assuming g is positive. g(80/13) Simplify (v/v(10/7))(2/87) assuming v is positive. v(-2/203) Simplify (t/(tt(-4/5)))*(-50) assuming t is positive.
Where have all the time gone? From a physical point of view, time is only moving at a uniform rate without going back in a human known environment. "Time to go" is more of the birth and death of lament, and more on the mediocrity of repentance, we are all very clear, where omega watches time is not to transfer our will. Just as the "Prince of horses" are keen to capture the same, the tota kings three Prince Na Zha from downtown (taking the sea at the end of the week) a beautiful Monkey replica rolex watches King became a young spark, when (the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Zhenguan period 500 years ago) when a stupid fat young cadres. Even the celestial beings in the sky will gradually grow old because of the passage of time. (Shang Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, the replica uk human world has been close to the millennium, the sky is equal to less than three years), let alone the people on the ground? "Time is a butcher's knife", this is true also. Related stories The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C have been announced. So what does that mean for the iPhone 6? Well, we'll tell you. Or, at least, we'll tell you what we can glean from rumor and speculation - some reliable, some not so much. iOS 7: Apple's new look for iPhone and iPad Given the iPhone's history - from the 3G onwards, there's always been a half-step S model before the next numbered iPhone - so it was no surprise the 5S was first and so we're looking at 2014 for a new iPhone 6. One thing is for sure, with potential refreshes of such super handsets as the Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z and HTC One, the next iPhone will have to seriously up its game. iPhone 6 release date The iPhone 6 release date will be in 2014. It will follow the iPhone 5S which will be released at the end of this week.. Jefferies analyst Peter Misek says that there will be a June 2014 release for the iPhone 6. We reckon it will be later than that, around a year after the 5S. Citi's Glen Yeung also believes that we won't see an iPhone 6 until 2014, although that's no big leap. Interestingly, in May 2013 Stuff reported it received a photo of the till system at a Vodafone UK store (which it has since removed along with the reference to Vodafone), with '4G iPhone 6' listed. So could we see both an iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 in quick succession? Some reports suggest a new 5S in the late part of the year before a revamped iPhone 6 very early in 2014. Apple may have a new roadmap, with new phones every spring and autumn iPhone 6 casing It's been suggested that there could even be three size variants of the new iPhone - check out these mocked up images by artist Peter Zigich. He calls the handsets iPhone 6 Mini, iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 XL (these look rather like the iPhone 5C variant though). However, as ZDNet rightly points out, different size variants aren't exactly easy to just magic out of thin air. Pretty, yes, but also horrifically scratch-prone. Will your next iPhone have a plastic back? The iPhone 6 will finally do NFC About time too. Well, that's what iDownloadblog reckons, quoting Jefferies analyst Peter Misek. Many Android phones now boast NFC and Apple appears to have been happy to be left behind here. See our video below on what Apple needs to do to slay Samsung's Galaxy S4 The iPhone 6 will run iOS 8 With iOS 7 heading out of the traps now, who's betting against the next iPhone coming with iOS 8? We'd expect a September or October release date for iOS 8 in line with previous releases. iOS 7: what do you think? iPhone 6 storage We've already seen a 128GB iPad, so why not a 128GB iPhone 6? Yes, it'll cost a fortune, but high-spending early adopters love this stuff. iPhone 6 home button According to Business Insider, of the many iPhone 6 prototypes Apple has made, one has a giant Retina+ IGZO display and a "new form factor with no home button. Gesture control is also possibly included". It will surely include Apple's new Touch ID finger print tech though? iPhone 6 screen The Retina+ Sharp IGZO display, would have a 1080p Full HD resolution. It's also been widely reported that Apple could introduce two handset sizes as it seeks to compete with the plethora of Android devices now on the market. Take this one with a pinch of salt, because China Times isn't always right: it reckons the codename iPhone Math, which may be a mistranslation of iPhone+, will have a 4.8-inch display. The same report suggests that Apple will release multiple handsets throughout the year over and above the iPhone 5S and 6, which seems a bit far-fetched to us. Patents show that Apple has been thinking about magical morphing technology that can hide sensors and even cameras. Will it make it into the iPhone 6? Probably not. Jefferies analyst Peter Misek also says he believes the new iPhone will have a bigger screen. Different sizes also seem rather likely to us - the word on the street after WWDC 2013 was that there would be 4.7 and 5.7-inch versions. More rumors in September 2013 point to a six-inch display, but this seems a little large to us. You'll probably still be able to see the camera lens in the iPhone 6 iPhone 6 processor Not a huge surprise, this one: the next processor one will be a quad-core A8 or an evolved A7. The big sell here is more power with better efficiency, which should help battery life. iPhone 6 camera Apple's bought camera sensors from Sony before, and this year we're going to see a new, 13-megapixel sensor that takes up less room without compromising image quality. An Apple patent, uncovered by Apple Insider in May 2013, shows a system where an iPhone can remotely control other illuminating devices - extra flashes. It would work in a similar manner to that seen in professional photography studios. Interesting stuff. Will the iPhone 6 be handy for pro photographers? [Image credit: Apple Insider] iPhone 6 eye tracking One thing seems certain - Apple can't ignore the massive movement towards eye-tracking tech from other vendors, especially Samsung. It seems a shoe-in that Apple will deliver some kind of motion tech within the next iPhone, probably from uMoove. iPhone 6 wireless charging Wireless charging still isn't mainstream. Could Apple help give it a push? CP Tech reports that Apple has filed a patent for efficient wireless charging, but then again Apple has filed patents for pretty much anything imaginable. The tasty bit of this particular patent is that Apple's tech wouldn't just charge one device, but multiple ones. Here are more details on the iPhone 6 wireless charging patent. Meanwhile, a further Apple patent seems to imply that future iPhones will be able to adjust volume as you move them away from your ear. And could the iPhone 6 really have 3D? It's unlikely, but the rumours keep on coming.
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Examination of factors affecting gait properties in healthy older adults: focusing on knee extension strength, visual acuity, and knee joint pain. Gait properties change with age because of a decrease in lower limb strength and visual acuity or knee joint disorders. Gait changes commonly result from these combined factors. This study aimed to examine the effects of knee extension strength, visual acuity, and knee joint pain on gait properties of for 181 healthy female older adults (age: 76.1 (5.7) years). Walking speed, cadence, stance time, swing time, double support time, step length, step width, walking angle, and toe angle were selected as gait parameters. Knee extension strength was measured by isometric dynamometry; and decreased visual acuity and knee joint pain were evaluated by subjective judgment whether or not such factors created a hindrance during walking. Among older adults without vision problems and knee joint pain that affected walking, those with superior knee extension strength had significantly greater walking speed and step length than those with inferior knee extension strength (P < .05). Persons with visual acuity problems had higher cadence and shorter stance time. In addition, persons with pain in both knees showed slower walking speed and longer stance time and double support time. A decrease of knee extension strength and visual acuity and knee joint pain are factors affecting gait in the female older adults. Decreased knee extension strength and knee joint pain mainly affect respective distance and time parameters of the gait.
PENRITH young gun Nathan Cleary has claimed an impressive record in his side’s thrilling 26-22 win on Sunday which ended Canberra’s 2017 finals hopes. Heading into the game, Cleary needed just eight points to break Manly legend Graham Eadie’s 43-year-old record to become the youngest player in premiership history to score 200 points in a season. The 19-year-old did it in classy fashion at GIO Stadium, scoring a try and kicking five goals as the Panthers hung on for the win. MATCH CENTRE: Raiders v Panthers Round 20 The Green Machine rallied in the second half after 10-point deficit at halftime and took the lead at the three-quarter mark, but a 73rd minute try to Panthers rookie Tyrone May landed the killer blow for the visitors. The result means the Panthers have cemented a spot inside the top eight, while the Raiders will now have to wait until next year to get another shot at playing finals football. HOW IT WENT DOWN The Raiders got their day off to a horror start when a Joseph Tapine error led to the Panthers scoring first points through Waqa Blake. Minutes later they were under the pump again after Nick Cotric dropped a bomb, and the Panthers extended their lead in the following set thanks to a Cleary penalty goal. The Green Machine came to life following a penalty and Cotric soon redeemed himself when he dived over in the corner after some hot potato footy from Blake Austin and Jack Wighton. Nick Cotric of the Raiders celebrates after scoring a try. Source: AAP In the 25th minute Blake showed up Jarrod Croker to race down the sideline and put Cleary over for his record-breaking 200th point. Live stream the 2017 NRL Telstra Premiership on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week FOXTEL NOW trial and start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW! The Raiders weren’t done however, and with Dave Taylor injected into the game, they narrowed the gap after a stunning offload from the big man saw Josh Papalii crash in for a meat pie. Moments before the break the Panthers made it 20-10 following two huge runs from Josh Mansour. The men in green came out firing in the second half and scored first points courtesy of a strong run from Jack Wighton. The Raiders fullback was back in the action in the 54th minute after scooping up a grubber and racing down field only to be caught by James Tamou and Reagan Campbell-Gillard. But the home side took full advantage of the field position and hit the lead after a Tapine try and Croker goal. Was Blake of the Panthers (L) celebrates after scoring a try. Source: AAP The Panthers almost immediately snatched back the lead but Corey Harawira-Naera coughed up the ball near the Raiders’ line. Suddenly the Green Machine rolled down to the Panthers’ tryline after a stunning 40/20 kick from Aidan Sezer. The Raiders bunkered themselves down that end of the field for the next couple of sets but weren’t able to make the most of the opportunity. May continued his impressive debut season in the 73rd minute when he darted from dummy half to score next to the posts and give his side the lead once again. The final moments of the match were frantic, but the visitors were able to hang on for a well-deserved victory. PENRITH 26 (W Blake N Cleary J Mansour T May tries N Cleary 5 goals) bt CANBERRA 22 (N Cotric J Papalii J Tapine J Wighton tries J Croker 3 goals) at GIO Stadium. Referee: Alan Shortall, Ashley Klein. Crowd: 14,818. LIVE SCORES, UPDATES, SUPERCOACH STATS IN MATCH CENTRE
Menu About me My name is Vasco Ferreira, i'm a young Portuguese investor who likes to share and receive constructive feedback on his stock analysis. I first graduated in Business Administration, worked for a couple of years at PricewaterhouseCoopers on financial report auditing and i'm currently doing a Master in Finance at Faculdade de Economia do Porto, University of Porto. During my first degree I was seduced by financial markets! Its complexity was a big challenge at first and everytime I learn some more it just gets more challenging. I started investing (mostly in company stocks) in 2009, but I have to admit experience came with a price. It was until I lost some money, that I started to understand a bit more about the dinamics of the stock market. Obviously I still have a long way ahead until I can say I'm a professional analyst, but my results improved a lot since I started to actually read the full reports and know the story of the company, analyse its fundamentals and graph patterns before I take a decision. This Blog serves my intention of sharing my analysis to those who like me in 2009 don't know how to start investing and at the same time allows me to improve my analysis with the feedback from the internet community.
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Q: PHP/MySQL Insert into Database not working I tried everything I could to fix the link of code but everything I tried gave me a white screen I know that this line of code is the only code is the only one that has a syntax error and the rest of the code is 100% fine. I am trying to insert name, email, password from a Form using $_POST and with md5 hashing for the password. $link = connect to mySQL Database $query="INSERT INTO 'users' ('name', 'email', 'password') VALUES( '".mysqli_real_escape_string($link, $_POST['name'])"', '".mysqli_real_escape_string($link, $_POST['email'])."', '".md5(md5($_POST['email']).$_POST['password'])."')"; A: Why don't you make it simple instead? Something like: $name = mysqli_real_escape_string($link, $_POST['name']); $mail = mysqli_real_escape_string($link, $_POST['email']); $pass = md5(md5($_POST['email']).$_POST['password']); $query="INSERT INTO `users` (`name`, `email`, `password`) VALUES('$name','$mail', '$pass')";
Karen Dalton (basketball) Karen Dalton (born 2 January 1961) is a former Australian women's basketball player. Biography Dalton played 252 games for the national team between 1983 and 1994. Her tournaments with the Opals include four World Championships - 1983, 1986, 1990 and 1994 - and two Olympic Games; 1984 and 1988. In the domestic Women's National Basketball League (WNBL), Dalton was a 2-time Defensive Player of the Year (1990 & 1993) and played in 375 games. Following her retirement, Dalton went on to become the head coach of the Sydney Flames, a position she has held since 2001. During the 2001–02 season Dalton was named the WNBL Coach of the Year. In 2004, Dalton was assistant coach to the Australian team that won the silver medal at the Athens Olympics tournament. Dalton was inducted into the Australian Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. Dalton is also a Life Member of the WNBL. See also WNBL Defensive Player of the Year Award References Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:Australian women's basketball players Category:Commonwealth Games competitors for Australia Category:Olympic basketball players of Australia Category:Basketball players at the 1984 Summer Olympics Category:Basketball players at the 1988 Summer Olympics Category:Basketball players from Sydney
Comments Comment by autopsied drop rate for this and the legs in baradin hold is pretty low. personally i saved vp for the chest first, and have been waiting for these or the legs to drop. the low drop rate means you might be better off farming vp weekly to get them rather than relying on rng to acquire these. Comment by fm0use Actualy, the worst piece of warlock t11 set Comment by nachocheese17 These aren't the best gloves (which is sad as it is T11) These or These are better.(Haste and crit are a Destro warlocks dream)Just remember to reforge the mastery! ;)
Q: Color every second row of the table I need to color every second row in my table. I would love it to look like on the attached image Any ideas how to do this? A: EVEN AND ODD RULES One way to improve the readability of large tables is to color alternating rows. For example, the table below has a light gray background for the even rows and white for the odd ones. The rules for that are extremely simple: Css: tr:nth-child(even) {background: #CCC} tr:nth-child(odd) {background: #FFF} Check here google 1st result
Wise Words "Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." - Morpheus, The Sandman - Dream Country (Neil Gaiman) "A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensly right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt." - Mark Twain "At the beginning there was the Word - at the end just the Cliche." - Stanislaw J Lec Small Press I’ve been really looking forward to the release of this book and it’s finally here in paperback as well as ebook. The ebook has been out for ages, but I saved mentioning it here until the print edition was available too. It contains my story, “Shadows of the Lonely Dead”, which is probably the most personal story I’ve ever written. I drew extensively on my experiences surrounding the deaths of people very close to me in the writing of it. It’s sharing the pages with a plethora of amazing people and I’m sure their stories will be excellent. Here’s the skinny and some sweet blurbs: “Disquieting and at times terrifying, SUSPENDED IN DUSK shows that horror can, and should, have substance.” ~ Kaaron Warren, Shirley Jackson Award winner, and author of Slights, Mystification, Walking the Tree. “SUSPENDED IN DUSK offers a delicious assortment of chills, frights, shocks and very dark delights!” ~ Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Fall of Night and V-Wars DUSK A time between times. A whore hides something monstrous and finds something special. A homeless man discovers the razor blade inside the apple. Unlikely love is found in the strangest of places. Secrets and dreams are kept… forever. I decided it would be really cool to put together a list of great books by Australian Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror writers so people could essentially have the best Xmas shopping list of Aussie SFF and horror books ever. After drowning in an inbox full of Aussie spec fic goodness, I now have this sweet megapost of Aussie spec fic goodness. It’s far from definitive – there are loads more out there – but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless. There really is something for everyone. Have a scroll through, enjoy the covers, read the blurbs – if you like it, buy it! Links to places of purchase are right there with every book. Books are listed alphabetically by author surname. And don’t forget to buy loads of books for your family and friends for Xmas too. There’s really no better gift than a book. (Unless you need a new bodily organ or something, but you know what I mean.) Amazon allows you to gift ebooks as well, don’t forget, as do several other outlets and publishers. Have it at! Dean J Anderson Unnaturals Unnaturals tried to kill Mason Douglas and his family. Big mistake. He became The Butcher, a cold relentless Hunter with a vendetta that took him across the world. And now, on his return home to Australia – to mend his heart, soul and family – his destiny collides with a millennia-old struggle between strange Gods. Their prize is Earth. Their warriors are warring races of Unnaturals: the Bloodells and the Darkells. As an unlikely alliance forms between Natural and Unnatural – between the Douglas clan and the Darkells – Mason’s family grows in unexpected ways… not all of whom are human. In a far future where technology is all but indistinguishable from magic, Tanyana is one of the elite. She can control pions, the building blocks of matter, shaping them into new forms using ritual gestures and techniques. The rewards are great, and she is one of most highly regarded people in the city. But that was before the “accident”. Stripped of her powers, bound inside a bizarre powersuit, she finds herself cast down to the very lowest level of society. Powerless, penniless and scarred, Tanyana must adjust to a new life collecting “debris”, the stuff left behind by pions. But as she tries to find who has done all of this to her, she also starts to realize that debris is more important than anyone could guess. The bitter war between the sinister Puppet Men and the nebulous Keeper for the control of the ancient city of Movoc-under-Keeper has intensified. For Tanyana, imprisoned within her extraordinary suit and cast down as a lowly debris collector, choosing a side should be simple. But when even her own suit becomes aggressive against her, Tanyana must weigh some very personal issues against her determination to serve the greater good. The grand city of Movoc-under-Keeper lies in ruins. The sinister puppet men have revealed their true nature, and their plan to tear down the veil between worlds. To have a chance of defeating them, Tanyana must do the impossible, and return to the world where they were created, on the other side of the veil. Her journey will force her into a terrible choice, and test just how much she is willing to sacrifice for the fate of two worlds. Enter a world where terrible secrets are hidden in a wind chime’s song Where crippled witches build magic from scrap And the beautiful dead dance for eternity The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories collects the finest science fiction and horror short stories from award-winning writer Joanne Anderton. From mechanical spells scavenging a derelict starship to outback zombies and floating gardens of bone, these stories blur the lines between genres. A mix of freakish horror, dark visions of the future and the just plain weird, Anderton’s tales will draw you in – but never let you get comfortable. Alex Caine is a martial artist fighting in illegal cage matches. His powerful secret weapon is an unnatural vision that allows him to see his opponents’ moves before they know their intentions themselves. An enigmatic Englishman, Patrick Welby, approaches Alex after a fight and reveals, ‘I know your secret.’ Welby shows Alex how to unleash a breathtaking realm of magic and power, drawing him into a mind-bending adventure beyond his control. And control is something Alex values above all else. A cursed grimoire binds Alex to Uthentia, a chaotic Fey godling, who leads him towards destruction and murder, an urge Alex finds harder and harder to resist. Befriended by Silhouette, a monstrous Kin beauty, Alex sets out to recover the only things that will free him – the shards of the Darak. But that powerful stone also has the potential to unleash a catastrophe which could mean the end of the world as we know it. Alex Caine is looking for direction and trying to build a new life with his recently acquired magical talents, and Kin girlfriend, Silhouette. He is recruited by a secret organisation to head off an impending doom, foretold by Seers as already somehow linked to his destiny. Claude Darvill is desperately trying to get in touch with his father, Robert Hood. When the company, Black Diamond, reveals that Hood had gone missing after chasing Alex Caine, Darvill takes over control of Black Diamond and starts hunting Caine himself. Alex and his crew close in on three amateur mages in Britain’s north, who think they have uncovered ancient magic that will reveal great powers. But they are caught in a vortex and pulled through to a strange lost city, isolated in the void. Trapped in a place removed from everything they know, ruled by a hierarchy of monsters, Alex and his friends must find a way to escape Obsidian. Alex Caine has been suffering the weight of the world, and some days it’s hard to even get out of bed. Alone one night, a band of Fey overwhelm him and steal him away from the mortal realm. Silhouette, desperate to save her lover, calls in Armour, but the organisation seems reluctant to help. Claude Darvill, his fragile alliance with Alex at an end, is still searching for the remains of his father, Robert Hood. In frozen wastes of Iceland, Darvill is driven by a deep-burning grudge and a need for revenge. His efforts are backed by all the considerable resources of Black Diamond Incorporated. Silhouette must overcome her greatest fears and use all her skills to locate Alex. But even if she can find him, that’s only the start of their problems. In this third Alex Caine book, sequel to the bestsellers Bound and Obsidian, old enemies and new share a common goal. Alex Caine hates to be the centre of attention, but he and Silhouette need to pull together as the world is threatened once more and only Alex can save it. The future does not belong to us anymore. The mighty Wolfen of Valkeryn, descendants of the canines of the era of man, have ruled for many millennia. But now their kingdom has fallen to the monstrous hordes and the remaining Wolfen scattered. Arnold ‘Arn’ Singer, a youth from the past and perhaps the last human being alive on the planet, finds himself cast into this maelstrom of chaos and horror. He seeks answers to the missing Ancients – mankind itself. But back in his time the world continues to destabilize. The portal through which he fell is destroying the planet. The portal must be closed. Arn holds the key, and our world and its future is at stake. Colonel Marion Briggs leads a team of Special Operations soldiers into the distant future, fully armed and with one order – bring back Arn or his body. But there are more dangers in this strange and beautiful world than anyone knew. More horrors dwell in the deep jungles, below the inland seas and deep below the earth. There are things that can change the shape of two worlds, tear at sanity, and stretch friendships and loves to the limit. Valkeryn is an epic adventure that spans worlds and time itself. “… mixed in fantasy with hard, biological, and evolutionary science. Beck has yet again created fast-paced, literary escape that I just couldn’t put down.” War is Hell… Soldiers fight to survive. They fight each other, and they fight the demons inside. Sometimes, they fight real monsters. SNAFU collects stories of ancient myths, time travellers, horrors in the old west… And the soldiers who fight them. Featuring some of the best writers working in the field today. Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, Greig Beck and James A Moore lead the way, with a contingent of emerging authors to back them up. Fight or die. Available on: Amazon, Kobo, Nook, and as a signed limited edition from the publisher. In a climate-changed future, after the gene and borders wars of the 2060’s, and in a world governed by the Alpha-Omega Accord and its Interplanetary Exchange, Capra Jane fights a never-ending battle against crime. Things change in unexpected ways, however, when she is teamed up with the enigmatic and beautiful Zanzibar Black of HomeWorld Security, and Decker, a returned astronaut who’s never been in Waking in Anaskar Prison, covered in blood and accused of murder, nobody will listen to Notch’s claims of innocence until he meets the future Protector of the Monarchy, Sofia Falco. But Sofia has her own burdens. The first female Protector in a hundred years, her House is under threat from enemies within, the prince has made it clear he does not want her services and worst of all, she cannot communicate with her father’s sentient mask of bone, the centuries-old Argeon. Without the bone mask she cannot help anyone — not herself, and certainly not a mercenary with no powerful House to protect him. Meanwhile, far across the western desert, Ain, a young Pathfinder, is thrust into the role of Seeker. Before winter storms close the way, he must leave his home on a quest to locate the Sea Shrine and take revenge on the people who drove his ancestors from Anaskar, the city ruled by the prince Sofia and Notch are sworn to protect, whether he wants their help or not. The stories you are about to read showcase a wonderfully talented writer; someone with a vivid imagination and the unique ability to create stories that can just as easily shock and frighten as they can move and disturb (often all in the one story). These are serious works, not merely light entertainment designed simply to give the reader a quick jolt or a nervous chuckle, but designed to make you think and feel. You’re about to embark on a dark and wondrous journey through the mind of a very talented young writer. Be prepared to visit strange worlds and even stranger beings. Horror and violence abounds, but there’s also time for reflection, to ponder some of life’s most important questions. – Brett McBean, 2014 Caeli-Amur: an ancient city perched on white cliffs overlooking the sea; a city ruled by three Houses, fighting internecine wars; a city which harbours ancient technology and hidden mysteries. But things are changing in Caeli-Amur. Ancient minotaurs arrive for the traditional Festival of the Sun. The slightly built New-Men bring their technology from their homeland. Wastelanders stream into the city hideously changed by the chemical streams to the north. Strikes break out in the factory district. In a hideout beneath the city, a small group of seditionists debate ways to overthrow the Houses. How can they rouse the citizens of the city? Should they begin a campaign of terror? Is there a way to uncover the thaumaturgical knowledge that the Houses guard so jealously? As the Houses scramble to maintain their rule, it becomes clear that things will change forever in Caeli-Amur. What would you do if you woke in a room filled with strangers, with no memory of how you got there, and no way out? Morgan Drimmel wakes to find herself in the midst of this nightmare. The gouged, blood-splattered walls scream of terror and torture, and the unrelenting light that shines between the cracks in the walls fills her with dread. When the others in the room wake, they form alliances, and Morgan finds herself drawn to rogue biker Slade Rivers. But dependence, for her, has always come with a deadly price. Those inside the room have secrets too; dark secrets they will go to any length to keep from getting out. When evil rears its ugly head, Morgan will not only have to fight to survive—she will also have to trust. The newly widowed Queen Ellyria just wants her sick triplet sons to live, each ruling over a third of the kingdom as their dying father decreed. When she finds herself trapped in a deadly bargain with a dark spirit, she recruits a band of young mages to help – but a terrible curse takes over. Young guitar virtuoso Clarice Marnier is on the verge of success when she crosses the wrong A&R man. Suddenly, instead of being signed to the major label that’s been courting her, she finds herself blacklisted. So Clarice makes a deal with the Devil: the soul of her greatest enemy for a record deal and a second chance. As Clarice and her band, Bloody Waters, begin their ascent to rock stardom they are are beset by a strange array of enemies. Has-been guitar heroes, popstar succubi, spell-slinging DJs, angry divas and killer angels—every occult freak and music industry player in LA wants something from them, whether it’s a slice of their fame or a bite out of their souls. Clearly, there’s more at stake than just a record deal—but what does the Devil really want, and how far will Clarice go to protect what’s hers? An exciting adventure story in the style of the classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series. Seven companions set out to free the woman trapped in the moon, and change the world along the way. In this exciting story that allows the reader the choice of following different characters, young, sheltered Branguin discovers that his ancestor, Marama, has been trapped in the moon, and sets out to free her. But he must first unravel the mystery of how she got there, confront and defeat the sorcerer Raul, and counter a menacing new force that’s assembling an army to attack the capital. Branguin deciphers the clues with the help of his companions, several lost relatives along the way. The Lunation Series is a modern-day moon myth about ordinary people discovering their inner strength and overcoming extraordinary challenges, in order to solve a great mystery. Follow murderous trails into the bloody foothills of Kathmandu; destroy yourself with obsessive sexual jealousies; disappear into the drug-hazed dust of the Baluchistan desert; and share health-conscious recipes with a gourmet cannibal. Read Paul Haines’s dark, hard-edged fantasies about real people dealing with strong emotions in impossible situations and experience the paranoia, fear and lust that lurks in the shadowy recesses of the human soul. With an introduction by Jack Dann, this anthology contains twenty-one stories, including the Aurealis Award and Ditmar winning novella “The Last Days Of Kali Yuga”. It also includes two previously unpublished stories “Burning From The Inside” and “Mnemophonic”. Paul Haines sliced through the Australian writing scene with his twisted and murderous black humour in 2002. he has since won many awards and praise for his dark and surreal stories that make you think twice about his sanity and good taste. Published here together for the first time are the Ditmar winning story “The Devil In Mr Pussy”, the Aurealis Award shortlisted horror story “Doof Doof Doof” and the complete “Slice of Life” series of stories, including the previously unpublished “Slice of Life – A Spot of Liver” which also won the Aurealis Award 2009 for Best Horror Short Story. HAINES’ SLICE OF LIFE – seventeen glistening stories, sweating with twenty first century paranoia and anxiety from the decaying mind of the winner of the 2005 Ditmar for New Talent. These are the last days … Travel the blood-stained trails of Kathmandu. Explore doorways to other worlds. Fight for humanity’s darkening soul. … when the powers of the Gods wane and evil walks the Earth. The Last Days Of Kali Yuga is dark urban fantasy at its darkest. You won’t find traditional vampires or werewolves in Paul Haines’s stories. Instead, you will stare deep into the heart of the cruelest monster of all: man. Paul Haines is one of Australia’s and New Zealand’s leading dark fiction authors. He pioneered the ‘backpacker horror’ sub-genre with stories of Westerners confronted by dark powers and corrupted souls in India and Asia. His novellas “The Last Days of Kali Yuga”, “Doorways for the Dispossessed”, and “Wives”—all of which appear in this book—have won Australia’s highest honours for speculative fiction. The Last Days of Kali Yuga is a collection of Paul Haines’ best work. “Paul Haines knows what it is to be human, in all our cruel beauty, with all our vile dreams. His stories tear the masks off our civilised faces and expose the raw, bleeding apes beneath” – Sean Williams, New York Times Bestselling author of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the Books of the Cataclysm series. “Paul Haines has an unnerving sense for the softest, most secret corners of the male psyche, and in this collection dissects them excruciating skill. There is no better horror writer working in Australia today.” – Max Barry, author of Syrup and Jennifer Government. Lisa L Hannett’s debut collection, Bluegrass Symphony, deals with cowboys and fallow fields, shapeshifters and rednecks, superstitions and realities in harsh prairie country — and a whole bunch of other things thrown in the mix. Introduction by Ann Vandermeer. Finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Collection. In The Female Factory, procreation is big business. Children are a commodity few women can afford. Hopeful mothers-to-be try everything. Fertility clinics. Pills. Wombs for hire. Babies are no longer made in bedrooms, but engineered in boardrooms. A quirk of genetics allows lucky surrogates to carry multiple eggs, to control when they are fertilised, and by whom—but corporations market and sell the offspring. The souls of lost embryos are never wasted; captured in software, they give electronics their voice. Spirits born into the wrong bodies can brave the charged waters of a hidden billabong, and change their fate. Industrious orphans learn to manipulate scientific advances, creating mothers of their own choosing. From Australia’s near-future all the way back in time to its convict past, these stories spin and sever the ties between parents and children. When Mymnir flees the devastation of Ragnarok, she hopes to escape all that bound her to ?sgar?r ? a heedless pantheon, a domineering brother, and her neglectful father-master, ??inn. But the white raven, a being of memory and magic, should know that the past is not so easily left behind. No matter how far she flies, she cannot evade her family? In planting seeds of the old world in the new, Mymnir becomes queen of a land with as many problems as the one she fled. Her long-lived Fae children ignite and fan feuds that span generations; lives are lost and loves won because of their tampering. Told in thirteen parts, Midnight and Moonshine follows the Beaufort and Laveaux families, part-human, part-Fae, as they battle, thrive and survive in Mymnir’s kingdom. Midnight and Moonshine is a collection of interconnected tales with links between them as light and strong as spider-silk. From fire giants to whispering halls, disappearing children to evening-wolves, fairy hills to bewitched cypress trees, and talking heads to moonshiners of a special sort, Midnight and Moonshine takes readers on a journey from ninth century Vinland to America?s Deep South in the present day. Hannett and Slatter have created a mosaic novel of moments, story-tiles as strange as witchwood and withywindles. Midnight and Moonshine is a rich tapestry of dark fantasy, fairy tale and speculation. One false step could undo everything the Timekeepers hope to accomplish… Earth’s ancient past, the future of the planet Kila – the Timekeepers universe of origin, the primordial era when the Nefilim first ruled the galaxy and a timeless universe of utter darkness are all vital periods to advancing human consciousness. After surviving Ancient Zhou, the Timekeeper’s efforts turn to rescuing Kila from its ill-fated future. But a mishap in the remote mountains of Tibet before departure provides a nemesis with the perfect opportunity to launch a time-hopping vendetta against them. There is no where in this universe to hide. The discovery of a gate thought to lead to several universes promises more than just the means to undermine their stalker; it offers the chance to remember their lives as the Grigori, who once dwelt with the fallen Elohim in the dark universe beyond the Eternity Gate. Steam clouds rise off the water as a ferry approaches a jetty in ancient China. On board is Hudan, one of the mysterious Wu who reside on the sacred mountain of Li Shan. The Wu have been living in isolation for decades, while the arrogant Shang emperor and his enchantress have ruled the land. It has been a terrible time for the common people and the noble Ji brothers – Dan and Fa – are keen to bring the emperor’s reign of terror to an end. They are told a Wu prophecy has predicted the fall of the emperor, but first they must journey to Li Shan to learn the truth. When the Ji brothers join forces with the enigmatic Hudan and her equally mysterious tiger sister, Huxin, they begin a powerful journey of love and adventure. But the Shang emperor is not their greatest threat. There is a dark curse that has plagued the rulers of the land for generations. The mysterious Sons of the Sky who visit Hudan in her dreams have a plan to destroy it., but can they be trusted? Dreaming of Zhou Gong is a beautiful, evocative journey through ancient China. Lissa Wilson’s life hasn’t been quite the same since people she cared about started getting themselves killed. By vampires. And Lissa learnt that the opposite of life is not always death. On the plus side, she made a new friend. Gary Hooper may be the worst best-friend a librarian could have – and easily the worst vampire ever – but he has taught Lissa the real meaning of life. Gary’s world view has also improved remarkably since meeting Lissa, but all that could be lost if she discovers what services he provides Melbourne’s undead community. Meanwhile, as their friendship brings him closer to the humanity he lost, it also puts them both in grave danger. And there’s a big chance that the evil stalking them could them both killed – in his case, for good this time. Fifty years after a second Dark Age has nearly destroyed humankind, the World Union is now confronted with a new threat that doesn’t just challenge their survival but also the nature of life and civilisation itself. The Hunt for Pierre Jnr is the first book in a trilogy of futurist thrillers that follows the attempts of a powerful world government to track down and kill a telepathic eight-year-old boy. In Manifestations, a mysterious new threat has been unleashed that destroys an entire city. As tensions with the psis rise and political fortunes shift, the World Union appears perilously close to collapse. From geopolitical convergence to emergent online super organisms, the future is coming. Henley’s books explore themes of technological evolution, species diversification and takes the ‘all-powerful creepy child’ theme to a scary new level. In a land where no stars appear in the night sky, a group of strangers with ancestries reaching back to an earlier apocalyptic disaster come together to track down a resurrected corpse whose very existence portends the End of the World. Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead is an epic tale of greed, dying magic, distorted monstrosities and a motley group of heroes, with a strange and breathless climax you won’t easily forget. “This is a tale of heroes. It includes all sorts — born of the gods, descended from ancient, magical bloodline, member of a legendary order, reincarnated, last of their tribe and way too intimate with their own sentient weapon — cycling through various degrees of reluctant and unlikely. There is a villain, of course, although he’s thoroughly sick of the whole business; dark gods, giant monsters and an ancient magical artefact. But principally it is a tale of heroes, heroism and what it means to be in such an uncomfortable position.” (Review, Kyla Ward) She hates school and only has a few friends. She has an obsession with angels and fallen angel stories. Life was boring until she one day decided to steal a famous painting from a small art gallery. Her life will never be boring again. She meets a stranger at the gallery who claims to know her. She stumbles into a world where cities float in the sky, and daemons roam the barren, magma-spewing crags of the land far below. But not all is well. Maree is turning into something she loves but at the same time, fears. Most fearful of all is the prospect of losing her identity, what makes her Maree, and more importantly, human. Guardian of the Sky Realms takes the reader on a journey through exotic fantasy lands, as well as across the globe, from Sydney to Paris, from the Himalayas to Manhattan. He thought he’d return from Hell a hero. But things are never easy when your business is Death. Steven de Selby gave up his love, his life, and his lucrative position as Head of Mortmax, the corporation in charge of Death. Then he found himself banished to the briny depths of hell. But hell has never held him before … Now Steven’s back from hell, after escaping from the cruel Death of the Water, but he’s not sure how or why, or even if. No one at Mortmax trusts him, and he’s running out of time to prove he is who he says he is. Steven is about to discover that hell really is other people, and the worst of them may well be himself. On remote Rollrock Island, the sea-witch Misskaella discovers she can draw a girl from the heart of a seal. So, for a price, any man might buy himself a bride; an irresistibly enchanting sea-wife. But what cost will be borne by the people of Rollrock – the men, the women, the children – once Misskaella sets her heart on doing such a thing?Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire and revenge, of loyalty, heartache and human weakness, and of the unforeseen consequences of all-consuming love. Daniel Rolan is bored. Not your average, everyday kind-of bored. The seriously mind-blowing I’m-stuck-here-at-the-end-of-the-universe-surrounded-by-nerds kind of bored. Living on a space station might sound like an adventure straight out of a science fiction movie, but in reality – as Daniel was discovering day after boring day – it was really, well… mostly boring. But Daniel will soon come to regret wishing for an action and adventure filled life. One seemingly innocent decision – and a catastrophe he could not have foreseen – is about to change his world forever. It will set him on a path he never imagined, introduce him to new friends and even aliens he could not have thought up in his wildest dreams. Eventually it will even challenge his notion of where the end of the universe actually is. Meanwhile, on the alien world of Nomassaii, the larger of the two planets through the Veil, Jacdan would love a bit of boredom. He has far more action and adventure in his life than he’d like. Sentenced to die in the arena, he’s fighting – battle by battle – to survive another day. But it’s one thing to fight for your own life – quite another to discover you are fighting for your little brother’s life, as well. These alien worlds are about to collide, changing the lives of Daniel and Jacdan forever. In a post-apocalyptic Australian landscape dominated by free-wheeling cyborgs, a young man goes in search of his lost lover who has been kidnapped by a rogue AI truck – the Brumby King. Along the way, he teams with Sinnerman, an independent truck with its own reasons for hating the Brumby King. Before his final confrontation with the brumbies, he must learn more about the broken-down world and his own place in it, and face his worst fears. I am in a world deeply strange and strangely deep, a world as different from my old life as it’s possible to be, and it feels completely natural. An unexpected encounter with a handsome stranger in a Russian wood changes the life of 22-year-old traveler Helen Clement forever, catapulting her into a high-stakes world of passion, danger, and mystery. Tested in ways she could never have imagined, she must keep her own integrity in a world where dark forces threaten and ruthlessness and betrayal haunt every day. Set against a rising tide of magic and the paranormal in a modern Russia where the terrifying past continually leaks into the turbulent present, Trinity is a unique and gripping blend of conspiracy thriller, erotically charged romance and urban fantasy, laced with a murderous dose of company politics. With its roots deep in the fertile soil of Russian myth, legend, and history, it is also a fascinating glimpse into an extraordinary, distinctive country and amazingly rich culture. A girl in a tower. An underground kingdom. A crystal heart split in two, symbolising true love lost . . . When Kasper joins the elite guard watching over a dangerous prisoner in a tower, he believes he is protecting his country from a powerful witch. Until one day he discovers the prisoner is a beautiful princess – Izolda of Night– who is condemned by a prophecy to die on her eighteenth birthday. Kasper decides to help her escape. But their hiding place won’t remain secret forever. Will they find their happily ever after? ‘A deftly woven tale of warring kingdoms and the redeeming power of love. Another winner from Sophie Masson.’ – Juliet Marillier, author of the Shadowfell series . Antoinette and Jacqueline have little in common beyond a mutual antipathy for their paranoid, domineering mother, a bond which has united them since childhood. In the aftermath of a savage betrayal, Antoinette lands on her sister’s doorstep bearing a suitcase and a broken heart. But Jacqueline, the ambitious would-be manager of a trendy Melbourne art gallery, has her own problems – chasing down a delinquent painter in the sweltering heat of a Brisbane summer. Abandoned, armed with a bottle of vodka and her own grief-spun desires, Antoinette weaves a dark and desperate magic that can never, ever be undone. Their lives swiftly unravelling, the two sisters find themselves drawn into a tangle of lies, manipulations and the most terrible of family secrets.” The debut collection from multi-award nominated author Andrew J McKiernan brings together 14 of his previously published short stories and novelettes, plus two brand new tales unique to the collection. Often defying conventions of genre and style, these stories range from fantasy and steampunk to science fiction and horror, but always with an edge sharper than a razor and darker than a night on Neptune. From the darkly hilarious “All the Clowns in Clowntown” to the heart-breakingly disturbing title story, the collection pulls no punches. Delving deep into what scares us most, McKiernan’s tales are by turns heartfelt and gut-wrenching. With an Introduction by Will Elliott, Last Year, When We Were Young is a collection of horror and dark fantasy from one of Australia’s finest new authors that should not be missed. There are people involved. That’s the first mistake. Scientists were never meant to be part of history. Anything in the past is better studied from the present. It’s safer. When a team of Australian scientists – and a lone historian – travel back to St-Guilhem-le-Désert in 1305 they discover being impartial, distant and objective just doesn’t work when you’re surroundedby the smells, dust and heat of a foreign land. They’re only human after all. But by the time Artemisia is able to convince others that it’s time to worry, it’s already too late. ‘Viscerally powerful, deeply felt, strongly written: Langue[dot]doc 1305 challenges reader expectations of time travel, of ‘Grim-dark’ and of mediaeval life and brings a haunting, authentic voice both to the past and to the struggles facing the present.’ Elizabeth Smith, recently made redundant, thinks that her life is deadly dull. She feels like cellophane like people look right through her, like she’s not even there. A simple redecoration job involving a mirror turns her life upside down. Through ominous horror and an unexpected romance Liz learns to become a whole person someone who takes up space in the world, and demands to be herself. Part gentle love story, part bizarre horror tale, but never, ever boring, Ms Cellophane is a revealing look at one woman’s nightmare transforming her reality in unexpectedly amusing ways. In 2010 the best-selling book at the world science fiction convention was…unexpected. Humankind carries the past as invisible baggage. Thirteen brilliant writers explore this, looking at Australia’s cultural baggage through new and often disturbing eyes. Baggage explores layers and complexities that are oddly Australian. If you think Australian culture is all about surfboards and mateship, you may find Baggage distressing. What is Australia? What baggage do Australians carry? Pick up this book. Have a read. You know you want to. “Baggage collects many of the finest voices in Australian speculative fiction. Each author contributes a unique cultural perspective, with stories ranging from the deeply personal to the highly disturbing. Baggage is an anthology not to be missed.” Shane Jiraya Cummings, OzHorrorScope “Baggage is a fascinating exploration of Australian issues through characters and situations that feel immediate and real. There’s little in the way of escapism here, but instead much subtlety and nuance, combined with stunning writing. From the incendiary, no-holds-barred ‘Acception’ by Tessa Kum to the quiet power of K.J. Bishop’s ‘Vision Splendid’, and beyond, this anthology tackles difficult and diverse subject matter.” Rawk is one of the great Heroes. He has travelled the world for forty years, hunting exotic creatures, battling magic and fighting evil wherever he found it. But he has been fighting mostly mundane battles since Prince Weaver outlawed magic. And with no great deeds left to be done, Rawk is afraid he’ll soon be the old man in the corner of the tavern, dreaming of the good old days and telling tales for anyone who will buy him a drink. But when a huge wolden wolf is spied from the walls of Katamood for the first time in a decade, Rawk is the man the city looks to once more. He’ll save them. He always has. Rawk will fight to ensure the Age of Heroes doesn’t slip away into history, but what if the good old days aren’t quite as good as he remembers? Links… Welcome back to the magic and pathos of Angela Slatter’s exquisitely imagined tales. The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings returns to the world of Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus, 2010), introducing readers to the tales that came before. Stories where coffin-makers work hard to keep the dead beneath; where a plague maiden steals away the children of an ungrateful village; where poison girls are schooled in the art of assassination; where pirates disappear from the seas; where families and the ties that bind them can both ruin and resurrect and where books carry forth fairy tales, forbidden knowledge and dangerous secrets. The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings is enhanced by eighty-six pen-and-ink illustrations by artist Kathleen Jennings. In the cathedral-city of Lodellan and its uneasy hinterland, babies are fashioned from bread, dolls are given souls and wishes granted may be soon regretted. There are ghosts who dream, men whose wings have been clipped and trolls who long for something other. Love, loss and life are elegantly dissected in Slatter’s earthy yet poetic prose. Blurb Black-Winged Angels is a collection of 10 incredible contemporary retellings of fairy tales, and will be available in a limited hardcover edition illustrated by the multiple World Fantasy Award nominated Kathleen Jennings. The book will appeal to fans of Angela Carter (“The Company of Wolves”) and Emma Donoghue (“Kissing the Witch”). Murder and betrayal in deep space, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance… Thirty-four light years from Earth, the explorer ship Magellan is nearing its objective – the Iota Persei system. But when ship commander Cait Dyson wakes from deepsleep, she finds her co-pilot dead and the ship’s AI unresponsive. Cait works with the rest of her multinational crew to regain control of the ship, until they learn that Earth is facing total environmental collapse and their mission must change if humanity is to survive. As tensions rise and personal and political agendas play out in the ship’s cramped confines, the crew finally reach the planet Horizon, where everything they know will be challenged. “Refreshingly plausible, politically savvy, and full of surprises, Horizon takes you on a harrowing thrill-ride through the depths of space and the darkness of the human heart.” – Sean Williams, New York Times bestselling author of the Astropolis and Twinmaker series Journey beyond the borders of the real with our first annual collection of stories appearing in Dimension6 magazine, with all new stories from some of the best speculative fiction authors working in Australia today including Richard Harland, Dirk Strasser, Jason Nahrung, Alan Baxter, Robert Hood, Cat Sparks, Robert N Stephenson, Steve Cameron and Charlotte Nash. A businessman staying in a Scottish manor makes the mistake of deciding to spend the evening in the library. A group of unpopular teenage girls uses witchcraft to pursue their aims. A rich banking tycoon has forgotten his university days when he and his friends dared to imagine a world ruled by social justice and working class ideals. The estranged family of a deceased aristocrat bicker over their inheritance. A botanist’s love for his plants is unnaturally deep-rooted. “Hoffman’s Creeper and Other Disturbing Tales” is the first short story collection from Cameron Trost. It plunges the reader into a world of mystery, suspense, obsession and greed. From the Scottish highlands and the jagged peaks of the Pyrénées to the streets of Brisbane and the Australian countryside, Cameron Trost provokes the reader by ensnaring recognisable characters in disturbingly plausible situations. His writing seeks to entertain while exploring the absurdities and peculiarities of society and the human mind. Subtropical Suspense Anthology of Suspense and Mystery Tales set in Brisbane “Cameron Trost has brought together a dark pantry of crime stories and mysteries, and cooked up a gumbo rich and spicy enough to befit any of the world’s sultry cities… but these happen to be set in Brisbane. Sixteen short stories take the reader from Morningside to Indooroopilly, from Hamilton to Acacia Ridge. There is baking sun and flooding rains, police procedurals and criminal capers, murderous mermaids and poison pens… all give a ripple of pleasure to the reader who knows Brisbane – or wants to know it – and who has wondered why stories of murder, malice, and magic couldn’t be set here. And of course, they should be: Brisbane’s shadows are as dark and good to hide in as any in the world – and Subtropical Suspense revels in this.” Clair and Jesse have barely been reunited when the world is plunged into its biggest crisis yet … It’s the end of the world as Clair knows it – and it’s partly her fault. A brilliant science-fiction thriller, the second in the Twinmaker trilogy. This edition includes a bonus short story. Stranded in the desert, the last of mankind is kept safe by a large border fence… Until the fence falls. Squid is a young orphan living under the oppressive rule of his uncle in the outskirts of the Territory. Lynn is a headstrong girl with an influential father who has spent her entire life within the walled city of Alice. When the border fence is breached, the Territory is invaded by the largest horde of undead ghouls seen in two hundred years. Squid is soon conscripted into the Diggers – the armed forces of the Territory. And after Lynn finds herself at odds with the Territory’s powerful church, she too escapes to join the Diggers. Together Squid and Lynn form an unlikely friendship as they march to battle against the ghouls. Their journey will take them further than they ever imagined, leading them closer to discovering secrets about themselves, their world, and a conspiracy that may spell the end of the Territory as they know it. Arrabella Candellarbra is like no one you’ve ever met before; even though her questy thing is the stuff of legend. Arrabella, a beautiful, flaxen-haired maiden trained in all things warrior-like by The Reginas – the most famous warriors of all – embarks on a quest to claim her birthright and to wield the power of all the lands. The Four Adventurers soon find themselves pitted against the Evil Betty-Sue – the meanest of evil beings in all of the lands – and her scary minions: the Saw-Toothed Bunnies, the Viscous Tongued Frogs and the Barella Monkeys – to rescue The Reginas from… something! Arrabella Candellarbra and the Questy Thing to End All Questy Things, a fairy tale for grown-ups, features love and lust, action and inaction, battles, incantations, sexual shenanigans and high-kicking sing-a-longs. And it promises that all those epic questy things will never be the same again. Fourteen year old Byron James wishes he’d never been dragged to Parkton. It’s a crazy sideshow of a town in the middle of damn nowhere, and he’s stranded there. To make matters worse, his two new friends – his only friends – turn out to be class rejects with an unhealthy interest in monsters. They want to discover the truth to the infamous monster house at number 809 Jacob Street. Joey Blue is an old bluesman who fell into his songs and couldn’t find his way out again. Now he’s a Gutterbreed, one of the slinking shifting shadows haunting the town’s alleys. When an old dead friend comes begging for help, Joey’s world is torn apart. He is forced to stare down the man he has become in order to rescue the man he once was – and there is only one place he can do that. The house on Jacob Street calls to them all, but what will they find when they open its door? By now you all know I’m good friends with Angela Slatter. You should also know that I’m a huge fan of her work – it’s great when one of your friends is also one of your favourite writers. One of the best books I’ve read in recent years was Sourdough & Other Stories, Angela’s collection of short stories published by Tartarus Press. Not only is it a collection of brilliant stories, it’s a beautiful artifact of a book too. Tartarus make wonderful things. Well, Angela was supposed to write a sequel collection, but being the contrary writer she is, she wrote a prequel collection instead. It’s called The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. Tartarus agreed to publish it and Angela scored the amazing Kathleen Jennings to do internal illustrations for it. The result is a book even more beautiful than Sourdough, and equally chock full of amazing stories. I know that, because I’ve read it. The book’s not out til September 1st, but we’re friends, remember? So I got Angela and Kathleen to talk a bit about it and the process of its creation. You can read that below. At the end is a link to the Tartarus Press website where you can pre-order the book, and I really, really recommend that you do. And if you haven’t read Sourdough, buy that too and you can read it while you wait. I’m not just talking up my friends here, either – Sourdough was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the Aurealis Award for Best Collection. These are books you do not want to miss. Over to Angela and Kathleen. *** Angela: My Author’s Note to Bitterwood goes thus: The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings is intended as a prequel to Sourdough and Other Stories. It was meant to be a sequel, but the tales were determined to defy me—they insisted upon telling what had happened before, to show how the books of Murcianus came to be, how Ella came into the world, where Hepsibah Ballantyne—who appears only as a name on a headstone in Sourdough’s Lodellan cemetery—began the chain of events that are traced through the mosaic of this book. Bitterwood expands and builds upon the world of Sourdough and, I hope, makes readers feel they are coming home once again. I’d written “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” in 2011 as a standalone story for Steve Jones’s A Book of Horrors anthology, and that seemed the place to start. Hepsibah had gone from being a name on a grave to a powerful presence, so that story is one that threads through the whole of Bitterwood. As I wrote the stories fell into place and I can honestly say that this collection was one of those rare things that a writer dreams of: knowing exactly what was going to happen, when, and to whom. I was able to weave together so many of the things I love: elements of history and myth and fairy tale and folklore. There are little nods to writers as diverse as Umberto Eco and Kim Newman. There are vampires, boarding schools for assassins, pirates who are being hunted to extinction, a brazen head that tells the future, bakeries and rats, transformed badgers and dreadful revenges − and books. So many books. As the narrative came together I started to think not about a cover, strangely, but about internal illustrations. I love Kathleen Jennings’ artwork and I knew she had an ambition to do endpapers, so I asked if she would like to beta read the stories as I finished them and, if perhaps the spirit moved her, do some illustrations as she read? She said yes, which was lucky for me; luckier still the lovely people at Tartarus took both the collection and agreed to use Kathleen’s illustrations. I feel very fortunate and privileged to have drawings done that truly capture the spirit of the tales I wrote. And of course there was the absolute wicked delight of having Kathleen text me photos of what she’d done as she read a story. It was such a pleasure to work with her and I hope I was a well-behaved author! I don’t think I was critical or asked for any kangaroos to be added to The Last Supper. I’m doubly spoiled because Kathleen also did the artwork for my limited edition collection of Black-Winged Angels (Ticonderoga Publications), which echoes the silhouette technique of Arthur Rackham, but has its own wonderful unique beauty. Kathleen: Angela would keep dropping hints about the most beautiful parts of her stories, often before they were written – badgers (sigh) and a school for poison girls, doors in trees, dangerous quilts… so any workload-related resolve was fairly well weakened by the time she sent me the manuscript, because now they were here! They were real stories in the world, and I could read them! I spent a lot of time in cafes, reading and sketching, sending Angela texts with reactions and pictures – each gaining energy from the other’s excitement! We’re still doing this, if you saw our comments back and forth when Tartarus released pictures of the Actual Book. It was a lovely way to work, actually: just a free hand to sketch my way through the book. Because the original plan was to try and sell Tartarus on the idea of endpapers, I was going for multiple small images and the individual pressure was off – I could just draw anything that caught my fancy. And then Angela would edit it out of the manuscript. But anyway. I’m still haunted by images from this book. Images and titles (‘Now all pirates are gone’). And Tartarus did a lovely job of putting the pictures in just where they ought to be – Angela and I had to check in with each other to say, “Did you see where they put the badgers? I knowwww!” This has come up a couple of times in various conversations recently, so I thought I’d talk about it here. Ebooks are here to stay, obviously. While there will always be print books too, even if that does eventually reduce to Print-on-Demand and collector’s folio editions, ebooks will only continue to gain strength. There’s the whole format and DRM thing to still sort out – Amazon aren’t about to give up the mobi format any time soon, and a lot of places are struggling with where they stand on DRM – but these are all ongoing teething problems. I’d like to imagine a utopia where ePub is the standard across all vendors and publishers (which it already is if you don’t include Amazon) and where DRM is a thing of the past. But regardless of how it all shakes down, ebooks are mainstream now. I love ebooks. I dig that I can carry hundreds of books around on my phone. Honestly, how living-in-the-future is that shit? And I do read on my phone. But primarily I read from an iPad Mini. I love my Mini – it’s the perfect size and does all the things I want. Plus, I have this sweet leather cover for it that makes it look like a cool old hardback book. Here it is: Pretty sweet, huh? I use it for internet, email, videos, TV, games and loads of other stuff as well as reading. It’s just the best thing ever, technology-wise. But I didn’t always read ebooks on the Mini and I use several apps even now. Other people I’ve spoken to use a variety of devices and all swear by them. Some people consider dedicated ereaders a cul-de-sac technology that’ll die down to almost nothing because tablets are so much more versatile, while others love their dedicated ereader precisely because it’s just for reading and has no other distracting functions. I got onto the whole ebook bandwagon pretty early on. For example, when I originally self-published RealmShift back in the day, it was the 376th book to be uploaded to Smashwords, as evidenced by its URL there. There are now over 300,000 books on Smashwords. I would read ebooks on my PC from very early on too. I guess I knew right off the bat that this technology was going to quickly become the norm and it most certainly did. Interestingly, that massive rush into the mainstream that ebooks made was largely encouraged along by Amazon and their Kindle device. They really saw an opportunity and exploited it with expert (some might say evil) skill. After reading on my laptop and phone for a while, my first dedicated ereader was an old generation Kindle 3, like the one pictured on the left, and I got hooked fully into the Amazon ecosystem. I was already there really, using the Kindle app – I even converted ePub files to mobi to use on the Kindle. I didn’t mind at all at the time – Amazon always had the most content, you could buy with one click and it would roll straight onto your reader. And the battery life of the Kindle is awesome. The reading experience is great too, with no backlight and all that jazz. Apparently, the new Paperwhite is even better, but I’ve yet to see one of those in the flesh… plastic… whatever. But I don’t use my Kindle any more. My wife uses it a bit and I do actually miss it in some ways, but it became superfluous to my needs. I used the Kindle app on my phone while I used my Kindle 3 and that was awesome. If I was out and had ten minutes to spare, I could dial up whatever book I was reading and the app would automatically sync it to the last place I’d read. But I began to get more and more disillusioned with Amazon and at the same time, more or less, got my iPad Mini. The Kindle was no good for comics and I read a lot of those, so an iPad was a great choice. I got the Kindle app for it and discovered that the backlit screen really doesn’t bother me at all. So the Kindle 3 became unnecessary luggage. Now my phone and iPad are all I carry, and they do all I need. But I’m not all about Kindle any more. There are so many reading apps out there. Rather than buy in to the Amazon ecosystem entirely, I started looking at other options. I found that a lot of publishers sell direct from their own websites, a lot of small press use places like Smashwords as well as Amazon, and I recently discovered that the Kobo store is great. All of these use ePub, and don’t tie you to Amazon. And I particularly like ePub because I discovered a couple of years ago an app called Marvin. It’s only for iDevices at the moment, but apparently an Andriod version is in the works. It’s my favourite ereader now and I’ll always look for an ePub file that I can sideload to Marvin as my first port of call when I want a new book. If I can’t find that, I’ll shop at Kobo and use the Kobo app. As a last resort, I’ll go back to Amazon and read with the Kindle. I also still use the Kindle app to read PDFs and Word documents that I send myself using my Kindle email thing. It’s really a case of what’s best for any given situation, but always looking for ePub first. So while I almost exclusively read ebooks on the iPad Mini now (with occasional forays on my phone), I do it with a variety of apps and stores. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a dedicated ereader. And I read about 50/50 ebook/print, so I’ll certainly never abandon paper books. I’m an utter bibliophile and love my bookshelves. I love to get beautiful editions, especially hardbacks, of my favourite books, though income doesn’t allow me to indulge that as much as I’d like. And if I read an ebook that I really enjoy, I’ll get the paper edition for my shelves. Most recently that happened with Nathan Ballingrud’s amazing debut collection of short stories called “North American Lake Monsters”. I bought the ebook, absolutely loved it and, as soon as I’d finished reading, I flipped from the reading app to the browser on my iPad and bought the last signed hardcover from the Small Beer Press website. All without leaving my couch. There’s that living-in-the-future shit again. So brilliant. So what about you? What’s your ereader of choice? How do you shop for ebooks? Let me know in the comments and let me know too about any great apps or readers I might have missed out on. I’ve been going on a lot lately about Bound. It’s no surprise, really. I have a book out from a major publisher and it’s on shelves in bookstores and everything! I’m still finding it hard to believe, but I’m certainly enjoying it. However, now I want to spread the love – I’ve been going on so much lately about myself, it’s time I talked about other people a bit. Below are the books and stories I’ve been really enjoying lately and I highly recommend you check them out. Let’s go: The Hunt for Pierre Jnr By David M. Henley (the sequel, Manifestations, is out now too.) As the blurb says, “He can make you forget, he can control you and he is only eight years old. Three months after his birth he escaped. An hour later he was lost to surveillance. No one knows where he has been for the last eight years … Now Pierre Jnr is about to return.” Sounds good, right? It is. Last Year, When We Were Young by Andrew McKiernan. I had the pleasure of MCing the launch of this excellent debut collection of short stories. It’s fantastic and Greg Chapman sums it up nicely in this review here. Exile by Peter M Ball. Okay, I haven’t read this one yet as I’ve only just bought it, but Peter Ball’s stuff is always good and I expect this novella to be up there as well. So I’m including it here. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. I mean, really, it’s enough that it’s by Gaiman, right? But this is a wonderful book and very British in style and setting. As an ex-pat Brit, that appealed to me a lot. But whether you’re British or not, it’s well worth your time. SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror edited by Geoff Brown and A J Spedding. I had the honour of writing a foreword for this collection of military horror short stories. There’s fantastic variety here and it’s a tremendous collection. You’ll be surprised at the scope. Trucksong by Andrew Macrae. A post-apocalyptic Australia with sentient trucks fighting and fucking and stuff. I know, right? It’s written in an incredibly well-developed Australian voice and is something quite different. Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto. This is the guy who wrote True Detective, which is some of the best television I’ve seen in recent years. This is a southern crime noir kinda thing, fantasically written. I loved it. North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud. Possibly the best short story collection I’ve read in recent years. Again, I reviewed it for Thirteen O’Clock, so go here to read me gushing about it. Lexicon by Max Barry. My book of the year last year and it won an Aurealis Award. A fantastic story about the power of words and language and modern magic rolled up with science and it’s a thriller and… and… Just read it. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. A superb supernatural serial killer, crime thriller thing. This book has had loads of attention and all of it well-deserved. A must read. And next up on my list are Guardian by Jo Anderton (which will be great because it’s book three after Debris and Suited, which were great), Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes (after the awesomeness of The Shining Girls, I can’t wait for this one) and Dreaming of Zhou Gong by Traci Harding (which I only got yesterday, signed no less, and I’m looking forward to a lot). Very exciting reading ahead, I think. A quick web search will reveal any of these to you, so off you go and get some good stuff. Let me know what you think. And if you’ve read something simply brilliant lately, drop a mention in the comments and we can keep this sharing of good stuff going. You guys have heard me talk about Angela Slatter plenty before. She’s a good friend of mine, but more than that, she’s one of the best writers I know. Specialising in dark fantasy and horror, she’s the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, the World Fantasy Award finalist Sourdough and Other Stories, and the Aurealis finalist Midnight and Moonshine (with Lisa L. Hannett). And that’s just a fraction of her bio. She’s the first Aussie to win a British Fantasy Award too. Check out all about her publications and awards here. Angela has a new chapbook out from Spectral Press called Hearth and Home. It’s a great read and I’ve asked her five questions about it and about horror and her writing in general. The questions are below, but before you read them, go and get the chapbook, as it’s limited edition and there aren’t many left. You can send an email to spectralpress[AT]gmail[DOT]com or maybe get one of the last ones from Angela herself by emailing me[at]angelaslatter[dot]com You won’t be sorry. So, on with the Qs: 1. What’s “Hearth and Home” all about and why did you write this story? Well, it’s about a woman whose teenaged son has come home after a lengthy trial. He was found innocent but things are not as they should be, life doesn’t return to ‘normal’. Basically it’s the story of Caroline’s journey through figuring out just how far from normal things are. I wrote it because Simon Marshall-Jones from Spectral Press had said ‘Sooo, hey, how about a chapbook story?’ And I’d seen the work he’d done with other authors such as Gary McMahon in the chapbook series and thought ‘Yep, get me some of that!’ 2. What’s the real draw card for you with horror? I don’t mind gore if it’s well used and cleverly placed for maximum effect, but I really, really hate explicit shock for the sake of shock. It has a numbing effect after a while and that is not the point of horror for me. Horror is about the creeping shiver that becomes a full-blooded scream … I enjoy the psychology of that journey, that’s what wraps me up in a good horror story. 3. Chapbooks are still cool. Why? I think they’ve never really gone out of fashion in particular, i.e. genre, quarters, and they’re now riding the wave of small press resurgence. I think that’s because small presses are in a unique position to create books that aren’t your traditional trade paperback with the imperative to sell millions. That’s not to say they don’t want to make money, but there’s definitely a place for books are collectable artefacts that remains even in an age of e-books and the throwaway paperback. I also like to think that you can see the craft in them, they don’t necessarily look like something that’s from a cookie cutter … there’s an individuality to them that feels very human and person-made. 4. If you could organise one of those haunted house murder mystery dinners, who would you invite? And who would be the killer? Oooooh. I’m going to ask the living and the dead, the real and the imagined! Angela Carter and Tanith Lee, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Shearman and Lisa Hannett, Mark Gatiss and Christopher Lee, Helen Marshall and Helen Mirren. And Neil Gaiman, who would be the killer and whom no one would suspect coz he always seems so nice. 5. What’s next for Doctor Slatter? Dr Slatter has three books out this year: The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (from Tartarus Press), Black-Winged Angels (from Ticonderoga Publications), and The Female Factory (written with Lisa Hannett and coming out from Twelfth Planet Press). No matter what anyone tells you, I am open to working with publishers that don’t start with the letter ‘T’. I currently have a novel called Vigil doing the rounds; I am finishing my novella for Spectral Press, which is called The Witch’s Scale; and I’m finishing up my collection The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales, which is the result of my Queensland Writers Fellowship year; I’m working on another novel called Scandalous Lady Detective, and going back to an old novel called Well of Souls to finish it off. In between I am occasionally offering an editing and story development service, but it’s starting to feel like a bit of a time-squeeze at this point! My story, “Shadows of the Lonely Dead”, is coming out in the Suspended in Dusk anthology (Books of the Dead Press, due mid-late 2014) and the editor, Simon Dewar, has just released the full list of contributing authors and their stories. It’s a stellar bunch: That’s alphabetical, of course. The final order of stories and a cover reveal are apparently coming soon. I think this is going to be a great book. A few of those stories are reprints, but the majority are original, and all follow the theme of “suspended in dusk” to some degree. Should be well worth a read. And can I just point out that I’m going to be in a book with Ramsey Campbell. Achievement Unlocked! Issue 14 of SQ Mag is out. It’s the Australiana Special Edition and includes loads of great stuff like new stories from Kaaron Warren and Sean Williams, lots of other top stories and features, and my novelette, The Darkness in Clara. I’m really proud of this story and I hope other people like it too. I was honoured to learn that it inspired the cover for this issue. The best thing about SQ Mag, apart from the stellar content obviously, is that it’s all free to read online. Here’s the opening to my story: The Darkness in Clara by Alan Baxter Michelle saw Clara’s feet first, absurdly suspended a meter above the ground, toes pointing to the carpet, ghostly pale and twisting in a lazy spiral. The rest of the scene burst into her mind in one electric shock a fraction of a second later; Clara’s wiry nakedness, limp arms, head tilted chaotically to one side. Her tattoos seemed faded against ashen skin. Her so familiar face grotesque and wrong, tongue swelling from her mouth like an escaping slug. And her bulging eyes, staring glassy and cold as Michelle began to scream. Light from the bedside lamp cast Clara’s shadow across the wall like a puppet play, glinted off the metal legs of the upturned chair beneath. I bought her that belt, Michelle thought, as she stared at the worn black leather biting deep into the blue-tinged flesh of Clara’s neck, and she drew breath to scream again. I got a wonderful surprise on Saturday when a few messages started coming in saying something along the lines of, “Congratulations on your Ditmar nomination!” I hadn’t realised the Award shortlist had been released, but it only took a moment to see social media alive with the news (at least, spec fic related social media in Australia.) It turns out that my story, Not the Worst of Sins, published in issue 133 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine, has been noninated in the Best Short Story category. Thanks so much to everyone who voted for that, it’s a real honour. The Ditmars are an Australian national award decided by popular vote. Anyone active in the SF scene and fandom can nominate works, then anyone who was at the previous year’s NatCon (National SF Convention) or has a full or supporting membership for this year’s NatCon can vote for the winners. This year, the NatCon is Continuum X in Melbourne in June. The awards ceremony will be held there. If you went to Conflux in Canberra last year, or you’re going to Continuum this year, you can vote in the Ditmars. I really recommend that you do vote, as the more people who get involved, the more the winners will reflect the opinion of the wider community. If you’re not going to the cons, but you want to vote, you can buy a supporting membership for Continuum X for just $35, which gives you several benefits including voting rights. And you can vote online in a matter of minutes. Couldn’t be easier! Voting is open now until one minute before midnight AEST (ie. 11.59pm, GMT+10), Wednesday, 28th of May, 2014. I’ll post the full list of nominated works in all categories below, but here are a few relevant links: So please do get involved. My own inclusion notwithstanding, I honestly think this is one of the strongest Ditmar Award ballots for years, in every category. You could do worse than getting hold of everything on this list (and anything on the Aurealis Awards list from last month) and you’d be set up with some fantastic reading of Aussie spec fic.The AAs and now the Ditmars are showing very clearly that Australian spec fic is stronger than ever. So, get your membership and get voting (or if you went to Conflux last year, just get voting!) and if you’re going to NatCon this year in June, I’ll see you there! * Tsana Dolichva, for body of work, including reviews and interviews in Tsana’s Reads and Reviews * Sean Wright, for body of work, including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut * Grant Watson, for body of work, including reviews in The Angriest * Foz Meadows, for body of work, including reviews in Shattersnipe: Malcontent & Rainbows * Alexandra Pierce, for body of work, including reviews in Randomly Yours, Alex * Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work, including essays and reviews at www.tansyrr.com Best Fan Artist * Nalini Haynes, for body of work, including “Defender of the Faith”, “The Suck Fairy”, “Doctor Who vampire” and “The Last Cyberman” in Dark Matter * Kathleen Jennings, for body of work, including “Illustration Friday” * Dick Jenssen, for body of work, including cover art for Interstellar Ramjet Scoop and SF Commentary Saturday was a big day. I drove down to Canberra, took part in the Conflux Writer’s Day minicon, where I did a highspeed “Social Media for Authors” presentation, then went for a quick change of clothes in order to attend the Aurealis Awards ceremony. Nicole Murphy, who organised everything that day, did a truly amazing job. The writers day and awards ceremony were both superb. We caroused and drank and laughed, and fantastic Australian fiction scored very well-deserved awards. Here are all the fantastic nominees and winners. If you want a sampler of excellent recent Aussie spec fic, here’s your huckleberry: (The winners are separated at the top of each list of nominees.) Best Science Fiction Novel Lexicon, Max Barry (Hachette) Trucksong, Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet) A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)
