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13 contractors targeted in massive cyber espionage campaign
A series of attacks against corporations and government agencies over the last five years, which netted petabytes of sensitive information, can be traced to a single command and control server, according to the security company McAfee.
Among the targets were 13 U.S. defense contractors.
In a report released Aug. 2, Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s vice president of Threat Research, said a diverse group of 72 organizations was compromised, 49 of them in the United States.
Although the report does not speculate on who is behind the attacks, which have been traced back to July 2006, several security experts said the evidence points to China.
James Lewis, a senior fellow and director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Post that, “the most likely candidate is China.” He noted, for instance, that the activity McAfee found focused on Taiwan and the International Olympic Committee in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Other organizations targeted in the attacks include the United Nations and an Energy Department laboratory, according to the McAfee report, which does not identify most of the victims specifically but does provide general categories (U.S. Federal Government Agency, U.S. State Government, U.S. Defense Contractor, South Korean Steel Company, and so on.) The list of intrusions ends in September 2010.
In the report, Alperovitch, who dubbed the attacks Operation Shady RAT (short for remote access tool), writes of the potential seriousness of the data theft to both national security and commercial interests.
“What we have witnessed over the past five to six years has been nothing short of a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth,” he writes, “closely guarded national secrets (including from classified government networks), source code, bug databases, e-mail archives, negotiation plans and exploration details for new oil and gas field auctions, document stores, legal contracts, [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] configurations, design schematics and much more has ‘fallen off the truck’ of numerous, mostly Western companies and disappeared in the ever-growing electronic archives of dogged adversaries.”
He notes that many of these attacks went unnoticed, or unreported, while less-sophisticated attacks such as those of the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec drew a lot of media attention.
And although most victims aren’t named, he writes that McAfee felt it important to name some of them, “to reinforce the fact that virtually everyone is falling prey to these intrusions, regardless of whether they are the United Nations, a multinational Fortune 100 company, a small nonprofit think tank, a national Olympic team, or even an unfortunate computer security firm.”
Most of the victims have remediated the infections, the report states.
McAfee gained access to the command and control server used in the attacks and collected logs dating back to 2006, although the report states that intrusions could have begun earlier.
The attacks used a spear-phishing e-mail targeted at someone with high access level, the report states. When opened on an unpatched system, malware opens a back-door communications channel to the command and control server. After that, the report adds, intruders arrive, escalate their privileges, spread to other machines and start taking data.
“After painstaking analysis of the logs, even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators,” the report states.
Victims included six federal agencies, five state governments, three U.S. county government and government-run sites in Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and India.
In addition to the 13 defense contractors, other victims in commercial operations included those in construction/heavy industry, electronics, steel, energy, IT, the news media, real estate and accounting. Several think tanks or nonprofits also were targeted.
The attacks hit organizations in 14 countries altogether, although the United States had by far the most with 49. The next highest totals were four in Canada and three each in South Korea and Taiwan.
About the Author
Kevin McCaney is editor of Defense Systems. Follow him on Twitter: @KevinMcCaney.
Reader Comments
Tue, Aug 9, 2011
Are we all stupid in this country? Are the AMERICAN COMPANIES SO GREEDY that they would sell out their country to these folks? Why do we continue to move American jobs to this country? Why do we continue to move manufacturing to this country? Why do we continue to provide them with the economic means to own our countries enourmous debt? Then I read that they are performing covert hacks to steal more from us. I think our economy would be better off without any relations with this underhanded and devious country.
Tue, Aug 9, 2011
If the report names some of the contractor victims, could we please have WT name them in this "news" article?
Fri, Aug 5, 2011
Roland
USA
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In an exclusive for WT Insider members, we are collecting all of the contract awards we cover into a database that you can sort by contractor, agency, value and other parameters. You can also download it into a spreadsheet.
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2300.1.1 = {
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| 55,065,311 |
Assisted Living Facilities in DERWOOD, MD
Assisted Living in DERWOOD, MD
There are 25 assisted living facilities in DERWOOD, Maryland area. These facilities provide assisted living apartments and help with everyday tasks to elderly seniors. DERWOOD assisted living facilities also provide memory care assistance for senior citizens with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Some facilities are part of larger senior living communities in DERWOOD and provide continuing care options.
Alfredhouse - Needwood
Alfredhouse - Needwood provides assisted living services in Derwood, Maryland. It can house a maximum of 5 55 and older adults at a time. With a location at 6020 Needwood Road, in the 20855 area code inside Montgomery county, Alfredhouse - Needwood assists those retirees who need assistance with daily tasks. Some of the services offered by Alfredhouse - Needwood include off-site outings and picnics, on-site lectures and guest speakers and arranged transportation.
Sycamore Acres I
Sycamore Acres I specializes in providing assisted living in Montgomery county, Maryland. It includes a total of 12 one bedrooms and studios for seniors. Sycamore Acres I is pet-friendly and can provide assistance with bathing, dressing and transferring to any seniors living in Derwood, MD and surrounding areas. Sycamore Acres I is located at 19120 Muncaster Road, 20855.
Sycamore Acres Ii
When searching for assisted senior living in Derwood, Maryland, you will find Sycamore Acres Ii as an excellent luxurious senior care option. It has a total of 8 assisted living units and includes services such as recreation and social activities. Sycamore Acres Ii provides assisted living not only to Derwood residents, but also to all Montgomery county residents as well.
Deborah Assisted Living Services #3
If you need assistance with everyday tasks, Deborah Assisted Living Services #3 can help you or your loved one to find the assistance and care you need in Derwood, Maryland. Deborah Assisted Living Services #3 has a total capacity of 5 seniors. It includes services like 24-hour security system, wellness center and dining.
Briar Meadow
Briar Meadow has a capacity of 8 senior citizens and includes amenities such as housekeeping and laundry services. It is located at 6108 Granby Road, and it is fully equipped to provide assisted living to Derwood, MD older adults.
49 More Facilities in MONTGOMERY County, MD
Sunrise Of Rockville
Located at 8 Baltimore Road, inside 20850 zip code area in Montgomery county, Sunrise Of Rockville provides assisted senior living to Rockville, MD senior citizens and includes amenities such as scheduled transportation to appointments and a busy calendar of social activities. Sunrise Of Rockville can accommodate up to 89 seniors at a time.
Bartholomew House
Situated at 6904 River Road, Bethesda, Maryland, 20817, Bartholomew House can help any Montgomery county resident with daily living activities and includes amenities like wi-fi, landscaped grounds and more. Bartholomew House can provide long term care and assisted living to a maximum of 35 residents at once.
Ednor's Elderly Home Care
Seniors looking for assisted living in Silver Spring, Maryland will find Ednor's Elderly Home Care, located at 9425 Curran Road inside 20901 zip code as a great choice for all of their care needs. Ednor's Elderly Home Care is able to care for up to 5 seniors and allows seniors to stay with cats and small dogs.
Arden Courts Of Kensington
With a location at 4301 Knowles Avenue in Montgomery county, Arden Courts Of Kensington excels at providing assisted living services for seniors in Kensington, MD as well as those who live in surrounding areas. Arden Courts Of Kensington includes amenities such as medication management and emergency alert system. Arden Courts Of Kensington is capable of caring for a maximum of 64 Kensington older residents and provides several levels of care.
Victoria Home
Victoria Home, located at 9704 Inaugural Way provides senior assisted living services in Gaithersburg, Maryland and includes services such as scheduled family meetings, up to 3 delicious meals per day and caregiving staff that is available 24/7. Victoria Home is equipped to care for up to 8 senior citizens from 20879 zip code in Montgomery county and surrounding areas.
Bliss Villa Elder Care Ii
Bliss Villa Elder Care Ii provides assisted living services in Silver Spring, Maryland. It can accommodate a maximum of 5 elderly adults at a time. With a location at 1025 Cresthaven Drive, in the 20903 area code inside Montgomery county, Bliss Villa Elder Care Ii assists those older adults who need assistance with daily tasks. Some of the amenities offered by Bliss Villa Elder Care Ii include community outings and social gatherings, educational opportunities and transportation to appointments.
Holy Family Assisted Living
Holy Family Assisted Living specializes in providing assisted living in Montgomery county, Maryland. It includes a total of 8 studio and 1-bedrooom apartments for 55 and over adults. Holy Family Assisted Living is pet-friendly and can provide assistance with bathing, dressing and transferring to any seniors living in Potomac, MD and surrounding areas. Holy Family Assisted Living is located at 13529 Magruder Farm Court, 20854.
Absolute Assisted Living
When searching for assisted living in Rockville, Maryland, you will find Absolute Assisted Living as an excellent luxurious senior care option. It has a total of 5 assisted living units and includes services such as recreation and social activities. Absolute Assisted Living provides assisted living not only to Rockville residents, but also to all Montgomery county residents as well.
Assisted Living Of Rockville
If you require help with daily living, Assisted Living Of Rockville can help you or your loved one to find the assistance and care you need in Rockville, Maryland. Assisted Living Of Rockville has a total capacity of 8 senior citizens. It includes amenities like 24-hour security system, wellness center and multiple dining options daily.
Eden Homes - Stoneham
Eden Homes - Stoneham has a capacity of 8 senior citizens and includes amenities such as housekeeping and laundry services. It is located at 6505 Stoneham Road, and it is fully equipped to provide assisted living to Bethesda, MD older adults.
Jeya's Assisted Living Facility #2
Located at 13104 Bellevue Street, inside 20904 zip code area in Montgomery county, Jeya's Assisted Living Facility #2 provides assisted senior living to Silver Spring, MD senior citizens and includes amenities such as scheduled transportation to appointments and a busy calendar of social activities. Jeya's Assisted Living Facility #2 can accommodate up to 5 seniors at a time.
Sylva Villas Assisted Living Facility
Situated at 2816 Gracefield Road, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20904, Sylva Villas Assisted Living Facility can help any Montgomery county resident with daily living activities and includes amenities like wi-fi, landscaped grounds and more. Sylva Villas Assisted Living Facility can provide long term care and assisted living to a maximum of 8 residents at once.
Apple Blossoms Assisted Living Ii
Seniors looking for assisted living in Silver Spring, Maryland will find Apple Blossoms Assisted Living Ii, located at 1015 Cresthaven Drive inside 20903 zip code as a wonderful option for all of their care needs. Apple Blossoms Assisted Living Ii is able to care for up to 6 senior citizens and allows seniors to stay with pets.