--- abstract: 'We study the effects of weak columnar and point disorder on the vortex-lattice phase transitions in high temperature superconductors. The combined effect of thermal fluctuations and of quenched disorder is investigated using a simplified cage model. For columnar disorder the problem maps into a quantum particle in a harmonic + random potential. We use the variational approximation to show that columnar and point disorder have opposite effect on the position of the melting line as observed experimentally. Replica symmetry breaking plays a role at the transition into a vortex glass at low temperatures.' address: \| Department of Physics and Astronomy\ University of Pittsburgh\ Pittsburgh, PA 15260 author: - 'Yadin Y. Goldschmidt' date: 'August 4, 1996' title: ' [Phase Transitions of the Flux Line Lattice in High-Temperature Superconductors with Weak Columnar and Point Disorder]{} ' --- [2]{} There is a lot of interest in the physics of high temperature superconductors due to their potential technological applications. In particular these materials are of type II and allow for partial magnetic flux penetration. Pinning of the magnetic flux lines (FL) by many types of disorder is essential to eliminate dissipative losses associated with flux motion. In clean materials below the superconducting temperature there exist a ’solid ’ phase where the vortex lines form a triangular Abrikosov lattice [@blatter]. This solid can melt due to thermal fluctuations and the effect of impurities. In particular known observed transitions are into a flux liquid at higher temperatures via a [melting line]{} (ML)[@zeldov], and into a vortex glass at low temperature [@VG],[@Fisher],[@BG] in the presence of disorder- the so called [entanglement line]{} (EL). [@blatter] Recently the effect of point and columnar disorder on the position of the melting transition has been measured experimentally in the high-$T_c$ material $Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8$ [@Khaykovitch]. Point disorder has been induced by electron irradiation (with 2.5 MeV electrons), whereas columnar disorder has been induced by heavy ion irradiation (1 GeV Xe or 0.9 GeV Pb). It turns out that the flux melting transition persists in the presence of either type of disorder, but its position shifts depending on the disorder type and strength. A significant difference has been observed between the effects of columnar and point disorder on the location of the ML. Weak columnar defects stabilize the solid phase with respect to the vortex liquid phase and shift the transition to [higher]{} fields, whereas point-like disorder destabilizes the vortex lattice and shifts the melting transition to [lower]{} fields. In this paper we attempt to provide an explanation to this observation. The case of point defects has been addressed in a recent paper by Ertas and Nelson [@EN] using the cage-model approach which replaces the effect of vortex-vortex interactions by an harmonic potential felt by a single vortex. For columnar disorder the parabolic cage model was introduced by Nelson and Vinokur \[8\]. Here we use a different approach to analyze the cage-model Hamiltonian vis. the replica method together with the variational approximation. In the case of columnar defects our approach relies on our recent analysis of a quantum particle in a random potential [@yygold]. We compare the effect of the two types of disorder with each other and with results of recent experiments. Assume that the average magnetic field is aligned along the $z$-axis. Following EN we describe the Hamiltonian of a single FL whose position is given by a two-component vector ${\bf r}(z)$ (overhangs are neglected) by: $$\begin{aligned} {\cal H} = \int_0^L dz \left\{ {\frac{\tilde{\epsilon} }{2}} \left({\frac{ d% {\bf r }}{dz}} \right)^2 + V(z,{\bf r }) + {\frac{\mu }{2}} {\bf r }^2 \right\}. \label{hamil}\end{aligned}$$ Here $\tilde \epsilon =\epsilon _0/\gamma ^2$ is the line tension of the FL, $\gamma ^2=m_z/m_{\perp }$ is the mass anisotropy, $\epsilon _0=(\Phi _0/4\pi \lambda )^2$, ($\lambda $ being the penetration length), and $\mu \approx \epsilon _0/a_0^2$ is the effective spring constant (setting the cage size) due to interactions with neighboring FLs, which are at a typical distance of $a_0=\sqrt{\Phi _0/B}$ apart. For the case of columnar (or correlated) disorder, $V(z,{\bf r})=V({\bf r})$ is independent of $z$, and $$\begin{aligned} \langle V({\bf r})V({\bf r^{\prime }})\rangle \equiv -2f(({\bf r}-{\bf % r^{\prime }})^2/2)=g\epsilon _0^2\xi ^2\delta _\xi ^{(2)}({\bf r}-{\bf % r^{\prime }}), \label{VVC}\end{aligned}$$ where $$\begin{aligned} \delta _\xi ^{(2)}({\bf r}-{\bf r^{\prime }})\approx 1/(2\pi \xi ^2)\exp (-(% {\bf r}-{\bf r^{\prime }})^2/2\xi ^2), \label{delta}\end{aligned}$$ and $\xi $ is the vortex core diameter. The dimensionless parameter g is a measure of the strength of the disorder. On the other hand for point-disorder, $V$ depends on $z$ and [@EN] $$\begin{aligned} \langle V(z,{\bf r})V(z^{\prime },{\bf r^{\prime }})\rangle =\tilde \Delta \epsilon _0^2\xi ^3\delta _\xi ^{(2)}({\bf r}-{\bf r^{\prime }})\delta (z-z^{\prime }). \label{VVP}\end{aligned}$$ The quantity that measures the transverse excursion of the FL is $$\begin{aligned} u_0^2(\ell )\equiv \langle \|{\bf r}(z)-{\bf r}(z+\ell )\|^2\rangle \ /2, \label{ul}\end{aligned}$$ Let us now review the connection between a quantum particle in a random potential and the behavior of a FL in a superconductor. The partition function of the former is just like the partition sum of the FL, provided one make the identification [@nelson] $$\begin{aligned} \hbar \rightarrow T,\qquad \beta \hbar \rightarrow L, \label{corresp}\end{aligned}$$ Where T is the temperature of the superconductor and L is the system size in the $z$-direction. $\beta $ is the inverse temperature of the quantum particle. We are interested in large fixed L as T is varied, which corresponds to high $\beta $ for the quantum particle when $\hbar $ (or alternatively the mass of the particle) is varied. The variable $z$ is the so called Trotter time. This is the picture we will be using for the case of columnar disorder. For the case of point-disorder the picture we use is that of a directed polymer in the presence of a random potential plus an harmonic potential as used by EN. The main effect of the harmonic (or cage) potential is to cap the transverse excursions of the FL beyond a confinement length $\ell ^{}\approx a_0/\gamma $. The mean square displacement of the flux line is given by $$u^2(T)\approx u_0^2(\ell ^{}). \label{uT}$$ The location of the melting line is determined by the Lindemann criterion $$u^2(T_m(B))=c_L^2a_0^2, \label{Lind}$$ where $c_L\approx 0.15-0.2$ is the phenomenological Lindemann constant. This means that when the transverse excursion of a section of length $\approx \ell ^{}$becomes comparable to a finite fraction of the interline separation $a_0$, the melting of the flux solid occurs. We consider first the case of columnar disorder. In the absence of disorder it is easily obtained from standard quantum mechanics and the correspondence (\[corresp\]), that when $L\rightarrow \infty ,$ $$u^2(T)=\frac T{\sqrt{\widetilde{\epsilon }\mu }}\left( 1-\exp (-\ell ^{}% \sqrt{\mu /\widetilde{\epsilon }})\right) =\frac T{\sqrt{\widetilde{\epsilon }\mu }}(1-e^{-1}), \label{u2g0}$$ from which we find that $$B_m(T)\approx \frac{\Phi _0^{}}{\xi ^2}\frac{\epsilon _0^2\xi ^2c_L^4}{% \gamma ^2T^2}. \label{Bmg0}$$ When we turn on disorder we have to solve the problem of a quantum particle in a random quenched potential. This problem has been recently solved using the replica method and the variational approximation [@yygold]. Let us review briefly the results of this approach. In this approximation we chose the best quadratic Hamiltonian parametrized by the matrix $% s_{ab}(z-z^{\prime })$: $$\begin{aligned} h_n &=&\frac 12\int_0^Ldz\sum_a[\widetilde{\epsilon }{\bf \dot r}_a^2+\mu {\bf r}_a^2] \nonumber \\ &&-\frac 1{2T}\int_0^Ldz\int_0^Ldz^{\prime }\sum_{a,b}s_{ab}(z-z^{\prime })% {\bf r}_a(z)\cdot {\bf r}_b(z^{\prime }). \label{hn}\end{aligned}$$ Here the replica index $a=1\ldots n$, and $n\rightarrow 0$ at the end of the calculation. This Hamiltonian is determined by stationarity of the variational free energy which is given by $$\left\langle F\right\rangle _R/T=\left\langle H_n-h_n\right\rangle _{h_n}-\ln \int [d{\bf r}]\exp (-h_n/T), \label{FV}$$ where $H_n$ is the exact $n$-body replicated Hamiltonian. The off-diagonal elements of $s_{ab}$can consistently be taken to be independent of $z$, whereas the diagonal elements are $z$-dependent. It is more convenient to work in frequency space, where $\omega $ is the frequency conjugate to $z$. $% \omega _j=(2\pi /L)j,$with $j=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\ldots $.Assuming replica symmetry, which is valid only for part of the temperature range, we can denote the off-diagonal elements of $\widetilde{s}_{ab}(\omega )=(1/T)\int_0^Ldz\ e^{i\omega z}$ $s_{ab}(z)$, by $\widetilde{s}(\omega )=% \widetilde{s}\delta _{\omega ,0}$. Denoting the diagonal elements by $% \widetilde{s}_d(\omega )$, the variational equations become: $$\begin{aligned} \tilde s &=&2\frac LT\widehat{f}\ ^{\prime }\left( {\frac{2T}{\mu L}}+{\frac{% 2T}L}\sum_{\omega ^{\prime }\neq 0}\frac 1{\epsilon \ \omega ^{\prime }\,^2+\mu -\widetilde{s}_d(\omega ^{\prime })}\right) \label{s} \\ \tilde s_d(\omega ) &=&\tilde s-{\frac 2T}\int_0^Ld\zeta \ (1-e^{i\omega \zeta })\times \nonumber \\ &&\ \ \widehat{f}\ ^{\prime }\left( {\frac{2T}L}\sum_{\omega ^{\prime }\neq 0}\ \frac{1-e^{-i\omega ^{\prime }\varsigma }}{\widetilde{\epsilon \ }\omega ^{\prime }\,^2+\mu -\widetilde{s}_d(\omega ^{\prime })}^{}\right) . \label{sd}\end{aligned}$$ here $\widehat{f}$ $^{\prime }(y)$ denotes the derivative of the ”dressed” function $\widehat{f}(y)$ which is obtained in the variational scheme from the random potential’s correlation function $f(y)$ (see eq. (\[VVC\])), and in 2+1 dimensions is given by: $$\widehat{f}(y)=-\frac{g\epsilon _0^2\xi ^2}{4\pi }\frac 1{\xi ^2+y} \label{f}$$ The full equations, taking into account the possibility of replica-symmetry breaking are given in ref. [@yygold]. In terms of the variational parameters the function $u_0^2(\ell ^{})$ is given by $$u_0^2(\ell ^{})={\frac{2T}L}\sum_{\omega ^{\prime }\neq 0}\frac{1-\cos (\omega ^{\prime }\ell ^{})}{\widetilde{\epsilon \ }\omega ^{\prime }\,^2+\mu -\widetilde{s}_d(\omega ^{\prime })}. \label{u2qp}$$ This quantity has not been calculated in ref. [@yygold]. There we calculated $\left\langle {\bf r}^2(0)\right\rangle $ which does not measure correlations along the $z$-direction. In the limit $L\rightarrow \infty $ we were able to solve the equations analytically to leading order in $g$. In that limit eq. (\[sd\]) becomes (for $\omega \neq 0$) : $$\begin{aligned} \tilde s_d(\omega ) &=&\frac 4\mu \widehat{f}\ ^{\prime \prime }(b_0)-\frac 2% T\int_0^\infty d\varsigma (1-\cos (\omega \varsigma )) \nonumber \\ &&\times (\widehat{f}\ ^{\prime }(C_0(\varsigma ))-\widehat{f}\ ^{\prime }(b_0)), \label{sdi}\end{aligned}$$ with $$C_0(\varsigma )=2T\int_{-\infty }^\infty \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\frac{1-\cos (\omega \varsigma )}{\widetilde{\epsilon \ }\omega \,^2+\mu -\widetilde{s}% _d(\omega )} \label{C0}$$ and $b_0$ given by a similar expression with the cosine term missing in the numerator of eq. (\[C0\]). Defining $$\begin{aligned} \tau &=&T\ /\sqrt{\widetilde{\epsilon }\ \mu },\ \alpha =\tau \ /(\xi ^2+\tau ), \label{tau,al} \\ f_1(\alpha ) &=&1/(1-\alpha )-(1/\alpha )\log (1-\alpha ), \label{f1} \\ f_2(\alpha ) &=&\frac 1\alpha \sum_{k=1}^\infty (k+1)\alpha ^k/k^3 \label{f2} \\ a^2 &=&f_1(\alpha )/f_2(\alpha ),\ A=-\widehat{f}\ ^{\prime \prime }(\tau )\ f_1^2(\alpha )/f_2(\alpha )/\mu , \label{a2,A} \\ s_\infty &=&\widehat{f}\ ^{\prime \prime }(\tau )\ (4+f_1(\alpha ))/\mu , \label{sinf}\end{aligned}$$ a good representation of $\widetilde{s}_d(\omega ),\ (\omega \neq 0)$ with the correct behavior at low and high frequencies is $$\widetilde{s}_d(\omega )=s_\infty +A\mu /(\widetilde{\epsilon \ }\omega ^2+a^2\mu ). \label{sde}$$ (notice that this function is negative for all $\omega $). Substituting in eq. (\[C0\]) and expanding the denominator to leading order in the strength of the disorder, we get : $$\begin{aligned} u_0^2(\ell ) &=&C_0(\sqrt{\widetilde{\epsilon }\ /\ \mu })=\tau (1-A/(a^2-1)^2/\mu ) \nonumber \\ &&\ \times (1-e^{-\ell /\ell ^{}})+\tau A/(a(a^2-1)^2\mu )\times \nonumber \\ &&(1-e^{-a\ell /\ell ^{}})+\tau /(2\mu )\times \ (s_\infty +A/(a^2-1)) \nonumber \\ &&\times \ (1-e^{-\ell /\ell ^{}}-(\ell /\ell ^{})\ e^{-\ell /\ell ^{}}). \label{u2f}\end{aligned}$$ In order to plot the results we measure all distances in units of $\xi $ , we measure the temperature in units of $\epsilon _0\xi $, and the magnetic field in units of $\Phi _0/\xi ^2$ . We observe that the spring constant $% \mu $ is given in the rescaled units by $B$ and $a_0=1/\sqrt{B}$. We further use $\gamma =1$ for the plots. Fig. 1 shows a plot of $\sqrt{u_0^2(\ell ^{})}/a_0$ vs. $T$ for zero disorder (curve a) as well as for $g/2\pi =0.02$ (curve b). We have chosen $B=1/900$. We see that the disorder tends to align the flux lines along the columnar defects , hence decreasing $u^2(T)$ .Technically this happens since $% \widetilde{s}_d(\omega )$ is negative. The horizontal line represents a possible Lindemann constant of 0.15. In Fig. 2 we show the modified melting line $B_m(T)$ in the presence of columnar disorder. This is obtained from eq. (\[Lind\]) with $c_L=0.15$. We see that it shifts towards higher magnetic fields. For $T<T_c\approx (\epsilon _0\xi /\gamma )[g^2\epsilon _0/(16\pi ^2\mu \xi ^2)]^{1/6}$, there is a solution with RSB but we will not pursue it further in this paper. This temperature is at the bottom of the range plotted in the figures for columnar disorder. We will pursue the RSB solution only for the case of point disorder, see below. The expression (\[u2f\]) becomes negative for very low temperature. This is an artifact of the truncation of the expansion in the strength of the disorder. For the case of point defects the problem is equivalent to a directed polymer in a combination of a random potential and a fixed harmonic potential. This problem has been investigated by MP [@mp], who were mainly concerned with the limit of $\mu \rightarrow 0$. In this case the variational quadratic Hamiltonian is parametrized by: $$\begin{aligned} h_n &=&\frac 12\int_0^Ldz\sum_a[\widetilde{\epsilon }{\bf \dot r}_a^2+\mu {\bf r}_a^2] \nonumber \\ &&\ \ -\frac 12\int_0^Ldz\sum_{a,b}^{}s_{ab}\ {\bf r}_a(z)\cdot {\bf r}_b(z), \label{hnpd}\end{aligned}$$ with the elements of $s_{ab}$ all constants as opposed to the case of columnar disorder. The replica symmetric solution to the variational equations is simply given by : $$\begin{aligned} s &=&s_d=\frac{2\xi }T\widehat{f}\ ^{\prime }(\tau ) \label{s,sd} \\ u_0^2(\ell ) &=&2T\int_{-\infty }^\infty \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\frac{1-\cos (\omega \ell )}{\widetilde{\epsilon \ }\omega \,^2+\mu } \left( 1+ \frac{s_d}{ \widetilde{\epsilon \ }\omega \,^2+\mu}\right) \label{u2p}\end{aligned}$$ and hence $$\begin{aligned} u_0^2(\ell ) &=&\tau (1-e^{-\ell /\ell ^{}})+\tau \ s_d\ /\ (2\mu ) \nonumber \\ &&\ \ \times \ (1-e^{-\ell /\ell ^{}}-(\ell /\ell ^{})\ e^{-\ell /\ell ^{}}). \label{u2p2}\end{aligned}$$ In eq.(\[s,sd\]) $\widehat{f}$ is the same function as defined in eq. (\[f\]) with $g\ $replaced by $\widetilde{\Delta }$. As opposed the case of columnar disorder, in this case $s_d$ is positive and independent of $\omega $, and hence the mean square displacement $u_0^2(\ell ^{})$ is bigger than its value for zero disorder. Fig. 1 curve [c ]{}shows a plot of $\sqrt{% u_0^2(\ell ^{})}/a_0$ vs. $T$ for $\widetilde{\Delta }/2\pi =0.8$. Again $% B=1/900$. For $T<T_{cp}\approx $ $(\epsilon _0\xi /\gamma )(\gamma $ $% \widetilde{\Delta }/2\pi )^{1/3}$ it is necessary to break replica symmetry as shown by MP [@mp]. This means that the off-diagonal elements of the variational matrix $s_{ab}$ are not all equal to each other. MP worked out the solution in the limit of $\mu \rightarrow 0$, but it is not difficult to extend it to any value of $\mu .$ We have worked out the first stage RSB solution which is all is required for a random potential with short ranged correlations. The analytical expression is not shown here for lack of space. The solution is represented by curve [d]{} in Fig. 1 which consists of upward triangles. The modified melting line in the presence of disorder is indicated by the curve [c]{} in Fig. 2 for $T>T_{cp}$. For $T<T_{cp}$ the so called [entanglement line* ]{}is represented by curve [d]{} of filled squares.The value of the magnetic field $B_m(T_{cp})\approx (\Phi _0/\xi ^2)(\gamma \widetilde{\Delta }/2\pi )^{-2/3}c_L^4$ gives a reasonable agreement with the experiments. The analytical expressions given in eqs. (\[u2f\]), (\[u2p2\]), though quite simple, seem to capture the essential feature required to reproduce the position of the melting line. The qualitative agreement with experimental results is remarkable, especially the opposite effects of columnar and point disorder on the position of the melting line. The ’as grown’ experimental results are corresponding to very small amount of point disorder, and thus close to the line of no disorder in the figures. At low temperature, the entanglement transition is associated in our formalism with RSB, and is a sort of a spin-glass transition in the sense that many minima of the random potential and hence free energy, compete with each other. In this paper we worked out the one-step RSB for the case of point disorder. The experiments show that in the case of colmunar disorder the transition into the vortex glass seems to be absent. This has to be further clarified theoretically. We have shown that the [cage model ]{}together with the variational approximation reproduce the main feature of the experiments. Effects of many body interaction between vortex lines which are not taken into account by the effective cage model seem to be of secondary importance. Inclusion of such effects within the variational formalism remains a task for the future. For point disorder, in the limit of infinite cage ( $\mu \rightarrow 0$), the variational approximation gives a wandering exponent of 1/2 for a random potential with short ranged correlations [@mp], whereas simulations give a value of 5/8 [@halpin]. This discrepancy does not seem of importance with respect to the conclusions obtained in this paper. Another point to notice is that columnar disorder is much more effective in shifting the position of the melting line as compared for point disorder in the range of parameters considered here. We have used a much weaker value of correlated disorder to achieve a similar or even larger shift of the melting line than for the case of point disorder. The fact that the random potential does not vary along the z-axis enhances its effect on the vortex lines. We thank David Nelson and Eli Zeldov for discussions. We thank the Weizmann institute for a Michael Visiting Professorship, during which this research has been carried out. G. Blatter [et al.]{}, Rev. Mod. Phys. [66]{}, 1125 (1994). E. Zeldov [et al.]{}, Nature [375]{}, 373 (1995); see also H. Pastoria [et al.]{} Phys. Rev. Lett. [72]{}, 2951 (1994) M. Feigelman, [et al.]{}, Phys. Rev. Lett. [63]{}, 2303 (1989); A. I. Larkin and V. M. Vinokur, ibid. [75]{}, 4666 (1995). D. S. Fisher, M. P. A. Fisher and D. A. Huse, Phys. Rev. [B43]{}, 130 (1990). T. Giamarchi and P. Le Doussal, Phys. Rev. Lett. [72]{}, 1530 (1994); Phys. Rev. [B52]{}, 1242 (1995); see also T. Nattermann, Phys. Rev. Lett. [64]{}, 2454 (1990). B. Khaykovitch [et al.]{}, Phys. Rev. Lett. [76]{}, 2555 (1996) and preprint (1996). D. Ertas and D. R. Nelson, preprint, cond-mat/9607142 (1996) D. R. Nelson, Phys. Rev. Lett. [60]{}, 1973 (1988); D. R. Nelson and V. M. Vinokur, Phys. Rev. [B48]{}, 13060 (1993). Y. Y. Goldschmidt, Phys. Rev. E [53]{}, 343 (1996); see also Phys. Rev. Lett. [74]{}, 5162 (1995) M. Mezard and G. Parisi, J. Phys. I (France)[1]{}, 809 (1991) T. Halpin-Healy and Y.-C. Zhang, Phys. Rep. [254]{}, 215 (1995) and references therein. Figure Captions: Fig1: Transverse fluctuations in the cage model for (a) no disorder (b)columnar disorder (c)point disorder (d)RSB for point disorder. Fig. 2: Melting line for (a) no disorder (b) columnar disorder (c)point disorder (d) entanglement line for point disorder.
Melkein jo naurattaa. Mutta vaan melkein. Kyse on tietysti Suomen ”alkoholipolitiikasta” joka tällä hetkellä tukahduttaa muutenkin ahdistuneen ravintola-alan ja suomalaisen juhlimisen entistä syvemmälle nurkkaan. Häpeämään. Koska viskin ja muun alkoholin nauttiminen on synti jota meidän tulisi välttää ja paheksua. Tässä seuraa minun kirjeeni Suomen Päättäjille. Rakas Suomen Päättäjä, Olen ex-baarimikko. Kahdeksan vuotta kerkesin vääntää juhlakansalle valkovenäläisiä ja viskiä. On the rocks tai ihan straight up. Tykkäsin työstäni niin paljon että päätin kirjoittaa kauppakorkeakoulun maisterin lopputyöni (joka hyväksyttiin tänään) Suomalaisista yökerhoista. Ymmärrän että Suomen valtio haluaa vähentää alkoholinkulutusta alkoholin haittavaikutusten aiheuttamista kuluista ja kansan yleisen terveyden vuoksi. Mitä vähemmän viskiä Suomessa juodaan, sen parempi. Haluaisin kuitenkin muistuttaa sinua, rakas päättäjä, muutamista faktoista koskien suomalaisten viskinjuontia ja isosta pahasta sudesta joka on Suomen ravintola-ala. 1. Ravintola-ala on tärkeä osa Suomen taloutta ja yhteiskuntaa Haluaisin aloittaa muistuttamalla että ravintola-ala ja suomalaisten juhliminen ja viskinjuonti ei ainoastaan tuota valtiolle kuluja. Matkailu- ja ravintola-ala työllistää Suomessa 140 000 työntekijää. Tämä on enemmän kuin elintarviketeollisuus. Suuri osa työntekijöistä, noin 30 %, ovat nuoria. Mainittakoon myös että nämä työpaikat pysyvät Suomessa. Nyt ja tulevaisuudessa. Kuten tekevät myös verotulot. Veroista puheen ollen, matkailu- ja ravintola-ala tuo Suomen valtiolle 5,2 miljardia euroa vuodessa ja edustaa 3,8 % Suomen BKT:stä. Tähän päälle voidaan tietysti vielä lisätä työntekijöille maksetun palkan verotulot. Ja juomayhtiöt. Kaikki tämä on faktaa, ei keksittyä. Voit halutessasi tarkistaa numerot (uudistuneilta) Matkailu- ja Ravintolapalvelut MaRa Ry:n sivuilta. 2. Yksitoista prosenttia alkoholikulutuksesta tapahtuu ravintoloissa Viime vuonna ainoastaan 11 % Suomen alkoholikulutuksesta tapahtui ravintoloissa, loput kulutuksesta tapahtui muualla, kuten kotona ja puistoissa. Samaan aikaan kun ravintoloissa nautittu alkoholin osuus putoaa, tuonti sen kun kasvaa. Viime vuonna Suomeen tuotiin kaksi kertaa enemmän alkoholia, 22 %, kun mitä ravintoloissa nautittiin. Tämä Jutta Urpilaisista ja muista ”asiantuntijoista” huolimatta, jotka lupasivat että tuonti ei tule alkoholiveron noustessa lisääntymään. Nämäkin luvut löytyvät MaRa:n sivuilta. Mutta entäs se kaikista pahin viskin ja viinan juonti, eli se 02.00-04.00 hurja kulutus. Se juhliminen joka pitäisi Päivi Räsäsen mielestä kieltää. Siirrymme kolmanteen faktaan. 3. Noin kaksi prosenttia Suomen alkoholikulutuksesta tapahtuu aamu kahden ja neljän välillä. KAKSI PROSENTTIA! Yökerhot ylipäätänsä edustaa ainoastaan muutamaa prosenttia Suomen alkoholikulutuksesta. Tämä kaksi prosenttia työllistää kuitenkin lukemattoman määrän baarimestareita, plokkareita, ovimiehiä, DJtä, artistia ja siivoojaa. Lukuun ottamatta snägärit, taksikuskit ja, olin melkein unohtamassa, yrittäjät itse. 4. Ravintolassa tapahtuva viskin anniskelu on valvottua Kun Daniela Dokaaja lähtee kimalteleva tanttu päällä ja korkkarit jalassa ravintolaan juomaan viskiä, taphtuu se valvotussa tilassa. Se tarkoittaa että ravintolasssa tapahtuva viskin juonti on turvallisempaa kun Daniela Dokaajan himassa juoma viskipullo. Olisikin mukavaa jos sinä, rakas Suomen päättäjä, voisit hetkeksi pysähtyä ja miettiä mikä suomalaisten alkoholikulutukseen oikeesti vaikuttaa. Ravintolat ei nähtävästi ole se ongelma. Voisiko jopa olla niin, että kaikki nämä lait ja säädökset jotka estävät Koffin hevoset, räikeät aurinkovarjot, Kukon maamerkin omassa tehtaassa, Fifty-Sixty Matti juoman, Ron de Jeremy rommin, viskitislaamon nettisivut, yksityishenkilöiden blogikirjottamista jne eivät oikeastaan vaikuta suomalaisten alkoholikulutukseen? Haluaisin perustella tämän väitteen seuraavalla faktalla joka ei ole fakta vaan mielipide. 5. Suomalaiset eivät ole tyhmiä Tällä hetkellä Suomen alkoholilaki perustuu siihen, että suomalainen on tyhmä. Jos pullossa on Matti Nykäsen kuva niin mitä? Tuleeko minusta sillon neljän olympiakullan mäkihyppääjä? Jos pullon keulassa on Matin sijaan Ron Jeremy, tuleeko minusta silloin mies? Vai pornotähti? Seksiä ja alkoholia ei saa yhdistää, mutta miksi ei? Eikö seksiä voi harrastaa myös kännissä? Eikö moni lähde juuri se paljettitanttu päällään ravintolaan toivoen että löytäisi sieltä kumppanin? Tällä hetkellä Suomessa keskitytään tuotteisiin eikä siihen ongelmaan: suomalainen alkoholikulttuuri. Jos kulutusta halutaan vähentää tapahtuu se muokkaamalla kulttuuria, ei lakeja. Se tapahtuu valistamalla, ei pakottamalla. Alkoholi ei ole pahe. Maltillisesti nautittuna se tuottaa yhteiskuntaamme ravintoloita, työpaikkoja, verotuloja, hauskanpitoa ja sosiaalista kanssakäymistä Haluaisin elää yhteiskunnassa jossa viinalla ei pelotella lapsiamme, vaan valistamme heitä siitä. Yhteiskunnassa jossa kannustamme siirtämään kulutuksen ravintolaan, ei juomaan Viron viinoja himassa. Ja yhteiskunnassa jossa vähennämme kulutusta, mutta oikealla tavalla. Voisitko jo nyt, rakas päättäjä, lopettaa tämän loputtoman kieltämisen? Sen sijaan voisit miettiä miten saataisiin kulutusta vähennettyä siten, että se olisi jokaisen suomalaisen oma päätös. Ei sinun.
1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a motor drive apparatus which is, for example, used for driving an X-Y table of a monolithic wire bonder or a die bonder serving as one of IC manufacturing apparatus, and a method of controlling the same. 2. Description of the Related Art There is known a method of accurately stopping a motor at a target position, as disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Application No. 55-77384/1980. In this prior art, after the motor passes through the target position, an error extreme point is obtained in order to determine a current value to be supplied to the motor to correct the error. Then, a rectangular current is supplied to the motor so as to eliminate the error and stop the motor at the target position. Hereinafter, a background technology of the present invention will be explained. FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing one example of a motor drive apparatus controlling a typical three-phase synchronous motor. FIG. 11 is a detailed view showing a motor 1 of FIG. 10. FIG. 12 is a view showing inductive voltages of the motor 1 of FIG. 10. FIG. 13 is a view showing output signals from an encoder 2 shown in FIG. 10. FIG. 14 is a view showing an operation of a pulse converter 3 shown in FIG. 10. And, FIG. 15 is a detailed view showing a magnetic pole detector 4 of FIG. 10. In FIG. 10, a reference numeral 1 represents a three-phase synchronous motor equipped with 9 slots and 6 poles. More specifically, as shown in FIG. 11, this three-phase synchronous motor comprises a stator 5 and a rotor 6. The stator 5 is associated with three coils of U-phase 7, V-phase 8, and W-phase 9 windings. This motor 1 has nine slots 10 disposed on an inside surface of the stator 5 which are spaced at intervals of 40 degrees. These nine slots 10 are wound by the coil windings in the order of U-phase, V-phase, and W-phase repetitively so as to form a star connection. On the other hand, the rotor 6 has six permanent magnet poles 11 disposed on the outer circumferential surface thereof. An operational principle of the motor 1 will be explained below. The rotor 8 causes a magnetic field corresponding to its rotational position, which interacts with three, U-phase 7, V-phase 8, and W-phase 9, windings on the stator 5. Therefore, these three windings 7, 8, and 9 generate voltages due to Lorentz's force. Namely, three, U-phase 12, V-phase 13, and W-phase 14, inductive voltages of sine waveform are generated at intervals of 120 degrees as shown in FIG. 12 because a magnetic field to each winding is cyclically increased and decreased in response to spatial positioning of the permanent magnet 11 which cyclically approaches to and departs from each winding during one complete revolution of the rotor 6. If sine-wave currents being in-phase with these inductive voltages of FIG. 12 are supplied to the U-phase 7, V-phase 8, and W-phase 9 windings, respectively, the rotor 6 generates a torque in a clockwise (abbreviated as CW) direction due to Fleming's left-hand rule. The magnitude of the torque generated is proportional to an amplitude of the current supplied. Moreover, if the above currents are further multiplied with -1 and delayed 180 degrees in phase before being supplied to respective windings, the rotor 6 generates a torque in a counterclockwise (abbreviated as CCW) direction. In FIG. 10, a reference numeral 2 represents an optical encoder having three channels and installed on a rotor shaft of the motor 1. When the motor i rotates in the clockwise (CW) direction, the encoder 2 generates an A-phase signal 15 and a B-phase signal 18 having a mutual phase difference of 90 degrees therebetween as shown in FIG. 12, together with a Z-phase pulse signal 17 corresponding to one of zero-crossing 20 points of the U-phase inductive voltage 12. If the motor 1 rotates in the counterclockwise (CCW) direction, the phase relationship between the A-phase signal 15 and B-phase signal 16 are reversed. Therefore, the rotational direction of the motor 1 is easily judged by checking the phase relationship between the A-phase signal 15 and the B-phase signal 18. A reference numeral 3 represents a pulse converter connected to the encoder 2. This pulse converter 3 converts the A-phase and B-phase signals 15 and 18 into a CW pulse signal 18 as shown in FIG. 14 when the motor 1 rotates in the clockwise direction. On the contrary, this pulse converter 3 converts the A-phase and B-phase signals 15 and 16 into a CCW pulse signal 19 as shown in FIG. 14 when the motor 1 rotates in the counterclockwise direction. A reference numeral 4 represents a magnetic pole detector comprising a counter 20, a U-phase current phase command table 21, and a W-phase current phase command table 22. As shown in FIG. 15, the counter 20 receives the signals fed from the pulse converter 3 so as to effect its count-up and count-down operations in response to the CW pulse 18 and the CCW pulse 19, respectively. Furthermore, the counter 20 is connected to the encoder 2 so as to effect its clear operation in response to the Z-phase signal 17. The U-phase current phase command table 21 memorizes the phase of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 with respect to the Z-phase signal 17 of the encoder 2. The W-phase current phase command table 22 memorizes the phase of the W-phase inductive voltage 14 with respect to the Z-phase signal 17. An operation of the magnetic pole detector 4 will be explained below. The counter 20 is cleared at the zero-cross point of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 in response to the Z-phase signal 17 fed from the encoder 2. When the motor 1 rotates, a rotational displacement or shift amount from the above zero-cross point of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 is counted by the counter 20. The counted value becomes a pointer 23 of the U-phase current phase command table 21 for outputting a phase value of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 corresponding to the present rotational position of the motor 1. In the same manner, the counted value of the counter 20 becomes a pointer 23 of the W-phase current phase command table 22 for outputting a phase value of the W-phase inductive voltage 14 corresponding to the present rotational position of the motor 1. The magnetic pole detector 4 is connected to two multipliers 24U, 24W so that the phase values of the U-phase and W-phase inductive voltages 12 and 14 can be multiplied with an output of a speed control calculator 25. The speed control calculator 25 outputs a torque command value, i.e. a current amplitude command value. The multipliers 24U, 24W, therefore, multiply the current amplitude command value with the U-phase and W-phase current phase command values. The resultant two outputs from respective multipliers 24U, 24W are, then, fed to two D/A converters 28U, 28W so as to generate U-phase and W-phase current commands, respectively. These U-phase and W-phase current commands are, subsequently, fed to current amplifiers 27U, 27W in which drive currents to be supplied to the U-phase winding 7 and the W-phase winding 9 are generated in response to the U-phase and W-phase current commands, respectively. The U-phase winding 7, the V-phase winding 8, and the W-phase winding 9 are connected with each other so as to constitute a star connection; therefore, the sum of currents flowing through these three-phase windings 7, 8, and 9 becomes 0. A current command for the V-phase winding 8 is, accordingly, identical with -(U-phase current command +W-phase current command). A subtracter 28 is therefore provided to obtain a V-phase current command equal to -(U-phase current command +W-phase current command). Thus obtained V-phase current command is, thereafter, fed to another current amplifier 27V in which a drive current to be supplied to the V-phase winding 8 is generated in response to the V-phase current command. A reference numeral 29 represents a speed detector connected to the pulse converter 3. This speed detector 29 detects the speed of the motor 1 by counting the number of pulses generated during a time measured by a timer 38 when the motor 1 rotates at a high speed and measuring an interval between successive pulses generated when the motor 1 rotates at a low speed. Reference numerals 31 and 32 represent a positive-direction position command pulse and a negative-direction position command pulse, respectively, fed from an external device. Reference numerals 33 and 34 represent subtracters. A reference numeral 35 represents a positional deviation reading sampler which is open-or-close controlled at predetermined intervals in response to an output signal from a timer 37. A reference numeral 38 represents a speed deviation reading sampler which is open-or-close controlled at predetermined intervals in response to an output signal from the timer 38. If these samplers 35 and 38 are closed, the speed control calculator 25, the magnetic pole detector 4, the multipliers 24U, 24W, and the D/A converters 28U, 28W are activated to renew the current commands to be supplied to the current amplifiers 27U, 27W. The subtracter 34, constituted by an up-down counter, is counted up in response to the positive-direction position command pulse S1 and is counted down in response to the negative-direction position command pulse 32. The subtracter 34 is further counted down in response to the CW pulse 18 fed from the pulse converter S and is counted up in response to the CCW pulse 19. The subtracter 34 calculates a positional deviation through these count-up and count-down operations. A reference numeral 39 represents a position control calculator which amplifies the positional deviation obtained. The speed control calculator 25 amplifies a value supplied from the speed deviation reading sampler 38 to obtain a torque command, i.e. a current amplitude command. An operation of the above-described motor drive apparatus will be explained below. First of all, the subtracter 34, constituted by an up-down counter, is counted up in response to the positive-direction position command pulse 31 and counted down in response to the negative-direction position command pulse 32, and is further counted down in response to the CW pulse 18 fed from the pulse converter 3 and counted up in response to the CCW pulse 19, in order to obtain the positional deviation. Furthermore, the position control calculator 39 inputs the positional deviation through the positional deviation reading sampler 35 being open-or-close controlled by the timer 37. The position control calculator 39 amplitudes this positional deviation and outputs a speed command so as to reduce the positional deviation. Next, the subtracter 33 subtracts this speed command by a feedback speed obtained from the speed detector 29 to generate a speed deviation. The speed control calculator 25 inputs the speed deviation through the speed deviation reading sampler 36 being-open-or-close controlled by the timer 38. The speed control calculator 25 amplitudes this speed deviation and generates a torque command, i.e. a current amplitude command. On the other hand, when the motor 1 rotates in the clockwise (CW) direction, the encoder 2 generates the A-phase signal 15 and the B-phase signal 16 having a mutual phase difference of 90 degrees therebetween as shown in FIG. 12, together with the Z-phase pulse signal 17 corresponding to one of zero-crossing points of the U-phase inductive voltage 12. This A-phase signal 15 and B-phase signal 16 are, then, inputted into the pulse converter 3. These A-phase signal 15 and B-phase signal 16 are converted into the CW pulse 18 when the motor 1 rotates in the clockwise (CW) direction, and are converted into the CCW pulse 19 when the motor 1 rotates in the counterclockwise (CCW) direction. Next, the CW pulse signal 18 and the CCW pulse signal 19 outputted from the pulse converter 3, and the Z-phase signal 17 outputted from the encoder 2 are supplied to the magnetic pole detector 4. The counter 20 shown in FIG. 15 is counted up by the CW pulse signal 18 and counted down by the CCW pulse signal 19. Furthermore, the counter 20 is cleared by the Z-phase signal 17 fed from the encoder 2 to be 0. Namely, an arrival of the designated zero-cross point of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 is known by checking the Z-phase signal 17. And, a displacement or shift amount of the motor 1 from the designated zero-cross point of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 is known from the count value of the counter 20. The count value of the counter 20 becomes the pointer 23 of the U-phase current phase command table 21 for outputting the phase value of the U-phase inductive voltage 12 corresponding to the present rotational position of the motor 1. Moreover, the count value of the counter 20 becomes the pointer 23 of the W-phase current phase command table 22 for outputting the phase value of the W-phase inductive voltage 14 corresponding to the present rotational position of the motor 1. In the multipliers 24U, 24W, the phase values of the U-phase and W-phase inductive voltages 12 and 14 are multiplied with the torque command outputted from the speed control calculator 25. Namely, the multipliers 24U, 24W multiply the current amplitude command value with the U-phase and W-phase current phase command values, respectively. The resultant two outputs from respective multipliers 24U, 24W are, then, fed to two D/A converters 26U, 26W so as to generate U-phase and W-phase current commands, respectively. These U-phase and W-phase current commands are, subsequently, fed to current amplifiers 27U, 27W in which the drive currents to be supplied to the U-phase winding 7 and the W-phase winding 9 are generated in response to the U-phase and W-phase current commands, respectively. On the other hand, the subtracter 28 obtains the current command for the V-phase winding 8 by calculating the value identical with -(U-phase current command +W-phase current command). Thus obtained V-phase current command is, thereafter, fed to the current amplifier 27V in which the drive current to be supplied to the V-phase winding 8 is generated in response to the V-phase current command. If the torque command is a positive value, the motor 1 generates a torque in the clockwise (CW) direction. On the contrary, if the torque command is a negative value, the motor 1 generates a torque in the counterclockwise (CCW) direction because the multipliers 24U and 24W generate U-phase and W-phase current commands having 180-degree phase difference with respect to respective U-phase and W-phase current phase commands. Thus, the speed deviation is decreased. In accordance with the reduction of the speed deviation, the positional deviation becomes small. FIG. 9(A) shows a sampling interval of the speed deviation reading sampler 36 applied to both moving and stationary conditions of the motor 1. FIG. 9(B) shows a sampling interval of the positional deviation reading sampler 35 applied to both moving and stationary conditions of the motor 1. When the motor 1 is in a moving condition, in order to stabilize the motor drive operation by the above-described motor drive apparatus, the speed control must be performed by using three times or more sampling with respect to the calculated speed command as shown in FIG. 9. The reason why three times or more sampling are required when the motor 1 is in a moving condition is as follows. If the speed command sampling interval is identical with the control sampling interval in the speed control operation, the motor 1 will not be able to sufficiently follow up the speed command because, even if the speed of the motor 1 is controlled to coincide with the speed command value, the speed command value itself may vary at the next coming control sampling timing. Thus, the speed of the motor 1 cannot be stabilized. Especially, as the positional command varies widely when the motor 1 is in a moving condition, the speed command will correspondingly cause wide variation. Hence, three times or more sampling are required for allowing the motor 1 to follow up the speed command. For this reason, the speed of the timer 37 is set 1/3 or less compared with that of the timer 38. In accordance with the above motor drive apparatus, the sampling interval of the positional deviation reading sampler 35 will be sufficiently extended or elongated so as to stabilize the motor speed control during the moving condition of the motor. However, when the motor 1 is in a stationary condition, the sampling interval of the positional deviation reading sampler 35 will be too long to accurately detect a small positional deviation if this small positional deviation varies at a period smaller than that of the positional deviation reading sampler 35. Consequently, there is a problem that the positioning control cannot be accurately and responsively performed when the motor is in a stationary condition.
Creating Artwork Artwork for Digital Transfers Cad-Printz™ Digital Transfers are created using a digital process.We can accept vector or bitmap files. For best results, please read the following specifications. CAD-PRINTZ™ Custom Transfer created from full color artwork. Raster Artwork Guidelines Images should be created and saved at a resolution of at least 150 dpi at actual size. Internet images are not recommended, they are usually 72 dpi which will result in poor print quality. Any color changes or modifications to a bitmap require to be vectorized which will include an art setup fee. Vector Artwork Guidelines Vector artwork is encouraged because it allows for easier modifications and color changes. We recommend selecting colors from the Stahls' CAD-PRINTZ™ color pallet. Specifying Pantone color is also accepted, however not every Pantone can be simulated. Color Guidelines Our digital designs are printed using a four color process (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) to simulate color. Due to the limitations of this process, color matching is difficult and oftentimes not possible, however, Stahls' color management system allows us to target and print colors with increased accuracy.
Utah lawmakers got some good news on Thursday as their latest revenue estimates for the current legislative session were updated to show an additional $238 million in state coffers. The new figures bring the state’s total surplus to $921 million, but the bulk of that money comes from income tax collections and is constitutionally walled off for spending only on public and higher education. Hurricane Republican Rep. Brad Last presented the new numbers to his colleagues on the House floor, saying that the state’s economy continues to perform but that revenue coming from sales taxes — used to fund general government operations, from Medicaid to prisons — aren’t keeping up with needs. “We have 10 times more [surplus] money in the Education Fund than we have in the General Fund,” Last, budget committee co-chairman, said. Despite the nearly $1 billion overall surplus, the revenue estimates show the state running a $12 million deficit in one-time general fund revenue, suggesting that some portion of the $92 million in ongoing general fund money available to lawmakers will be needed to close that hole. That, or spending cuts. Sen. Jerry Stevenson, co-chairman of the Legislature’s main budget committee, told his colleagues that basic funding requests for general fund dollars far exceed what’s available. “The next three weeks will be longer than three weeks,” he predicted to reporters. “There will be a lot of asks that committees have listened to that will probably go by the wayside.” Lawmakers began the 2020 session by repealing a controversial tax reform package that was intended to partially address the “structural imbalance” between the Education and General funds. That legislation would have cut taxes overall by reducing the income tax rate and raising sales taxes, but led to significant pushback from the public. The tax package, passed in special session in December, was expected to be followed this year by legislation amending the state Constitution to allow income tax spending on noneducation programs, as well as new proposals for how to ensure funding for the state’s schools. But four weeks into the Legislature’s work, those efforts have so far failed to materialize. Still, the figures released Thursday reserve $80 million in education funds for any tax relief the Legislature decides to provide for the upcoming year. Senate leaders have been hesitant to support any piecemeal tax cuts and prefer a holistic look at tax reform, even if these comprehensive changes must wait for a future session. Until then, Stevenson, R-Layton, said the lopsided revenue streams will continue to plague lawmakers during the budgeting process. “We’re not in a crisis. We’ll be able to work through this,” he said. “But every year, this will continue to cause problems until we get to some kind of a tax reform package.” But House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, has suggested he’s more supportive of short-term tax relief than his Senate counterparts. He said Thursday that it’s too early to say what could pass the Legislature, but that there is room on the income tax side to return money to taxpayers. “Those conversations next week will be [about] what kind of tax cut, when will it occur, and how much will it be,” he said. Meanwhile, on Thursday, a broad coalition of advocates gathered on the Capitol steps to discourage lawmakers from tax cuts and ask them to invest any available money in education, air quality, affordable housing and services for individuals with disabilities. The state’s overall tax burden is already at its lowest point in about 25 years, noted Matthew Weinstein of Voices for Utah Children, referencing a recent Utah Foundation report. The 15 advocacy groups represented at the news conference sought to share a vision of the bright future that was possible for the state “if our leaders can resist the election-year temptation to cut taxes and if we can make the critically needed investments that’ll pay off many times over in the future,” Weinstein said. On Tuesday, the Public Education Appropriations Committee adopted its budget recommendations, calling for roughly $450 million in new money for schools, including a 4 percent increase to per-student spending. That figure does not include new spending recommendations for higher education, which would also be derived from income tax collections, or money that would be reserved in the state’s rainy day fund. Some lawmakers have suggested that in place of a tax cut, a greater portion of the state’s surplus could be held in reserve this year to protect against a potential economic downturn. And Wilson said spending constraints could be beneficial as lawmakers prioritize government programs and look ahead to a new round of tax reform negotiations next year. “Us taking a year like this and spending less is not necessarily a bad thing,” Wilson said. “We can take a year and try to regroup and be very, very conservative.” Heidi Matthews, president of the Utah Education Association, said the new revenue figures show there is an opportunity for a significant boost to public education. The UEA and other education groups have called for a 6% increase in per-student spending, which Matthews said would ensure schools have funding left over for new initiatives after covering inflationary costs. “It’s time to build futures and not give tax cuts,” Matthews said. “Our students are really counting on us to make those necessary investments, and the time is right."
Q: Using "plot for" in gnuplot to vary parameters I want to use the plot for feature in gnuplot to plot functions with varying parameters. Here an example par = "1 2" #two values for the parameter f(x,a) = sin(ax) g(x,a) = cos(ax) plot for [i=1:words(par)] g(x, word(par,i)), f(x, word(par,i)) What I expect is the plotting of the four functions g(x,1), g(x,2, f(x,1), and f(x,2). But for whatever reason only three functions are plotted, namely: g(x,1), g(x,2, and f(x,2). This seems completely arbitrary to me. Can someone help me out? A: You have to repeat the for condition: plot for [i=1:words(par)] g(x, word(par,i)), for [i=1:words(par)] f(x, word(par,i))
AGGRESCAN: method, application, and perspectives for drug design. Protein aggregation underlies the development of an increasing number of conformational human diseases of growing incidence, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Furthermore, the accumulation of recombinant proteins as intracellular aggregates represents a critical obstacle for the biotechnological production of polypeptides. Also, ordered protein aggregates constitute novel and versatile nanobiomaterials. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in the development of methods able to forecast the aggregation properties of polypeptides in order to modulate their intrinsic solubility. In this context, we have developed AGGRESCAN, a simple and fast algorithm that predicts aggregation-prone segments in protein sequences, compares the aggregation properties of different proteins or protein sets and analyses the effect of mutations on protein aggregation propensities.
Våt Moro The water sport festival" Våt moro" is arranged in Florø every year the second weekend in July. You can join in on a number of activities this weekend. The festival aims at getting people out to have fun and enjoy nature based activities in the area both on land and in the sea all year around. The activities range from a children's waterfunpark, to a youth extreme group, to more than 20 different activities for adults. Some of the activities you can do are hoover board, fly board, kayak, water-ski, SUP, hiking, cruises, sea rafting, river rafting, surfing, wakeboard, yoga, windsurfing, sailing and more. In the evening you can join in on the "Aftersea" in the festival tent where we have fun with quiz, live music and DJ – the perfect end to an active day outside. Cookies are used for measurement, ads and optimization. By continuing to use our site you agree to ourCookies are used for measurement, ads and optimization. By continuing to use our site you agree to ourprivacy and security policy.
Starting this spring, five corporate giants — Anthem, Cigna, CVS Health, Humana and UnitedHealth Group — will control health insurance and pharmacy benefits for more than 125 million Americans. Why it matters: Most of this happened through rapid consolidation, and now the pressure is on these companies to prove they can better control both medical and drug spending with everything under the same roof. Driving the news: Anthem has been working for over a year to create its own pharmacy benefit manager, called IngenioRx, so it could sever ties with Express Scripts. Anthem's new prescription drug negotiator is now ready to go live by March, 10 months ahead of schedule, the company said Wednesday. This is the new landscape. These 5 companies will handle both drug and medical bills for millions of people across Medicare, Medicaid and employer-based insurance. UnitedHealth Group is the largest entity combining health insurance and pharmacy benefits, with UnitedHealthcare and OptumRx (a PBM that got significantly bigger after it absorbed Catamaran in 2015). CVS acquired Aetna to pair with its existing PBM, Caremark. Cigna now owns Express Scripts. Anthem will be moving millions of people onto IngenioRx this year. Humana also has its own PBM, and it's the fourth-largest by prescription volume. It's worth noting that several Blue Cross Blue Shield companies also own a PBM, Prime Therapeutics. What they're saying: PBMs "don't need to be independent entities with their own profit margins ... that adds costs," former Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said in 2017. Some research says combining health care services and prescriptions under one benefit (not necessarily one common owner) could save money, if the insurer helps people manage their diseases. But insurers and PBMs have lived under the same roof before, and these companies have been doing the same work while U.S. health care spending has continued to rise. Reality check: These companies would not have pursued merging medical and drug plan offerings if they didn't think there was a lot of money to retain.
Critical tests of the anthelmintic febantel in the horse: activity of a paste formulation alone or with a trichlorfon paste. Critical tests were carried out in 10 horses to evaluate the antiparasitic activity of febantel given alone or with trichlorfon. Paste formulations were administered intraorally at dose levels of 6 mg of febantel (active ingredient)/kg and 35 mg of trichlorfon (active ingredient)/kg. In 5 tests with febantel alone, removal of 100% was recorded for mature or immature Parascaris equorum from 2 infected horses. Strongylus vulgaris from 4 infected horses, S edentatus from 5 infected horses, and mature Oxyuris equi from 1 infected horse; and removal of 96% was recorded for small strogyles from 1 horse tested, and bots in 5 infected horses were not affected. In 5 horses treated with both compounds, removal of 100% was recorded for mature P equorum from 2 infected horses, immature P equorum from 1 infected horse, S vulgaris from 5 infected horses, Sedentatus from 5 infected horses, mature O equi from 2 infected horses, immature O equi from 1 horse tested, 2nd Gasterophilus intestin-equi from 1 infected horse, 2nd-instar C nasalis from 1 infected horse, and 3rd-instar C nasalis from 4 infected horses. Removal of 98% was recorded for small strongyles from 1 horse tested, and removal of 65% to 100% for 3rd-instar C intestinalis from 5 infected horses. In the aggregate, removal of 3rd-instar C intestinalis was 99%. Untoward effects of treatment were quite limited. Only a transient softening of feces in 1 of 5 horses given the trichlorfon paste plus the febantel paste was recorded.
The pursuit of precision pharmaceuticals: divergent effects of beta2 agonist isomers. Beta2 agonists are the most commonly used treatment for acute bronchoconstriction. However, during regular use there is a progressive decline of protective efficacy of bronchodilators. This progressive decline has long been considered anomalous because with short-acting beta agonists, there is no corresponding change in bronchodilator efficacy. Airway hyper-responsiveness is itself a feature of asthma and there maybe however, there may be an increase in airway hyper-responsiveness following regular use of beta2 agonist. Airway hyperresponsiveness could diminish the capacity of beta agonists to protect from or result in paradoxical bronchospasm and there effects of racemic salbutamol. There have been reports of increased morbidity and mortality associated with excessive use of beta(2) agonists. As all beta agonists used clinically are racemates composed of 1:1 mixtures of R and S isomers, conducted on the possible involvement of the isomers in hyper-responsiveness. Hyper-responsiveness cannot be attributed to the R isomer, whose capacity to activate beta adrenoceptors will nullify this effect. In contrast, extensive evidence indicated that the S isomer might cause hyper-responsiveness and potential airway inflammation. Further, the S isomer shows a propensity to activate human eosinophils and alter muscarinic M(2) receptor functions. The S isomer, which makes no contribution to therapeutic efficacy and may exacerbate asthma, might therefore be excluded from asthma therapy.
Purchase either a combined Buildings & Contents Home Insurance policy, or separate Buildings or Contents Home Insurance Policy online at Littlewoods.com between 1st and 31st August 2017 to qualify for a free Amazon Echo Dot. New Littlewoods Home Insurance customers only. Provided your policy is still active and your premiums are up to date, we'll email you 4 weeks post-purchase to explain how you claim your free Amazon Echo Dot. If you return your item due to a fault, where possible, a replacement item will be provided. Own it! this summerwith £20 back! 1 - Spend £50 or more in one order before 30.06.172 - Enter code LAMJA at checkout3 - £20 will be credited to your original method of payment - simple! Offer excludes sale items, Apple products, Financial Services products and delivery/installation charges. Valid for one use only, this code cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer code.If you return items from your order, the credit will be reversed if the order value falls below the minimum required. Sat Navs at Littlewoods Make finding your way around easy with a sat nav from our fab range at Littlewoods. We’ve got a great selection of top brands like Garmin, TomTom and Kenwood, so there’ll be no chance of getting lost. Take a look at essential features to make journeys that little bit easier, like local area guides highlighting points of interest and useful info like the nearest petrol station or hotel. Choose from state-of-the-art designs with 3D map formats, or pick a bird’s-eye view. And we have accessories too, including travel cases for safe and stylish storage. In-car Entertainment Range If you like listening to music while you’re driving, have a look at our in-car entertainment range. Choose from a wide selection of multi-functional products with high-quality sound and easy-to-use controls. We've got state-of-the-art touch screen options with high-res graphics, and you can stream music with AppRadio Mode, CarPlay or via Bluetooth technology. If you prefer to play songs from your phone, opt for a USB connection, and sing along to those classic road-trip tunes. And if you’re all about that bass then check out our subwoofers for an immersive experience. Picking the Right Sat Nav If international travel is on your agenda, pick one of our sat navs with road maps for up to 152 different countries and get ready to explore. Keep up to date on recent road changes with a sat nav that comes with a lifetime supply of maps, meaning you'll always have access to the quickest routes available. For all the latest info and live traffic updates, choose a model with a data plan and SIM – they're particularly useful if you take a busy commuter route. We’ve got styles with handy reverse cameras too, for those who want a little extra help parking. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows you to delay payment for 12 months. The payment free period starts when you place your order (including items which are purchased on pre-order and/or are not ready for immediate dispatch). Select BNPL at checkout and the repayment period of either 104 or 156 weeks. This is the repayment period you will pay over, once the payment free period (12 months) has ended. The interest rate typically used to calculate BNPL interest is 44.9% per annum. Your interest rate will be detailed in checkout. The interest is calculated on the payment free period and the repayment period. You can avoid interest by paying the cash price in full within the payment free period. Delivery charges and other Financial Services products are not available on Buy Now Pay Later and will appear on your next statement. Please note, if you have non BNPL purchases on your account you will still need to make at least your minimum payment as detailed on your statement. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows you to delay payment for 12 months. The payment free period starts when you place your order (including items which are purchased on pre-order and/or are not ready for immediate dispatch). Select BNPL at checkout and the repayment period of either 104 or 156 weeks. This is the repayment period you will pay over, once the payment free period (12 months) has ended. The interest rate typically used to calculate BNPL interest is 44.9% per annum. Your interest rate will be detailed in checkout. The interest is calculated on the payment free period and the repayment period. You can avoid interest by paying the cash price in full within the payment free period. Delivery charges and other Financial Services products are not available on Buy Now Pay Later and will appear on your next statement. Please note, if you have non BNPL purchases on your account you will still need to make at least your minimum payment as detailed on your statement. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) allows you to delay payment for 12 months. The payment free period starts when you place your order (including items which are purchased on pre-order and/or are not ready for immediate dispatch). Select BNPL at checkout and the repayment period of either 104 or 156 weeks. This is the repayment period you will pay over, once the payment free period (12 months) has ended. Your interest rate will be detailed in checkout. The interest is calculated on the payment free period and the repayment period. You can avoid interest by paying the cash price in full within the payment free period. Delivery charges and other Financial Services products are not available on Buy Now Pay Later and will appear on your next statement. Please note, if you have non BNPL purchases on your account you will still need to make at least your minimum payment as detailed on your statement.
Willie Nelson Tickets Sell Out Posted: Sat 9:04 PM, Feb 07, 2004&nbsp\|&nbsp Updated: Sat 9:17 PM, Feb 07, 2004 02-07-04-- Willie Nelson fans in Texoma made history in Ardmore Saturday! Many waited in line all night for the " Highway-man's" March concert and tickets sold out in just two hours, making it the first sell-out concert in Ardmore history. Fans started lining up last night and at one point, the long was so long, it actually wrapped around the building.1,900 tickets sold in the first hour alone as many people bought the limit of ten tickets at a time. Many of the fans made a $5 donation, which makes them eligible to win an autographed guitar signed by Willie.For those lucky enough to get tickets, the concert is scheduled for March 24th. Doors open at 6:30pm. Online Public Information File Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or fccinfo@fcc.gov.
With a week-and-a-half to go until the Iowa caucuses, former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson says she’s supporting tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang in the contest that kicks off the presidential nominating calendar. "I'm lending my support to Andrew in Iowa, hopefully to help him get past the early primaries & remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. We need that this year. We need to lighten up on a personal level, because the moment is so serious on a political level," Williamson announced in a series of Instagram posts. But the best-selling spiritual author made it clear that she’s not officially “endorsing anyone” in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race at this time and is just supporting Yang through Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucuses. "I am not endorsing anyone at this time. I support all the progressive candidates," she emphasized in a statement to Fox News. Williamson went on to say that she will appear with Yang in the first caucus state "because I know the institutional obstructions to his candidacy and I want to see him continue in the race past Iowa." On Instagram, she also touted Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts – saying that she admires both of the progressive standard-bearers in the nomination race. But she said that unlike Yang, “right now they don’t need my help.” WILLIAMSON DROPS OUT OF DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL RACE But she highlighted that "Andrew’s personality is like a tuning fork realigning us with something we need to retrieve, taking us back to a more innocent time, making us remember to chuckle." Yang took to Twitter to thank Williamson, writing that he has “learned a lot from Marianne and continue to do so. She answers questions that many of us haven’t even thought to ask. Very grateful for her friendship and support in this important time.” Yang, once the longest of longs-shots for the nomination, soared to middle-tier status last year in the polls and in campaign fundraising, thanks in part to his push for a universal basic income that would pay all adult Americans $1,000 per month. Williamson, who faced an extreme uphill climb to win the nomination, preached the politics of love and proposed creating a Department of Peace. She dropped her bid for the White House earlier this month.
Q: Improving the performance of a webscraper I have here a modified version of a web scraping code I wrote some weeks back. With some help from this forum, this modified version is faster (at 4secs per iteration) than the earlier version. However, I need to run many iterations (over 1million) which is so much time. Is there any way to further enhance its performance? Thank you. sample data (data.csv) Code Origin 1 Eisenstadt 2 Tirana 3 St Pölten Hbf 6 Wien Westbahnhof 7 Wien Hauptbahnhof 8 Klagenfurt Hbf 9 Villach Hbf 11 Graz Hbf 12 Liezen Code: import csv from functools import wraps from datetime import datetime, time import urllib2 from mechanize import Browser from bs4 import BeautifulSoup, SoupStrainer # function to group elements of a list def group(lst, n): return zip([lst[i::n] for i in range(n)]) # function to convert time string to minutes def get_min(time_str): h, m = time_str.split(':') return int(h) 60 + int(m) # Delay function incase of network disconnection def retry(ExceptionToCheck, tries=1000, delay=3, backoff=2, logger=None): def deco_retry(f): @wraps(f) def f_retry(args, kwargs): mtries, mdelay = tries, delay while mtries > 1: try: return f(args, *kwargs) except ExceptionToCheck, e: msg = "%s, Retrying in %d seconds..." % (str(e), mdelay) if logger: logger.warning(msg) else: print msg time.sleep(mdelay) mtries -= 1 mdelay = backoff return f(args, *kwargs) return f_retry # true decorator return deco_retry def datareader(datafile): """ This function reads the cities data from csv file and processes them into an O-D for input into the web scrapper """ # Read the csv with open(datafile, 'r') as f: reader = csv.reader(f) next(reader, None) ListOfCities = [lines for lines in reader] temp = ListOfCities[:] city_num = [] city_orig_dest = [] for i in ListOfCities: for j in temp: ans1 = i[0], j[0] if ans1[0] != ans1[1]: city_num.append(ans1) ans = (unicode(i[1], 'iso-8859-1'), unicode(j[1], 'iso-8859-1'), i[0], j[0]) if ans[0] != ans[1] and ans[2] != ans[3]: city_orig_dest.append(ans) yield city_orig_dest input_data = datareader('data.csv') def webscrapper(x): """ This function scraped the required website and extracts the quickest connection time within given time durations """ #Create a browser object br = Browser() # Ignore robots.txt br.set_handle_robots(False) # Google demands a user-agent that isn't a robot br.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Chrome')] @retry(urllib2.URLError, tries=1000, delay=3, backoff=2) def urlopen_with_retry(): try: # Retrieve the website, return br.open('http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en') except urllib2.HTTPError, e: print e.code except urllib2.URLError, e: print e.args # call the retry function urlopen_with_retry() # Select the 6th form on the webpage br.select_form(nr=6) # Assign origin and destination to the o d variables o = i[0].encode('iso-8859-1') d = i[1].encode('iso-8859-1') print 'o-d:', i[0], i[1] # Enter the text input (This section should be automated to read multiple text input as shown in the question) br.form["REQ0JourneyStopsS0G"] = o # Origin train station (From) br.form["REQ0JourneyStopsZ0G"] = d # Destination train station (To) br.form["REQ0JourneyTime"] = x # Search Time br.form["date"] = '10.05.17' # Search Date # Get the search results br.submit() connections_times = [] ListOfSearchTimes = [] #Click the LATER link a given number of times times to get MORE trip times for _ in xrange(3): # Read the result of each click and convert to response for beautiful soup formatting for l in br.links(text='Later'): response = br.follow_link(l) # get the response from mechanize Browser parse_only = SoupStrainer("table", class_="hfs_overview") soup = BeautifulSoup(br.response(), 'lxml', from_encoding="utf-8", parse_only=parse_only) trs = soup.select('tr') # Scrape the search results from the resulting table for tr in trs: locations = tr.select('td.location') if locations: time = tr.select('td.time')[0].contents[0].strip() ListOfSearchTimes.append(time.encode('latin-1')) durations = tr.select('td.duration') # Check that the duration cell is not empty if not durations: duration = '' else: duration = durations[0].contents[0].strip() # Convert duration time string to minutes connections_times.append(get_min(duration)) arrivals_and_departure_pair = group(ListOfSearchTimes, 2) #Check that the selected departures for one interval occurs before the departure of the next interval fmt = '%H:%M' finalDepartureList = [] for idx, res in arrivals_and_departure_pair: t1 = datetime.strptime(idx, fmt) if x == '05:30': control = datetime.strptime('09:00', fmt) elif x == '09:00': control = datetime.strptime('12:00', fmt) elif x == '12:00': control = datetime.strptime('15:00', fmt) elif x == '15:00': control = datetime.strptime('18:00', fmt) elif x == '18:00': control = datetime.strptime('21:00', fmt) else: x == '21:00' control = datetime.strptime('05:30', fmt) if t1 < control: finalDepartureList.append(idx) # Get the the list of connection times for the departures above fastest_connect = connections_times[:len(finalDepartureList)] # Return the result of the search if not fastest_connect: return [i[2], i[3], NO_CONNECTION] else: return [i[2], i[3], str(min(fastest_connect))] NO_CONNECTION = '999999' # List of time intervals times = ['05:30', '09:00', '12:00', '15:00', '18:00', '21:00'] # Write the heading of the output text file headings = ["from_BAKCode", "to_BAKCode", "interval", "duration"] with open("output.txt", "w+") as f: f.write(','.join(headings)) f.write('\n') if __name__ == "__main__": for ind, i in enumerate(input_data.next()): print 'index', ind for ind, t in enumerate(times): result = webscrapper(t) result.insert(2, str(ind + 1)) print 'result:', result print with open("output.txt", "a") as f: f.write(','.join(result[0:4])) f.write('\n') A: There is a major limitation. Your code is of a blocking nature - you process timetable searches sequentially - one at a time. I really think you should switch to Scrapy web-scraping framework - it is fast, pluggable and entirely asynchronous. As a bonus point, you will be able to scale your spider to multiple instances or multiple machines. For example, you may divide your input data evenly into N parts and run a spider instance for every part (check out scrapyd). Here is a sample spider that works for a single timetable search: import scrapy TIMES = ['05:30', '09:00', '12:00', '15:00', '18:00', '21:00'] DEFAULT_PARAMS = { "changeQueryInputData=yes&start": "Search connection", "REQ0Total_KissRideMotorClass": "404", "REQ0Total_KissRideCarClass": "5", "REQ0Total_KissRide_maxDist": "10000000", "REQ0Total_KissRide_minDist": "0", "REQComparisonCarload": "0", "REQ0JourneyStopsS0A": "255", "REQ0JourneyStopsZ0A": "255", "REQ0JourneyStops1.0G": "", "REQ0JourneyStops1.0A": "1", "REQ0JourneyStopover1": "" } def merge_two_dicts(x, y): """Given two dicts, merge them into a new dict as a shallow copy.""" z = x.copy() z.update(y) return z class FahrplanSpider(scrapy.Spider): name = "fahrplan" allowed_domains = ["fahrplan.sbb.ch"] def start_requests(self): params = { "REQ0JourneyStopsS0G": "Eisenstadt", "REQ0JourneyStopsZ0G": "Tirano, Stazione", "date": "27.02.17", "REQ0JourneyTime": "17:00" } formdata = merge_two_dicts(DEFAULT_PARAMS, params) yield scrapy.FormRequest("http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en", method="POST", formdata=formdata) def parse(self, response): for trip_time in response.css("table.hfs_overview tr td.time::text").extract(): print(trip_time.strip()) If you want to take it further, you should do the following: use the datareader() results in the start_requests() method and start a form request for every input item define an Item class and yield/return it in the parse() callback use an "Item Pipeline" to "pipe" your items into the output file I understand that there is a lot of new information for you, but doing web-scraping for a long time, I can say that's really worth it, especially performance-wise.
Q: Woocommerce show product I am a little confused as to that the issue is here, I am trying to pick out a specific product by doing this: <?php ini_set('max_execution_time', 0); //I saw maximum execution time error on your image - this is for that $args = array( 'post_status' => 'publish', 'post_type' => 'product', 'meta_value' => 'yes', 'posts_per_page' => 10, 'product_cat' => 'grammar' ); $product_query = new WP_Query( $args ); ?> <?php while ( $product_query->have_posts() ) : $product_query->the_post(); global $product; ?> <?php the_title(); ?> <?php echo apply_filters( 'woocommerce_short_description', $product->post->post_excerpt ); ?> <?php endwhile; ?> But nothing is being produced. So I am creating a product under the relevant category and placing content into the description in both main and product short description but still nothing shows? A: The error is probably 'meta_value' => 'yes',. You need to specify a meta_key as well. $args = array( 'post_status' => 'publish', 'post_type' => 'product', 'meta_key' => 'my_meta_key', 'meta_value' => 'yes', 'posts_per_page' => 10, 'product_cat' => 'grammar' ); I have no idea what the meta key should be so change my_meta_key into what you want. Also make sure that the the value for product_cat is correct. It should be the slug of the category.
The College of Law and the American Bar Association (ABA) held a panel discussion entitled “The Pathway to Becoming a Judge" on December 1 for the college's women students. Guest speakers were Judge Sheikha Maha Monsour Salman Jassem Al-Thani, one of only two women judges in Qatar, and Judge Fatema Faisal Hubail of the Major Civil Court of Bahrain and the third woman appointed to the judiciary in that country. Judge Maha and Judge Fatema spoke to a large group of more than 70 female students at the College about their life and work as judges. Judge Hubail traced her journed from being a lawyer to becoming a judge. She noted that in the past, Bahrain appointed judges from positions in the Public Prosecutor's office or positions as Legal Researcher. She was appointed from outside these ranks, based solely on her professional abilities. She said that her appointment reflects Bahrain’s commitment to increasing the number of women in the judiciary. \udge Maha spoke of her appointment to the court in 2008 and the three-year training period required for new judges in Qatar. She completed her training program recently and can now hear and decide case. Both judges discussed challenges to society accepting women as judges as well as the skills and talents that women need for that position. Students questions ranged from how judges make decisions – whether by emotion or facts or both – and on society’s impression that women may not have the proper emotional make-up to be judges. Judge Maha and Judge Fatema acknowledged that there was still a long way to go to prove that women judges are as capable as their male counterparts. The level of interest in the judiciary showed by the students signalled that more and more Qatari women would be inspired to move in that direction. Student Salma Al-Baloushy said, “After attending such a great panel, I realized how a woman is able to reach a very high position, and that gave me incentive to study harder and be successful in my studies to reach that high level of achievement". Marlana Valdez, ABA Program Director and QU Visiting Professor at said, “We greatly appreciate the wonderful advice that Judge Maha and Judge Fatema provided to the students today. They are both very positive role models for young Qatari women, demonstrating that they too can become leaders of their country, and can hold top positions in the judiciary".
Pokémon So, my niece returned from her stay from her grandparents, and then showed me these oddstickers (which looked a little bit bootleg).She then picked Sylveon out of the pile, and asked me to draw it for her. I obliged, set up my stream, and got to work!3 hours later, and here we have a fantastic rendition of Sylveon!-----Check out the drawing timelapse of this piece on my YouTube channel! www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM3y8l…
Q: Conditionally closing a tag in HAML I'm iterating through a set of items and displaying them in lists nested in divs. The goal is to have a div for each day and within each div show the items for that day. How do I do this in HAML? I don't think I can (or should) conditionally close and create a new tag like I could in erb. I tried: - @items.each do \|item\| - if item date is diff from previous make a new container .container %h2 #{item.date} = yield_content :display_item item - else = yield_content :display_item item But this creates the following: <div class="container"> <h2>01/28/2012</h2> <ul> <li> ... item </li> </ul> </div> <li> ...item </li> But I want the other item in the same div. I'm using ruby, sinatra (including the content_for helper) A: The answer is to use more and better Ruby :) - @items.group_by(&:date).each do \|date,items\| .container %h2= date - items.each do \|item\| = yield_content :display_item item See Enumerable#group_by docs for more details. You could close and re-open the containers and headers as you were thinking, but this is a horrible, hard-to-maintain hack that I would suggest against. Embrace the elegance of Ruby and Haml; don't write Haml like it was ERB.
Effects of transthoracic impedance and peak current flow on defibrillation success in a prehospital setting. To assess whether transthoracic impedance and peak current are determinants of defibrillation success in patients with out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation (VF). A retrospective cohort study was carried out in a suburban Canadian EMS system. Participants were patients who experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, had VF rhythm at presentation, and received countershocks from the Laerdal Heartstart 2000 automated external defibrillator. A total of 310 patients met the inclusion criteria. Collectively they received 717 countershocks. The first shocks were successful in converting VF rhythm 25.5% of the time. The most important determinant of shock success was the interval from when the call was received until delivery of the first shock (P<.01). Length of time at scene, current, impedance, and patient age were not significant determinants of success of first shock. The time interval until first shock was also a determinant of survival (P<.01). EMS response time, whether the arrest was witnessed, initial impedance, and current were not determinants of survival. OHCA shock success and survival are associated with EMS system factors such as the interval from when the call was received until delivery of the first shock. The importance of impedance and peak current remain theoretic for out-of-hospital defibrillation success and did not influence defibrillation success in this study.
In situ generation of electron acceptor for photoelectrochemical biosensing via hemin-mediated catalytic reaction. A novel photoelectrochemical sensing strategy is designed for DNA detection on the basis of in situ generation of an electron acceptor via the catalytic reaction of hemin toward H2O2. The photoelectrochemical platform was established by sequential assembly of near-infrared CdTe quantum dots, capture DNA, and a hemin-labeled DNA probe to form a triple-helix molecular beacon (THMB) structure on an indium tin oxide electrode. According to the highly catalytic capacity of hemin toward H2O2, a photoelectrochemical mechanism was then proposed, in which the electron acceptor of O2 was in situ-generated on the electrode surface, leading to the enhancement of the photocurrent response. The utilization of CdTe QDs can extend the absorption edge to the near-infrared band, resulting in an increase in the light-to-electricity efficiency. After introducing target DNA, the THMB structure is disassembled and releases hemin and, thus, quenches the photocurrent. Under optimized conditions, this biosensor shows high sensitivity with a linear range from 1 to 1000 pM and detection limit of 0.8 pM. Moreover, it exhibits good performance of excellent selectivity, high stability, and acceptable fabrication reproducibility. This present strategy opens an alternative avenue for photoelectrochemical signal transduction and expands the applications of hemin-based materials in photoelectrochemical biosensing and clinical diagnosis.