Light House Community Services
With a location at 13514 Collingwood Terrace in Montgomery county, Light House Community Services excels at providing assisted living services for seniors in Silver Spring, MD as well as those who live in surrounding areas. Light House Community Services includes amenities such as medication management and emergency alert system. Light House Community Services is capable of caring for a maximum of 4 Silver Spring older residents and provides several levels of care.
Bethel Assisted Living
Bethel Assisted Living, located at 9607 Mcwhorter Farm Court provides senior assisted living services in Damascus, Maryland and includes services such as scheduled family meetings, up to 3 delicious meals per day and caregiving staff that is available 24/7. Bethel Assisted Living is equipped to care for up to 5 senior citizens from 20872 zip code in Montgomery county and surrounding areas.
Advantage
Advantage provides assisted living care in Silver Spring, Maryland. It can accommodate a maximum of 8 retirees at a time. With a location at 12508 Eastbourne Drive, in the 20904 area code inside Montgomery county, Advantage assists those 55 and older adults who need help with activities of daily living. Some of the amenities offered by Advantage include community outings and social gatherings, on-site lectures and guest speakers and transportation to doctor's appointments.
Joseph Home Ii
Joseph Home Ii specializes in providing assisted living in Montgomery county, Maryland. It includes a total of 5 studio and one bedroom suites for 55 and over adults. Joseph Home Ii is pet-friendly and can provide assistance with bathing, dressing and transferring to any seniors living in Potomac, MD and surrounding areas. Joseph Home Ii is located at 11810 Seven Locks Road, 20854.
Maplewood Park Place Health Care Center
When looking for assisted living in Bethesda, Maryland, you will find Maplewood Park Place Health Care Center as an excellent luxurious senior care option. It has a total of 29 assisted living units and includes services such as recreation and social activities. Maplewood Park Place Health Care Center provides assisted living not only to Bethesda residents, but also to all Montgomery county residents as well.
Dayspring Assisted Living
If you need help with daily living, Dayspring Assisted Living can help you or your loved one to locate the assistance and care you need in Rockville, Maryland. Dayspring Assisted Living has a total capacity of 5 seniors. It includes services like 24 hour security cameras, wellness center and dining.
Mcalmon Place
Mcalmon Place has a capacity of 5 senior citizens and includes amenities such as housekeeping and laundry services. It is located at 25001 Woodfield Road, and it is fully equipped to provide assisted living to Damascus, MD older adults. | 55,065,369 |
10 wounded in 'cowardly and senseless' shooting rampage at New Orleans French Quarter
John Bacon | USA TODAY
Show Caption Hide Caption 10 wounded in shooting rampage at New Orleans French Quarter Ten people were wounded in a shooting rampage on the edge of the famed French Quarter of New Orleans in an area still thick with tourists at 3 a.m.
A shooting rampage near the famed French Quarter of New Orleans early Sunday left 10 people wounded, revelers from an annual football game scrambling for cover and police in pursuit of at least one "cowardly" gunman.
New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said the shooting erupted on Canal Street near Bourbon Street, an area crowded with tourists and police officers – even at 3:20 a.m. Two of the injured were hospitalized in critical condition. No officers were among the wounded, he said.
One person was detained near the scene, but Ferguson said he did not yet know what role, if any, the person had in the shooting. No arrests had been made.
“What happened in our city overnight was a cowardly and senseless act that we cannot and will not tolerate," Ferguson said. "While this investigation is in the very beginning stages, one thing is certain – we will not stop until we identify and arrest those responsible.”
Ferguson said a heavy police presence was in the area because the annual Bayou Classic football game between Grambling State University and Southern University had been played Saturday. The game historically draws a huge crowd to the city.
Three years ago, one person was killed and nine others injured following a shooting spree on Bourbon Street hours after the game.
On Sunday, "some individuals chose to do the wrong thing at the wrong time," Ferguson said. Police initially said 10 people were wounded, raised the number to 11 and then dropped it back to 10 later Sunday. Few other details were released, however.
"We had officers right there, within that very block, that actually thought they were being fired on," Ferguson said. "Our officers ... were within feet when this incident occurred, but unfortunately there we so many people out there we were unable to determine who was firing these shots."
El Paso victims honored: Walmart unveils memorial for El Paso mass shooting victims
The motive for the shooting had not been determined, and Ferguson said he did not have names, gender or ages for those wounded. Police were interviewing witnesses and looking for surveillance and other video that might shed light on the case, he said.
"This is the message we have been sending throughout the week," Ferguson said. "Please leave your gun at home."
Ferguson said state police and federal authorities were aiding the investigation.
Kenneth Culbreth told nola.com he was heading to the Canal Street CVS to make a quick purchase when he heard gunshots.
“I heard pops. It was so many, I couldn’t keep count," he said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell called the shootings "an ugly disruption" to an otherwise beautiful weekend in the city of 400,000 people. She and Ferguson noted that violent crime in the city has been in decline for four years.
"The city of New Orleans will not allow incidents like this to derail the progress we have made or to further disrupt our community," she said. "This tragedy will not define us, and it will not deter us from moving our city forward and keeping our people safe." | 55,065,504 |
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Who Are The Yankees Top Breakout Performers So Far?
The New York Yankees have been crushing the ball as a team as of late, but who have been their top breakout performers so far?
The Yankees came into 2019 with high expectations, fully expecting to be World Series contenders. Even with several of the team’s top players including Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton and Dellin Betances on the IL, the scrappy Yankees have fought their way to a stellar 32-17 record through their first 49 games. As of May 24, the team is in first place in the AL East, shaping up to be one of the more competitive divisions in baseball with the Rays and Red Sox also jockeying for playoff spots.
The team’s success thus far in 2019 has been due in large part to a number of players breaking out and improving their game significantly, somewhat softening the blow of losing so many players to injury. With that in mind, here’s a look at some of those breakout players who have helped the team to their 32-17 record so far.
After going 2-6 with an ugly 5.57 ERA in a subpar rookie campaign in 2018, German has burst onto the scene as one of baseball’s best pitchers in 2019. He has stepped up in Luis Severino’s absence and posted highly impressive numbers, leading all of MLB with nine wins and allowing two or fewer earned runs in seven of his 10 appearances. His 2.60 ERA is nearly three full runs lower than it was last season, and he has also struck out 57 batters while only allowing five home runs in his 10 appearances (nine starts). German especially struggled in the first inning last year, as he allowed 13 earned runs in the first inning across his 14 starts.
This season, he has improved significantly in the first inning, allowing just one first-inning run in his nine starts. He could definitely make a case as the best pitcher in the American League thus far and with the Rays’ Tyler Glasnow on the shelf for 4-6 weeks with a forearm injury sustained earlier this month, German starting the All-Star Game for the AL is becoming more and more of a possibility with each passing day.
The team is expected to keep German on an innings limit so he may skip some starts down the stretch, but if he keeps pitching the way he has, there’s no doubt that he’ll be a pitcher they feel comfortable giving the ball to him in a playoff start this October.
Gio Urshela
After spending a decade in the Indians organization and a brief stint with the Blue Jays last season, the Yankees picked up Urshela in a seemingly minor trade with Toronto last August. He played just 19 games with the Blue Jays last season and hit a meager .224, so fans certainly weren’t expected much with the bat from him. He put together a solid Spring Training with the team in 2019, but with Miguel Andujar as the team’s everyday third baseman, there was no need for him to be on the big league roster.
When Andujar went down with a Labrum injury that he later opted to have season-ending surgery on, Urshela stepped up in a big way and showed that he’s much more than just the defensive specialist that most people saw him as. While he has been his usual reliable self with the glove at third base, he has put together by far the most impressive offensive stretch of his career thus far since the team called him up. In his 117 at-bats across 39 games, Urshela is hitting .333 with a .383 OBP and .853 OPS. He has been a fantastic contact hitter towards the bottom of the order, more than capable of setting the table for the big hitters at the top of the lineup, though his 12 extra base hits and 19 RBI’s are nothing to sneeze at.
His two biggest moments as a Yankee have been his game-tying two-run home run in the 9th inning of the Yankees’ dramatic walk-off win against the Mariners on May 7th and his walk-off RBI single to cap off the team’s comeback win against the Rays on May 17th. The fan favorite has played himself into an everyday role and manager Aaron Boone has said that the team fully expects him to remain one of the usual starters when Didi Gregorius returns next month.
Luis Cessa
For many years, Cessa was a player that the team kept around despite him never being able to put it all together and be a solid pitcher, either as a starter or a reliever. With no minor league options left, the team opted to keep Cessa on the 25-man roster out of Spring Training this year instead of DFA’ing him, and so far it looks like they’ve made the right choice. Cessa has pitched to a career-best 3.63 ERA in his 13 appearances so far, striking out 27 hitters in 22.1 innings while allowing just nine earned runs.
In a star-studded bullpen featuring relievers like Aroldis Chapman, Adam Ottavino and Zack Britton, it’s easy to overlook Cessa, but he has been one of the team’s more reliable relievers so far. After posting an ugly 5.24 ERA last season, Cessa has allowed one or fewer earned runs in 12 of his 13 appearances this season. The team has seemingly decided against experimenting with him as a starter and instead of keeping him in the bullpen full time. He has been able to pitch more than just one inning when they’ve gone to him, as he has recorded five or more outs in seven of his 13 games.
Although Cessa is probably never going to be at the level of some of the team’s other relievers like Ottavino and Chapman, his consistency has been a very nice surprise this season, and with the team already having lost a number of their starting pitchers to injury, having a reliever who can give you multiple innings late in the game is never a bad thing.
Hopefully, Cessa has finally found his niche and can remain a dependable long reliever for the rest of the season into the playoffs. | 55,065,888 |
DIGG THIS
“Yes, it was a good war,” writes Richard Cohen in his column challenging the thesis of pacifist Nicholson Baker in his new book, Human Smoke, that World War II produced more evil than good.
Baker’s compelling work, which uses press clips and quotes of Axis and Allied leaders as they plunged into the great cataclysm, is a virtual diary of the days leading up to World War II.
Riveting to this writer was that Baker uses some of the same episodes, sources and quotes as this author in my own book out in May, Churchill, Hitler and ‘The Unnecessary War.’
On some points, Cohen is on sold ground. There are things worth fighting for: God and country, family and freedom. Martyrs have ever inspired men. And to some evils pacifism is no answer. Resistance, even unto death, may be required of a man.
But when one declares a war that produced Hiroshima and the Holocaust a “Good War,” it raises a question: good for whom?
Britain declared war on Sept. 3, 1939, to preserve Poland. For six years, Poland was occupied by Nazi and Soviet armies and SS and NKVD killers. At war’s end, the Polish dead were estimated at 6 million. A third of Poland had been torn away by Stalin, and Nazis had used the country for the infamous camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.
Fifteen thousand Polish officers had been massacred at places like Katyn. The Home Army that rose in Warsaw at the urging of the Red Army in 1944 had been annihilated, as the Red Army watched from the other side of the Vistula. When the British celebrated V-E day in May 1945, Poland began 44 years of tyranny under the satraps of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
Was World War II “a good war” for the Poles?
Was it a good war for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, overrun by Stalin’s army in June 1940, whose people saw their leaders murdered or deported to the Gulag never to return? Was it a good war for the Finns who lost Karelia and thousands of brave men dead in the Winter War?
Was it a good war for Hungarians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Rumanians and Albanians who ended up behind the Iron Curtain? In Hungary, it was hard to find a women or girl over 10 who had not been raped by the “liberators” of the Red Army. Was it a good war for the 13 million German civilians ethnically cleansed from Central Europe and the 2 million who died in the exodus?
Was it a good war for the French, who surrendered after six weeks of fighting in 1940 and had to be liberated by the Americans and British after four years of Vichy collaboration?
And how good a war was it for the British?
They went to war for Poland, but Winston Churchill abandoned Poland to Stalin. Defeated in Norway, France, Greece, Crete and the western desert, they endured until America came in and joined in the liberation of Western Europe.
Yet, at war’s end in 1945, Britain was bled and bankrupt, and the great cause of Churchill’s life, preserving his beloved empire, was lost. Because of the “Good War” Britain would never be great again.
And were the means used by the Allies, the terror bombing of Japanese and German cities, killing hundreds of thousands of women and children, perhaps millions, the marks of a “good war”?
Cohen contends that the evil of the Holocaust makes it a “good war.” But the destruction of the Jews of Europe was a consequence of this war, not a cause. As for the Japanese atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, they were indeed horrific.
But America’s smashing of Japan led not to freedom for China, but four years of civil war followed by 30 years of Maoist madness in which 30 million Chinese perished.
For America, the war was Pearl Harbor and Midway, Anzio and Iwo Jima, Normandy and Bastogne, days of glory leading to triumph and the American Century.
But for Joseph Stalin, it was also a good war. From his pact with Adolf Hitler he annexed parts of Finland and Rumania, and three Baltic republics. His armies stood in Berlin, Prague and Vienna; his agents were vying for power in Rome and Paris; his ally was installed in North Korea; his protg, Mao, was about to bring China into his empire. But it was not so good a war for the inmates of Kolyma or the Russian POWs returned to Stalin in Truman’s Operation Keelhaul.
Is a war that replaces Hitler’s domination of Europe with Stalin’s and Japan’s rule in China with Mao’s a “good war”? We had to stop the killers, says Cohen. But who were the greater killers: Hitler or Stalin, Tojo or Mao Zedong?
Can a war in which 50 million perished and the Christian continent was destroyed, half of it enslaved, a war that has advanced the death of Western civilization, be truly celebrated as a “good war”?
Patrick J. Buchanan [send him mail] is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of seven books, including Where the Right Went Wrong, and A Republic Not An Empire.
The Best of Patrick J. Buchanan | 55,066,356 |
Harrisburg's One and Only Roaming Cigar Club.
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Join the Harrisburg Cigar Club on December 4th, 2015, for our 2nd Annual Holiday Party! We look forward to this time as a club to come together and celebrate the year we have had while looking forward to the year ahead. Whether you are a member or not, if you enjoy good food, drinks, dancing, […]
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Harrisburg Cigar Club (HCC) events provide you the perfect arena for networking, making friends and exploring the Greater Harrisburg Area cigar-friendly venues. The goal of the HCC is to promote cigar etiquette and educate professional enthusiasts within the community who enjoy smoking cigars.
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Bobcat Men Top Sacramento State
The Montana State Bobcats Men's Basketball team (9-6, 3-0) preserved their perfect Big Sky Conference record last night with a 61-59 win at Sacramento State (3-11, 0-3).The Cats were led by Eric Rush and his 19 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals. The Bobcat road trip continues Saturday night when the Cats travel to Northern Colorado. GO CATS! | 55,066,507 |
216 F.Supp. 507 (1963)
NEW JERSEY WOOD FINISHING COMPANY, Plaintiff,
v.
MINNESOTA MINING AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY, and Essex Wire Corp., Defendants.
Civ. A. No. 964-61.
United States District Court D. New Jersey.
April 19, 1963.
Hannoch, Weisman, Myers, Stern & Besser, Albert G. Besser, Herbert M. Guston, Newark, N. J., and Ralph M. Lowenbach, Newark, N. J., for plaintiff.
*508 Charles C. Trelease, Newark, N. J., Sidney P. Howell, Jr., Edwin E. McAmis, New York City, Thomas J. Lyons, White Bear Lake, Minn., of counsel, for defendant Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co.
AUGELLI, District Judge.
This is a private action under the antitrust laws of the United States, sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1 and 2, and section 7 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 18.
Plaintiff, New Jersey Wood Finishing Company, is engaged in the manufacture of electrical insulation products in this State and in the sale and distribution of said products by independent distributors throughout the United States. Defendant Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company ("3M") is a diversified nationwide manufacturing company, also engaged in the electrical insulation field. Defendant Essex Wire Corp. ("Essex") is a substantial customer for electrical insulation products and, until August 1956, owned and operated Insulation & Wires, Inc. ("IWI"), a national distributor of these products for various manufacturers.
Plaintiff is seeking, in both counts of its amended complaint, to recover treble damages as provided by section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15, for injuries suffered to its business by reason of defendants' alleged unlawful acts. The first count of the complaint charges that since August 1956 defendants have conspired to restrain, and attempted to monopolize, trade in the manufacture, sale and distribution of electrical insulation products in interstate commerce, in violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Plaintiff pleads a number of acts allegedly carried out by defendants in furtherance of their conspiracy and attempted monopolization, beginning with 3M's acquisition of IWI from Essex in August 1956 and up to the filing of the original complaint in this case on November 20, 1961. The second count alleges that the effect of such acquisition was substantially to lessen competition and to tend to create a monopoly, in violation of section 7 of the Clayton Act. By order of this Court filed April 15, 1963, Essex was dismissed as a defendant in count two of the complaint.
Defendant 3M has, by stipulation, deferred filing its answer and moves at this time that the complaint be dismissed, pursuant to Rule 12(b) (6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; or, in the alternative, that summary judgment be entered in its favor pursuant to Rule 56(b) of the Federal Rules. The basis for this motion is the four year statute of limitations in section 4B of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15b, which provides that "[a]ny action to enforce any cause of action under sections 15 or 15a of this title shall be forever barred unless commenced within four years after the cause of action accrued. * * *"
This action is admittedly brought under section 15 of Title 15, which is section 4 of the Clayton Act. Therefore, plaintiff can apparently only maintain its cause of action against 3M if such action accrued since November 20, 1957, four years prior to the date the original complaint was filed. Since 3M's acquisition of IWI, which is conceded by the parties to be the main thrust of plaintiff's claim in both counts, took place in August 1956, outside the four year limitation period, 3M argues that plaintiff's causes of action under the Sherman and Clayton Acts are now barred.
Plaintiff contends that even assuming that its cause of action against 3M accrued in August 1956, the running of the statute of limitations was tolled by section 5(b) of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 16(b). That section provides as follows:
"Whenever any civil or criminal proceeding is instituted by the United States to prevent, restrain, or punish violations of any of the antitrust laws, * * * the running of the statute of limitations in respect of every private right of action arising under said laws and based in *509 whole or in part on any matter complained of in said proceeding shall be suspended during the pendency thereof and for one year thereafter: Provided, however, That whenever the running of the statute of limitations in respect of a cause of action arising under section 15 of this title is suspended hereunder, any action to enforce such cause of action shall be forever barred unless commenced either within the period of suspension or within four years after the cause of action accrued."
Plaintiff alleges in its complaint that during the period between June 1960 and August 1961, "a proceeding concerning substantially identical subject matter to that which is here alleged and to which 3M was a party was pending before the Federal Trade Commission in Docket No. 7973 entitled In the Matter of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company". 3M, conceding the existence of these proceedings, has filed, as an appendix to its reply brief, a certified copy of the complaint and consent order in the Commission action. These papers make clear that the complaint before the Federal Trade Commission was brought against 3M for alleged violations of section 7 of the Clayton Act in the acquisition of a number of companies in the electrical insulation field. Among the acquisitions by 3M involved in those proceedings was the purchase of IWI from Essex in August 1956. The complaint of the Commission alleged that the effect of these acquisitions, "and of each of them, may be substantially to lessen competition or to tend to create a monopoly in the manufacture, distribution and sale of electrical insulation products * * * in various sections of the country". This action was ultimately terminated by a consent order whereby 3M agreed to divest itself on or before January 1, 1962 of all the assets of IWI.
The issues involved on this motion concern the applicability of section 5(b) of the Clayton Act to these Commission proceedings. If these proceedings come within the meaning of section 5(b), the running of the statute of limitations would have been tolled against 3M as to any matter complained of therein. Then, the complaint filed in this case on November 20, 1961 would be timely as to any cause of action based on 3M's acquisition of IWI in August 1956, since the action was commenced within one year of the termination of the Commission proceedings.
First. Defendant 3M argues that section 5(b) of the Clayton Act is not operative where, as here, the earlier proceedings are terminated by consent before any testimony has been taken. This contention is based on section 5(a) of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 16(a), which reads as follows:
"A final judgment or decree heretofore or hereafter rendered in any civil or criminal proceeding brought by or on behalf of the United States under the antitrust laws to the effect that a defendant has violated said laws shall be prima facie evidence against such defendant in any action or proceeding brought by any other party against such defendant under said laws * * *, as to all matters respecting which said judgment or decree would be an estoppel as between the parties thereto: Provided, That this section shall not apply to consent judgments or decrees entered before any testimony has been taken * * *."
3M claims that the proviso in section 5(a), prohibiting the use of a consent judgment as prima facie evidence in a subsequent action, also applies to the tolling provision in section 5(b), and that therefore a proceeding terminated by consent cannot toll the statute of limitations.
This Court is of the opinion that the consent judgment proviso was intended to apply solely to the prima facie evidence provision in section 5(a). The proviso is grammatically a part of the single sentence which comprises section *510 5(a), separated only by a colon. Section 5(b) is separate and apart, and makes no reference to "judgments or decrees". It is the "pendency" of a "proceeding" that operates to toll the running of the statute of limitations, and the manner of termination of that proceeding is not a factor under the language of section 5(b).