/** * This code was generated by * \ / _ _ _\| _ _ * \| (_)\/(_)(_\|\/\| \|(/_ v1.0.0 * / / / package com.twilio.rest.preview.understand.assistant.task; import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper; import com.twilio.Twilio; import com.twilio.converter.DateConverter; import com.twilio.converter.Promoter; import com.twilio.exception.TwilioException; import com.twilio.http.HttpMethod; import com.twilio.http.Request; import com.twilio.http.Response; import com.twilio.http.TwilioRestClient; import com.twilio.rest.Domains; import mockit.Mocked; import mockit.NonStrictExpectations; import org.junit.Before; import org.junit.Test; import java.net.URI; import static com.twilio.TwilioTest.serialize; import static org.junit.Assert.; public class FieldTest { @Mocked private TwilioRestClient twilioRestClient; @Before public void setUp() throws Exception { Twilio.init("AC123", "AUTH TOKEN"); } @Test public void testFetchRequest() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ Request request = new Request(HttpMethod.GET, Domains.PREVIEW.toString(), "/understand/Assistants/UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Tasks/UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Fields/UEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"); twilioRestClient.request(request); times = 1; result = new Response("", 500); twilioRestClient.getAccountSid(); result = "AC123"; }}; try { Field.fetcher("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").fetch(); fail("Expected TwilioException to be thrown for 500"); } catch (TwilioException e) {} } @Test public void testFetchResponse() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ twilioRestClient.request((Request) any); result = new Response("{\"url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields/UEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"account_sid\": \"ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"unique_name\": \"unique_name\",\"date_updated\": \"2015-07-30T20:00:00Z\",\"assistant_sid\": \"UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"task_sid\": \"UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"date_created\": \"2015-07-30T20:00:00Z\",\"sid\": \"UEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"field_type\": \"field_type\"}", TwilioRestClient.HTTP_STATUS_CODE_OK); twilioRestClient.getObjectMapper(); result = new ObjectMapper(); }}; assertNotNull(Field.fetcher("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").fetch()); } @Test public void testReadRequest() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ Request request = new Request(HttpMethod.GET, Domains.PREVIEW.toString(), "/understand/Assistants/UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Tasks/UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Fields"); twilioRestClient.request(request); times = 1; result = new Response("", 500); twilioRestClient.getAccountSid(); result = "AC123"; }}; try { Field.reader("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").read(); fail("Expected TwilioException to be thrown for 500"); } catch (TwilioException e) {} } @Test public void testReadEmptyResponse() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ twilioRestClient.request((Request) any); result = new Response("{\"fields\": [],\"meta\": {\"page\": 0,\"first_page_url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields?PageSize=50&Page=0\",\"url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields?PageSize=50&Page=0\",\"key\": \"fields\",\"next_page_url\": null,\"previous_page_url\": null,\"page_size\": 50}}", TwilioRestClient.HTTP_STATUS_CODE_OK); twilioRestClient.getObjectMapper(); result = new ObjectMapper(); }}; assertNotNull(Field.reader("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").read()); } @Test public void testReadFullResponse() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ twilioRestClient.request((Request) any); result = new Response("{\"fields\": [{\"url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields/UEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"account_sid\": \"ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"unique_name\": \"unique_name\",\"date_updated\": \"2015-07-30T20:00:00Z\",\"assistant_sid\": \"UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"task_sid\": \"UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"date_created\": \"2015-07-30T20:00:00Z\",\"sid\": \"UEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"field_type\": \"field_type\"}],\"meta\": {\"page\": 0,\"first_page_url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields?PageSize=50&Page=0\",\"url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields?PageSize=50&Page=0\",\"key\": \"fields\",\"next_page_url\": null,\"previous_page_url\": null,\"page_size\": 50}}", TwilioRestClient.HTTP_STATUS_CODE_OK); twilioRestClient.getObjectMapper(); result = new ObjectMapper(); }}; assertNotNull(Field.reader("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").read()); } @Test public void testCreateRequest() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ Request request = new Request(HttpMethod.POST, Domains.PREVIEW.toString(), "/understand/Assistants/UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Tasks/UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Fields"); request.addPostParam("FieldType", serialize("field_type")); request.addPostParam("UniqueName", serialize("unique_name")); twilioRestClient.request(request); times = 1; result = new Response("", 500); twilioRestClient.getAccountSid(); result = "AC123"; }}; try { Field.creator("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "field_type", "unique_name").create(); fail("Expected TwilioException to be thrown for 500"); } catch (TwilioException e) {} } @Test public void testCreateResponse() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ twilioRestClient.request((Request) any); result = new Response("{\"url\": \"https://preview.twilio.com/understand/Assistants/UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Tasks/UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/Fields/UEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"account_sid\": \"ACaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"unique_name\": \"unique_name\",\"date_updated\": \"2015-07-30T20:00:00Z\",\"assistant_sid\": \"UAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"task_sid\": \"UDaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"date_created\": \"2015-07-30T20:00:00Z\",\"sid\": \"UEaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa\",\"field_type\": \"field_type\"}", TwilioRestClient.HTTP_STATUS_CODE_CREATED); twilioRestClient.getObjectMapper(); result = new ObjectMapper(); }}; Field.creator("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "field_type", "unique_name").create(); } @Test public void testDeleteRequest() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ Request request = new Request(HttpMethod.DELETE, Domains.PREVIEW.toString(), "/understand/Assistants/UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Tasks/UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/Fields/UEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"); twilioRestClient.request(request); times = 1; result = new Response("", 500); twilioRestClient.getAccountSid(); result = "AC123"; }}; try { Field.deleter("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").delete(); fail("Expected TwilioException to be thrown for 500"); } catch (TwilioException e) {} } @Test public void testDeleteResponse() { new NonStrictExpectations() {{ twilioRestClient.request((Request) any); result = new Response("null", TwilioRestClient.HTTP_STATUS_CODE_NO_CONTENT); twilioRestClient.getObjectMapper(); result = new ObjectMapper(); }}; Field.deleter("UAXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX", "UEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX").delete(); } }
Pseudohalogen The pseudohalogens are polyatomic analogues of halogens, whose chemistry, resembling that of the true halogens, allows them to substitute for halogens in several classes of chemical compounds. Pseudohalogens occur in pseudohalogen molecules, inorganic molecules of the general forms Ps–Ps or Ps–X (where Ps is a pseudohalogen group), such as cyanogen; pseudohalide anions, such as cyanide ion; inorganic acids, such as hydrogen cyanide; as ligands in coordination complexes, such as ferricyanide; and as functional groups in organic molecules, such as the nitrile group. Well-known pseudohalogen functional groups include cyanide, cyanate, thiocyanate, and azide. Common pseudohalogens and their nomenclature Many pseudohalogens are known by specialized common names according to where they occur in a compound. Well-known ones include (the true halogen chlorine is listed for comparison): Examples of pseudohalogen molecules Examples of symmetrical pseudohalogens (Ps–Ps) include cyanogen (CN)2, thiocyanogen (SCN)2, selenorhodane (SeCN)2, azidodithiocarbonate (N3CS2)2. Another complex symmetrical pseudohalogen is dicobalt octacarbonyl, Co2(CO)8. This substance can be considered as a dimer of the hypothetical cobalt tetracarbonyl, Co(CO)4. Examples of non-symmetrical pseudohalogens (Ps–X), analogous to the binary interhalogen compounds, are cyanogen halides (ICN, ClCN, BrCN), and other compounds. Sometimes nitrosyl chloride NOCl also is considered as pseudohalogen. Not all combinations are known to be stable. Pseudohalides Pseudohalides are the univalent anions (or functional groups) which form hydracids with hydrogen and form insoluble salts with Ag(Silver) such as cyanides, cyanates, isocyanates, rhodanides (i.e. thiocyanates and isothiocyanates), selenocyanogens, tellurorhodanides and azides. A common complex pseudohalide is tetracarbonylcobaltate (Co(CO)4−). The acid HCo(CO)4 is in fact quite a strong acid, though its low solubility renders it not as strong as the true hydrohalic acids. The behavior and chemical properties of the above pseudohalides are identical to that of the true halide ions. The presence of the internal double bonds or triple bonds do not appear to affect their chemical behavior. For example, they can form strong acids of the type HX (compare HCl to HCo(CO)4), and they can react with metals to form compounds like MX (compare NaCl to NaN3). Nanoclusters of aluminium (often referred to as superatoms) are sometimes considered to be pseudohalides since they, too, behave chemically as halide ions, forming Al13I2− (analogous to I3−) and similar compounds. This is due to the effects of metallic bonding on small scales. References Category:Inorganic compounds Category:Halogens
Q: Getting list of Variables of map in BPM Metastorm I'm trying to get list of variables in some map OUTSIDE program automatically. I know I can find them in .process file, with has xml structure. I also figured out that "x:object" with variable contains "x:Type" ending with "MboField}". But unfortunately I need to narrow searching criterias more, because I still can't find the main patern to separate variables from other objects. This is my current code in c#: var xdoc = XDocument.Load(patches.ProcessFilePatch); var xmlns = XNamespace.Get("http://schema.metastorm.com/Metastorm.Common.Markup"); IEnumerable<string> values = from x in xdoc.Descendants(xmlns+"Object") where x.Attribute(xmlns+"Type").Value.ToString().EndsWith("MboField}") select x.Attribute(xmlns+"Name").Value.ToString(); VariablesInProcessFile = values.ToList(); Any other ways to find Variables among others? A: private void getVariablesInProcessFile() { var xdoc = XDocument.Load(patches.ProcessFilePatch); var xmlns = XNamespace.Get("http://schema.metastorm.com/Metastorm.Common.Markup"); var dane = xdoc.Descendants(xmlns + "Object").Where(x => CheckAttributes(x, xmlns)).ToArray(); IEnumerable<string> valuesE = from x in dane.Descendants(xmlns + "Object") where x.Attribute(xmlns + "Type").Value.ToString().EndsWith("MboField}") select x.Attribute(xmlns + "Name").Value.ToString(); VariablesInProcessFile = valuesE.ToList(); } private bool CheckAttributes(XElement x, XNamespace xmlns) { var wynik = x.Attribute(xmlns + "Name"); return wynik != null && (wynik.Value == patches.MapName + "Data" \|\| wynik.Value == patches.altMapName + "Data"); } Where "patches" is my own class containing patch to .process file and possible names of group of Variables, usually related to name of the map.
WithColor Wins Back $700k From Isildur1 Pete - Saturday, August 29, 2015, Written by- Saturday, August 29, 2015, High stakes reports Hats off to PLO specialist "WithColor"for not throwing the towel in after Tueday's $1.1m hammering at the $200/$400 PLO tables against Viktor "Isildur1" Blom. In yesterday's return match he picked himself up, dusted himself down and managed to shake off a tricky start to romp to a near $700k victory over the rampant Swede in a hugely entertaining match. Isildur1 had toyed with a few short games of $50/$100 and $100/$200 PLO a little 8-Game, and a little FLO8 resulting in a small profit before the main event of the day - a 5hr 45min heads-up battle over 4 tables against WithColor. The match started off well for Isildur1 as it looked like he was set to continue as he left off a few nights ago and after the first couple of hours play he had taken a near $200k lead in the match. At this point they switched from $200/$400 down to $100/$200 deep for around 20 minutes before moving up to deep $200/$400. This is where the real action took place. WithColor was playing a much stronger game, and Isildur1 wasn't reacting well. The Swedish pro was being both outplayed and out-lucked, which only had the effect of sending Isildur1 into tilt-mode and his losses started to mount up. To be fair to Isildur1 he did manage to compose himself and worked hard to get back into the game, but it wasn't to be his night and as well as being outplayed, he was on the end of a huge number of bad beats and coolers. There were numerous top set vs middle set and full house over full house pots, all of which went to WithColor. He even managed to river a full house on both runs of the river with Isildur1 ahead with a straight on the turn to take the day's biggest pot of $163k. During the dying minutes, Isildur1 did win back around $100k but WithColor still ended the session up a huge $697k. Despite this loss, Isildur1 is still up $2m since last Friday so we may well not have seen the last of this great rivalry just yet. Yesterday's Biggest Winners WithColor +$697k Jalovaaen +$48.4k fjutekk +$17.7k TILTMENOT +$17.5k For all yesterday's results go to our results page, or for current action check out the live results section.
Influence of cholesterol derivatives on cytoskeletal organization of human carcinoma cells. Recent developments of immunotherapeutic approaches have shown that artificial ordering of tumor cell membranes with cholesterol hemisuccinate (CHS) or 25-hydroxycholesterol (25-OH) may significantly enhance the immunogenicity of human renal adenocarcinoma cells. To gain further insight into the molecular mechanism of these sterols, we investigated cytoskeletal modification, which is related to the cell membrane. After treatment of human renal carcinoma cells with these cholesterol (at 10(-6) and 10(-7) M) for 5 days, we observed a disorganization of the submembrane end of the cytoplasmic actin stress fibers by cytofluorescence. The microtubule network was not affected. Thus, in the present study, we found that changes in membrane physicochemical properties impaired the anchorage of actin microfilaments in the plasma membrane of human renal cancer cells. Under the same experimental conditions, such modifications were not observed in normal cells (human fibroblasts) or in human hepatoma cells. We suggest that incubation of cancer cells with these sterols induced a redistribution of the cholesterol-rich membrane microdomains which are linked to the cytoskeleton through submembrane proteins.
694 So.2d 674 (1997) THE MISSISSIPPI BAR v. Jimmy D. McGUIRE. No. 94-BD-00520-SCT. Supreme Court of Mississippi. May 15, 1997. ORDER This matter is before the Court upon the Motion for Indefinite Suspension Pending Appeal filed by the Mississippi Bar. The complaint involves McGuire's conviction of the crime of filing a false currency reporting form in violation of 26 U.S.C.A. §§ 6050I(f)(1)(B), 7206(1). This Court entered its order on December 15, 1994, granting the Bar's request for indefinite suspension pending appeal. On January 21, 1997, the Bar provided certification that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court, which affirmed McGuire's conviction, and issued the mandate on October 31, 1996. This Court finds that McGuire has been adjudicated guilty of the offense of filing false currency reporting forms, a felony, and that pursuant to Rule 6, Rules of Discipline, he should be disbarred. IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED as follows: 1. Jimmy D. McGuire be, and hereby is, DISBARRED from the practice of law. 2. This order shall constitute notice of disbarment in this cause. 3. The Clerk of the Supreme Court of Mississippi shall immediately forward an attested copy of this Order to the Circuit Court Judges and Chancellors in and for Harrison County, Mississippi, and the Senior Judges of each court shall enter this order upon the minutes of their respective courts. 4. The Clerk of the Supreme Court of Mississippi shall immediately forward an attested copy of this Order to the Clerks of the United States District Courts in and for Mississippi, to the Clerk of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and to the Clerk of the Supreme Court. 5. Costs of the formal complaint should be, and hereby are, assessed against Jimmy D. McGuire.
Background The Forum (the FPB) was founded by Stan Mendham in 1977. Previously, Mendham had run an engineering business but was becoming increasingly concerned by the lack of understanding of smaller businesses in the economy and mounting red tape. He studied member-based organisations for smaller businesses in America and Canada, and decided to create a British equivalent.
Parked cars snarl streetcar service after snowfall TTC employees weigh their options as a car blocks a streetcar on Roncesvalles Ave., Sunday February 10. Do streetcars have a setting for ramming speed? That's a question that hundreds of frustrated TTC riders may have found themselves asking this past weekend, when dozens of streetcars were stopped in their tracks by automobiles parked too close to the rails. On Friday, Toronto's biggest blizzard in five years had dumped 30 cm of snow on the roads, much of it piled in on-street parking spots that drivers evidently found unusable. According to TTC spokesperson Brad Ross, between Friday and Sunday there were a whopping 102 incidents of cars parking "afoul of the rail," transit speak for blocking the tracks. Collectively, those incidents caused 2,961 2,691 minutes, or 49.35 44.85 hours, of service delays as TTC operators and passengers were forced to wait for tow trucks to arrive. At points throughout the weekend, streetcars traveling the same route were backed up four or five cars deep. Ross says that the commission did everything it could to clear the obstructing vehicles as quickly as possible. "We work very closely with Toronto Police Services parking enforcement unit when cars are blocking the route," he says. The protocol for getting tow trucks to the scene of an ill-parked vehicle is hardly direct, however. When streetcar operators encounter an impassable car, they have to call in to central transit control, which then notifies a supervisor who is out on the road. Then a call is placed to the police, who in turn are responsible for calling a tow truck. Ross says that depending on the availability of tow trucks, this weekend it took anywhere from five minutes to an hour for offending cars to be removed. For some impatient passengers, instead of towing, a more satisfying solution would be to give streetcar operators the authority to drive into encroaching cars, even if it means knocking loose a side view mirror here and there. Despite rumours suggesting that TTC operators were at one time authorized to do just that, Ross says it's not something he's seen during his time at the commission. "It's certainly not something that we'd ever encourage our streetcar operators to do," he says, pointing out that ramming cars could also damage TTC vehicles. "There's all sorts of liabilities and issues around that." But while Ross defends the commission's handling of the latest permutation of Toronto's long-running streetcar vs. automobile conflict, some transit watchers are blaming City Hall for not recognizing the extent of the problem. Steve Munro, a blogger and public transit advocate, says that the city should have declared a snow emergency when the flakes started falling on Friday. Doing so would have made it illegal to park on downtown roads with streetcar tracks, giving city plows a chance to clear curb lanes. "This is one of the biggest snowfalls the city has had in years, and for the city not to declare a snow emergency is ridiculous," says Munro. There are no specific guidelines for calling a snow emergency, which are intended to last for at least 72 hours. But according to a transportation services spokesperson one can be declared any time "a significant amount of snow falls within an eight hour period." Both transportation services and the mayor have the authority to declare a snow emergency. Ross would not comment on whether the TTC's job would have been easier if an emergency had been called, saying doing so was up to the city's discretion. But there's no doubt in his mind who is at fault for the extensive delays this past weekend. "This isn't a TTC or Toronto Police Services failing. This is a failing on the part of motorists parking illegally," Ross says. "I don't want to play a blame game here, but quite frankly motorists have a responsibility to ensure that when they're parking, it's done in such a way that they're not inconveniencing thousands of people."
【12月7日 AFP】ブラジルはこれまで太陽エネルギー活用への移行において大きく後れを取ってきたが、現在南東部に建設中の中南米最大規模となる太陽光発電所によってその遅れを一気に取り戻すことを目指している。南東部ミナスジェライス（Minas Gerais）州ピラポラ（Pirapora）で建設中の太陽光発電所は敷地面積800ヘクタールで、サッカー場1200面以上に相当する面積の太陽光パネル120万枚が設置されている。 9月に一部、発電を開始したこの施設は先月半ばに全3段階の計画のうちの第2段階が始働した。仏電力大手フランス電力（EDF）の子会社EDFエナジー・ヌーべルス（EDF Energies Nouvelles）が運営するこの発電所は、2018年第2四半期までにフル稼働する予定で、その発電容量は、42万世帯の年間需要を満たすのに十分な400メガワットになるという。また、発電量は約30％減少するものの、曇りの日でも発電可能だという。ブラジル国立経済社会開発銀行（BNDES）のエネルギープロジェクト担当者によると、地球温暖化対策の国際枠組み「パリ協定（Paris Agreement）」を踏まえて、2030年までに全エネルギーのうちの45％を再生可能エネルギーで賄うという目標を達成するのであれば、太陽光エネルギーはブラジルとって「最優先事項」となるという。エネルギー省が8月に発表した数字によると、現在ブラジルで太陽光発電が全発電量に占める割合はわずか0.2％。ブラジル太陽光エネルギー協会の会長は「ブラジルはこの分野（太陽光発電）における15年の遅れを取り戻し始めたばかりだ」と語った。(c)AFP/Louis GENOT
Värdegrund Värdegrund is a Swedish concept first defined in the 1990s to describe a common ethical foundation for collectives. Examples of collectives are nations, institution, organization, and social movements. In Sweden, all schools have to comply with a common ethical foundation. It includes the following ideas; sanctity of human life, individual freedom and integrity, egalitarianism, equality of the sexes, and solidarity between people. References Category:Collectives Category:Swedish words and phrases Category:Words coined in the 1990s Category:Swedish society
Table of Contents LLVM Update This page summarizes the effort of updating LegUp from LLVM 2.9 to LLVM 3.4. LegUp Source Changes Required LLVM Header Files Moved/Deprecated The following header files have been renamed or removed. The functionality seems identical in most cases. LLVM Objects and Functions Renamed/Deprecated Red highlighting indicates changes that may cause problems, or may not be functionally correct. Yellow highlighting indicates changes that are probably fine, but may need to be double checked. Unhighlighted rows indicate trivial changes that should have little or no effect. Functionality Added to LegUp ConstantDataArray LLVM 3.4 now uses ConstantDataArray in several places where a ConstantArray was used previously. ConstantDataArray support was added to some LegUp files including: Ram.cpp Ram.h GenerateRTL.cpp IterativeModuloScheduling.cpp LegUp Makefile Changes Required llvm-ld Deprecated Use: llvm-link ... llvm-opt -std-link-opts ... instead. Unfortunately llvm-link cannot link archive files, only .bc files. As a result, instead of linking with liblegup.a, libm.a, etc, we need to link with liblegup.bc, libm.bc, etc, which are basically the same thing, just in a different format. llvm-gcc Deprecated llvm-gcc was used for OpenMP support. The LLVM project “dragonegg” can be used instead. dragonegg is a gcc plugin. It will be compiled along with the rest of LegUp. It requires gcc 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, or 4.8, and the corresponding gcc-4.X-plugin-dev package (available using apt-get). The main LegUp Makefile assumes the packages gcc-4.6 and gcc-4.6-plugin-dev are installed. If you wish to use a different version of gcc, you must change the DRAGONEGG variable in legup/examples/Makefile.config and DRAGONEGG_GCC_VERSION in legup/Makefile and recompile LegUp. LLVM Profiling Deprecated Vectorization LLVM 3.4 now produces vectorized code that is not currently supported by LegUp. Adding clang flags -fno-vectorize and -fno-spl-vectorize seems to solve this problem for now. In the future it may be desirable to add this functionality to LegUp in order to obtain more parallel hardware. See LLVM 3.4 Auto-Vectorization for more info. MIPS1 Target Deprecated llc no longer has a backend for mips1. Compiling for mips32 with flags -mno-ldc1-sdc1 -soft-float produces somewhat similar code, but it is still not perfect. An awk command can be used to lower conditional move instructions, and add a nop after each lw. Also, the LLVM mips backend was modified to not produce DSP instructions. This seems to work well enough that the mips binutils can assemble working binaries for Tiger. Changes Required to LegUp Examples Disable LegUp Features It was necessary to disable LOCAL_RAMS for the following benchmarks: chstone/blowfish chstone/gsm It was necessary to disable GROUP_RAMS_SIMPLE_OFFSET for the following benchmarks: chstone/jpeg Other chstone_hybrid/dfsin: the linker complains about multiple definitions of 'sin' when linking with libm.bc. sin() was renamed to dfsin() to fix this problem. use_begin iterator is now user_begin. Don't use the use_ iterators directly any more. Use is now a bookkeeping helper class for the User class. See:
Inhibition of DPP-4: a new therapeutic approach for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are hormones secreted by the enteroendocrine cells of the gut in response to the ingestion of nutrients. These incretin hormones, so called because they increase insulin secretion, are key modulators of pancreatic islet hormone secretion and, thus, glucose homeostasis. The glucoregulatory effects of incretins are the basis for new therapies currently being developed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Drugs that inhibit dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4), a ubiquitous enzyme that rapidly inactivates both GLP-1 and GIP, increase active levels of these hormones and, in doing so, improve islet function and glycemic control in T2DM. In this review, we briefly describe (1) the role of pancreatic islet dysfunction in the onset and progression of T2DM, (2) the rationale for developing drugs that enhance incretin activity, (3) the evidence that inhibition of DPP-4 is effective in ameliorating islet dysfunction and improving glycemic control in T2DM, (4) the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of DPP-4 inhibitors as monotherapy and in combination with other antidiabetic agents, and (5) the potential utility of DPP-4 inhibitors relative to existing oral antidiabetic agents and newer antidiabetic drugs in the pipeline. The review is based upon MEDLINE literature searches (1966-August 2006) and abstracts and presentations from the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions (2002-2006) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes Annual Meetings (1998-2006). Basic science, preclinical, and clinical studies and review articles published in the English language were evaluated and selected based upon consideration of their originality, relevance, and frequency of citation. DPP-4 inhibitors are a new class of antidiabetogenic drugs that provide comparable efficacy to current treatments. They are effective as monotherapy in patients inadequately controlled with diet and exercise and as add-on therapy in combination with metformin, thiazolidinediones, and insulin. The DPP-4 inhibitors are well tolerated, carry a low risk of producing hypoglycemia, and are weight neutral. The long-term durability of effect on glycemic control and beta-cell morphology and function remain to be established. Islet cell dysfunction is central to the pathogenesis of T2DM. Incretin-based therapies, including GLP 1 analogues and DPP-4 inhibitors, have been shown to restore glucose homeostasis and improve glycemic control. The DPP-4 inhibitors, which can be used as monotherapy or in combination with other antidiabetic drugs, are a promising new treatment option, especially for patients with early-stage T2DM and more severe hyperglycemia.
Mental health service provision in juvenile justice facilities: pre- and postrelease psychiatric care. High prevalence rates of mental illness among adolescents in juvenile justice facilities require multifaceted interventions. Children entering justice systems are frequently underserved and having their first contact with psychiatric services. Programming must be multidisciplinary and multifaceted, combining treatment within the facility with postrelease planning. It examines the role of the psychiatrist and the structure of mental health services within juvenile justice facilities.
Background {#Sec1} ========== Bronchopleural fistula (BPF) is a relatively infrequent but potentially fatal complication of pulmonary resection. BPF can be divided into peripheral or central, based on the location of the leakage, and BPF occurs in about 1.5 to 28 % of pneumonectomy cases, and is associated with high death rate \[[@CR9], [@CR30]\]. It is estimated that incidence of BPF after pneumonectomy and lobectomy for lung cancer is 4.5--20 % and 0.5 %, respectively, and the incidence of BPF is highest after right pulmonary resection and right lower lobectomy \[[@CR31]\]. The etiology of BPF includes incomplete tumor resection, use of steroids, intraoperative infection and prolonged postoperative mechanical ventilation as major risk factors of BPF \[[@CR31]\]. The clinical manifestations of BPF can be frequently classified as acute, subacute, and chronic. An acute BPF presents as tension pneumothorax, with pleural cavity communicating abnormally with the airways, and is associated with purulent sputum expectoration, dyspnea, and reduction in established pleural effusion \[[@CR22]\]. The presentations of subacute and chronic BPF are commonly related to a pleural space with infection, manifesting as a more invisible form with fever, dry cough, and malaise with different levels of respiratory disorder \[[@CR33]\]. Traditional treatments of BPF include thoracotomy after drainage and primary repair, which is based on vascularized muscular flaps and omental grafts tissues \[[@CR20]\]. Amplatzer vascular plug, which was originally designed for the transcatheter closure of vascular structures, has also been reported as a safe and effective method to treat small postoperative BPF \[[@CR9]\]. Fruchter et al. also found that the technique of Amplatzer double-disk occluder implantation may be suitable for both large and small BPFs which originate from the main bronchi and lobar bronchi, respectively \[[@CR8]\]. Additionally, endoscopic approaches and bronchoscopy are common methods of treating BPF to avoid thoracotomy \[[@CR27], [@CR36]\]. Bronchofiberscope (BFS) is a precision instrument employed to diagnose bronchial diseases using of the light guide composed by the fine fibers formed by tens of thousands of high transmittance glass or acrylic resin \[[@CR12], [@CR16]\]. BFS is designed to offer advantageous features such as easy operation method, clear vision, mild trauma, tolerance of surgery by patients, and high safety profile, which reduces or avoids complications associated with tracheotomy and prevents local infection \[[@CR25], [@CR32]\]. Clinically, BFS has multiple uses, including removing foreign bodies, eliminating secretions, treating nasopharyngeal carcinoma, central lung cancer, alveolar cell carcinoma, esophageal fistula, hemoptysis, obstruction, assisting endotracheal intubation treatment and placing gastric tube \[[@CR1], [@CR11], [@CR21]\]. Previous studies have revealed that BFS is also an excellent diagnostic tool for early detection of various intrabronchial injuries, and the attached biopsy sampling feature is helpful in the identification of early lesions, and to carry out poly excision surgery for the studies on bronchus and lung diseases \[[@CR15], [@CR18], [@CR19]\]. Previous studies reported various treatment methods for BPF using BFS, and the methods include gelfoam, shot put plugs, and tissue adhesives. However, these methods have significant deficiencies, evident from the fact that treatment fistula under 3 mm was efficient using these methods, but they show poor efficacy in treatment of BPF beyond 3 mm, particularly those beyond 10 mm \[[@CR6], [@CR28], [@CR35], [@CR37]\]. Phenol, also named carbolic acid, is a sweet-smelling colorless liquid used to prepare resins, preservatives, fungicides, drugs (e.g., aspirin), and also is used to disinfect surgical instruments \[[@CR4], [@CR24], [@CR38]\]. 88 % carbolic acid was found to be efficacious with all alopecia areata patients and can be considered as a treatment of choice for stable alopecia areata \[[@CR3]\]. Moreover, spot peel with 88 % phenol can be a cost-effective procedure for idiopathic guttate hypomelanosis, which can be combined with other medical therapies \[[@CR26]\]. There are no studies using carbolic acid to treat BPF with the help of BFS at present. Therefore, we investigated the efficiency of carbolic acid treatment of BPF in post-pulmonectomy patients, by instilled 100 % carbolic acid with the aid of BFS. Methods {#Sec2} ======= Ethics statement {#Sec3} ---------------- This study was conducted with the approval of the Institutional Review Board of Liaoning Tumor Hospital, Shenyang. The informed written consent was collected from each eligible patient and the whole study was performed based on the Declaration of Helsinki \[[@CR14]\]. Study population {#Sec4} ---------------- A total of 12 patients with post-pulmonectomy BPF were enrolled at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Liaoning Tumor Hospital, Shenyang between February 2009 and March 2012. Orificium fistulae were confirmed by bronchoscope and the average diameter was 4.5 mm. The eligible patients included eight males and three females, with an average age of 56 years (range, 45 \~ 71 years). Three patients had BPF after the right pneumonectomy, six after the left pneumonectomy, one after the right middle and low lobectomy and two after left upper lobectomy. Preoperotive preparation {#Sec5} ------------------------ Electrocardiogram, routine blood tests and biochemical examination were performed in all the patients. Patients were fasted for 4 \~ 6 h in preparation for surgery and received 10 mg diazepam and 1 mg atropine via intramuscular injection about 30 min before operation. In addition, 1 % lidocaine was used for nasopharyngeal anesthesia by nebulizer. Intraoperative methods {#Sec6} ---------------------- All patients were instructed to take supine position except 2 patients with short breath in sitting position. The BFS (Olympus BF1T40) was inserted into the trachea through nasal cavity. Heart rate, blood pressure and SpO2 was monitored. Patients received local nasopharyngeal anesthesia with 2 % lidocaine to alleviate irritant reaction. The bronchus around the suture was bubbling when the patient breathed deeply. The fistula was observed via BFS. After the drainage of secretion, hematocele or pus around the BPF, a bronchoscopy biopsy forceps was used for removing necrotic tissues and a 1.8 mm flexible tube was guided through the biopsy hole. The distal end of BFS was brought out and fixed 0.3 cm above the fistula. With breath holding, 100 % carbolic acid solution (0.5--1.0 ml) was instilled to bronchial mucosa through the BFS. The bronchial mucosa became pale after treatment and finally the flexible tube and bronchoscope were removed. Postoperative and histological observation {#Sec7} ------------------------------------------ After the surgery, the patients were treated with closed drainage of thoracic cavity, anti-inflammatory, symptomatic and supportive treatments. Gas discharge in thoracic drainage tube was observed, and fistula healing were measured via BFS. The treatments were repeated if there was gas discharge from thoracic drainage tube, or further observations were made. Patients could leave hospital after blood routine test showing no evidence of dyspnea, fever, positive culture of fluid drainage (3 times). Paraffin sections (4 \~ 6 μm) of bronchial stump were stained by hematoxylin and eosin (HE) to observe the irritation of bronchial stump after instilled with carbolic acid solution. Results {#Sec8} ======= Outcome characteristics of BPF {#Sec9} ------------------------------ In the 12 patients with BPF, the median diameter of the BPF orifice was 4.5 mm, according to the intraoperative observation. Specifically, 3 patients showed a fistula diameter of 3 mm or smaller, 6 patients showed a fistula diameter of 3 \~ 5 mm, and 3 patients exhibited a fistula diameter of 5 mm or larger, 1 of whom had a fistula diameter of 7 mm (Table [1](#Tab1){ref-type="table"}). Serious complications, such as haemorrhage, severe dyspnea and SpO2 declines, did not occur in all the 12 patients during bronchoscopic therapy. Of note, BPF orifices in 5 patients closed after 5 treatments with carbolic acid, 1 patient through 2 treatments, 1 patient through 3 treatments, 2 patients through 4 treatments and 3 patients through 7 treatments (Fig. [1](#Fig1){ref-type="fig"}). Follow-up was conducted for six months after bronchoscopy. Based on the data collected, the average treatment time of the 12 patients was calculated as 20 min and the average time of fistula closure was 30 days. Importantly, the cure rate was 100 %.Table 1Characteristics and outcomes of BPF patientsAge\ (y)GenderInitial symptomSurgical methodBronchopleural fistulaeSize (mm)Treatment timesCure time (d)Follow up148maleLow feverRight PNY3535alive256maleHigh feverRight PNY3.5535alive350maleBlood sputumLeft PNY1321alive471maleIrritating coughLeft upper LBY1.5428alive557femaleLow feverRight upper LBY4535alive665maleFever/air bubbleLeft PNY5749unknown764maleCough/feverLeft PNY7749alive859maleCough/feverRight PNY1214alive962maleLow feverLeft upper LBY4749alive1058maleFever/sputumLeft PNY5535alive1145maleLow feverLeft PNY3.5428alive1256malesputumLeft PNY4535aliveBPF bronchopleural fistula, y years, PNY pneumonectomy, LBY lobectomy, d daysFig. 1The treatment process of carbolic acid: a the BPF (about 1 mm); b infused by the carbolic acid; c BPF narrowed after 2 times instillation, and bubbles appeared after carbolic acid infused with saline; d repositioned the fistula, and three times later the BPF healed. Note: BPF, bronchopleural fistula HE staining {#Sec10} ----------- HE staining was performed to observe bronchial stumps stimulated by carbolic acid infusion. The biopsy showed that the white flat hyperplasia tissue (bronchial stumps tissue) after carbolic acid treatment was inflammatory granulation tissue. Furthermore, it was found that the tissue was loose and dropsical, with a small amount of proliferation of irregularly distributed fibroblast, small vascular proliferation, a large number of plasma cells and lymphocyte infiltration, and a small amount of irregularly arranged squamous epithelial hyperplasia, as shown in Fig. [2](#Fig2){ref-type="fig"}.Fig. 2Results of HE staining observing bronchial stumps tissues stimulated by carbolic acid infusion. Note: HE, hematoxylin and eosin Discussion {#Sec11} ========== BPF is defined as an abnormal communication between a lobar or the main bronchus and the pleural space, and continues to be a severe surgery complication, which is related to high morbidity and mortality \[[@CR13]\]. Risk factors associated with BPF incidence are fever, steroid use, anemia, leukocytosis and tracheostomy, elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate, Haemophilus influenzae in sputum and bronchoscopy for sputum suction or mucus plugging \[[@CR2]\]. Recently, a number of flexible bronchoscopic techniques have been used to seal BPFs. These materials include cyanoacrylate-based glues, absorbable gelatine sponge, vascular embolisation devices, and fibrin compounds \[[@CR7], [@CR10]\]. In this study, we describe a novel approach of using carbolic acid for the closure of fistulas. Carbolic acid has a strong reaction with mucosal tissues, and pure carbolic acid corrodes mucosa completely in 60 s. When carbolic acid contacts the mucosal surface, the mucosa tissues is rapidly degenerated (pale), and mucosal inflammation stimulate exudation and proliferation, finally resulting in the closure of fistula \[[@CR34]\]. Carbolic acid is widely used for disinfecting appendiceal stump in appendicitis operation and in the treatment of suspected TB contaminants in tuberculosis surgery \[[@CR5], [@CR17]\]. We describe a simple, safe and effective way to instill 100 % carbolic acid through BFS in the treatment of BPF. The 12 patients treated with carbolic acid successfully reached fistula closure, with the total effective rate at 100 % without any adverse reactions of hemoptysis and dyspnea. A reasonable explanation might be that carbolic acid is relatively safe, a small amount of acid liquid overflow will not cause serious injuries to normal mucosal \[[@CR29]\]. A number of advantages are embodied in the instillation of carbolic acid under BFS. First, this method is easy to perform and, based on it success rate in this study, likely to be readily accepted by the patients, and patient hospitalization is unnecessary if they are in good condition. Second, for patients who have larger fistula with significant pleural effusion and sputum, this therapeutic tool can rapidly relieve the symptoms and avoid aspiration pneumonia. Third, the fistula location, size, shape can be clearly orientated. Finally, it can help reduce operative risks, decrease mortality rate as well as the cost of treatment for BPF \[[@CR13]\]. Our results also revealed that the healing time of fistula is positively correlated to its size. Based on the clinical observations of series of cases, we summarize that fistula \< 5 mm healed in much shorter time compared to fistula ≥ 5 mm. However, if the size of fistula exceeded certain limit, it might be difficult to heal due to the potential lack of healthy mucosa to stimulate proliferation and regenerate tissue \[[@CR23]\]. Our study presents clear evidence that use of carbolic acid for BPF treatment under the inspection of BFS is safe and 100 % effective. However, our findings need to be interpreted with caution due to limitations in the study. A limitation is the small number of patients with BPF who underwent BFS. Therefore, our study contained a relatively smaller sample size, which might restrict the application of our results to a wider population. Further studies using large sample size and better study designs will be necessary to confirm our findings. Conclusion {#Sec12} ========== In conclusion, we achieved 100 % efficacy in treatment of BPF with carbonic acid through BFS, with BPF size ranging from 3--7 mm in diameter. The described procedure is simple, safe and an effective choice for BPF patients, with little pain and at relatively low cost. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors' contributions Z Wang and YY Liu carried out the molecular genetic studies, HB Yu participated in the sequence alignment and Q Luo drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. We would like to acknowledge the reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper.
Testimonials To really know what coaching can do for you, read what others have to say… Elaine Simpson Office Manager, Mother & Grandmother Rogers, AR, USA I’ve had the privilege to be “coached” by Dan Carson. Going into these sessions, I wasn’t sure what it was all about or even what we would talk about, but was surprised to find my sessions with Dan enlightening. I have a habit of just going through life without plans or goals, during several sessions I would have an “aha!” moment , realizing that there were things I could do to accomplish more in my life than I had even thought of before. As a result I have branched out of my comfort zone and learned several new things. I have learned to set goals in dealing with others and to pray for people more. I would definitely recommend Dan as a Life Coach. Amanda Huffman Human Resources Officer & Mother of 2 Austin, Texas, USA Balance does not come to me naturally. I am the type of person who dives into things head first and get tunnel vision. Combined with the fact that I lead recruiting and HR in a start-up I lost the battle of finding balance quickly. I was in desperate need of reconnecting my mind, my body and spirit. I was stuck and wanted to function in life in a more peace filled and higher level manner. I knew I needed to work on organization, so all aspects of my life will would in synergy together and had no idea how to do it. And then I found Dan Carson. Dan has a special talent in his line of work. He is compassionate, loving, spiritual (on a universal level), insightful and empowering. Dan has many tools, but I think the most amazing thing that he does is really listen and hear what you are fumbling and trying to say. He pinpointed the roots of my issues, and is helping me work through them. Dan has an uncanny ability to get to the heart of what is going on with you. He is intuitive and insightful and gave me a fresh perspective. Dan knows exactly what to say and stimulates dialogue, knowing when and how to push and when it is too much. Dan’s enthusiasm and calm are contagious. Trust usually takes time for me to establish, but with Dan, he garnered it instantly. There is no judgment from Dan. He is grounded and intuitive and I found this to be so empowering. This is NOT coaching that requires you to do months of work to start seeing results. I quickly began to break through blocks. He has a great way of helping you re-energize and gain clarity and momentum quickly. He is a natural born motivator, but doesn’t browbeat or nag you to help you meet your goals, or even to define and set them. We have a very collaborative relationship. He guides you with empathy. Dan is very intuitive and is a subject matter expert… on life! Dan has helped me implement changes in my life, both in work and personal and stayed with me to support me while making those changes really happen. We work together at me being my best and doing more than I thought I could do. He is never afraid to tell me the truth in the most supportive and gentle way even in emotionally charged situations. He handles everything with such finesse that it feels positive. I am not saying that he does magic, like “poof” and your life gets better. Dan helps you understand how your mind and body is connected, and gives you tools so you can work on your stuff. He is a rare gem and I can’t recommend him enough! Mark Haines Pastor Bay City, Michigan, USA Have you ever worked on a project for a long time only to think if I had known that sooner I would have saved a lot of time? Dan Carson is the kind of coach who will help you discover those things sooner. I know because he has helped me.
Q: air trapped in sink drain? A modest sized object had fallen into my bathroom sink causing (I assume) the sink to drain slowly. That is, at first (after dropping the item) the sink seemed to drain fine but eventually it slowed to a bare minimum. The sink is a pedestal sink and the drain pipes are pvc with threaded and compression joints, so I took out all the pipes from basin to floor, clean everything (obstruction and all) and put it back together. Everything was hand-tightened only: the only tool used was a toothbrush to scrub the parts clean. Now the water drains better but only slightly. If there is still an obstruction, it would have to be in the floor, but we had no apparent problem before the one item I was able to extract. On the other hand, now, as the water slowly drains, I can hear a trickle in the drain pipes. As far as I can recall, this was not the case before I took it all apart. So I'm guessing that there is air bubble somewhere. Does that sound reasonable? And if so, what can I do to deal with it. Note that this is not a new works project; I simply disassembled, clean and reassembled everything. I didn't add parts or have any parts left over. At worst, I might have changed the order of parts or changed the spans between adjustable, compression joints. But all the fittings and seals were put in place. A: There is probably soap and hair plugging the drain lower down. a small hand auger might be the best bet to clean it out. Chemical drain cleaners partially open the drain then they plug up again much quicker and you end up spending more on chemicals than the cost of the auger.
Q: Delphi SQL subselect error in MS-Access I'm using Delphi 7 with ADO components, and MS Access 2003. The SQL sentence SELECT CMCB.Name, (SELECT SUM(amount) FROM movement MCB WHERE MCB.movement_classification_id=CMCB.movement_classification_id AND MCB.operation_date >= #01/01/2013# AND MCB.operation_date < #01/01/2014# ) AS MyYear FROM movement_classification CMCB is working fine in MS Access console but through a Delphi application launches the following error when I am opening the DataSet (TADOQuery): Data provider or other service returned an E_FAIL status Any idea why it happens? Is it related with the ADO component (TADOQuery in this case) I tried a similar query from the database dbdemos.mdb (Program Files\Common Files\Borland Shared\Data) and it works SELECT CustNo, (SELECT SUM(AmountPaid) FROM orders O WHERE O.CustNo = C.CustNo AND O.SaleDate >= #01/01/1994# AND O.SaleDate < #01/01/1995# ) AS AmountPaid FROM customer C The code I used in Delphi is the following: procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); begin ADOConnection1.Connected := False; ADOConnection1.ConnectionString := 'Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;User ID=Admin;Data Source=D:\Xiber\Delphi\StackOverflow\Subquerys\dbdemos.mdb'; ADOConnection1.Connected := True; ADOQuery1.SQL.Text := 'SELECT CustNo, (SELECT SUM(AmountPaid) FROM orders O WHERE O.CustNo = C.CustNo AND O.SaleDate >= #01/01/1994# AND O.SaleDate < #01/01/1995#) AS AmountPaid FROM customer C'; ADOQuery1.Open; end; procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject); var sSQL: string; begin ADOConnection1.Connected := False; ADOConnection1.ConnectionString := 'Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;User ID=Admin;Data Source=D:\Xiber\Delphi\StackOverflow\Subquerys\XiGest-CASA.mdb'; ADOConnection1.Connected := True; sSQL := ' SELECT CMCB.Name, ' + ' (SELECT SUM(amount) FROM movement MCB ' + ' WHERE MCB.movement_classification_id=CMCB.movement_classification_id ' + ' AND MCB.operation_date >= #01/01/2013# ' + ' AND MCB.operation_date < #01/01/2014# ' + ' ) AS MyYear ' + ' FROM movement_classification CMCB '; ADOQuery1.SQL.Text := sSQL; ADOQuery1.Open; end; A: Finally I realised the difference between the two sums was that in dbdemos the field AmountPaid.mdb is double and in my case is decimal(8,2). It seems to be an ADO bug. You can reproduce by yourself. So, If you change the field AmountPaid in dbdemos.mdb (provided by Borland, you can found at Program Files\Common Files\Borland Shared\Data) to decimal(8,2) and execute the query through Delphi 7 (with an ADOConnection and an ADOQuery), you'll get the error above mentioned. SELECT CustNo, (SELECT SUM(AmountPaid) FROM orders O WHERE O.CustNo = C.CustNo AND O.SaleDate >= #01/01/1994# AND O.SaleDate < #01/01/1995# ) AS AmountPaid FROM customer C But if you execute this query inside MS Access, it works fine.
Stimulating PACalpha increases miniature excitatory junction potential frequency at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction. Photoactivated adenylate cyclase alpha (PACalpha) is a light-activated adenylate cyclase that was originally cloned from the eye spot of the protozoan Euglena gracilis. PACalpha has been shown to rapidly increase intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in vivo in Xenopus oocytes and HEK293 cells, increase the spike width in Aplysia sensory neurons, and modify behavior in Drosophila. Using the GAL4 UAS system, we heterologously expressed PACalpha in motorneurons and quantified the effects of its activation at the neuromuscular junction of the Drosophila third instar wandering larva, a well-characterized model synapse. By recording from body-wall muscle 6, we show that the presynaptic activation of PACalpha with blue light significantly increased miniature excitatory junction potential (mEJP) frequency in the presence of calcium with a delay of about 1 minute. Similar effects have been observed in previous studies that utilized adenylate cyclase agonists (Forskolin) or membrane-permeable cAMP analogs [dibutyryl cAMP and 4-chlorophenylthio-(CPT)-cAMP] to increase presynaptic cAMP concentrations. PACalpha's efficacy in combination with its specificity make it an invaluable tool for the rapid regulation of cAMP in vivo and for investigating the mechanisms by which cAMP can modulate synaptic transmission and neuronal plasticity in Drosophila.
A 15 year old Afghan boy was blown to pieces while tackling a bag that contained a bomb in Athens. His sister is in intensive care, struggling for her sight. The Nuclei of Fire Conspiracy deny any involvement in the deadly event. A powerful explosion which occurred at 22:41 on Sunday night outside the Greek Company for Business Management (EDEE) in Patisia, Athens, has killed a 15 year old boy from Afghanistan, also wounding his sister's eyes and slightly wounding his mother. According to the mother, the two children saw a bag outside the prestigious establishment and the girl opened it revealing a mechanical clock. Deciding it does not work, the boy immediately took the bag back where they found it when the bag exploded blowing the boy into pieces and blinding the girl. Given there was no warning phone call for the bomb, the police initially believed that the bomb could be a response of extreme-right groups to the bombing of the Golden Dawn offices earlier this month. This story has now subsided with the Ministry of Public Order claiming that the wiring of the bomb is similar to the one found outside the Chilean Consulate in Salonica last year, a device which was claimed by the Nucle of Fire Conspiracy. However the NFC published a communique in which they express their grave grief for the deadly incident and their rage at the mass media which are trying to implicate them. The NFC denied categorically any involvement in the incident, stressing that they always call two media to warn about their bombs, giving at least 20 minutes to the police to evacuate the area, while also using two mechanical clocks, so as to avert any accident. To the allegations of the media that the bomb was the one about which a warning call was made the same morning but was never found, the NFC have responded that unlike the warning call reported, their are always clear mentioning the precise road and location of the device. The morning warning call was about a bomb in EBEE an acronym that means nothing. The NFC claim that they would prefer their being arrested than leaving a blind bomb to explode after the authorities have failed to spot it. The urban guerrilla group also stressed that if indeed this bomb is the work of a revolutionary group and not a parastate provocation, then it should be immediately claimed by the group responsible - concluding that if it is a "blind attack" then it is the work of the extreme-right similar to Piazza Fontana. The authorities have refused to comment on the NFC communique claiming it will not "open a dialogue with terrorists". It must be noted that even the police admits that the pipe-bomb device used is similar to the bomb against the Buenoventura antiauthoritarian centre in Salonica earlier this year. The death of the 15 year old is the first civilian death related or allegedly related to domestic armed struggle since the early 1990s, when a rocket of the N17 aimed at the then Minister of Economics killed a bystander, effectively signaling a reversal of the then mass support for the group. It must be also noted that the 22 year old man arrested in Volos with the ecuse of a single fingerprint of his found in the supposed NFC haunt in Chalandri has been released on conditions of not leaving the country. In an unprecedented breach of the law, all media carried the man's picture, creating a climate of "man-hunt".
You are here Keeping the Oil Pollution Act Updated By Doug Helton, Regional Operations Supervisor Aug. 17, 2017 - On August 18, 1990, President H.W. Bush signed the Oil Pollution Act. The act gave NOAA and other agencies improved authorities for spill prevention, response, and restoration in the nation’s navigable waters and shorelines. The act ensured those responsible for an oil spill must cleanup and restore the environment, and compensate the public for its lost uses—like beach and recreational fishery closures—from the time of the incident until those natural resources fully recover. Now 27 years old, some parts of the law are dated. But, the Act signed by President Bush was not the final word on oil pollution. Like many other laws, it has been subject to various amendments over time to address emerging issues or to strengthen or clarify the original law. Often, the amendments advance through related legislation that move through Congress and reach the president. For example, a number of Oil Pollution Act amendments were added to U.S. Coast Guard authorization bills. For instance, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 added a number of provisions including: Sometimes these amendments can be quite technical but can also have significant impacts on how we work. For example, the Coast Guard authorization act included this language that affected waterways near Seattle: “Within 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commandant shall initiate a rulemaking proceeding to modify the definition of the term ‘‘higher volume port area’’ in section 155.1020 of the Coast Guard regulations (33 C.F.R. 155.1020) by striking ‘‘Port Angeles, WA’’ in paragraph (13) of that section and inserting ‘‘Cape Flattery, WA’’. There are about 15 higher volume port areas in the United States and these areas are subject to the most stringent response planning requirements. As you might expect, these include the biggest oil ports in the nation, including New York, Houston, New Orleans, and Prince William Sound, Alaska. In these high volume port areas, large amounts of response equipment has to be on standby, ready to deploy on very short notice. However, Cape Flattery is on the northwest tip of Washington State. The fishing port of Neah Bay is nearby, but it is hardly a major oil port. Hmm, so what did that accomplish? That simple definitional change meant that all tankers approaching the Strait of Juan de Fuca and oil terminals closer to Seattle had to have approved plans and meet the most stringent response times following a spill anywhere along our inland waters. This required adding response vessels and equipment out near the entrance of the Strait and increasing the ability to rapidly respond to any spills. There are already several bills in Congress this year that would further amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. In between spills and restoration work, we keep an eye on their progress through the legislative process. You can read these articles for more information on the Oil Pollution Act of 1990: Doug Helton is the Regional Operations Supervisor for the West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, and Great Lakes and also serves as the Incident Operations Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Emergency Response Division. The Division provides scientific and technical support to the Coast Guard during oil and chemical spill responses. The Division is based in Seattle, WA, but manages NOAA response efforts nationally.
The Crusades Through Arab Eyes The Crusades Through Arab Eyes () is a French language historical essay by Lebanese author Amin Maalouf. As the name suggests, the book is a narrative retelling of primary sources drawn from various Arab chronicles that seeks to provide an Arab perspective on the Crusades, and especially regarding the Crusaders – the Franks (Franj), as the Arabs called them – who are considered cruel, savage, ignorant and culturally backward. From the first invasion in the eleventh century through till the general collapse of the Crusades in the thirteenth century, the book constructs a narrative that is the reverse of that common in the Western world, describing the main facts as bellicose and displaying situations of a quaint historic setting where Western Christians are viewed as "barbarians", unaware of the most elementary rules of honor, dignity and social ethics. References Category:Books about the Crusades Category:1984 non-fiction books Category:Works by Amin Maalouf Category:Arab history Category:French non-fiction books
A fire has broken out at a major mall complex in Thailand's capital, with initial reports from Thai emergency services saying one person has died and two were injured. The cause and extent of Wednesday's fire at Bangkok's Central World complex, which includes a hotel and an office tower, was not immediately known. The report of casualties came from the city's Erawan Emergency Radio network. Images posted by social media users showed thick black smoke pouring from the complex, with hundreds of evacuated shoppers filling a large open square next to the mall. The fire broke out during the congested city's evening rush hour. Sirens from emergency vehicles wailed as they tried to make their way through gridlocked traffic. Central World sits at a major intersection surrounded by shopping complexes, shrines and high-rise hotels popular with foreign tourists. It is near the main junction for Bangkok's elevated train lines, as well as the Erawan Shrine, which was the site of a deadly bombing in 2015. The mall typically would have been busy with shoppers as well as diners headed to the many restaurants inside. The Central World complex was among several Bangkok buildings set on fire by arsonists during mass anti-government protests in 2010.
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The businessman Brendan Duddy’s life was in many ways intertwined with the fortunes of his fellow Derry citizen Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief of staff turned republican negotiator. Duddy, who has died aged 80, was trusted enough by McGuinness to establish what became known as “the link” and later as “the back channel”, between the IRA leadership in Derry, principally McGuinness, and the British government, via secret MI6 contacts. Duddy had known McGuinness since the late 1960s, when the latter used to deliver beefburgers from the butcher’s where he worked to Duddy’s fish and chip shop in Derry. Many years later, Duddy recalled to the veteran BBC reporter Peter Taylor that the youthful McGuinness came to his premises “to chat up the girls behind the counter and had absolutely no interest in politics”. The storm that broke over their home city from 1969 onwards, from the Battle of Bogside to internment and then on to the slaughter on Bloody Sunday in 1972, propelled McGuinness into and upwards through the ranks of the nascent Provisional IRA. Duddy, on the other hand, eschewed the use of political violence and instead built up a business mini-empire in a city that by the mid-1970s was being bombed relentlessly by the Provisionals under the orders of commanders including McGuinness. Yet despite diverging from McGuinness in terms of the “armed struggle”, as republicans call it, Duddy maintained close, friendly relations. From 1975 – the first major Provisional IRA ceasefire – Duddy belonged to a tripartite process that played a crucial part eventually in ending Northern Ireland’s Troubles and ushering in the peace process. Despite the failure to secure a lasting IRA end to violence in the mid-1970s, Duddy and the rest of “the link” resurrected the secret discussions in 1980 to help end the hunger strike taking place in the Maze prison, which a year later resulted in the deaths of seven IRA prisoners and three Irish National Liberation Army inmates. During these negotiations Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet were fully briefed by the MI6 operatives involved in the talks, despite the Tories’ official policy of not talking to terrorists. Nine years later, Duddy was again involved in secret talks, again based in Derry, that included the MI6 officer Michael Oatley, who had made previous fruitless attempts to contact McGuinness via the businessman. However, the 1990 talks would eventually produce favourable results despite “the link” being exposed in the Observer three years later, again exposing the dichotomy between another Tory government’s official policy of no dialogue with terrorists while all the time agreeing to covert discussions with the IRA. The exposure of “the link” almost led to the negotiations being fatally compromised by one key sentence contained in communications between the IRA and the British. A note allegedly from the IRA leadership told the British “The conflict is over. Help us to end it.” When these words became public, McGuinness and the rest of the Sinn Féin leadership furiously denied they were behind them, even though they had helped convince John Major’s administration the IRA was serious about ending its armed campaign. Duddy felt in mortal danger from hardline elements within the IRA. In fact it was Duddy’s fellow go-between Denis Bradley, the former priest who had officiated at McGuinness’s wedding, who had written those critical few words. The first outcome of this secret triangular talks process was the creation of the Derry experiment, under which the IRA started to reduce its violence in the city, resulting in a situation where after 1990 there were no more British military casualties up to the Provisionals’ ceasefire four years later. Even after the IRA ceasefire was secured, and the peace process bedded in, Duddy continued to act as a go-between, bringing together old adversaries. He played a critical role in helping to reduce tensions between the Ulster loyalist marching orders and republican residents’ groups in Derry over contentious parades in the city. Duddy won the trust of Orangemen and members of the Apprentice Boys of Derry. He helped create a Derry experiment Mark II, in which dialogue between the loyal orders and republican residents led to a series of local agreements, with the city inspiring other parts of Northern Ireland to follow suit. Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, who in the post-ceasefire era held covert talks with IRA commanders, said had it not been for Duddy’s dogged pursuit of dialogue and of promoting talks with the British, there might not have been a peace process. The son of Mary and Laurence Duddy, Brendan spent most of his adult life running the family fish and chip shop before creating a retail and property, hotel and entertainment business portfolio that generated hundreds of jobs in a city blighted by unemployment and IRA economic sabotage. He is survived by his wife, Margo, and children, Patricia, Lawrence, Paula, Brendan, Shauna and Tonya, 21 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. • Brendan Duddy, businessman, born 10 June 1936; died 12 May 2017
What's new in this version (1.6): Description This is an UNLOCKER app for Shelves (com.miadzin.shelves). After you install this app, the ads are removed from Shelves. YOU MIGHT NEED TO REBOOT YOUR PHONE FIRST. Installing this app will unlock certain features in the Shelves app. It will not erase your previous collection. It will not magically add brand new, never-before-seen new features. Unlocked features include: * Removal of ads * The ability to add any item manually * The ability to multiselect items for tagging, rating, deleting, e.t.c. * The ability to add items to a wishlist Thank you to everyone who supports a one-man development team, acting as developer, tester, documentation writer, customer relations, and public relations. I wouldn't do this if it weren't for all of you. Last comments from Android Market Alejandro (****)There is no "bait & switch". Just a single man who made a great app for free, decided to make it trial, then ad supported FOR his users. Support him. Christopher ()I'm so sick of the ads coming back and having to backup my database, uninstall, reinstall, restore database. For this kind of money, it should work. Jerry (***)Would be cool if you could add a custom field where you could enter a catalog# for each dvd Emma (*)Glad I noticed the new update. It's back to being best app ever ;-) maotx ()Bait and switch. Price to high. No integration with other services. No way to customize shelves. Can only backup one category at a time. Real ()No manual entry. High asking price with still no access to amazon db. Scan couldn't identify canadian upc. Sean Mc. (*)If the app wasn't so good, I would have uninstalled it due to the bait and switch tactics. Price should be determined before it goes to market. Randall (**)Garen Torikian has more than once personally responded to questions as well as quickly made desired improvements. I fully support his need to charge! Androlicious.com is a website that shows applications and games from Android Market. You can download and install apps and games directly from Android Market using an Android phone or by using WebConnect mobile application.
Memories of War Memories of War: So powerful yet often so fragmentary W.J. Astore Memories of war are powerful and fragmentary. At a national level, we do best at remembering our own war dead while scarcely recognizing the damage to others. This is one cost of nationalism. Nationalism is violent, bigoted, and discriminatory. It elevates a few at the expense of the many. It fails fully to recognize common human experience, even one as shattering as war. One example. I’ve visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. In seeing all those names of American dead on the wall, I was moved to tears. It’s a remarkable memorial, but what it fails to capture is any sense of the magnitude of death from that war visited upon Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. As I wrote for Alternet, to visualize the extent of death from America’s war in Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese would need a wall that would be roughly 20 to 50 times as long as ours. Think about that for a moment. A wall perhaps 50 times as long as our Vietnam memorial wall. It’s a staggering mental image. Sadly, today in America the only wall garnering much media interest is Trump’s wall along our border with Mexico, yet another manifestation of nationalist bigotry and bias. John Dower challenges us to think differently. To explore our common humanity. To remember the war dead of other nations and peoples, and to record the true cost of America’s wars, both to others and to ourselves. His latest article at TomDispatch.com explores how Americans both remember and forget their wars. Here’s an excerpt: While it is natural for people and nations to focus on their own sacrifice and suffering rather than the death and destruction they themselves inflict, in the case of the United States such cognitive astigmatism is backlighted by the country’s abiding sense of being exceptional, not just in power but also in virtue. In paeans to “American exceptionalism,” it is an article of faith that the highest values of Western and Judeo-Christian civilization guide the nation’s conduct — to which Americans add their country’s purportedly unique embrace of democracy, respect for each and every individual, and stalwart defense of a “rules-based” international order. Such self-congratulation requires and reinforces selective memory. “Terror,” for instance, has become a word applied to others, never to oneself. And yet during World War II, U.S. and British strategic-bombing planners explicitly regarded their firebombing of enemy cities as terror bombing, and identified destroying the morale of noncombatants in enemy territory as necessary and morally acceptable. Shortly after the Allied devastation of the German city of Dresden in February 1945, Winston Churchill, whose bust circulates in and out of the presidential Oval Office in Washington (it is currently in), referred to the “bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts.” Too often, Americans believe they’re waging a war on terror, forgetting that war itself is terror. That war itself is evil. That doesn’t mean that war is never justified, as it was, I believe, in the struggle against Nazi tyranny in World War II. Even in justifiable wars, however, we need to recognize that war breeds corruption; that war, in essence, is corruption, a corruption of the human spirit, of a humanity which should be held in common and nourished, but which during war is degraded if not destroyed. John Dower recognizes this. It’s a theme he explores in his new book, The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War Two. Consider it a primer on war’s many corruptions, and a precis of America’s tendency toward a nationalism of callous indifference when it comes to the damages we inflict on others. It’s not happy reading, but then again wars shouldn’t be a subject for happiness. A remarkable primer and meditation on America’s endless wars Wars and rumors of war seem always to be with us. Some would say they’re an inevitable part of the human condition. Our historical record seems to support that grim conclusion. Yet there is another way, a more pacific path, a path toward peace. But to walk that path, we must first fully recognize the tangled undergrowth of war that imperils our every footstep. Dower’s latest book helps us to do just that. Post navigation 11 thoughts on “Memories of War” Although I agree with most everything written above, something you posited before, about “..people not having a reason to care…,” leaves me continually dispirited. That is to say, that meaningful, intraspective writing, does little more than ‘sing to the choir,’ as it were. How can we break through the strengthening forces of hyper partisanship? If citizens are unwilling to care about the ongoing wars, what will words do? I ask only rhetorically. By no means do I condone giving up. If only we could somehow get people to care as much about their country as they do their favorite sports team or television programs? And if people did pay attention? Would we have less war, or more? Once upon a time I believed the answer was clear. Today, not so much. Yes. I’d say first that the choir needs to hear preaching too. Why go to church every week if we’re already “saved”? Because there’s meaning to the repetition. Second, I’d say that even in our hyper-partisan times, you never know when and where your seeds might take root and grow. We need to keep scattering our “seeds,” hoping they’ll take root, even among the thistle. Finally, I’m amazed at how the parables of Christ have stayed with me, but that’s because I learned them when I was young. So maybe that’s the way forward: educate our children in the ways of peace, and perhaps as adults they’ll do better than us at avoiding war. Thanks. I don’t know if I mentioned to you that I have been teaching history for the first time this year. I’m Currently on a bus returning from Washington with 250 8th graders. We also spent a day in Gettysburg. This is my 6th trip and each time I grow more conflicted about traipsing 14 year olds through monuments and cemeteries with insufficient context and a tour guide who solemnly intones, “and all these people died for your freedom.” Well, no. A lot of them died for imperialism and wrong-headed notions of whatAmerica means. A lot of them were young and poor and died to defend the money of rich, old white guys. I, too, am moved to tears at these places where the sheer waste of life can barely be conveyed. It’s hard to get them to look up from their phones to think about any of this. I noticed that what Wilfred Owen called “the old lie” is inscribed on the amphitheater near the tomb of the unknown soldier: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” I’ll teach that poem in the coming week and encourage them to question, as I always do. For right now, the rain, the Trump hats, the New Jersey turnpike, and the memory of the fatuous tour guide have all got me feeling more than a little discouraged. In 2008, I wrote about my own experience visiting Gettysburg. Here it is: Visiting Gettysburg Last week, I finally made it to Gettysburg, site of the great three-day battle between Union and Confederate forces in July 1863 that ended with the defeat of General Robert E. Lee’s army. Walking the battlefield was a sobering experience. I found myself on Little Round Top at 5:00 PM, just about the time of day that Union generals rushed men to reinforce the hill against a determined Confederate assault at the close of the battle’s second day. Earlier, I was at the Angle, just when, almost a century and a half ago, Pickett’s Charge failed to pierce the Union center, sealing Lee’s fate on the third day. As these events played through my mind, I marveled that I had the battlefield largely to myself. Not that I was alone, mind you. Tour buses circled; cars, trucks, and SUVs whizzed about, but many, perhaps most, Americans who visit Gettysburg get surprisingly little tactile or sensory experience of its difficult topography. Yes, a few kids (and fewer adults) joined me in clambering about the huge, claustrophobically placed boulders of Devil’s Den, and I did spy a couple of guided tour groups on foot. But at the site of a bloodcurdling, distinctly septic nineteenth century battle, most visitors were clearly having a distinctly bloodless, even antiseptic, twenty-first century experience. That day, I learned a lot about Gettysburg the battle — and maybe a little about us as well. As surely as my fellow tourists were staying in their cars and buses, we, as a people, are distancing ourselves from the realities of war. As we seal ourselves away from war’s horrors, we’re correspondingly finding it easier to speak of “warfighters” and to boast of having the world’s best military. As we catch a glimpse, from the comfort of our living rooms, of a suicide bombing in Iraq or an American outpost attacked, then abandoned, in Afghanistan, are we not like those tourists in buses at Gettysburg, listening to sanitized recordings telling us what to see and think about the (expurgated) reality in front of us? And who dares challenge the “expert” commentary? Who dares turn off the canned talking heads and stare into the face of war? But if we are to end our militaristic, yet curiously sanitized, “warfighter” moment, if we are ever to return to our citizen-soldier ethos and heritage, this is just what we must do. Perfect — thank you. I had just read This a Republic of Suffering– which definitely help banish any “curiously sanitized” notions from my head. I guess you can’t really blame anybody for making a living, but the stores full of tchotchkes and fudge are distasteful to me. The battlefield guides used to be pretty good about getting the kids out of the bus and moving over the landscape, but this year we mostly stayed in the bus– don’t know why. Thanks for giving me a place to process all this as we ride home. Perfect — thank you. I had just read This a Republic of Suffering– which definitely help banish any “curiously sanitized” notions from my head. I guess you can’t really blame anybody for making a living, but the stores full of tchotchkes and fudge are distasteful to me. The battlefield guides used to be pretty good about getting the kids out of the bus and moving over the landscape, but this year we mostly stayed in the bus– don’t know why. Thanks for giving me a place to process all this as we ride home. I once took a group of high-school freshmen to visit the Huntington Library in San Marino (near Pasadena), California. I can’t say what the kids got out of the trip, but for me, I happened to take notice of a decorative plaque prominently displayed on a wall of the room in which we found ourselves. It read: “Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson How timeless and approprate that observation. I especially recall Emerson’s words whenever I think of memory and memorials. Memory exists in living biology, especially human animal consciousness, whereas memorials consist of dead rock and wood fashioned by human hands into something deliberately suggestive of something else. But what the memorial — or any material artifact — suggests to us depends critically upon what individual human memory and experience we bring to the viewing of it. In our books and memorials we read something reflected — much or little — of ourselves. For years I put off visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial because I had so many mixed emotions about my own “war” and what I remember of it. I kept thinking that I would go see it once a sane and competent American administration took power and brought our many serial Vietnams to an end. But then I realized that this would probably never happen in my lifetime. So I finally made the pilgrimage along with my wife, two sons, and a high-school classmate and her husband (also in D.C. at the time). I could tell that everyone expected me to feel sad, and I tried to put on the appropriate mask for their benefit, but the whole scene really only made me angry. They brought themselves to the wall and thought they heard it say something about sorrow and weeping; but I brought me, and I heard nothing but lies, screams, and curses. The good memory makes the good memorial, and I have a pretty good memory. Really well put, Mike. I didn’t have your sense of anger at the wall; I was far too young to have served in Vietnam, and knew no one who had died. What I did get from the wall was a sense of loss, a sense of waste, a sense of sorrow. I recall a scene from “The Empire Strikes Back,” as Luke prepares to enter the cave where the Dark Side is strong. He asks Yoda, What’s in there?, and the Jedi Master replies, Only that which you take with you. And so it proves, as Luke confronts the shadows of his own dark destiny, a destiny he barely averts by refusing to submit to hate and anger. Speaking of memorials and America’s War on Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos), I remember once coming out of the front gate of Tan Son Nhut Airbase on my way into downtown Saigon. While waiting to catch a xyclo (motorscooter taxi) ride, I noticed a little plot of ground off to one side of the road, overgrown with weeds and coated with the choking dust kicked up by all the passing traffic. Upon closer inspection, I realized that I had stumbled upon a tiny graveyard, with tombstones tilted or falling over amidst the rank tropical vegetation. Then I saw a rusted sign, itself leaning over at a crazy angle which proclaimed (in English): “The Vietnamese people will never forget the sacrifices of the brave French legionaires,” or words to that effect. Yeah. Sure. In later years, when I read Barbara Tuchman’s fine book, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, I had the perfect image in mind as I read her summary sentence: “In the end, China went her own way as if the Americans had never come.” I realized then that, like the French in Southeast Asia before us, we Americans had some weed-choked, long neglected memorials of our own in store for us in many a forgotten corner of our rotting, collapsing “empire.” And who knows, but perhaps — after the sacking of Washington D.C. that surely lies not too far down the road — our surviving descendants will see such ruined memorials in our own “homeland” as well, with no one alive who can read the rusting words or remember what all the delapidated junk once represented. I can see this all as plain as day. I have seen it. I can hear it whisper, too: the empty echoes of a great desolation, as Shelley once spoke of it in “Ozymandias”: I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” We hear it said that “Time waits for no man.” Yes, but its vast forgetfullness does lie in store for us all. In the meantime, while we live and breathe and can think anything at all, our own little minds and memories will have to tell us what to make of our memorials.
Lettuce Salad as a Carrier of Microorganisms of Public Health Significance 1. Culture, distribution, and preparation of lettuce for salad offers opportunities for contamination with and growth of microorganisms. Protection and preservation methods, even when appropriate, may likewise be favorable for the contaminants. Fresh lettuce, as commercially available, was studied to determine the magnitude of contamination and the nature of representative contaminants. Specific contaminants of public health interest were added to test portions to determine their fate during storage of lettuce as a salad at room temperature. Storage of lettuce in bowls on ice resulted in very little cooling of most of the lettuce. Microbial plate counts on fresh lettuce commonly were over 105/g and the diversity of the microflora indicated a generally favorable microenvironment for many types of bacteria. Inocula of Salmonella typhimurium , Escherichia coli , and Staphylococcus aureus fared well on lettuce salad and were able to grow at room temperature storage. Commmercial "whitener" added to lettuce to preserve freshness reduced the total microflora and indicator organisms of public health significance.
By I make no secret about the fact that I’m a gamer geek who loves to play World of Warcraft. It’s an outlet for many things, including a place to go when coping with my depression, anxiety, or the mental and physical symptoms of a CFS flareup. But it’s also great for my creativity as a writer; my favorite fiction genre is fantasy, and that’s what World of Warcraft is. There’s an aspect of gameplay in World of Warcraft that has very little to do with the game’s mechanics and everything to do with the world-building the creators have done. Roleplaying is completely optional, but there are entire servers (called “realms”) that specialize in roleplay, and players on these servers can really get into their characters. I’d like you to meet my main character, Carisse Dawnfire. Carisse (kuh-REESE) is a Blood Elf mage. Back before the Catacylsm, and back before the Third War, she was Magistrix Carisse Dawnstar of Silvermoon City. But after the attack on the Sunwell that robbed her of her father and her sister, Carisse didn’t have the heart for politics anymore, and she took to traveling for a few years. Though she had a knack for it, the mercenary life was not for her. But that was how she met Elynxdria k’Shinar, known to friends as “Lynx,” and the two had remained friends even after leaving the merc company. The decision to wander the newly discovered continent of Pandaria was an easy one for Carisse. Garrosh Hellscream was spilling the blood of his people like water, as if dead fighters were of no more consequence than insects squashed under foot. Maybe that was the military way of thinking, but he had burned through enlisted soldiers long ago and was now forcibly conscripting any member of the Horde he could get his hands on. Lor’themar Theron saw Garrosh for what he was, and setting up his own campaign in Pandaria while under the guise of working with the bloodthristy Warchief was a brilliant stroke. Carisse had been able to help Lor’themar’s cause while exploring on her own and learning all she could about this “new world.” These Pandaren were fascinating, with such a rich history. She was learning all she could, now, and thought she might be able to make her new home here. Maybe. Mage gifted as she was, she could easily keep apartments in many cities in different parts of the world, choosing where to spend her time differently on a daily basis. But had she been moving around too much? Silvermoon had been her home for over a century. Could she really stay away? Her estranged mother was still there, true, but so were the graves of her father and her sister. This was not the time to decide. This was the time for discovery. World of Warcraft and its universe belong to Blizzard Entertainment. They are very supportive of fan-created works, and as a fan, I am grateful for the opportunity to immerse myself in their world. Carisse (me) and Lynx (Tom) play on the US-Emerald Dream server. Our guild is called Sapere Aude. If you are interested in starting a new World of Warcraft account, please leave a comment on this post, and I will send you a Recruit-a-Friend code for the free starter version of WoW. Christina Gleason ( 974 Posts That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a professional copywriter, editor, and blogger. My company is called Phenomenal Content. (Hire me!) I'm a multiply disabled autistic woman doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and select types of gaming, including Twitch Sings and Plants vs Zombies 2. I hate vegetables. I have an intense phone phobia, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or IM instead.
Adjuvants are generally known as substances that are added in crop protection sprays, e.g., herbicidal formulations or agricultural spray compositions, or to spray tanks used in the dispersion of same to improve activity of an active ingredient, e.g. a herbicide, that is also present in the crop protection spray or to improve application characteristics. Spray adjuvants are generally grouped into two broad categories: special purpose adjuvants and activator adjuvants. Special purpose adjuvants are typically know to widen the range of conditions under which a given crop protection spray is useful. The special purpose adjuvant may alter the physical characteristics of the spray solution. Exemplary special purpose adjuvants include compatibility adjuvants, buffering adjuvants, antifoam adjuvants, and drift control adjuvants. Exemplary special purpose adjuvant compounds include phosphatidylcholine, alkyl polyoxyethylene ether, methylacetic(acid), soluble polymers such as xanthum gum, rheology modifiers such as polyacrylamide (EDT Concentrate) and styrene butadiene latex emulsions. Exemplary commercial products include In-Place®, InterLock®, Bond®, LI700®, and Strikeforce™. Drift control adjuvants are employed to reduce or eliminate fine spray droplet particles (“fines” or “driftable fines”) that are formed when the agricultural spray composition is sprayed, e.g., from an aircraft or a ground sprayer. Driftable fines are commonly defined as droplets that are less than 150μ, e.g., less than 105μ in size (droplet diameter). By reducing or eliminating driftable fines, drift control adjuvants allow more of the deployed agricultural spray composition to reach the intended target substrate. Because driftable fines are reduced, less of the deployed agricultural spray composition drifts away and damages adjacent vegetation. Some typical drift control adjuvants include crop oil concentrates (containing 80 to 85 percent of synthetic oil, 15-20 percent of surfactants), vegetable oil concentrates (containing 50-80 percent of vegetable oils and 20 to 50 percent nonionic surfactant), oil-in-water micro emulsions, and water-in-oil invert emulsions (made) with petroleum or vegetable oils, surfactants and water. The oil-in-water micro-emulsions and water-in-oil invert emulsions are known to be essentially solvents or emulsifyable oils and typically have lower molecular weights, e.g., from 275 g/mole to 350 g/mole. Oil-in-water micro-emulsions and water-in-oil invert emulsions often contain a petroleum or vegetable derived oil that is immiscible with water and a surfactant to emulsify the mixture to make the oil and water miscible. These emulsions, however, do suffer from several disadvantages. For example, micro-emulsion droplets may be too large to spray. Also, the micro-emulsion may become unstable and phase separate over a time. The surfactants are known to produce foam during mixing especially with certain herbicides such as glyphosates. These drawbacks make it difficult to use such emulsions with conventional spray equipment without agitation. And in the case of large size droplets, large volumes of adjuvant are required to cover the pest infested target area. With the application of large volumes of pesticides applied to foliage, damage can be caused due to the toxic effect on the foliage by overconcentration of the emulsifers and/or oil in the large droplets applied. Activator adjuvants are commonly used to enhance post-emergence active ingredient performance, e.g., herbicide performance. Activator adjuvants are known to increase activity, absorption into plant tissue, and rainfastness. Activator adjuvants can also decrease photodegradation of the active ingredient and also alter the physical characteristics of the spray solution. Activator adjuvants include surfactants, crop oil concentrates, nitrogen fertilizers, spreader-stickers, wetting agents, and penetrants. Although these conventional adjuvants may provide for some improvements in active ingredient and/or agricultural spray composition efficacy, the ability to reduce driftable fines is limited (often due to the high amount of surfactants that are necessarily used therewith). These high amounts of surfactants increase drift potential and increase phytotoxicity to the foliage. Some of the conventional adjuvants in particular have a limited effect on the median spray droplet size. In some cases, conventional adjuvants not only form greater amounts of driftable fines, but some of these conventional adjuvants also form greater amounts of very large droplets, e.g., greater than 730μ in size. In particular, soluble polymer based products such as polyacrylamide and xanthum gum are known to shift the entire distribution substantially to large droplet diameters and also increase relative span. The very large droplets may result in an agricultural spray composition that provides poor coverage due to rebound from the leaf surface, which in turn reduces the overall efficacy of the active ingredients. The soluble polymers also hydrate slowly and mix poorly, which leads to processing issues such as longer mixing times. And soluble polymers are also more susceptible to degrade under shear stress during application or pump transfer. Further, the required usage level for these adjuvants is often quite high, which results in unwanted phytotoxicity of the foliage due to the high surfactant concentration (as noted above). In addition, some conventional drift reduction adjuvants have been known to have deleterious effects on the sticking and spreading of the agricultural spray composition on the intended substrate, e.g., leaf surfaces, which may result in reductions in the efficacy of the active ingredient and/or the agricultural spray composition as a whole. For example, some conventional drift reduction adjuvants can make the agricultural spray composition droplets evaporate or dry too quickly, which prevents absorption of the systemic herbicide into the leaf substrate. Also, some conventional adjuvants affect the surface tension of the agricultural spray composition such that spreading of the agricultural spray composition on the substrate, detrimentally, is limited. Some vinyl ester-based polymer dispersions, e.g., stabilized polymer vinyl ester-based polymer dispersions, have been employed in a variety of applications including, for example, as binders for adhesives, paints and paper coating compositions. In these applications, the polymer dispersion may be used in combination with other components, e.g., plasticizers. In these cases, the polymer dispersions are present in higher concentrations, while the other components are present in lower concentrations. These concentrations are suitable for the respective application, but may not be suitable for different applications. While these polymer dispersions are known to be utilized with adhesives and paints, the use of the (vinyl ester-based) polymer dispersions in the crop protection milieu has not been contemplated. The weight average molecular weight of these emulsions can range upwards from 250,000 g/mol to 400,000 g/mol. Importantly, these polymer dispersions differ significantly from the aforementioned oil-in-water micro-emulsions and water-in-oil invert emulsions, in both chemical composition and physical properties. For example, the oil-in-water micro-emulsions and water-in-oil invert emulsions have lower molecular weight oils and do not comprise polymers and/or the monomer precursors thereof, and, as a result, lack the defined structure of aqueous polymer dispersions. The weight average molecular weight of these emulsions can range upwards from 275 g/mol to 350 g/mol. Oil-in-water micro-emulsions and water-in-oil invert emulsions are not known to be used interchangeably with vinyl ester-based polymer dispersions. In view of the shortcomings of conventional adjuvants, the need exists for new adjuvants that provide for improvements in overall agricultural spray composition efficacy, e.g., reductions in driftable fines and maintenance of the relative span of the droplet size.