Second. Defendant contends that the action brought by the Federal Trade Commission is not a "civil * * * proceeding * * * instituted by the United States to prevent, restrain, or punish violations of * * * the antitrust laws" within the meaning of section 5(b) of the Clayton Act. The argument is that the quoted language refers only to a judicial proceeding brought by the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, and not to an administrative proceeding instituted by the Federal Trade Commission. 3M points out the well-known distinctions between judicial and administrative proceedings, and conjectures that Congress could not have intended a Commission proceeding to have such an effect without writing more specific language into the statute.
The cases coming to the Court's attention dealing with the tolling question have all involved prior Department of Justice proceedings. There appear to be no decisions as to whether or not section 5(b) is applicable in the case of a Federal Trade Commission proceeding. 3M has cited Proper v. John Bene & Sons, Inc., 295 F. 729 (E.D.N.Y.1923), which contains dicta to the effect that a proceeding before the Federal Trade Commission is not brought by the United States under the antitrust laws. But the Proper case involved the very different question of the res judicata effect of proceedings under the Federal Trade Commission Act pursuant to the present section 5(a) of the Clayton Act. There certainly can be no doubt that a proceeding brought by the Commission under section 7 of the Clayton Act is an action under the "antitrust laws". See section 1 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 12. Nor can there be much doubt today that a Commission proceeding is an action brought by the United States. See Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. v. American Bowling & Billiard Corp., 150 F.2d 69 (2 Cir., 1945).
In the final analysis, the resolution of the issue of the applicability of the tolling provision in section 5(b) to Commission proceedings depends upon the legislative purposes behind the adoption of that section. It seems clear that Congress intended by section 5(b) to allow antitrust litigants an opportunity, which might otherwise be barred by the four year statute of limitations, to take advantage of facts uncovered in related Government proceedings. See Sen.Rep. 619, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, p. 2332 (1955); Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. Nisley, 300 F.2d 561, 569 (10 Cir., 1962). Thus, a private party which has suffered damages to its business by reason of unlawful antitrust activity is permitted additional time to derive the benefits of a Government investigation. This purpose has nothing whatever to do with the competency of the evidence generated by the Government proceeding, or with which agency prosecuted the violation for the Government.
Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have concurrent jurisdiction over violations of section 7 of the Clayton Act. See section 11 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 21. It certainly would seem not to have been the Congressional intent to have plaintiff's rights turn on the fortuitous circumstance of which agency initiated the action. To permit a plaintiff to take advantage of facts uncovered as a result of a Department of Justice proceeding, but not as a result of a Federal Trade Commission proceeding brought under the same statute, does not seem logical. Thus, the difference between judicial and administrative proceedings has no meaning in the light of section 5(b)'s purpose to permit a plaintiff to take advantage of facts uncovered during the pendency of a Government proceeding. The Court, *511 therefore, finds that the action before the Commission is a proceeding within the meaning of section 5(b) of the Clayton Act which tolls the running of the statute of limitations.
Third. The remaining issue concerns the extent to which the complaint filed in this Court is saved by the tolling provision. Concededly, the running of the statute of limitations would be tolled with respect to plaintiff's claim under section 7 of the Clayton Act, based on 3M's acquisition of IWI in August 1956, which was the subject of the Commission proceeding. But plaintiff contends that the statute is also tolled as to its claims of conspiracy and attempt to monopolize under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
Section 5(b) of the Clayton Act tolls the statute "in respect of every private right of action arising under [the antitrust] laws and based in whole or in part on any matter complained of in [the Government] proceeding". The Sherman Act claims involved here are, at least "in part", based on the same "matter complained of" in the Commission proceeding. The factual issues, centering around 3M's acquisition of IWI in August 1956 and the consequent effects of such acquisition on competition in the electrical insulation field, appear to be substantially identical in the two proceedings. See Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. Nisley, supra, 300 F.2d p. 570. Thus, facts uncovered by the Government in the Commission proceeding would seem to bear on the issues which are involved in this case under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
For the reasons stated, this Court holds that section 5(b) of the Clayton Act tolled the running of the statute of limitations as to both the Clayton and Sherman Act counts of the complaint against 3M in this case. Defendant 3M's motion for dismissal, or, in the alternative, for a summary judgment will be denied. Submit order.
| 55,066,514 |
Q:
the right syntax - minimum value
what is the correct syntax to get the minimum value ? I need the Minimum value between these two :
Duration.Days(Date.EndOfMonth(ay) - [#"Date of Employment (Work)"])
Date.Day(Date.EndOfMonth(ay))
i tried List.Min but it gave error
We cannot convert the value 699 to type List.
i also tried but no such function as "MIN"
MIN(Duration.Days(Date.EndOfMonth(ay) - [#"Date of Employment (Work)"])
,Date.Day(Date.EndOfMonth(ay)))
A:
List.Min will work, if you pass a list as the first argument:
List.Min(
{
Duration.Days(Date.EndOfMonth(ay) - [#"Date of Employment (Work)"]),
Date.Day(Date.EndOfMonth(ay))
}
)
Notice I wrapped your two functions in { }, to make them a list.
| 55,066,569 |
Imatinib and the treatment of fibrosis: recent trials and tribulations.
Imatinib mesylate has become a therapy of interest for the treatment of systemic sclerosis because of its ability to inhibit c-Abl and platelet-derived growth factor receptor, tyrosine kinases involved in profibrotic pathways. Preclinical data using in vitro and murine models of fibrosis have demonstrated the antifibrotic properties of imatinib. Imatinib is currently used widely in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia, gastrointestinal stromal tumors, and other conditions, and a large amount of information is available regarding the safety of the medication in these patient populations. Whether imatinib will be tolerable or effective in the treatment of systemic sclerosis is the subject of several investigations. The aim of this review is to summarize this body of research to date. | 55,066,686 |
Maine Lowers Speeding Ticket Fines
WLBZ-TV reports fines for lower end speeding violations have decreased by about 15 percent.
Drivers pulled over going 1 to 9 mph over the speed limit will see their ticket go from $134 to $114. Those who are pulled over going 15 to 19 mph above the speed limit will see their fines decrease by $30.
Fines will stay the same for drivers who are caught going 20 to 29 mph above the speed limit.
The changes come after the state Violations Bureau found Maine's fines for lower end speeding infractions were higher on average than other New England states.
Police officer Ryan Le says higher fines can make it difficult for some officers to write tickets. | 55,066,823 |
Screw the Nut 3
Set up the elements in each level to create a chain reaction that will get the nut to the bolt. There are lots of helpers like bouncy squids and speedy sharks that you will use to solve each puzzle. Click to play all the fun levels! | 55,066,884 |
“One reason PS2 game sales are doing so well is price. Sony earlier this year dropped the price of the console to $129 from $149, a move that appears to have attracted a lot of new game buyers. In fact, the PS2 is outselling the Xbox 360, even though it is a far less advanced machine. [Arcadia Investment Corp. analyst John] Taylor, citing NPD data, said Sony has sold 2.4 million units in the U.S. this year, compared with 2.1 million units for the Xbox 360.”
For all the challenges Sony is facing with the upcoming PlayStation 3 launch, the PS2 sales illustrate how much momentum the company has coming into the new console generation. With the PS3 and Wii launches around the corner, and Microsoft forecasting 10 million Xbox 360 sales by the end of the holidays, it will be interesting to see how all of this plays out over the next year. | 55,066,913 |
Sex in the subtlety
Latest News
ERROL NAZARETH
If sophistication and elegance were commonplace in today's R&B, this sweet and simple lyric in Ivana Santilli's CD, Brown, wouldn't jump out.
"Don't you know that makin' love takes more than just dark," Santilli sings on Doin' All The Doin,' a song from her just-released debut.
While the majority of R&B(S) artists choose to assault us with sexually crass lyrics, Santilli would rather seduce us with earthy music. Just as Marvin Gaye and Bobby Womack did.
"I'd rather the groove be about sex," the trumpeter and classically-trained pianist says. "Subtlety is so sexy.
"Listen to D'angelo and MeShell (Ndegeocello)," she adds. "The grooves (in their records)... that's the sex. They don't have to say anything."
With the exception of a couple of throwaway tracks, Santilli has succeeded in cooking up a warm and delicious concoction that includes elements of Brazilian music, soul, and drum 'n' bass. Clearly, Santilli, a Canadian of French-Italian heritage, is all about expanding black music's vocabulary.
"When I left Bass Is Base I had a whole bunch of ideas that just fell out," she explains. "One was a bossa nova, one was a ballad, and when I wrote Sun+Moon=Tomorrow, I was like, 'I think this is a drum 'n' bass song.' "
The cleverly crafted live drum 'n' bass composition, featuring prodigiously talented drummer Sekou Lumumba, is one of the catchiest things on Brown.
"I'd written and recorded (Sun+Moon) in the summer of '97 but I wasn't crazy about the drum programming," Santilli says. "I thought it was too laid-back, I wanted it to be more meaty, so I called Sekou in 'cause I thought live drums would be great.
"So I laid out the tempo, played the bass line, he played along with it, and (producer/DJ) Ababcus mixed it."
If anything, Brown proves that Santilli wasn't just "the sexy chick" in Bass Is Base. She wrote, composed and arranged all the songs on Brown, produced three tracks and co-produced the rest.
Apparently, her creative voice was being stifled in her former band. The break-up was acrimonious but they've all moved on individually.
"My ideas weren't necessarily good for what Bass Is Base was ... or supposed to be," she says. "My goal was to become a better musician, singer and songwriter, and I felt there was no room for me to grow."
The challenges that came with stepping out seemed monumental, Santilli says.
"At first, it was about finding out what I could do," she says. "I wanted to write some really strong songs, songs that people would be struck by if I just sat at the piano and played them.
"It's like when Prince sings and plays Purple Rain, people freak out and go, 'What a beautiful song!' "
If the crowds she's drawing are any indication, Santilli is creating a well-deserved buzz. | 55,067,019 |
Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity. | 55,067,232 |
The major objective of the proposed work is to study the functional organization of brain stem and spinal pathways mediating sympathetic and parasympathetic influences on the cardiovascular system of the cat. Problems related to this objective are approached primarily with single and multiunit electrophysiological recording techniques. The specific aims of the research are: 1) to study the organization of brain and spinal pressor regions; 2) to define the relationships between central pressor pathways and the baroreceptor reflex; 3) to define the relationships between central pressor pathways and the sympatho-inhibitory systems of the medial medulla and forebrain; 4) to define the relationships between brain stem vasomotor areas and single sympathetic preganglionic neurons of the intermedio-lateral cell columns of the spinal cord; 5) to define the sites within the brain stem and spinal sympathetic pathways at which depressant effects of centrally acting antihypertensive drugs are exerted; and 6) to define the brain stem sites and mechanisms involved in forebrain and respiratory modulation of the cardiac vagal component of the baroreceptor reflexes. | 55,067,249 |
The quality of the scan is pretty good overall, but pages 562 and 563 (images 584 and 585) are just barely legible.
mudchuck -- November 28, 2011good, but two blurry pages | 55,067,357 |
Talks to new neighbors twice, whom introduce themselves each time Never offers own name
216 shares | 55,067,445 |
An ultrastructural study of the calcification process in tympanosclerotic tissues.
The alterations of the connective tissue components in the middle ear during tympanosclerosis have been analyzed at ultrastructural level. The final steps of this pathological condition are characterized by the disappearance of the blood vessels, cellular degeneration, hyalin degeneration, and calcification. The different features of the inorganic deposits and the cellular origin of the organic structures involved in the calcification process are described. | 55,067,529 |
Introduction
============
Tissue culture *in vitro* has been an important technique for plant reproduction and germplasm conservation for half a century, and is a valuable tool for research as well as commercial germchit production ([@B58]; [@B85]; [@B47]; [@B53]). However, the plant browning response that frequently occurs is one of the most recalcitrant problems encountered. Browning has deleterious effects on plants and may lead to decreased regenerative ability, poor growth and even death of explants or cultures ([@B84]; [@B31]; [@B96]). This problem restricts the application of tissue culture technology in many species ([@B1]). Although browning damage may sometimes be alleviated by media supplements (active carbon, ascorbic acid, polyvinyl pyrrolidone, etc.), the results are not always satisfactory especially in some species that easily brown ([@B49]; [@B1]). A radical solution to this problem therefore requires a comprehensive understanding of the browning response.
Generally, plants with higher secondary metabolite contents are more prone to browning and more difficult to culture *in vitro* ([@B55]; [@B15]). For instance, severe browning occurs in *Medinilla* because of its abundant phenols and tannins, making it one of the most difficult genera for tissue culture ([@B10]; [@B91]). Several studies have suggested that browning and the subsequent death of explants depends on the enzymatic oxidation of phenolic compounds, since the resulting quinones are highly reactive and toxic to plant tissue ([@B87]; [@B75]; [@B86]). The redox reaction is thought to be facilitated by the disorganization of cellular components, which destroys the localized distribution of polyphenol and polyphenol oxidase ([@B49]). Increasingly, researchers have proposed that browning might be a plant physiological response directly induced by environmental stress, such as temperature ([@B38]), osmotic pressure ([@B19]), nutrient stress ([@B71]), and hormones ([@B56]; [@B57]). With the progress of molecular biology, the molecular mechanism of plant browning response has also been explored. [@B36] found that *Musa* cultivars with genome 'B' had a more serious browning response and lower multiplication than other genotypes, while a map-based cloning strategy showed that the *Ic1* gene (Induced callus 1) controls callus browning of rice ([@B51]). A proteomic study showed that mitochondrial ATPase and peroxiredoxin were only expressed in browning *Phalaenopsis* leaf explants cultured *in vitro* ([@B11]). However, there have so far only been a few studies of the genes responsible for browning and the mechanism of the browning response is not sufficiently clear. In addition, most previous research on plant browning has used explants subjected to mechanical wounding and disinfectant damage, which may themselves interfere with the normal browning response ([@B16]; [@B45]). Therefore, the establishment of an aseptic system to avoid other interfering factors seems necessary if the molecular mechanism of browning is to be properly investigated.
Next generation sequencing has become a rapid and cost-effective means to analyze the genome and transcriptome of non-model species ([@B40]; [@B92]). The present study used intact aseptic plantlets of *Medinilla formosana* Hayata previously obtained by ovary culture which have a severe browning response when cut ([@B91]). The changes in shoot morphology and histology after cutting were first observed and then *de novo* transcriptome and subsequent digital gene expression (DGE) profiling at different times after cutting were used to explore the genes and gene networks that play roles in regulating the browning response and plant growth. This study sheds fresh light on plant browning on a genome-wide scale and will facilitate future studies of its molecular modulation and effective inhibition.
Materials and Methods {#s1}
=====================
Plant Materials and Cutting Treatment
-------------------------------------
Aseptic plantlets of *M. formosana* Hayata obtained through ovary culture were used as source materials ([@B91]). Small shoots were separately excised and immediately placed on half-strength (1/2) MS basal medium ([@B61]) supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.8% agar (pH = 5.5) at 25 ± 2°C under a 16 h photoperiod, 40 μmol/m^2^⋅s fluorescent light. Subsequent morphological changes to the shoots were observed and photographed.
Plant materials of *M. formosana* for further molecular study were multiplied from a single plantlet to ensure genotypic consistency. The propagating medium was 1/2 MS basal medium supplemented with 3% sucrose, 0.8% agar (pH = 5.5), 4.44 μM 6-benzyladenine, 0.11 μM α-naphthaleneacetic acid, 0.5 g/l AC and 0.5 mM β-mercaptoethanol (as the only known effective inhibitor for the browning of *M. formosana*; [@B91]).
Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)
--------------------------------------
Three replicate specimens (2 mm × 6 mm) were sampled from the middle part of the third leaf from the shoot tip 0, 2, 6, 15, 22, and 54 days after cutting (DAC) and then fixed with 2.5% glutaraldehyde for 1 h. After rinsing with buffer three times (15 min each), the samples were fixed in 1% osmium tetroxide for 2 h and again rinsed with buffer three times. Both fixing agents were prepared in 100 mM phosphate buffer (pH = 7.0). After dehydration in an alcohol series (50, 70, 80, 90, 95, and 100% for 15 min each) and acetone (20 min twice) the specimens were infiltrated with 30% (in acetone), 70% and pure Spurr resin. After polymerization for 24 h at 70°C, semi-thin sections (1 μm) were cut transversely and observed under an optical microscope (Olympus SP 350). Ultra-thin leaf sections (80 nm) for transmission electron microscopy were cut transversely using a UC6 microtome (LEICA EM). After staining with uranyl acetate and lead citrate for 20 min each, sections were examined with an H-7650 transmission electron microscope (Hitachi, Japan) at 80 kV. Photographs of interest were taken by a Gatan 830 CCD camera (Gatan, USA).
Sample Collection and RNA Isolation
-----------------------------------
Shoot samples (about 0.1 g containing leaf and stem) were collected 0 hour after cutting (HAC), 4 HAC, 2 DAC, and 8 DAC, frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C. Total RNA was isolated using the improved CTAB method. RNA degradation and contamination was monitored on 1% agarose gels, RNA purity was checked using the Nano-Photometer^®^ spectrophotometer (IMPLEN, Westlake Village, CA, USA), RNA concentration was measured using Qubit^®^ RNA Assay Kit in Qubit^®^2.0 Fluorometer (Life Technologies, Camarillo, CA, USA) and RNA integrity was assessed using the RNA Nano 6000 Assay Kit of the Bioanalyzer 2100 system (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA).
Library Preparation and Transcriptome Sequencing
------------------------------------------------
A total of 3 μg RNA mixed from the four time samples was used as input material for the RNA sample preparations. Sequencing libraries were generated using the NEBNext^®^ Ultra^TM^ RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina^®^ (NEB, USA) following the manufacturer's recommendations and index codes were added to attribute sequences to each sample. Briefly, mRNA was purified from total RNA using poly-T oligo-attached magnetic beads. Fragmentation was carried out using divalent cations under elevated temperature in NEBNext First Strand Synthesis Reaction Buffer (5X). First strand cDNA was synthesized using random hexamer primers and M-MuLV Reverse Transcriptase (RNase H^-^). Second strand cDNA synthesis was subsequently performed using DNA Polymerase I and RNase H. Remaining overhangs were converted into blunt ends by exonuclease/polymerase. After adenylation of the 3′ ends of DNA fragments, NEBNext Adaptors with hairpin loop structures were ligated to prepare for hybridization. To preferentially select cDNA fragments of 150--200 bp, the library fragments were purified using the AMPure XP system (Beckman Coulter, Beverly, MA, USA). Then 3 μl USER Enzyme (NEB, USA) was used with size-selected, adaptor-ligated cDNA at 37°C for 15 min followed by 5 min at 95°C before PCR. Then PCR was performed with Phusion High-Fidelity DNA polymerase, Universal PCR primers and Index (X) Primer. Finally, PCR products were purified (AMPure XP system) and library quality was assessed on the Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100 system.
The clustering of the index-coded samples was performed on a cBot Cluster Generation System using TruSeq PE Cluster Kit v3-cBot-HS (Illumina) according to the manufacturer's instructions. After cluster generation, the library preparations were sequenced on an Illumina Hiseq 2000 platform and paired-end reads were generated.
Quality Control, Transcriptome Assembly, and Functional Annotation
------------------------------------------------------------------
Raw reads in fastq format were first processed through in-house perl scripts to generate clean reads by removing low quality reads and those containing adapters or poly-N. Simultaneously, Q20, Q30, GC-content, and sequence duplication levels of the clean data were calculated. All the downstream analyses were based on high quality clean data. Transcriptome assembly was accomplished based on the left.fq and right.fq using Trinity ([@B26]) with min_kmer_cov set to 2 by default and all other parameters set to default.
Gene function was annotated based on the following databases: Nr (NCBI non-redundant protein sequences), Nt (NCBI non-redundant nucleotide sequences), Pfam (Protein family), KOG/COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins), Swiss-Prot (A manually annotated and reviewed protein sequence database), KO (KEGG Ortholog database), GO (Gene Ontology).
Activity Assessment of Known Enzymes Related to Browning
--------------------------------------------------------
The activity changes of enzymes related to the phenolic redox reaction after cutting were first measured to determine the appropriate sampling stage for DGE profiling. For phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO), four replicate samples of 0.2 g leaf tissue of *M. formosana* were taken 0 h, 4 h, 12 h, 1 days, 2 days, 4 days, and 8 days after cutting and stored at -20°C. Enzyme activity was determined on an ultraviolet spectrophotometer using the Comin PAL and PPO Kit (Cominbio, China) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Peroxidase (POD) activity was similarly determined but using 0.1 g leaf tissue and the Comin POD Kit (Cominbio, China).