Impressive: The Wolfram Alpha “Fact Engine” Much attention has been focused on the forthcoming Wolfram Alpha search service. Will it be as important as Google has become? Perhaps! A new search paradigm? Yes! Or at least a new way of gathering information. A Google-killer? Nope! But when the service launches, it should become an essential in anyone’s search tool kit. Wolfram Alpha is backed by Stephen Wolfram, the noted scientist and author behind the Mathematica computational software and the book, A New Kind Of Science. The service bills itself as a “computational knowledge engine,” which is a mouthful. I’d call it a “fact search engine” or perhaps an “answer search engine,” a term that’s been used in the past for services designed to provide you with direct answers, rather than point you at pages that in turn may hold those answers. Earlier this week, I talked with Stephen to understand how the service works. Below, my look. Amazing Stats, At Your Fingertips Do a search on Wolfram Alpha, and if it has matching data, it presents a ton of information on a single page, from figures to charts. For example, a search for “newport beach” not only shows the current temperature and forecast but also provides easy access to historical temperatures, which also get charted: Want to know how popular the name Daniel is in the United States over time and how many people are currently estimated to be alive with that name, plus their ages? Wolfram Alpha can do that, too — though I wasn’t quick enough to screenshot that example during the demo. We moved fast! But over at Read Write Web, See Wolfram Alpha in Action: Our Screenshots has more examples you can view. Where’s all this information coming from? Unlike Google or a traditional search engine, Wolfram Alpha isn’t crawling the web and “scraping” information, a process where you try to extract data from a web page. Instead, it’s working with a variety of providers to gather public and private information. More important, it then uses a staff of over 150 people to ensure the information is clean and tagged in a way that Wolfram Alpha can present. For example, many government agencies publish statistical information, such as the housing starts data I mentioned above. Wolfram Alpha obtains this data, which gets incorporated into the overall database people search against. There’s no great magic here in dealing with a single set of data. Anyone could download data on housing starts, open the information in a spreadsheet like Excel and produce tables and charts. Where Wolfram Alpha amazes is by having a huge collection of statistics and other facts that, at least in the demo I viewed, can quickly be searched through and displayed with the ease and speed of doing a regular web search. In some ways, this is like a Holy Grail that any number of “invisible web” search engines have chased over the years, the ability to look inside data sources that can’t easily be crawled and provide answers from them. Wolfram Alpha succeeds because unlike with those past attempts, it has produced its own centralized repository of these answers and stats. If a traditional search engine is like a giant “book of the web,” with copies of all the pages that it has found stored in a searchable index, then Wolfram Alpha is a like a giant encyclopedia of statistics and facts — or a CIA Fact Book — or a World Almanac. It’s brimming with facts and figures. Much of the information, once entered, doesn’t need updating. However, some facts and figures change. Pluto, once a planet, is now a dwarf planet. When to refresh the data is another challenge for the system. But the company is working to figure out what information needs to be regularly revisited. Wolfram noted that a new moon of Saturn had just been discovered, “so someone is dutifully adding the information,” he told me. Another challenge is that some of the information gathered might be wrong. In some cases, Wolfram Alpha might try to average data (and point this out through in the source notations that all pages carry). “We might still get it wrong because the underlying sources get it wrong or something that our implicit model gets wrong. But there’s the trail of where did the numbers came from,” he said. In other cases, they’re in a unique position to spot if some data regularly accepted might not be up to snuff. “Sometimes there will be data that’s incredibly wrong, ” Wolfram said, giving an example of a lake database with latitude and longitude coordinates that, when Wolfram Alpha plotted it against a map, turned up some surprises. “Someone did the obvious test and plotted the lakes and found lots of them in the middle of oceans. Things that people have never checked, as we start to do visualization and analysis, it’s remarkable how often we find things that were obviously wrong but not noticed before because they were in printed form or not looked at in aggregate,” he said. Gaps In The Knowledge Base Wolfram Alpha has limitations, of course. There are plenty of statistics it doesn’t have. For example, one query it couldn’t do was how the size of search engines have changed over time. There are no official sources for this information, especially since the major search engines stopped putting out such figures. And as it doesn’t crawl the web, it doesn’t know of historic figures that I and others have published. Search engine popularity figures posed a similar challenge. These are regularly provided by at least four different metrics firms, but Wolfram Alpha doesn’t have that data. Some of this will change. The company is actively working to expand the data sources it contains, and it invites those with information to contribute data and their knowledge expertise. Some questions it’s unlikely to ever answer. Want to know how Google works? There’s no published formula for this; no set of verified facts about it. Any answer to that takes a more narrative form, and even then, it’s largely subjective based on what various authors might think. The more subjective the query, the less likely Wolfram Alpha will have an answer. “We’ll never be able to compute some personal detail of somebody’s life, but you can search for it with a traditional search engine,” Wolfram said. This is why it won’t be a Google-killer, but more on that, further down. Disambiguating Queries Any search engines faces the “disambiguation” challenge, figuring out what someone is after when a word can have multiple meanings. Did “apple” mean the fruit or the computer company, for example. Search engines traditionally use related search options to assist users. In addition, they rely on the fact that by presenting up to 10 different listings per page, they have multiple chances of guessing at the query intent correctly. Wolfram Alpha, by having a single answer page, doesn’t get such chances. So to help, it makes its best guess at what particular meaning it thinks a word has and presents options to get other answers, based on other definitions. For example with “apple,” it defaults to the “financial entity” term but suggests there’s also: a species specification a spacecraft a general material a food It then allows the user to change their answer based on those: Wolfram says a huge amount of work has gone into having human editors develop the classification schemes. These are used for more than helping searches select the right definitions for their searches. They also allow the service to know how to automatically blend answers from different data sources into a single page. For instance, Wolfram Alpha has lots of information from different sources about foods. It has lots of information from different sources about financial data. When a search is done for Apple, and it knows someone means Apple the computer company, it uses this tagging or classification to pull relevant data only out of financial databases, to create an Apple page on the fly. Food information is not used — otherwise, you’d have an odd page where along with a financial chart for the company, you might also get nutrition information for the fruit. The service also makes use of IP data to help disambiguate. If by using your IP address, it knows you’re near a particular city, then it will use that along with other factors to decide which “city” data to show you in the case of multiple cities with the same name. A “city fame index” is also used. Computing Knowledge Just providing easy access and amazing display of data might be enough of an achievement, but Wolfram Alpha goes a step beyond by allowing for sets of data to be calculated against each other. Want to divide the GDP of France and Italy? You can do that by simply entering “gdp of france / italy.” Or in another example they’ve shown, you could divide GDP by the length of railway in Europe. Some of this feels like cool parlor tricks. Enter 13.56 billion years ago, and you get a page of various stats that Wolfram Alpha thinks might be interesting. They will be to some, but perhaps more in the way that when Google Maps came out, many people cruised the satellite views out of curiosity rather than to solve some immediate need. A query like “uncle’s uncle’s grandson’s grandson” is used as an example of how a family tree can be generated — also interesting for the “wow factor” but not really a query that many would ever do in real life. While many of the demo queries may feel like ways Wolfram Alpha is being put through its paces, rather than reflecting real life queries, I’m pretty confident we will see some amazing uses of its calculating abilities. As Twitter cofounder Biz Stone recently called Twitter “the messaging service we didn’t know we needed until we had it.” Similarly, Wolfram Alpha may become the search service we didn’t know we needed — and in particular, the search service we may use in ways completely unexpected from what anyone is envisioning. Complimentary To Google, Not Competitive Sound amazing? As I’ve said before, I’m pretty jaded about search. Any number of would-be Google-killers have come and gone without gaining traction. Wolfram’s specific that the service isn’t aiming to be a Google-killer or even considers it a traditional search engine that competes. “We are not a search engine. No searching is involved here,” he said. “The types of things that people are currently searching for have some overlap [with Google], but it isn’t huge. What’s exciting is that we have a whole new class of things that people can put into a input field and have it tell them what it knows.” While I think technically that Wolfram Alpha will be pretty amazing — and indeed a huge new significant tool that people should consider — it will still face a hefty awareness challenge. It remains a specialized search tool, and general searchers — which are among those Wolfram Alpha is targeting — typically do not go directly to such tools. For reasons I’ve never seen fully researched or explained, people simply do not go to specialty search tools in mass numbers. Even at Google, the percentage of people going directly to its image or local search services is appallingly small, which has why it has made such an effort with universal search & blended results. Another challenge is that some of what Wolfram Alpha does can be done VIA Google — emphasis on the VIA part, as I’ll explain. For example, want a list of words that end -aq? Wolfram Alpha can show you them, but a search on Google quickly brings up a page in the top results that has them as well. Want the weather in Newport Beach? Google (and others) provides a direct display with links to deeper information. For many searches, this will still keep Google as a first port of call. Even though Wolfram Alpha directly displays answers, the Google Habit will remain strong, and they’ll likely be happy enough that Google points them in the right direction. And unlike Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha likely won’t get a chance to rank in Google’s own results. There’s no set number of pages that Google can crawl, though it will be interesting to see if some pages start getting listed if people link to specific searches (if someone links to a Wolfram Alpha search request, that might generate a page that Google and other search engines can read). Wolfram Alpha’s edge may be that it’s a unique repository of general knowledge that imitates a search engine (unlike Wikipedia, which has no search engine feel). Of course, the killer combination would be for Wolfram Alpha to be partnered with a major search engine. It’s something Wolfram said is being considered, though there are no formal discussions at the moment. The focus is really getting the service opened to the public and seeing how the initial reaction goes. “We hope to be a high quality source, a quotable resource, in many cases,” Wolfram said. Google, of course, just rolled out public data search, allowing people to chart out unemployment and population data in the United States (while this seems like a spoiler to Wolfram Alpha, Google’s since told me the exact timing was completely coincidental and even moved at the last minute due to the birth of a child of someone on the team). While the launch during Wolfram Alpha’s public demo may have been coincidental, there’s no mistake that Google thinks searching through structured data and databases is important. The company told me it will continue to expand the data it offers, especially based on the type of queries it sees that would most benefit from it. Still, at the moment, Google has nothing like the number of human editors (“curators,” Wolfram Alpha calls them) involved to build such a centralized database. The Big G can’t be written off, and if it decides that Wolfram Alpha really is drawing away people it needs, I’d expect it to build rapidly to compete. But Wolfram’s coming out with a big head start. Aiming For Profits When it goes live, Wolfram Alpha hopes to pay for itself in two ways. The right-side of pages — the “right-rail” in search engine vernacular — will carry sponsorships. Some deals for these are already in place for when the site goes live, though Wolfram didn’t reveal which companies will show there. Unlike traditional search ads, these don’t appear to be cost-per-click driven. Certainly no self-serve AdWords-like system appears in the works. There will also be a corporate version eventually, which will allow users to do queries that involve heavy amounts of computation, to upload their own data in bulk or download data sets. The company also envisions licensing out private versions of the service and is still planning other offerings. Will this all make the service eventually profitable? “I hope it will be. I’ve invested quite a lot of money in it, as you can guess. I certainly hope to make that money back, otherwise it is a very grand piece of philanthropy on my part,” Wolfram said, with a chuckle. As for the business issues still to be determined? “I’m one of those people who doesn’t go for, ‘Let’s make an absolutely precise business plan’,” Wolfram said. About That Name… I’ve seen a fair amount of criticism that “Wolfram Alpha” doesn’t come along as a catchy name that will resonate with general searchers. Certainly, I find it a bit clunky. Is that really going to be the final name? “Whether this ends up being Wolfram Alpha or overtaking our Wolfram.com site, that’s a subject of great internal debate at our company. We were keen to make sure this product is associated with our brand. Worst case, if we never figure out a business model at all, it’s great example of what the technology we have built can do. Our corporate name is as good a nonsense word as any Web 2.0 word,” he said. Commenting further, he added about the “Alpha” part: “There’s a bit of this being the first of something and a bit of humility that’s just the beginning of what I expect will be a very long term project. This is basically my third large project in life.” When Can We Play? Ready to try Wolfram Alpha out? The service is set to launch this month, though an exact data hasn’t been set. New search services notoriously get overwhelmed by traffic when they debut, and I have no doubt Wolfram Alpha will get swamped with visitors. Given that it is so processor-intensive — that no pages are cached, which helps with load — I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go up-and-down in the first week it’s out. But the company feels confident that when it goes live, it’ll stay up consistently, based on load test it’s doing. When it does go live, check it out. As said, it won’t be a replacement for Google or a traditional search engine. But it looks like a promising new resource to gather all types of answers.
Home of the Original Camo Rings Showcase your love of the outdoors with a beautiful outdoor themed or camo ring from Titanium-Buzz. Our original collection of outdoor rings is the first of its kind and includes a variety of designs for hunters, fishers, hikers, and more. The rings are made from lightweight materials like titanium or zirconium, and many styles include decorative inlays of authentic Realtree and Mossy Oak camouflage. Wear your ring while you hunt or subtly show off your passion for the outdoors at the office. We carry camo wedding rings for men and women in a wide range of styles and sizes to suit every personality. Not sure what size wedding rings to order? No problem, head over to our ring sizing page for information on finding the correct size and what to do if your ring doesn't fit. We offer 1/4 sizes for most styles upon request to ensure that you get the perfect fit. Exclusive Selections Featuring Realtree and Mossy Oak Our Realtree and Mossy Oak Camo Rings match the camo you wear in the woods, but at home they'll do anything but blend in. These rings feature authentic Realtree and Mossy Oak camouflage that has been licensed through partnerships with Jordan Outdoors and Hass Outdoors for an authentic camo look. Every camo inlay is taken from a different swatch of camo, so no two of our rings are exactly alike. Pick out one of our men's camo wedding rings to show your devotion to the hunt at the altar and every day after you say "I do." These truly unique camo wedding bands are all about celebrating your rustic sense of style. If you plan to stand at the altar in your favorite camo vest and tie - no judgment, by the way - then you're a prime candidate for one of these camo men's wedding bands from this authentic collection by Titanium-Buzz. Hunting boots and rifle optional at the altar. We also have outdoor-themed and camo wedding rings for the ladies at Titanium-Buzz. Surprise your favorite outdoorsy lady when you get down on one knee with a pink camouflage wedding ring or something with an edgy, antler inlay. But don't worry, these ladies' styles can be ordered with plenty of bling, too. She'll be happy to show her traditional-meets-edgy sense of style one of our diamond camouflage wedding rings equipped with a sparkly center stone. Made to Go with You on Intense Hunts Our hunting scene and animal track rings are beautifully detailed and perfect for everyday use. Wear the tracks of your favorite prey or choose one of our intricate hunting scene rings featuring fishers, hunters, and outdoor landscapes. With so many designs to choose from, there's something for every type of outdoor enthusiast. Whether you pick a stylish camo wedding ring or opt for a day-to-day style that celebrates your personality, you can be sure that these rings will endure. We offer outdoor rings made of rugged titanium, black zirconium, carbon fiber, Damascus steel, and other long-lasting wedding bands materials. If you pick one of our cool titanium outdoor rings, you can expect unrivaled durability, scratch-resistance and exceptional strength. In other words, these babies will stand up to the heat, even on sweat-inducing adventures. Have other questions about how to get into the hunt? Give us a call toll-free at 1-866-215-1862 or simply send us an email. Explore all available styles of wedding bands for men to find the most impressive ones. Find Out More about Our Camo Rings
Y-Stent-Assisted Coiling With Low-Profile Neuroform Atlas Stents for Endovascular Treatment of Wide-Necked Complex Intracranial Bifurcation Aneurysms. Y-stent-assisted coiling is one of the eligible techniques for the treatment of complex bifurcation aneurysms. In majority of previous literature, Y-stenting has been performed using stents that could be delivered through large profile microcatheters that are often difficult to manipulate during navigation through sharply angled side branches. Attempts to navigate with these large profile catheters might cause serious complications during Y-stenting procedure. To investigate the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of Y-stent-assisted coiling procedure with Neuroform Atlas stents for the treatment of complex bifurcation aneurysms; Neuroform Atlas is a recently introduced open-cell stent that can be delivered though low-profile microcatheters. We identified the patients with intracranial bifurcation aneurysms treated by Y-stent-assisted coiling procedure with Neuroform Atlas stents. We assessed the immediate postoperative and follow-up clinical and angiographic outcomes. We also investigated the periprocedural and delayed complications. A total of 30 aneurysms in 30 patients were included in the study. Y-stenting was successfully performed without any technical complications in all cases (100%). Immediate postprocedural angiography revealed total aneurysm occlusion in 83.3% of patients. The mean angiographic follow-up time was 11.8 mo. The last follow-ups showed complete occlusion in 93.3% of patients. There was no mortality in this study. A procedure-related complication developed in 6.7% and resulted in permanent morbidity in 3.3% of patients. Neuroform Atlas stent combines the advantages of low-profile deployment microcatheters with an open-cell structure to achieve a successful Y-stenting procedure. Y-stent-assisted coiling with Neuroform Atlas stents provides a safe and effective endovascular treatment for wide-necked complex bifurcation aneurysms.
Recent Profile Visitors Hi all, My H1B application(fresh) has been approved recently and I am planning to go for stamping in next few days. As I have not yet started working for the company, I do not have any client letter. Is there any problem if i go for stamping without client letter? Thanks in advance. Hello experts, I had received RFE for my fresh H1B application and employer has submitted the RFE response to USCIS on 11th Dec. Now my case status is updated in USCIS web site as "Correspondence Was Received And USCIS Is Reviewing It- On December 12, 2017, we received your correspondence for Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, Receipt Number EAC########. We are reviewing your correspondence, and will mail you a notice if we need something from you." I see that USCIS generally marks the status as "Response To USCIS' Request For Evidence Was Received". Why is my status given as correspondence was received. Any thoughts, is there anyone in the same boat. Thanks in advance. Hello experts, I had received RFE for my fresh H1B application and employer has submitted the RFE response to USCIS on 11th Dec. Now my case status is updated in USCIS web site as "Correspondence Was Received And USCIS Is Reviewing It- On December 12, 2017, we received your correspondence for Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, Receipt Number EAC########. We are reviewing your correspondence, and will mail you a notice if we need something from you." I see that USCIS generally marks the status as "Response To USCIS' Request For Evidence Was Received". Why is my status given as correspondence was received. Any thoughts, is there anyone in the same boat. Thanks in advance. Hey all, I have received level 1 wage RFE for cap 2018 on September 20th and my employer is planning to respond by next month. Any idea when can I expect the USCIS decision if my employer responds to the RFE by Nov end? Is there anyone who has responded for the RFE and has got the USCIS response? Please share your thoughts. Hello, I have my application for H1B which is under consular processing in India, picked in lottery for CAP 2018 . Will there be any issues if I travel to US on H4, if the H1B approval is pending with the USCIS? Thanks in advance. Hello Everyone, I have a query regarding H1B visa approval. My employer informed me that my petition was selected in the lottery for CAP 2018. When can I expect the approval notice from USCIS? I have a valid H4 visa which is valid till August 2019 as my husband is also in the US in H1B, can I travel to US with my H4 visa when the H1B petition status is pending with the USCIS? Thanks in advance, Anjali
Q: Cassandra or Hadoop Hive or MYSQL? I am Developing a Web Crawler,Which is Good for storing data? Cassandra or Hadoop Hive or MySQL?and why?i am having 1TB of Data from past 6 Months in my MySQL DB,i need to index them and i need to get the out put in my search ASAP,and as i think,it will store more amount of DATA,like 10 Peta Byes as my crawler are working fast,i need to get the read/write operation fast,i need to integrate it in my PHP app A: That depends on details of your requirements, but I think that in your case HBase would be the best option. Using HBase as a web-crawler database is well documented and it's HBase's use that is described in BigTable whitepaper.
Ultrastructural findings in the oral mucosa of betel chewers. Eighteen biopsies of the oral mucosa of northern Thai hilltribe betel chewers were studied histologically and by transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM, SEM). Clinically, varying stages of epithelial atrophy and one case of submucous fibrosis were observed. Histologically, epithelial atrophy with marked reduction of the rete pegs, hyperortho- and/or parakeratosis, and subepithelial edema and inflammatory changes were the prominent findings. On the ultrastructural level, cytoplasmic projections of the basal cells into the subepithelial stroma were seen. The basal membrane frequently revealed gaps; the interepithelial space was widened and unusual microvilli were observed on cell surfaces (SEM). Intercellularly, cristalloid material of unknown origin was also seen. The subepithelial connective tissue was characterized by dense bundles of collagen fibres adjacent to which masses of amorphous material were located. While some of the ultrastructural findings in the epithelium of betel chewers are indicative of early dysplastic changes, the nature of the juxta-epithelial stromal alterations is still unknown. Current hypotheses regarding the etiology of oral submucous fibrosis are briefly discussed.
Pano Qirko Pano Qirko (born 26 June 1999) is an Albanian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Albanian club Tirana and the Albania national under-19 football team. Club career Early career Qirko started his youth career at KF Vlora in 2012. A year later he moved to fellow Vlora club Flamurtari Vlorë. He won the 2014–15 Superliga under-17 with Flamurtari U-17. In the 2015–16 season he played 3 youth cup games with under-17 side. Then he moved to the under-19 and so far for the 2016–17 season he has played 10 youth league games. Flamurtari For the 2016–17 he gained entry with the first team of Flamurtari Vlorë and was placed as a third choice behind Argjent Halili and Stivi Frashëri leaving behind Edmir Sali. He made it his professional debut on 16 November 2016 in the 2016–17 Albanian Cup match against Tërbuni Pukë coming on as a substitute in the 73rd minute in place of Frashëri in a 2–0 win. International career Albania U16 He participated with Albania national under-16 football team in the UEFA Development Tournament 2015 and played 2 matches under coach Alban Bushi, against Montenegro U16 on 2 May 2015 in a 3–1 win and kept a clean sheet a day later against Armenia U16. Following a 1–0 victory against Cyprus U16 2 days later, Albania U16 won the tournament. Albania U17 Qirko was called up to Albania national under-17 football team by coach Džemal Mustedanagić for a friendly tournament in Italy against Fasano, Frosinone & Italy B on match-dates 19–21 May 2015. Albania U19 He was then called up at Albania national under-19 football team in the pre-eliminary squad by coach Arjan Bellaj to participate in the 2017 UEFA European Under-19 Championship qualification from 6-11 October 2016. Qirko was re-called to under-19 team by new coach Erjon Bogdani for a gathering in Durrës, Albania in April 2017 where they also played two friendly matches. He was called up also for the next gathering for a double Friendly match against Georgia U19 on 30 August & 1 September 2017. Career statistics Club Honours International Albania U16 UEFA Development Tournament: 2015 References External links Pano Qirko profile FSHF.org Category:1999 births Category:Living people Category:Footballers from Vlorë Category:Association football goalkeepers Category:Albanian footballers Category:Albania youth international footballers Category:Flamurtari Vlorë players Category:KF Tirana players Category:Albanian Superliga players
WELCOME Welcome to Our Digital Heritage, the web presence of a group of Australian researchers concerned with the heritage of the born digital. We take digital heritage to be a multi-disciplinary research area, which encompasses historical, technical, archival and legal concerns. We conduct research on a range of uses of computing, including games, media arts, the demoscene, and computer users themselves, both in Australia and beyond. This site collects together our current projects, our archived projects, and some Australian webpages we host which are not in formal web archives. It also has a feed from our blog, where you can read about our current and past activities, and a list of affiliated researchers.
Le Monde's story was shot down by Berlin and Paris, but there is little doubt that certain officials have been trying to build momentum for a rescue. It is clear that the EU family is split on the issue. Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, backs "assistance", with support of EU integrationists hoping to nudge the EU towards full fiscal union.
Russia puts sweeping ban on U.S., E.U. food imports Russia retaliated against western sanctions with a sweeping ban on food imports, marking a new low point in relations between the two since the end of the Cold War. Under instructions from President Vladimir Putin, the government said it would ban for a year all imports of meat and poultry, seafood, milk and dairy products including cheese, fruit, vegetables and vegetable oil-based products from the U.S., E.U., Australia and Norway–all of whom have imposed sanctions of their own on Russia for the annexation of Crimea and its perceived role in stoking the violent uprising in eastern Ukraine. There was no action to restrict the crucial flow of oil and gas exports, which are vital for the E.U. economy and for the Russian budget. Nor did the government announce any ban on overflight of Siberian airspace, although it did consider it. Even so, the step signals a radical departure from Russia’s previous policy of trying to avoid harm to its own economy, which has never recovered its pre-crisis rates of growth, and which stagnated in the first half of this year. “We hoped until the last minute that our colleagues would understand that sanctions are a blind alley that do no-one any good. But they didn’t understand and…we were forced to take reciprocal measures,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told cabinet in a televised meeting. The move is extraordinary, in as much as Russia has found it much easier, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, to buy food than to produce it. It currently imports some 40% of its food, and the E.U. is its biggest trading partner, buying €3.3 billion ($4.4 billion) of fruit and vegetables last year and another €3.3 billion in meat and dairy products. The U.S. shipped $1.3 billion of food products to Russia last year, according to the USDA. But the ban seems likely to rebound on Russian consumers too, despite comments Wednesday by Putin urging the need to avoid that. Russia’s domestic producers are hardly in a position to replace all the items that will be lost over the next year (documented with curious delight here by state news agency Itar-Tass). Even if imports can be substituted, they will likelier be more expensive than what they have replaced, which is in itself a development that will hit ordinary Russians, who have grown used to Italian Mozzarella cheese and Norwegian shrimp. Inflation is already running above target at 7.5% and food accounts for 29% of the basket of goods and services tracked by statistics office Rosstat. The government claimed that the measures would be an opportunity for domestic producers, but such claims met with scorn by critics. “Those who think sanctions will help Russian producers – remember the car industry. They’ve been ‘helping’ it with duties for 20 years,” Alexei Navalny, an opposition blogger and politician, said via his Twitter account. Whatever else happens, there is a large chance that the sanctions could be undermined by either an unwillingness or an inability to enforce them. For example, there is little to stop Belarus–which sits between Poland and Russia–from re-exporting Polish fruit and vegetables to Russia, possibly by passing them off as its own. Neither Belarus nor Kazakhstan, which are both in a customs union with Russia, have announced any sanctions, and Belarus in particular is in such a parlous economic state that it can ill afford to pass up opportunities to make a fast buck with such tricks. The news agency RIA Novosti reported that Russian officials would meet with their counterparts in Belarus August 12 to discuss the matter.
A conventional laser beam level instrument is quite complex for its structure or mechanism and also occupies a larger volume. The automatic optical levelling, plumbing and verticality-determining apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,540 also granted to the same inventor of this application includes a frame (3) for securing the illuminators (6, 7, 8) and the plumb device (4) on the frame (3) rotatably mounted on the base (1), easily causing precision problem by such a rotatable mechanism; and a longer stem (42) for mounting the plumb device (4) on the stem on the frame (3), thereby increasing the total height of the instrument and causing unstable standing and inconvenient handling of the instrument. The present inventor has found the drawbacks of the conventional laser levelling or calibrating instrument and invented the present compact optical calibrating apparatus. The object of the present invention is to provide a compact optical calibrating apparatus including: a housing having a base formed on a bottom of the housing, a horizontality calibrator universally pendulously mounted in the housing, a plurality of illuminators embedded or secured in a plumb pendulously secured to the horizontality calibrator, and a switch device pivotally secured in the housing for switching on or off a power source supplied to the illuminators and for braking or releasing the pendulous movement of the plumb; whereby upon embedding of the illuminators in the plumb, the height and volume of the calibrating apparatus is decreased for obtaining a compact optical calibrating instrument.
Annual immunisation coverage report, 2010. This, the fourth annual immunisation coverage report, documents trends during 2010 for a range of standard measures derived from Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) data. These include coverage at standard age milestones and for individual vaccines included on the National Immunisation Program (NIP). For the first time, coverage from other sources for adolescents and the elderly are included. The proportion of children 'fully vaccinated' at 12, 24 and 60 months of age was 91.6%, 92.1% and 89.1% respectively. For vaccines available on the NIP but not currently assessed for 'fully immunised' status or for eligibility for incentive payments (rotavirus and pneumococcal at 12 months and meningococcal C and varicella at 24 months) coverage varied. Although pneumococcal vaccine had similar coverage at 12 months to other vaccines, coverage was lower for rotavirus at 12 months (84.7%) and varicella at 24 months (83.0%). Overall coverage at 24 months of age exceeded that at 12 months of age nationally and for most jurisdictions, but as receipt of varicella vaccine at 18 months is excluded from calculations, this represents delayed immunisation, with some contribution from immunisation incentives. The 'fully immunised' coverage estimates for immunisations due by 60 months increased substantially in 2009, reaching almost 90% in 2010, probably related to completed immunisation by 60 months of age being introduced in 2009 as a requirement for GP incentive payments. As previously documented, vaccines recommended for Indigenous children only (hepatitis A and pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine) had suboptimal coverage at around 57%. Delayed receipt of vaccines by Indigenous children at the 60-month milestone age improved from 56% to 62% but the disparity in on-time vaccination between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children at earlier age milestones did not improve. Coverage data for human papillomavirus (HPV)from the national HPV register are consistent with high coverage in the school-based program (73%) but were lower for the catch-up program for women outside school (30-38%). Coverage estimates for vaccines on the NIP from 65 years of age were comparable with other developed countries.
[Imagination: its definition, purposes and neurobiology]. Imagination, distinct from imagery, memory, and cognition, is a poorly understood but fascinating cognitive ability of human beings. Herein, imagination is defined as 'the cognitive process which enables the individual to manipulate intrinsically generated phenomenal information in order to create a representation perceived by the mind's senses.' This definition is expanded within the context of the neurobiology of the brain and the possible purposes the imagination fulfills in daily living, human development, and normal behavior.
Milestones to recovery: preliminary validation of a framework to promote recovery and map progress through the medium secure inpatient pathway. Forensic mental health care in the UK has undergone a rapid expansion since the late 1990s. In medium secure units (MSUs), there is growing emphasis on developing care pathways without much theoretical underpinning. We developed a concept of 'Milestones to Recovery' (MTR) to measure progress through the MSU pathway. Our aim was to validate the MTR framework. Our hypotheses were that patients scoring higher on the MTR Scale would be more likely to be aggressive to others in the following 6 months and resident in the acute areas of the unit and that those scoring lower would be more likely to be discharged within 6 months of the assessment. An MTR scale was developed to enable the investigation of the validity of the MTR framework and evaluated with staff evaluations of 80 resident patients using a prospective, longitudinal and naturalistic design. The results suggest that the MTR framework is valid in discriminating between different stages on the MSU pathway. Therapeutic engagement was particularly important in terms of progress through the MSU, whereas current behaviour was important in predicting future aggression. Further research is required to test the MTR framework across different levels of security, with larger samples and within different populations. Provides a framework to map progress through the service. Identifies key factors that influence recovery and rehabilitation. Potential to promote dialogue between patients and staff, and enhance motivation.
Low autonomic arousal as vulnerability to externalising behaviour in infants with hostile mothers. Maternal psychopathology and the child's autonomic nervous system functioning are risk factors for aggressive behaviour later in life. While research has shown that maternal psychopathology already affects young children, less is known about the association between autonomic functioning and aggressive behaviour in young children. In addition, maternal psychopathology and autonomic nervous system functioning may interact to determine the risk of aggressive behaviour. In a sample of 375 infants and their mothers, maternal psychiatric symptoms were assessed with the Brief Symptom Inventory and toddler aggressive behaviour with the Child Behaviour Checklist. Infant heart rate was recorded at 14 months. Maternal psychiatric problems, including hostility and depression, were associated with toddler aggressive behaviour. Maternal psychiatric problems interacted with mean heart rate (P=0.01) and HF variability (P=0.03) in their effect on toddler aggressive behaviour. Mothers with high psychiatric problems, in particular, high hostility, were more likely to have toddlers with high aggressive behaviour. Moreover, in the presence of maternal risk factors, low autonomic arousal renders children particularly susceptible to aggressive behaviour.