Comparative DGE Profiling
-------------------------
On the basis of the enzyme activities determined as described above, RNA samples were, respectively, extracted from the replicated shoots at 0 HAC (cut_0h1 and cut_0h2), 4 HAC and 4 DAC (cut_4h1 and cut_4h2, cut_4d1 and cut_4d2). Totally six DGE libraries were prepared and sequenced as described for the transcriptome sequencing above. In addition to the normal quality control, the correlation between the counts from parallel libraries was assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient calculated in Microsoft Excel. Clean data were mapped back onto our assembled transcriptome reference database of *M. formosana*, and the read-count for each gene was obtained from the mapping results using RSEM software. Gene expression was normalized to RPKM (reads per kb per million mapped reads), to eliminate the influence of different gene lengths and sequence discrepancies on the calculation of gene expression ([@B59]).
Identification and Annotation of Differentially Expressed Genes
---------------------------------------------------------------
Differentially expressed genes were identified using the DESeq R package (1.10.1). This provides statistical routines for determining DGEs using a model based on the negative binomial distribution. The resulting *P*-values were adjusted using the Benjamini and Hochberg's approach for controlling the false discovery rate (FDR). In our study, genes meeting the stringent criteria of *P*-value ≤ 0.005 and log~2~ (foldchange) ≥ 1 were assigned as DEGs. Gene expression was further normalized to FPKM (fragments per kb of exon per million mapped reads), and log10(FPKM+1) values were used for hierarchical clustering of common DEGs by pheatmap packages^[1](#fn01){ref-type="fn"}^.
Differentially expressed genes were annotated as described by [@B100]. GO enrichment analysis of putative genes was implemented by the GOseq R package, in which gene length bias was corrected ([@B25]; [@B98]). KEGG is a database resource for understanding high level functions and utilities of the biological system, such as the cell, the organism, and the ecosystem, from molecular-level information, especially large-scale molecular datasets generated by genome sequencing and other high-throughput experimental technologies^[2](#fn02){ref-type="fn"}^ ([@B42]). We used KOBAS software to test the statistical enrichment of putative genes in KEGG pathways.
qRT-PCR Analysis
----------------
RNAs for qRT-PCR analysis were extracted from three replicate samples each of shoots at 0 DAC, 4 HAC, 1 DAC, and 4 DAC as described above. Primer sequences were designed by Primer 5.0 and synthesized by Generay Biotech (Generay, PRC) based on the mRNA sequences obtained from transcriptome sequencing. Reverse transcription reactions were performed in a GeneAmp^®^ PCR System 9700 (Applied Biosystems, USA) for 15 min at 37°C, followed by heat inactivation of RT for 5 s at 85°C. The 10 μl RT reaction mix was then diluted × 10 in nuclease-free water and held at -20°C. Real-time PCR was performed using a LightCycler^®^ 480 II Real-time PCR Instrument (Roche, Swiss) with 10 μl PCR reaction mixture that included 1 μl of cDNA, 5 μl of 2 × LightCycler^®^ 480 SYBR Green I Master (Roche, Swiss), 3.6 μl of nuclease-free water, and 0.2 μl of each primer. Reactions were incubated in a 384-well optical plate (Roche, Swiss) at 95°C for 10 min, followed by 40 cycles of 95°C for 10 s, 60°C for 30 s. Each sample was run in triplicate. At the end of the PCR cycles, melting curve analysis was performed to validate the specific generation of the expected PCR product. The expression levels of mRNAs were normalized to 18sRNA and were calculated using the 2^-ΔΔCt^ method ([@B52]).
Results
=======
Effects of Browning on *M. formosana* after Cutting
---------------------------------------------------
Totally 34 plantlets of *M. formosana* cultured *in vitro* were monitored to characterize the browning process in detail. As shown in **Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}**, visible browning at the cutting site occurred at 2 DAC in all plantlets. The leaf began to turn red from the margin, gradually spreading to the center. The most obvious copper-red color appeared in the middle of developed leaves at about 15 DAC and partial necrosis appeared at about 22 DAC. After this, new green leaves sprouted and the whole plantlets seemed to start to recover.
![**Morphological changes in *Medinilla formosana* shoots after cutting. (A)** Shoot at 0 day after cutting (DAC). **(B)** Shoot at 2 DAC, The leaf color began to turn brownish red from the margin. **(C,D)** Shoot at 4 and 6 DAC. The color of leaves gradually deepened and spread to the leaf center later. **(E)** Shoot at 15 DAC. The developed leaves in the middle section were obviously copper-red. **(F)** Shoot at 22 DAC.](fpls-07-01897-g001){#F1}
In semi-thin resin sections of leaves, an abundant black substance accumulated in palisade tissue cells at 15 DAC, while little was found in the control leaves at 0 DAC (**Figure [2A](#F2){ref-type="fig"}**). In further TEM, clumps of osmiophilic condensed tannins were found at the edge of vacuole at 2 DAC ([@B10]; [@B48]); while excess starch grains appeared in the chloroplasts and caused them to swell significantly. Subsequently, condensed tannins continued to increase toward the center of the vacuole and the cells gradually became spherical. At 15 DAC, the vacuole was completely filled with dark tannins, and most organelles seemed to be squeezed to the border of cytoplasm. In contrast, palisade cells at 0 DAC were almost rectangular in section, and their organelles were well-organized (**Figure [2B](#F2){ref-type="fig"}**). However, condensed tannins began to disaggregate at 22 DAC and almost vanished at 54 DAC. The excess starch grains in chloroplasts also disappeared and the whole cells, and their organelles, recovered to a normal appearance.
![**Histological observations of *M. formosana* leaves after cutting. (A)** Semi-thin section of leaves at 0 and 15 DAC under the light microscope, bar = 50 μm; **(B)** Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) observations of palisade tissue cells. ch, chloroplast; ta, tannins; bar = 2 μm.](fpls-07-01897-g002){#F2}
*De novo* Transcriptome Sequencing, Assembly, and Annotation
------------------------------------------------------------
Because there are no EST data and little genomic sequence from *Medinilla* species ([@B13]; [@B99]), we first sequenced the transcriptome at four stages after cutting using the Illumina sequencing platform. An overview of the sequencing and assembly is summarized in **Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}**; **Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}**. After cleaning and quality checks, about 7.5 G clean reads were obtained and spliced into transcripts by Trinity. A total of 174,444 transcripts were obtained, with average length of 1,403 bp, while 58,073 unigenes were identified and their average length was 810 bp (**Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}**). An analysis of the lengths of transcripts and unigenes is presented in **Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}**. There were 90,236 transcripts (51.73% of all transcripts) with length over 1000 bp and 20,330 unigenes (45.09% of all unigenes) with length under 301.
######
Overview of the *Medinilla formosana* transcriptome.
----------------------------- -------------
Total number of raw reads 80367590
Total number of clean reads 75,680,870
GC percentage 49.34%
Total Nucleotides 244,830,224
Total number of transcripts 174,444
Mean length of transcripts 1,403
Min length of transcripts 201
Max length of transcripts 16,751
Total number of unigenes 58,073
Mean length of unigenes 810
----------------------------- -------------
![**The length distribution of unigenes and transcripts**.](fpls-07-01897-g003){#F3}
Multiple databases were interrogated to accurately annotate the unigenes, including the NCBI database Non-redundant protein sequences (Nr), the manually annotated and curated protein sequence database (Swiss-Prot), NCBI nucleotide sequences (Nt), Protein Family (Pfam), euKaryotic Ortholog Groups (KOG), GO, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes Ortholog database (KO). As shown in **Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"}**; **Supplementary Table [S1](#SM7){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**, 26,022 unigenes (44. 81% of all unigenes) showed significant similarity to known proteins in the NR database and a total of 28,433 proteins were annotated. However, only 2580 unigenes (4.44% of all unigenes) could be annotated from these seven databases.
######
Unigene annotation of *M. formosana* transcriptome.
Annotation database Number of unigenes Percentage (%)
------------------------------------ -------------------- ----------------
Annotated in NR 26,022 44.81
Annotated in NT 8,101 13.94
Annotated in KO 7,918 13.63
Annotated in Swiss-Prot 18,820 32.41
Annotated in PFAM 18,134 31.22
Annotated in GO 20,674 35.60
Annotated in KOG 9,394 16.17
Annotated in all databases 2,580 4.44
Annotated in at least one database 28,433 48.96
NR, NCBI non-redundant protein sequences; NT, NCBI nucleotide sequences; KO, KEGG Ortholog; Swiss-Prot, A manually annotated and reviewed protein sequence database; PFAM. Protein family; GO, Gene Ontology; KOG, euKaryotic Ortholog Groups.
DGE Profiling at Different Stages after Cutting
-----------------------------------------------
Digital gene expression profiling was then used to explore the expression changes of genes involved in browning. Changes in the activity of enzymes related to the phenolic redox reaction after cutting were first measured to choose the appropriate sampling stages for DGE profiling. As shown in **Figure [4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}**, PAL was rapidly activated to 29.72 U/g at 12 HAC and declined at 1 DAC, while the activity of PPO has two peaks at 4 HAC and 2 DAC. POD activity peaked at 1 DAC (9.51 U/g) and then dramatically decreased at 2 and 4 DAC. To efficiently screen the key genes modulating the browning response, RNA samples were therefore extracted from the shoots at 0 HAC, 4 HAC, and 4 DAC (cut_0h, cut_4h and cut_4d) for DGE profiling.
![**Activity changes of PAL, PPO, and POD in *M. formosana* after cutting treatment.** Mean activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), and Peroxidase (POD) are shown with standard errors bars from four replicates. Points labeled with same letter are not significantly different from one another according to a LSD test at *P* \< 0.05.](fpls-07-01897-g004){#F4}
About seven million raw reads per library were generated, with clean reads of the six libraries ranging from 6.0 to 7.1 million. About 92% of the tag sequences could be mapped to our *de novo* transcriptome database, which showed the high reliability of the reference transcriptome data (**Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}**). Additionally, Pearson correlation analysis for two biological replicates of the cut_0h, cut_4h and cut_4d samples confirmed the reproducibility of library sequencing: the indexes of Pearson correlation (R^2^) for the parallel libraries were 0.9, 0.879, and 0.892, respectively (**Supplementary Figure [S1](#SM1){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**). The DGE profiling identified 3,370 genes between cut_4h and cut_0h, of which 1,838 genes were significantly up-regulated and 2,532 genes were down-regulated (**Figure [5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}**). Totally 3286 genes were differentially expressed between cut_4d and cut_0h, with 1,552 genes up-regulated and 1,734 genes down-regulated; 1,779 genes were differentially expressed between cut_4d and cut_4h, with 1,643 genes up-regulated and 1,099 genes down-regulated (**Figure [5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}**).