List of Central American folk music traditions This is a list of folk music traditions, with styles, dances, instruments and other related topics. The term folk music can not be easily defined in a precise manner; it is used with widely varying definitions depending on the author, intended audience and context within a work. Similarly, the term traditions in this context does not connote any strictly-defined criteria. Music scholars, journalists, audiences, record industry individuals, politicians, nationalists and demagogues may often have occasion to address which fields of folk music are distinct traditions based along racial, geographic, linguistic, religious, tribal or ethnic lines, and all such peoples will likely use different criteria to decide what constitutes a "folk music tradition". This list uses the same general categories used by mainstream, primarily English-language, scholarly sources, as determined by relevant statements of fact and the internal structure of works. These traditions may coincide entirely, partially or not at all with geographic, political, linguistic or cultural boundaries. Very few, if any, music scholars would claim that there are any folk music traditions that can be considered specific to a distinct group of people and with characteristics undiluted by contact with the music of other peoples; thus, the folk music traditions described herein overlap in varying degrees with each other. References Notes F\|Central American folk Category:Traditional music
Myriam Steinberg was 40 and fresh off a breakup when she realized that if she wanted a baby, she'd have to go it alone. "I realized that I couldn't take the risk of having to wait two or three years," Steinberg said from her home in East Vancouver. "It's been a major roller coaster." Four years later, she is now 12 weeks into her fifth pregnancy; she lost the other four. Steinberg, an artist and former festival producer with a shock of purple highlights in her hair, has partnered with an illustrator to write a graphic novel about her experiences with fetal loss and trying to conceive. She is part of a small but growing number of single women across Canada who are pursuing parenthood on their own. Research shows that most of them are doing so because they haven't yet found the right partner. Steinberg has suffered miscarriages and terminated one pregnancy because of genetic abnormalities. This is a characterization of her that appears in her upcoming graphic novel, Catalogue Baby. (Christache Ross) B.C.'s largest fertility clinic, Olive Fertility Centre, says the number of single women coming in to inquire about their options has more than tripled in the past five years. Other clinics across Canada report similar increases. It's an issue that Vancouver psychologist Judith Daniluk, whose research focuses on the subject, says is becoming more pervasive. Women are now able to choose the right partner for emotional and parenting support — not just to conform to social norms of marriage or to survive financially, she said. That's a good choice for women to have, but it does potentially have unforeseen consequences, Daniluk said. "If you're waiting for Mr. Right and he doesn't come along, then what do you do?" 'I just let time slide' Steinberg was in her early thirties when she decided she wanted to have kids. But she was also in the throes of an 11-year stint producing the now-defunct In the House Festival, which presented concerts and shows in people's homes. "I just kind of forgot and I just let time slide," she said, sitting in her living room filled with art and books, a piano and a leopard print lounger. Steinberg broke up with her boyfriend when she was 40. She gave up running the festival and booked an appointment at a fertility clinic. She did consider adopting, but the costs, years-long wait lists and no guarantee of getting a child meant that wasn't an option for her. She also wanted the experience of conceiving and bearing a baby. An excerpt from Myriam Steinberg's graphic novel, Catalogue Baby. (Christache Ross) Dr. Niamh Tallon, a doctor at Olive Fertility Centre, said she's seen a steady stream of patients like Steinberg that range in age from 32 to 46. Last year, 468 single women come in seeking services — up from 130 five years ago. "What inherently makes us women is that we lose our eggs as we get older, and unfortunately it's harder to get pregnant as we get older," Tallon said. But she said it's also hard to find a suitable partner. Some women, often still holding out for "The One," will inquire about freezing their eggs to increase their chances of conceiving later. 'There's just so much anger' Steinberg started with a sperm donor and intrauterine insemination (IUI). She miscarried. She chose to terminate another pregnancy at 17 weeks when tests came back positive for genetic abnormalities. She then opted for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) — including pre-screening embryos for abnormalities — and, eventually, donor eggs. She then miscarried twice more. "You question yourself a lot. You question your body," she said, holding back tears. "There's just so much anger." Author, artist and festival producer Myriam Steinberg describes her struggles with treatment 0:31 Steinberg estimated the costs of all these procedures, including alternative treatments like acupuncture and vitamins, at about $80,000 to $100,000. She covered the costs with a combination of savings, renting out rooms in her home through Airbnb, and contributions from her parents. Changing societal attitudes Daniluk said women who seek motherhood later in life often face criticism for "choosing" to delay having children. But the reality is many women delay parenthood until they're financially prepared. Today that takes much longer. Researchers at the Generation Squeeze project, a campaign that raises awareness about the economic pressure faced by younger Canadians, say young adults are facing more years in post-secondary education, larger student debts, and higher housing prices. Those who do become parents also face exorbitant daycare costs. Most women also want a relationship with someone equally committed to parenting, Daniluk said. "We really are talking about trying to change societal attitudes about women who choose to delay childbearing or choose to then have a child on their own because they haven't found the right partner," she said. "It's really about seeing that as being the more responsible choice as opposed to being selfish." In fact, because fertility treatments are so expensive, Daniluk said provincial governments should cover the costs so they're available to women from all income levels. Currently, there is only limited funding in some provinces for certain types of fertility treatment. 59 % of BC infertility patients say cost was a barrier to proceeding with treatment - > <a href="https://t.co/I0AYgy7hgf">https://t.co/I0AYgy7hgf</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IVF4BC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IVF4BC</a> <a href="https://t.co/pGzC5Q7ac1">pic.twitter.com/pGzC5Q7ac1</a> —@ivf4bc 'Cautiously excited' For now, Steinberg is 12 weeks into her fifth pregnancy and is "cautiously excited." Despite the heartbreak and the costs of trying to conceive, she has kept up her efforts because she keeps on thinking about how she'll feel in the future. "It just kept coming back to I would regret not trying," she said. For now, her only regret is having waited this long. "I wish that I had done this 10 years ago," she said.
We didn’t expect it to come as soon as it did, but Google’s first solely self-branded smartphone, the Google Pixel, is finally here. In light of how mature the smartphone market has become in the last few years, it’s hard for a new phone to stand out as something that takes anything more than a few baby steps forward. This phone isn’t that much different. But what is different is that it isn’t just any Android phone made by one of Google’s partners. This one is Google’s, and that’s special. It’s special because Google really has made an effort at building a good top-to-bottom user experience. It’s special because Google has made some clear — in some cases major — improvements to its software and how it works with the hardware. It’s special because it has a great camera. It’s special because it’s the first Android phone to ship with the Google Assistant. It’s special because it’s the first Daydream-ready smartphone. It’s special because it’s the best portal to Google’s services, full stop. But most of all, I think the Pixel is special because it seems to me that Google’s newly-rebirthed smartphone line has a lot of potential. Yes, there are some things that this phone doesn’t have. But what phone doesn’t? Let’s talk about what the Pixel has going for it. SO WHAT IS THE PIXEL? The Pixel is a new smartphone, and as the company says, it’s #madebyGoogle. It’s the spiritual successor to the Nexus line of old, but with at least one key external difference: there’s no co-branding from another manufacturer. We know that the device was actually manufactured by HTC, but Google is truly claiming this phone as their own. In its marketing, Google is positioning the phone as “Phone by Google” to make sure this is clear. This is Google’s baby. The Pixel has a 5-inch FHD AMOLED display, and the Pixel XL has a slightly larger 5.5-inch QHD AMOLED display, but other than that they’re mostly the same. You’ll find a quad-core 64-bit Snapdragon 821 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 12.3MP and 8MP cameras, 32GB of storage, and the usual Bluetooth, NFC, and other connectivity interfaces. The Pixel has a 2,770 mAh battery, while the XL has a 3,450mAh battery. But battery life expectancy is not much different between them — the Pixel XL is a little better. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a review unit for the standard Pixel yet, so this review is solely of the Pixel XL. That shouldn’t matter much, though, because as I just mentioned, the only differences between the two phones are battery life and their display sizes/resolutions. The experience you actually receive with both phones should be nearly identical with the exception of size, because unlike the tricks Apple is pulling with the iPhone 7 Plus, Google isn’t packing any special features in XL to get you to upgrade. It is truly a matter of size preference with the Pixel, and little more. HARDWARE BUILD \| The Google Pixel doesn’t exactly have the most stunning a smartphone has ever had, but it’s definitely not bad. It’s going to draw comparisons to its competitors, though — that’s for sure. First, the phone will almost certainly be compared to the iPhone thanks to its antenna lines and large top-and-bottom front bezels. That bottom bezel, sans a home button like the iPhone, is probably the most unsightly part of the Pixel. It’s just a huge chin. The other comparison that this phone will likely draw is to HTC phones, and for good reason. Forget the fact that the antenna line design that many will say the Pixel copies from the iPhone was actually first introduced by HTC. The phone bears some resemblance to the HTC 10, with its sharp edges and side bezels. While it’s definitely not a “copy” by any means, the Pixel does feel a lot like a mix between the iPhone 6S and the HTC 10. It doesn’t have a standout design like the Galaxy S7 edge. Glass back But it does have one hardware design feature that’s completely unique. The back of the phone is actually one third glass, fused together with the rest of the aluminum unibody. While there’s little or no functional purpose to this (Google says it serves to even further improve cellular reception), it does do a good job of giving the Pixel its own outer appearance. If you see a phone with a glass-backed top third like this, it’s guaranteed to be a Pixel (at least for now). And that’s good for Google. Pixel Imprint Sitting atop this glass back is the what was previously known as Nexus Imprint. “Pixel Imprint” is really just the fancy name for the Pixel’s fingerprint scanner. There’s nothing particularly interesting here, but I have to say I’m a huge fan of the smooth glass rear fingerprint sensors. They feel really nice and — at least in my experience — I tend to find them a bit faster and more accurate than others. But that’s not saying much in 2016, because pretty much all phones have lightning fast fingerprint sensors. Size and feel in the hand Like I said, I’ve only really had my hands on the Pixel Xl, so I can’t really comment on the smaller model. But in size, I think the Pixel XL hits a sweet spot for me. Phones like the iPhone 6S Plus or the Huawei Nexus 6P have always been a bit on the big side for me, and the size of the standard iPhone or the Nexus 5X is a bit small. The Pixel XL manages to pack a 5.5-inch display in a body that’s smaller than the iPhone 6S Plus, and that’s a plus for me. But it’s no Galaxy S7 edge, which manages to pack that display in an even smaller form factor. The Pixel XL feels really good in the hand. It has nicely curved edges on the backside, so it feels a lot more like an iPhone and less like the sharper-edged Galaxy devices from Samsung or the HTC 10. I prefer that, but as I said, this phone is probably more vulnerable than any of the entire history of Nexus phones to be compared to the iPhone. I don’t mind that personally, but it’s just the reality of things. There’s a headphone jack! It’s kind of sad that I have to even mention this, but if this is a deciding factor for you, you’ll be glad to hear that the Pixel has a nice headphone jack located right at the top-left side. Personally this wasn’t a big deal to me, and I haven’t really had much problem using an adapter when necessary with the Moto Z, but I understand that this is a deal-breaker for some. I hope that changes soon, because in my humble opinion, it’s about time we move on from the 3.5mm jack. But it’s there if you need it! Good displays While the Pixel doesn’t have the best screens on a smartphone, they’re adequate or better than adequate. And I think you may find this to be a theme throughout this review. In many aspects, the Pixel is “safe” in terms of hardware. Like many phones, it’s not the best in direct sunlight, but this phone gets brighter than the Moto Z for example. It’s more than enough to get the job done, though. I was happy with the colors and vibrance of the display when watching videos and playing games. Fast charging The Pixel has great fast charging. Google says that it can get up to 7 hours of use from only 15 minutes of charging on both the Pixel and Pixel XL, and can attest to this. In fact, I woke up at 7 AM one morning and the phone was completely dead from the night before. I had to be out the house at 8 AM. I plugged in the phone and gave it about a half hour of juice, and that charge got me through the whole day. Speaker & microphones The main earpiece speaker is nice and crisp on the Pixel XL, and I couldn’t ask for more in terms of call quality. But with phones like the iPhone 7 and other Android phones having had stereo speakers for years, it feels like a bit of a downgrade to go to a single bottom-firing mono speaker with the Google Pixel. This is something that’s kind of nitpicky to me (but might be important to you!), but it’s nonetheless unfortunate considering the phone’s price point. But that one speaker sounds fine. I know that this review is full of Galaxy S7 edge comparisons (I apologize, I just think it’s a good benchmark since it’s one of the most popular and best Android phones of the year), but this is yet another case where I would put the two phones about on par with each other. If you have an S7 edge laying around (or you have a friend with one), just try playing music through its single speaker. That’s about what you’re getting with the Pixel. Vibration motor This is just an exercise I like to do every time I review a phone, so bear with me. I’ve found a hobby in obsessing over the vibration motors of phones, and there are some clear winners and losers in the smartphone realm. The clear undefeated champion when it comes to vibration motors — and I say this unapologetically — is the iPhone 7, which barely beats the iPhone 6S. Clear losers include the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, so I think I was justifiably nervous about how this phone would turn out. Thankfully, I’m glad to report that the Pixel has turned out just fine in this area. The motor is no Taptic Engine by any means, but it’s nice and precise and doesn’t produce any audible buzzing when you tap buttons. It’s still pretty weak, but it’s about average compared to other Android phones like the Galaxy S7 edge. It’s not waterproof One of the biggest downsides of this phone’s hardware is that it’s just not waterproof. That’s something that is becoming more and more expected lately at this price point, but you’re sadly not going to find it here. In fact, the Pixel is rated IP53 for dust and water resistance, so that means it’s pretty well dust resistant, but it’s only going to be able to take a splash or two of water before some amount of damage is done. In the coming days we’ll probably see lots of water dunk tests done on the phone, so stay tuned as we find out exactly how water resistant it is compared to other Android phones. SOFTWARE \| I’ve long been a fan of “stock” Android, so I’m more than ecstatic to be able to talk about the Google Pixel’s software. I almost always have to list “crappy customized OEM ROM” in the list of downsides when I review Android phones, but I’m glad to say that the Google Pixel is one of only a few exceptions of the year. Yes, 3rd party Android customizations have gotten better in recent years, but they still almost always find a way to get on my nerves. Not so with the Pixel. Its UI is fantastic. Google Assistant The big software selling point for the Pixel — at least for now — is the inclusion of the Google Assistant as a baked in feature on the OS level. It’s still unknown when — if ever — older Nexus devices will have the same integration, so Pixel seems like it will be the only way to get this feature for a while. Replacing the hollow home, multitasking, and back navigation icons of previous versions, the Pixel goes with solid white and the middle one is even more special. Tap and hold it to get some dancing colored bubbles. But tapping and holding it does more than just give you an undeniably-Googley animation. This gesture invokes the Google Assistant, which is basically the voice features we’re all familiar with from Google Now with a far more intelligent and personal helper built on top. Think Apple’s Siri, but Assistant — in my experience — has far better word recognition and accuracy. And of course Google Assistant is powered by Google, so it has access to all kinds of information that Siri might not be able to grab for you. The big thing with Assistant in comparison to Google Now, though, is that is has much deeper control over your phone and it can help you in much more intelligent ways. Assistant can play your news (from your selected sources of course), you can get a summary of your upcoming day, it can learn things about you (try telling it your favorite color!), it can play games with you, and more. You can also tell Google Assistant to do things that you’re familiar with from using Google Now. You can use it manage your shopping list in Google Keep, you can use it make a phone call you can use it to control Google Play Music (and soon other services), you can use it to control your phone’s flashlight, and of course you can get smart answers from Google. Also of note, is that the Google Now on Tap features are still present with Assistant. Simply tap and hold and then scroll down. Allo and Duo Unsurprisingly, Google is using the Pixel and Pixel XL to push its newly-launched duo of messaging apps, Allo and Duo. The phone also ships with both pre-installed, and disables Hangouts by default for most users. If you’re a Project Fi user, the phone will detect that you — obviously — need Hangouts when you first set up the phone and won’t disable it. Adding to the awesome software features of the Pixel, Google is throwing in unlimited full resolution storage of videos and photos in Google Photos. Pixel Launcher One big thing to note here is the Pixel Launcher, which is landing officially for the first time on the Pixel and Pixel XL. It’s an evolution of the long-popular Google Now Launcher (which I’m a big fan of in the first place), and adds some useful features and tweaks. The most obvious is a permanent weather and time widget on the home screen, but the new launcher also has a new app drawer, an easy-to-use Google button in the top-left, and some visual tweaks to make the Pixel unique. Circular icons The most obvious visual tweak that comes hand in hand with the Pixel launcher, is that almost all of Google’s stock applications come with a set of stylized circular icons on the Pixel. It’s a common misconception that this is part of the Pixel Launcher itself (the rounded icons will stick around no matter which launcher you use), but of course using a third-party launcher will allow you to apply icon packs to make them look however you want. Personally, I haven’t decided whether or not I like the new icons. When I first saw them in the leaked images of the Pixel home screen, I had a knee jerk negative reaction, but I have to say that they’ve grown on me in the last several days. Uniformity in size and design is a good thing, I think, but my biggest complaint is that despite Google’s best efforts there’s still inconsistencies. A few of Google’s own apps still don’t have circular icons — Allo, Duo and Keep to name a few — and apps that you download from the Play Store aren’t just going to be automatically re-themed to look good alongside Google’s circular icon set. Another thing that bugs me is Google’s inconsistency with the circular icons. Some of them — like Maps and Calculator — fill the whole circle, while others look oddly empty surrounded with whiteness. Would be nice if Google would commit one way or the other. Google Photos Google Photos isn’t new of course, but the Pixel — as was long expected — ships with some extra Google Photos goodness beyond how great the app already is. Instead of taking up Google Drive space, photos and videos taken with the Pixel will be added to your Google Photos app in their full resolution for free. It’s unlimited full-resolution storage and backup for all of your photos and videos (even videos in 4K!). That’s unprecedented and alone is a pretty compelling selling point for the Pixel. “Moves” There’s a new section in the Settings app called “Moves,” which includes some quick gestures for accessing functions of your phone. Currently the section has three options, including “Jump to camera” for double tapping the power button to open the camera, and “Flip camera” for switching between front-facing and rear-facing camera with the flick of a wrist. The most notable option, though, is the “Swipe for notifications” option which lets you swipe down on the fingerprint sensor to pull down the notification shade. You might remember this feature from the Honor 8 and other Huawei phones. Daydream-ready! Another huge software upside with the Pixel and Pixel XL is that they are the first Daydream-ready Android phones. This doesn’t mean much yet, because Google’s Daydream View headset hasn’t even shipped yet (we’ll be getting ours for review soon!), but it’s a big plus if you see that as something that you might be interested in later this year. I tried out Daydream at the Google event on October 4th, and I was impressed to say the least. It’s a nice middle ground between PSVR and Cardboard. Google Support Another great software addition with the Pixel and Pixel XL is a new Support tab in the Settings app. If you ever run into any problems with your Pixel, Google has added the ability to quickly contact support via a phone call or a chat. While that might be a deciding feature for enthusiasts, I could see the average smartphone user being enticed by this. It’s definitely nice to have support on call if you ever need it. Wallpapers Another addition that might go unnoticed by some is the wide selection of some great high-quality wallpapers on the Pixel and Pixel XL. Of course you can choose from your own photos, but there are also “Live Earth” wallpapers of different locations around the world that move as you interact with your phone, “Live data” wallpapers that change based on the time or weather conditions, and some galleries of other high-quality images that are built in. You can also turn on a “daily wallpaper” that changes every day. Overall, these are solid improvements, and keep your phone feeling fresh. PERFORMANCE \| Benchmarks I’m not a huge fan of benchmarks, because I don’t think they very well capture how well a phone performs in real life. But I think it’s worth noting that the Google Pixel XL has landed — at least based on my tests — as one of the most powerful phones ever analyzed by Geekbench. In single core, it was only consistently beaten by the Galaxy S7 edge, the Galaxy S7, and the Xiaomi Mi 5. In multi-core, it was only consistently beaten by the Galaxy S7 edge, the Galaxy S7, and the Galaxy Note 7. Camera performance One of my biggest praises of the Pixel and Pixel XL is the camera app’s performance. The Nexus devices were long plagued with low-quality cameras and bad camera performance, and Google has basically fixed these problems completely with the Pixel. In fact, the camera might be my favorite part of the phone. It’s super fast, there’s no lag, and the viewfinder consistently pops up in 1 or 2 seconds flat. And that brings us to the cameras themselves, which are also impressive to say the least… CAMERAS \| When Google announced the Pixel, the company claimed that it has the best camera on a smartphone, at least according to the latest DxOMark scores. As of the time of this review, the Google Pixel has beaten the HTC 10, the Galaxy S7 edge, the Sony Xperia X Performance, the Moto Z, and the iPhone 7 to name a few. It’s worth noting that the iPhone 7 Plus has yet to be reviewed by DxOMark, but the Pixel nonetheless should be a step up compared to all of the other Android flagships. Is it? Check out the following photos, but please understand that I’m not a photographer by any means. I would take these as an example of what the average person would be taking with the Pixel on a daily basis, not as some of the best that the Pixel can take: Well, we don’t have every single Android phone on hand to compare it to, but we do have a Galaxy S7 edge, one of the next -best Android phones according to DxO. Based on my initial impressions over the last few days, DxO’s benchmark holds up pretty well. The Pixel does indeed have one of the best cameras I’ve ever used on a smartphone — based purely on looking at the photos. But as someone who isn’t really picky about their photos in the first place, I’d be fine with the Galaxy S7. EIS is the new OIS (almost) One thing that I have to rave about is this phone’s EIS when recording video. The lack of OIS on this phone was one of the biggest “don’t knock it ’til you try” moments I’ve had in my many few years of reviewing phones. The lack of OIS was one of the biggest “really, Google?” moments for me at the October 4th announcement event, but I have been proven so wrong. The EIS that Google is packing on this phone is borderline magic in my opinion — I think it even beats hardware OIS in some cases. CONCLUSION \| Switching to Pixel If you’re on the fence about making the switch because switching from the “other side” (read: an iPhone) sounds difficult, Google has you covered. The Pixel comes with an OTG dongle, which might sound unfamiliar, but it’s just a little adapter used for plugging in your other phone directly to the Pixel. If you’re coming from an iPhone, you can just plug it straight into your new phone and Google will walk you through moving over all your data when you first set up the phone. Live Cases Another interesting tidbit that is worth mentioning is that Google offers some really nice first-party cases to go with your Pixel or Pixel XL. They’ve been around since around the time of the launch of the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, and let you customize your phone and make it your own. You can create a Live Case with a Google Maps silhouette of your favorite place, you can create a case using a photo you upload, or you can pick from a pre-selected gallery of art. These cases aren’t cheap, but — on top of being customizable — they also add functionality to your phone with an extra button on the back. Value This is a Google-made package from top to bottom, and yeah, it has its compromises, but it very well could be the start of something great. That’s what I think is so special about it. The idea of what Google might be able to accomplish going forward is exciting, and the Pixel is a glimpse at a future where Google’s own hardware competes with the Samsungs and Apples of the world — and maybe even wins. Sadly, though, the package you get with the Pixel comes at a cost. The standard Pixel starts at $650, and the Pixel XL starts at $769. You can get financing through either Verizon or the Google Store, but these phones are unlocked and will work with most major carriers. At these prices, the phones aren’t a no brainer. But I also don’t think it’s an outrageous asking price either — especially if you manage to get one of those limited edition blue models and you get affordable cellular service through Project Fi. The elephant(s) in the room, I think, are the Chinese-made budget offerings like the OnePlus 3. In terms of raw specifications, the OnePlus 3 is very comparable to the Pixel — and in some ways better. It’s also a whole 2 or 3 Benjamins cheaper. Honestly, it’s a difficult situation. The Pixel really is great. And in some ways it’s one of the best phones ever. Early — and perhaps exclusive — access to Google’s latest software features is hard to pass up for some. It has near-stock Android with valuable software additions on top and reliable performance. It has the Snapdragon 821. But is it worth the extra cash? I can’t answer that question for you. I think for me, the answer is yes. I would pick this phone over most Android phones. But I’m also a big fan of Google software, and I prefer to use Android the way Google intends it. None of the other OEMs can offer this flavor of Android that has this degree of Google’s mark and influence. All things considered, these phones aren’t perfect. But no phones are, and if you’re one who loves Google’s software and services as much as I do, they might be the imperfect phones for you. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More. Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
Only 25% of Internet Users Trust the Cloud – Survey - pain_perdu https://medium.com/@intelligentvox/we-live-in-the-big-cloud-and-we-hate-it-is-it-time-for-hipster-it-1f130a44d2b8#.axo45awhb ====== flukus Judging by the conversations I've had on HN, a lot of people here will be surprised by this. Personally I'm slowly moving away from the cloud, it simply doesn't give me enough options to do what I want with my data. The most likely effect phrases like "cloud based" and "web app" have is to make me lose interest.
Atuação cinematográfica de Neymar no último jogo está fazendo com que crianças busquem por aulas de teatro em todo Brasil. As crianças, que querem chegar no nível de interpretação do craque, já estão colocando a ideia em prática. Enzo, de 10 anos, fez uma cena no shopping de sua cidade quando sua mãe se negou a comprar uma chuteira. ‘Me joguei no chão e fiz drama até aparecer um monte de gente em volta de mim’, disse o garoto. O diretor Wolf Maia se empolgou com a iniciativa das crianças e aconselhou os fãs do craque a começarem pela Malhação.
Jean Wrigley Jean Wrigley (born 22 December 1935) is a British former swimmer. She competed in the women's 200 metre breaststroke at the 1952 Summer Olympics. References Category:1935 births Category:Living people Category:British female swimmers Category:Olympic swimmers of Great Britain Category:Swimmers at the 1952 Summer Olympics Category:Place of birth missing (living people)
Irish Barista Champion Well done to Karl of Coffee Angel for beating the other 11 entrants in yesterdays finals in Dublin. I think Karl was expected to do well, and good on him for edging out the rest of the competition and making it to Bern. Great to see someone from a very independent establishment do so well, and hopefully it’ll be great for his business.
Surface-governed molecular regulation of blood coagulation. Among extracellular biological processes the spatial control of blood clotting is a unique phenomenon. Localization in space has very important consequences in both normal and pathological conditions. Under physiological circumstances a clot is formed only in the vicinity of injury, albeit the prerequisites of coagulation are almost completely given in the whole circulation. The local character of blood clotting is secured by the following major conditions: The regulatory signal initiating coagulation-the damaged vascular wall-is itself a surface on which the majority of clotting reactions take place. The first enzyme, factor XII, of the intrinsic coagulation pathway is activated on the collagen fibers exposed in the damaged vascular wall, although the significance of this reaction in respect of the clotting process is ambiguous. On the membrane of platelets adhered to the damaged blood vessel is activated factor XI, too, which is a well-established participant of the intrinsic clotting process. The further consecutive reactions of coagulation are confined to the surface produced by injury, because the enzymes involved contain gamma-carboxyl-glutamyl side chains which are anchored through calcium bridges to the phospholipids of the platelet membrane. The last enzyme of the sequence is thrombin, which is released from the surface. The reactions taking place on the surface form an enzyme cascade, which amplifies the relatively weak triggering signal by several orders of magnitudes. Amplification is ensured not only by the enzyme-substrate relationship of the consecutive reaction partners, but also by spatial confinement, which endows the process with higher efficacy than could be expected on a statistical basis from reactions in solution. It contributes to the efficiency of enzyme cascade that the non-enzymatic regulatory proteins increase the activity of factors IXa and Xa, and thereby the overall process. While the partner of factor IXa, factor VIII, is captured from plasma, factor V, the partner of factor Xa, is derived from the platelets adhered to the damaged surface and orients the binding of factor Xa. The surface localization ensures the protection of the members of clotting system: In the activator complexes found on the surface, the spatial arrangement of clotting factors prevents the inactivation of factors by physiological inhibitors or by proteolytic enzymes and specific antibodies that appear in the circulation in pathological conditions. Platelet factor 4, derived from platelets, binds heparin and thereby markedly decreases the reactivity of antithrombin III, the physiological inhibitor of clotting factors. The above two circumstances are
The New York Giants haven’t been as active in free agency as they were in 2016 and much of that is due to their limited salary cap space. They are still looking, however, and they are reportedly interested in offensive lineman D.J. Fluker. Art Stapleton of the Record tweeted Friday afternoon that the Giants “have expressed interest” in Fluker, who was released by the Los Angeles Chargers earlier this week. Hearing #Giants have expressed interest in G/T D.J. Fluker. That's the kind of move they're looking at up front, and it'd be a good one. — Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) March 10, 2017 ESPN’s Jordan Raanan reported that the Giants have a visit scheduled with Fluker but they aren’t the only team that is interested. OL D.J. Fluker has visit scheduled with Giants, per source. The Patriots also have strong interest in the former Chargers first-round pick. — Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) March 10, 2017 The Giants weren’t able to compete in the market for the bigger name offensive tackles but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been looking. Without a whole lot of cap space, Fluker becomes an intriguing option. Fluker carries much appeal for a handful of reasons. He is still just 25 years old and the former first-round draft pick has the versatility to play both offensive tackle and guard, which are two positions the Giants are looking to upgrade. Giants Wire’s own Jeff Shull had this to say about the 2013 first-round pick: While Fluker has not developed into an elite-level tackle, he has been average to above average at times. His highest grade on Pro Football Focus came in 2014, when he registered a 77 overall grade. This is not only an improvement over both current options at right guard and right tackle, but he could come at a discount compared to Okung or Andrew Whitworth. He also offers versatility in that he has started at guard and tackle for the Chargers. The Giants didn’t have the cap space to go after guys like Andrew Whitworth or Kevin Zeitler but they are still looking add depth and competition to the offensive line.
Not as a feature to use but to play onDoes that add an interesting facet to the play game or an annoying one? And how would it be balanced without being completely annoying or negligible I had an idea for a bedroll item that would put the user to sleep for a certain amount of turns chosen by the player but would HP when the sleep status wears as It has the potential to be interesting but if say, one of your units only has 1 HP and the next chapter starts and they still only have 1HP, that's kind of annoying. The bedroll seems like it would make that unit into a liability since they are then useless until they wake up, especially when staves already exist, unless you have some idea for how to make it not annoying. Well the bedroll is "unbreakable", so that helps in the decision if you're almost out of healing items and the unit will be safe for a turnI could refill it a small amount maybe? Like 20% instead of 100% ? The whole idea was to make it more realistic for chapters that literally happen after each other like FE8's chapter 7&8 for instance (7 is outside the castle, 8 is inside the castle) If you already know about the mechanic and the previous chapter doesn't have a time limit (or a soft one, such as a rout mission where the last enemy charges towards player units), then players would assumedly get all units back to full HP (and get extra EXP from it, too). The only people that probably wouldn't would be those too lazy or LTC players not wanting to sacrifice the turns (unless extra turns was more efficient in the long run).
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How did I just find out about this! The Federal Highway Administration (part of the US Department of Transportation) has an interactive website called America’s Byways. It highlights the Scenic Byways of America and, no kidding, it is well done. Now we have a new tool to help us plan our motorcycle rides. The website describes itself this way; “The National Scenic Byways Program is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. The program is a grass-roots collaborative effort established to help recognize, preserve and enhance selected roads throughout the United States. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation recognizes certain roads as All-American Roads or National Scenic Byways based on one or more archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational and scenic qualities.” America’s Byways is an interactive, map based, website that will provide you a listing of each of the 150 different roads. Those roads are comprised of the National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads. You can select the road from a national or state map to see basic information on the road (length, average time to travel the road and historical background) as well as route maps, directions and photos.
A bloom of renewed hope amid a twister's ravages July 25, 1996\|By MICHAEL OLESKER In Carroll County's Gamber, where nature threw its temper tantrum and then blithely skipped town, there's a tiny miracle amid all the ravaged houses, the doorways and roofs tossed indiscriminately about, the mattresses and chairs and children's toys lying haphazardly in yards, the basketball backboard sliced in two, and the line of trees snapped at right angles from the force of the tornado. "Look at this," says a man crouching on a slab of open concrete that used to be covered by a garage. Inches from the concrete, innocent as a prayer, there's a tiny rosebush in the ground, and red and pink buds are beginning to blossom. Surrounded by all this destruction, such a sign of life seems inconceivable and perhaps symbolizes something about renewal: Nobody died here, so all can begin again. Around the bush now stand Ed Sibole and Mike Beacham, with a look of awe and delight at the little roses. They've been out here for days now, since the powerful tornado touched down here Friday, damaging dozens of homes, downing trees and power lines, sweeping two children out of a window, bullying its way through the Four Seasons and Mystic Kane Manor developments southeast of Westminster for about three terrifying minutes and then, having exhaled at length, having grown breathless and exhausted itself, vanished. Sibole and Beacham are among dozens of men trying to clean fTC out this development. They're with the Popowski Brothers Construction Co., which was hired by insurance companies clutching their hearts over all this random devastation. "Look what can survive," says Sibole, bending toward the rosebuds. "And right here," says Beacham, gesturing inches away, "there was a garage just ripped out, and the car sitting in it, the force of the tornado just ripped open its doors." "Ripped the doors off?" Beacham is asked. "Nope, not off," he says. "Just yanked open the doors, and that's how the car sat there, with the door wide open. And tore off the garage walls, and ripped through the kitchen and pulled the silverware right out of the drawers." The two men look down at the little rosebush now. After all the destruction whose remnants they've gathered up and carried away, after all the pain and anguish they've witnessed in the tornado's victims, this is nature's little signal: Stick with me; I have a temper, but I can make magic, too. "The people who live in this house," says Sibole, "they seemed to be calm when they came back." "They're all just happy to be alive," says Beacham. The house's first floor is still standing, but all that remains of the second level are pieces of interior wall and a door frame, which look utterly naked. Someone should throw a blanket over them for warmth, or modesty. The house is at the top of a long, hilly front lawn. Once sitting there high and handsome, it now looks utterly puny, undernourished, its ribs exposed. There is no way to translate the look of such destruction to the anguish of those who lived in these homes. "The couple that lives here came back after the damage," Sibole says. "The woman got to crying a little bit, but the husband said, 'We don't have anything that can't be replaced.' That seemed to calm her." "I don't know if I could be that calm or not," Beacham says softly. The solace people take is basic: Things can be replaced; remarkably, since nobody died, and nobody suffered serious injury, no human beings will have to be replaced. In its perverse way, nature was merciful. Even the two children swept out of their home -- a 2-year-old and his 4-month-old brother -- suffered no serious injuries and were released from the Johns Hopkins Children Center after a night of observation. "I heard one guy say the whole thing took 90 seconds," says William Hinkhaus, lifting pieces of twisted metal out of a yard. Hinkhaus is in the Popowski Brothers cleanup crew. "Mother Nature can be cruel when she wants to be; ain't nothing we can do about it." He waves an open palm. Around this lush back yard, there are clumps of things: sofa cushions, chunks of wood, a badminton racket, a sneaker. Beyond this, across the rolling slopes of these adjoining communities, there's the rest of the destruction: big new houses with their tops ripped away, and trash bins next to them piled high with the remains of the good consumer life; the sound of hammering and sawing and various trucks hauling away debris; dozens of cleanup workers; and, here and there, people pulling up in their cars, moving a few salvaged things from their battered homes to their autos, and then driving away. The sky is a little dark. You wonder if these folks will forever gaze at a storm cloud or hear the rumble of thunder and wonder if more insanity will follow. But then you remember the rosebuds beginning to blossom in a yard. Life renews itself. Nature got the nastiness out of her system. If she can hold her blustery breath now, her victims can begin again.
1. Field of the Invention The present invention generally relates to security of consumer goods and, more particularly, to the use of smart tags in maintaining product security. 2. Background Description There is a need for certain products to be equipped with some apparatus which can provide information about the current state of the product as a result of events the product was subjected to prior to becoming in the possession of a potential consumer. Examples include the state of medical or food products prior to their being used by a consumer. Also, consumers sometimes have the right and/or the need to know whether a product is brand new or not. This is especially true of expensive items. There is also a need for a product to be equipped by some apparatus which can record some aspects of the product history, for example in the case of automobiles where today odometers indicate, not very securely, one aspect of the history of the automobile. Another context for the invention is the fact that, in some cases, the containers of some products are reused by the manufacturer, and the consumer would like to know if the product in the container is new or not, and if the container has been reused by a third, unauthorized, party. There is also a need for a method to detect whether the product has deteriorated, either because of defects, or because its expiration date has passed, or because of unwanted change in the environment, for instance in the form of excessive cold, heat or humidity. These scenarios require an apparatus which can detect the physical forces a product was subjected to as a result of use, handling, tampering or environmental factors. For either human intervention or environmental factors, it may be important in some circumstances that the recorded history of such events be very difficult to modify or counterfeit. The prior art contains many methods involving seals and enclosures which allow one to detect when a package has been tampered with. Such prior art go way back in history, and a multitude of improvements, with very general or very specific uses, have been proposed which benefit from the general progress of technology. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,629 to Glen P. Double and Steve H. Weingart describes an intrusion barrier for protecting an electronic assembly from tampering. The prior art also contains methods of recording chronological information such as a data logger which stores information on a product as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,560 to Mark A. Janney, Roger Newey, and Irwin J. Robinson. However, these methods do not overcome the problem of providing a tamper evident history of a product and/or of its environment. The prior art does not allow the information about the history of a product and/or of its environment to be securely recorded and kept. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel improvement on the prior art of tamper evident packaging which can detect when a product has been tampered with and resists the efforts of a tamperer, or anyone else who would benefit from hiding the tampering, or to hide the signs of tampering. In the following, terms such as xe2x80x9cimpossible to changexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ctamper-proofxe2x80x9d should be understood to describe situations in which sufficient resistance to tampering is provided to make successful attacks rare due to cost/benefit issues, since codes, etc., can theoretically be broken if sufficient resources are brought to bear on the attack. The invention uses a smart card, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,971,916, 4,007,355, 4,092,524, and 4,102,493 to Roland Moreno, or, more generally, a smart token, in combination with sensors attached to the product and/or to the smart card: upon tampering, or as a response to other circumstances, the sensors generate signals which are encrypted and recorded in the memory or storage device of the smart card attached to the product. Recall that, for example, by using a zero-knowledge protocol, a smart card can be authenticated but cannot be duplicated. This technology has been disclosed for instance in U.S. Pat. No. 5,140,634 to Guillou, et al. This is the property which characterizes a smart card. Accordingly, in the rest of the present disclosure, any electronic component with these properties and which has some memories and/or some processing capabilities, will be called xe2x80x9ca smart tokenxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ca smart cardxe2x80x9d, even if it does not actually take any form resembling a card. A general reference to smart card technology and applications can be found in Smart Cards: A Guide to Building and Managing Smart Card Applications, by Henry Dreifus and J. Thomas Monk, John Wiley and Sons, 1998. When the product or its packaging is tampered with, some attribute of the product or its environment changes. This change is what is detected by (at least some of) the sensors attached to a smart card, and the smart card will record this change irreversibly by erasing or writing some information within the smart card memory. The smart card also can be made duplication resistant by using a zero-knowledge protocol so that only the manufacturer of the original product, and/or possibly a trusted third party, for example, can produce or buy such smart cards. The smart card also can record the history of these changes in its internal memory.

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