######
Overview of digital gene expression (DGE) analysis after cutting.
Sample Raw reads Total reads Mapped reads Percentage (%)
--------- ----------- ------------- -------------- ----------------
cut_0h1 6,825,071 6,642,427 6,130,866 92.30
cut_0h2 6,371,775 6,099,595 5,625,771 92.23
cut_4h1 6,416,088 6,177,170 5,686,169 92.05
cut_4h2 7,429,294 7,126,093 6,559,014 92.04
cut_4d1 7,326,096 7,040,432 6,502,282 92.36
cut_4d2 7,164,566 6,970,542 6,421,580 92.12
![**Statistics of Differentially expressed gene (DEG) numbers at different culture stages.** The numbers of up-regulated and down-regulated genes in comparisons between two stages after cutting are displayed (cut_4h vs cut_0h, cut_4d vs cut_0h, and cut_4d vs cut_4h).](fpls-07-01897-g005){#F5}
Expression Pattern Analysis of DEGs
-----------------------------------
Hierarchical clustering of the 6,431 DEGs common to the three stages was performed to examine the similarity and diversity of expression profiles (**Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}**). This provides a global view of the gene expression pattern of DEGs during the early stage of browning. To further study the genes functioning during browning of *M. formosana*, all DEGs were roughly categorized into four sub-clusters according to their expression pattern at the three stages (**Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}**) and most DEGs with specific and typical expression patterns are identified in **Supplementary Table [S2](#SM8){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**. Pattern A contains 931 DEGs with significant up-regulation at 4 HAC \[log~2~ (cut_4h : cut_0h) \> 1\] and down-regulation at 4 DAC \[log~2~ (cut_4d : cut_4h) \< 1\], and Pattern D consists of 1179 DEGs with down-regulation at 4 HAC and up-regulation at 4 DAC. Patterns B and C were genes, respectively, up- and down-modulated throughout all three stages, and comprised 116 and 122 genes. All these genes were significantly regulated and may contribute to the early modulation of browning.
![**Hierarchical cluster analyses of 6,431 DEGs in *M. formosana* after cutting.** Each column represents a sampling stage after cutting (e.g., cut_0h), each row represents a gene expression ratio expressed as log~10~ (relative gene expression values). Red represents up-regulation and blue represents down-regulation of expression compared with the adjacent stage. The expression patterns of all DEGs could be allocated to one of four sub-clusters labeled A--D.](fpls-07-01897-g006){#F6}
To further examine the DEGs showing different patterns during browning, genes of pattern A were first functionally annotated, as these are probably involved in the metabolic or signal transduction pathways in the early steps of browning. GO is a classification system to describe the properties of the organism genes and their products, including biological process, cellular component, and molecular function. A total of 694 genes were annotated with the three GO ontologies and the top 20 terms are shown in **Figure [7](#F7){ref-type="fig"}**. The subcategories of "transcription regulation," "metabolic process," "oxidation-reduction process," and "transmembrane transport" were dominant in the biological process category. In the cellular component category, "integral to membrane" and "membrane" were highly represented. In the molecular function category, "ATP, DNA, and protein binding" and "oxidoreductase activity" were dominant subcategories. Furthermore, KEGG enrichment classification (hypergeometric test) was used to identify significantly enriched pathways of DEGs between the different stages of browning using a FDR ≤ 0.05. A total of 172 DEGs were annotated with 154 terms and the top 20 KEGG pathways are shown in **Figure [8](#F8){ref-type="fig"}**. The most highly represented was 'metabolic pathways' (ko01100) and 'biosynthesis of secondary metabolites' (ko01110), which accounted for 14.22 and 8.89%, respectively, followed by 'biosynthesis of antibiotics' (ko01130) and 'plant hormone signal transduction' (ko04075) with, respectively, 4.54 and 3.39%. Additionally, lipid (linolenic acid and glycerolipid) and amino acid (alanine, aspartate, glutamate, cysteine, and methionine) metabolism were also involved.
![**Histogram of Gene Ontology classifications of DEGs in Sub-cluster A.** The results are summarized in three main categories: biological process, cellular component, and molecular function. The left *y*-axis indicates the percentage of a specific category of genes in total genes, and the right *y*-axis indicates the number of genes in a category.](fpls-07-01897-g007){#F7}
![**KEGG enrichment classifications of DEGs in Sub-cluster A**.](fpls-07-01897-g008){#F8}
The top10 DEGs of Patterns B, C, and D were also listed according to their absolute values of fold change and annotated. As shown in **Table [4](#T4){ref-type="table"}**, most DEGs of Pattern B were found to be related to the biosynthesis and oxidation process of phenolics (comp40461_c0, comp57388_c0, comp36974_c0, comp41826_c1, and comp63629_c0), transcription regulation (comp58041_c0), and sugar metabolic process (comp56210_c0, comp56210_c0). Genes of Pattern C were mainly involved in nutrient transport (comp58069_c1, comp60016_c0, comp51640_c0, and comp41083_c0), carbohydrate metabolic process (comp66737_c0, comp64795_c0, comp54196_c1, and comp66048_c0), and negative regulation of transcription (comp57423_c0). The majority of genes of Pattern D participate in photosynthesis (comp56595_c0, comp38163_c0, and comp53042_c0), energy metabolism (comp64552_c1), and response to stress (comp46179_c0 and comp53783_c0). The sequence data of our DGE profiling has been deposited into the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database with accession number SRA495968.
######
Top 10 DEGs showing prominent changes after cutting.
Gene ID FPKM Gene description
------------------- -------- ------------------ -------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Sub-cluster B**
comp58041_c0 0.00 0.07 4.52 Zinc finger protein, putative \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp40461_c0 0.00 0.13 3.44 PREDICTED: laccase-12-like \[*Vitis vinifera*\]
comp54854_c0 0.00 0.36 10.86 Lipid binding protein, putative \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp56210_c0 0.00 0.3 5.29 PREDICTED: putative invertase inhibitor \[*Vitis vinifera*\]
comp41826_c1 0.00 0.45 12.85 Hypothetical protein POPTRDRAFT_554508 \[*Populus trichocarpa*\]
comp34094_c0 0.00 1.65 7.40 Sugar transporter, putative \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp63629_c0 0.27 10.87 37.93 2-alkenal reductase \[*Arabidopsis thaliana*\]
comp48947_c0 0.51 16.75 51.93 CINNAMYL alcohol dehydrogenase-like protein \[*Populus trichocarpa*\]
comp57388_c0 0.00 0.56 25.49 Conserved hypothetical protein \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp36974_c0 0.20 3.36 33.02 Flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase, partial \[*Morella rubra*\]
**Sub-cluster C**
comp58069_c1 4.84 0.49 0.19 PREDICTED: metal transporter Nramp5 \[*Vitis vinifera*\]
comp66737_c0 180.98 35.50 6.93 Beta-galactosidase, putative \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp64795_c0 42.18 10.23 2.52 Hypothetical protein VITISV_039434 \[*Vitis vinifera*\]
comp54196_c1 2.74 0.71 0.21 Hydrolase, putative \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp41083_c0 16.36 0.37 0.00 PREDICTED: monothiol glutaredoxin-S2-like \[*Glycine max*\]
comp60016_c0 2.49 0.95 0.31 Sugar transporter, putative \[*Ricinus communis\]*
comp66048_c0 55.67 22.17 7.26 Beta-amylase \[*Castanea crenata*\]
comp59756_c0 177.30 75.79 12.07 Fatty acid hydroperoxide lyase \[*Psidium guajava*\]
comp51640_c0 4.08 1.81 0.71 Pentatricopeptide repeat-containing protein At5g55740 \[*Vitis vinifera*\]
comp57423_c0 4.41 1.82 0.76 PREDICTED: protein SRG1 \[*Vitis vinifera*\]
**Sub-cluster D**
comp60636_c0 8.73 0.07 4.39 Predicted protein \[*Populus trichocarpa*\]
comp64552_c1 43.20 0.95 5.46 Fructose-bisphosphate aldolase, putative \[*Ricinus communis*\]
comp46807_c0 1.67 0.06 2.09 Cytochrome P450, putative *\[Ricinus communis*\]
comp59471_c0 2.35 0.08 4.34 Predicted protein \[*Populus trichocarpa*\]
comp47029_c0 12.88 0.42 2.60 Expansin18 precursor \[*Solanum lycopersicum*\]
comp56595_c0 14.68 0.83 19.61 Copper binding protein 3 \[*Gossypium hirsutum*\]
comp46179_c0 757.45 28.13 540.00 Predicted protein \[*Populus trichocarpa*\]
comp53783_c0 1.82 0.1 0.81 Hypothetical protein MTR_5g047050 \[*Medicago truncatula*\]
comp38163_c0 81.15 4.43 10.49 Chlorophyll a/b binding protein \[*Solanum tuberosum*\]
comp53042_c0 19.87 0.92 8.60 Light-harvesting complex II protein Lhcb6 \[*Populus trichocarpa*\]
The genes were selected according to the absolute value of foldchange and stored by p-value \< 0.05. FPKM means expected number of fragments per kilobase of transcript sequence per millions base pairs sequenced.
Validation of DGE Data by qRT-PCR
---------------------------------
A total of nine genes with various expression patterns were selected from the four DEGs clusters to validate the DGE data by qRT-PCR. The actin gene 18sRNA from transcriptome data of *M. formosana* was used as an internal control, and the primers employed in the qRT-PCR are listed in **Supplementary Table [S3](#SM9){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**. The relative quantitative method (2^-ΔΔCt^) was used to calculate the fold change of the target genes. As shown in **Figure [9](#F9){ref-type="fig"}**, the qRT-PCR data for these genes were generally consistent with the DGE results. Moreover, linear regression \[(DGE value) = a(qRT-PCR value)+b\] analysis showed a correlation coefficient of 0.7619, indicating that a positive correlation between the DGE data and qRT-PCR data (**Supplementary Figure [S2](#SM2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**). Although the observed expression differed slightly between qRT-PCR and DGE data, this may reflect differences in the sensitivity and specificity of qRT-PCR and high-throughput sequencing technology.
![**Validation of differential gene expression of after cutting.** Gene expression ratios obtained from RNA-seq **(A)** and relative mRNA abundance from qRT-PCR **(B)** data of different times after cutting.](fpls-07-01897-g009){#F9}
Discussion
==========
The Browning of *M. formosana* Is Not Lethal but Self-Adaptive
--------------------------------------------------------------
Although visible and anatomical studies of brown tissues have been reported previously, the dynamics of browning on plants has been less clear ([@B84]; [@B96]). In this study, successive morphological and intracellular observation of *M. formosana* after cutting supplied a more comprehensive characterization of the browning response (**Figures [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}** and **[2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}**). Generally, it is suggested that the browning at the local cutting site might affect plant absorption of water, mineral and nutriment from medium during tissue culture due to the blocking of vascular bundles ([@B94]). Besides, anthocyanin and condense tannins were found accumulated in the leaves of excised shoots, which are considered common responses of plant enhancing resistance to biotic and abiotic stress ([@B12]; [@B71]; [@B3]). In addition, the swelling of chloroplasts and the excess of starch grains in their leaves were also observed. Similar phenomena have been reported in plant callus subjected to adverse environmental conditions, such as the temperature, osmotic, and nutrient stress ([@B71]; [@B48]; [@B37]). Importantly, the browning response faded after a certain period and all plantlets gradually recovered, with the depolymerization of condensed tannins and recovery of the organelles. It can be inferred that the browning was not lethal and may be a complicated self-adaptive process to the wound stress. The death of browning explants reported in previous studies on *Medinilla* may therefore be caused by multiple factors, such as the damage caused by disinfection and inappropriate culture environment ([@B73]; [@B10]).
For a relatively long time, browning response has usually been attributed to the accumulation of phenolic compounds and their enzymatic oxidation ([@B87]; [@B75]; [@B86]). However, there are many studies suggesting that browning may be a physiological response directly induced by abiotic stress rather than enzymatic reaction of phenolics ([@B44]; [@B75]; [@B57]). The osmotic stress caused by chitosan can induce browning of potato suspension cells, with an increase in phenolic content and in the activity of PAL and PPO ([@B19]). [@B93] reported that ultrasound-induced stress gave rise to browning in *Panax ginseng* cells, while drought stress induced by polyethylene glycol induced browning in sugarcane and beet ([@B2]; [@B80]). In our study, all wounded plantlets of *M. formosana* displayed browning on their leaves whether the cutting was done to stem, leaf, or root, while the intact plantlets cultured on the same medium had no browning (data not shown). It therefore seems likely that the mechanical wound initially elicits browning as a kind of abiotic stress, although further molecular evidence is needed.
Browning-Related Genes with Different Expression Patterns after Cutting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*De novo* transcriptome sequencing of *M. formosana* and subsequent DGE profiling after cutting were performed here using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform for the first time. This provides an opportunity to study the molecular modulation of *M. formosana* during the browning that occurs after cutting. DEGs with various expression patterns at different stages were identified and roughly categorized into four sub-clusters (**Figure [6](#F6){ref-type="fig"}**), which helps us methodically study the genes and gene networks that play roles in regulating browning.
The DEGs with most up-regulation throughout all stages are mostly those involved in the synthesis of phenolic compounds and related oxidoreductases. It seems that the accumulation of phenolic compounds and their enzymatic oxidation occurred during browning exactly as reported previously with other plant species ([@B89]; [@B24]; [@B9]). The consistently down-regulated DEGs were mainly involved in carbohydrate metabolism and nutrient transport, which implies that the growth of *M. formosana* was stunted after cutting to some degree. For example, β-amylase (comp66048_c0) has abundant activity for starch and amylopectin degrading and catalyses the liberation of β-maltose from the non-reducing end of α-1, 4-glucans ([@B4]; [@B8]; [@B77]; [@B65]). The suppression of β-amylase therefore presumably blocks starch metabolism in the leaves and results in the chloroplast-targeted starch-excess seen in *M. formosana* after cutting (**Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}**). Many of the DEGs in Pattern D are related to photosynthesis, energy metabolism and stress response. This suggests that the growth and metabolism of *M. formosana* was quickly blocked after cutting but then started to recover at 4 DAC. Meanwhile, the defense responses of plants were launched and resistance was elevated at 4 DAC. Cytochrome P450 is a large plant protein family playing an important role in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites (steroid, glucosinolate, and phenylpropanoids, etc.) and plant defense to various stresses ([@B78]). Its expression was significantly up-regulated after a short period of decreased modulation. A similar regulation pattern has been reported in browned lotus and *Phalaenopsis* tissue ([@B78]; [@B41]; [@B95]). These results provide molecular evidence supporting the view that mechanical wounding induces browning as an abiotic stress and helps to identify the genes with changed expression profiles after cutting that are likely to play roles during browning in *M. formosana*.
Identification of Putative Genes That May Play Signaling Roles in the Early Steps of Browning
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cutting of plants is usually inescapable during tissue culture. However, in our study there was not only browning at the cutting site but an obvious abnormal response in the leaves of *M. formosana*. How does leaf tissue perceive the local wound at an injured site on the stem and respond to it? A series of studies indicated that a mechanical wound can produce mobile plant signals, which rapidly respond locally to damage and also move to uninjured tissue giving plants the ability to activate and modulate defense pathways ([@B43]; [@B75]; [@B39]; [@B32]; [@B90]; [@B79]). It is suggested that reactive oxygen species (ROS) including the superoxide anion are transiently produced soon after wounding and represent an initial step in local signaling at the wound site ([@B18]; [@B64]). Systemin, the first described mobile long-distance signal, also plays an essential role in the systemic wound-activated response, acting as a peptide defense elicitor produced in the cytoplasm of injured cells in young excised tomato plants and transmitted to others through the apoplast ([@B68]; [@B74]; [@B76]). In addition, oligogalacturonide, traumatin, proteinase inhibitors and hormonal molecules also functioned in signal transduction in wounded runner bean and tomato plants ([@B101]; [@B6]; [@B23]; [@B70]; [@B63]; [@B33]). However, the signal transduction involved in browning after cutting remains largely unstudied.
In order to understand the gene networks and signal transduction during browning in *M. formosana*, DEGs of Pattern A were selected for GO and KEGG enrichment analysis (**Figures [7](#F7){ref-type="fig"}** and **[8](#F8){ref-type="fig"}**). It is well known that early changes in the activity of messengers regulated in plant resistance mechanisms are often mediated by phytohormones ([@B62]; [@B28]). The modulation roles of hormones in response to abiotic stresses including mechanical wounding has also been documented previously ([@B30]; [@B7]; [@B27]; [@B88]; [@B35]; [@B21]), but the network of signal transduction during browning has been rarely reported until now. In the present study, auxin influx carrier protein (AUX1) on the plant plasmalemma seems to be the earliest element responding to wounding in *M. formosana* (**Supplementary Figure [S3](#SM3){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**) ([@B83]; [@B97]). The brief expression of Aux/IAA, GH3, and small auxin-up RNAs (SAUR) were also detected, and these were considered the primary auxin-related genes that responded in previous studies ([@B29]; [@B67], [@B66]; [@B81]). Modulation of other hormones were also found after cutting, indicating that browning of *M. formosana* is likely regulated by a complicated network of interconnecting signal transduction pathways of multiple hormones (**Supplementary Figure [S3](#SM3){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**). In previous studies, jasmonic acid (JA) and its derivatives \[methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and jasmonoyl-isoleucine (JA-Ile)\] were suggested to serve as systemic mobile signals that regulate proteinase inhibitor genes to respond to wounds caused by insect or pathogen attacks ([@B60]; [@B34]) (**Supplementary Figure [S4](#SM4){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**). Endogenous JA is rapidly induced by mechanical damage to leaves of *Arabidopsis*, maize, Lima beans, sesame, strawberry, tomato, etc. ([@B33]). [@B50] provided evidence that JA (or its derivatives) serves as a long-distance transmissible signal for wound signaling using two tomato mutants defective in the system in signaling pathway. In our study, the up-regulation of JAR1, JAZ, and WYC2 was detected in the signal transduction pathway. Meanwhile, the metabolism of α-linolenic acid (ko00592) was also involved in the browning response; α-linolenic acid is not only a precursor of both ethane ([@B46]) and traumatic acid (a wound hormone associated with wounding and cell proliferation; [@B101]), but can also be released into the cytoplasm from plant cell membrane lipids and rapidly converted to JA or MeJA in cells ([@B22]; [@B14]; [@B82]) (**Supplementary Figure [S5](#SM5){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**). Accordingly, it can be inferred that the JA signaling pathway is likely to work as an important long-distance wound signal transmitted from the cutting site to the shoots of *M. formosana* and mediating the browning response after cutting.
Additionally, the transient expression of PFK-1 (comp56188_c0), HMGR (comp54246_c0), and mTORC1(comp57176_c1) after cutting in *M. formosana* suggests that the AMPK signaling pathway (ko04152) may be activated during browning, which would inhibit cell growth, protein synthesis and promote autophagy ([@B20]) (**Supplementary Figure [S6](#SM6){ref-type="supplementary-material"}**). We deduce that the poor growth of *M. formosana* and partial necrosis of the leaves after cutting is probably a self-protection strategy of the plant modulated by the AMPK signaling pathway to help survive the stress. However, DEGs in other pathways still deserve further research to gain a better understanding of the signal transduction responsible for browning, and the cross-talk amongst those signaling pathways also needs exploration.
DEGs with Homology to Known Genes Involved in Secondary Metabolism during Browning
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is well known that secondary metabolites play a major role in plant adaptation and defense to adverse environments, although they have no fundamental function in the maintenance of plant life processes ([@B72]). The accumulation of secondary metabolites often occurs in plants subjected to environmental stresses, and may be conducive to plant self-protection ([@B17]; [@B75]). For plants cultured *in vitro*, the species liable to browning are usually found to produce a higher content of phenolic compounds ([@B10]; [@B15]; [@B69]; [@B1]). In this study, key enzymes functioning in the biosynthesis of phenolic compounds, such as PAL (comp66038_c0), flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase (comp36974_c0), cinnamoyl-CoA reductase (comp72476_c0), and cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (comp48947_c0, comp60484_c0), all had consistently enhanced expression for a relatively long time after cutting ([@B5]). It seems that various phenolic compounds (tannin, lignin, flavonol, and anthocyanin) briefly accumulated in *M. formosana*, and that self-protection reactions depending on secondary metabolites were initiated after cutting. However, the production of abundant phenolic compounds is unfavorable for plant growth.
Additionally, it has been suggested that the resulting quinones and condensed tannins (the derivatives of phenolic compounds) are not only toxic to plants, but are also the main component of the brown substance at the cutting site ([@B48]; [@B1]). Recently, the key chromophores in the browning of Iceberg lettuce were identified as yellow sesquiterpenes by a combination of multilayer countercurrent chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and mass spectrometry techniques; They were named lettucenins and proposed to be a new type of secondary metabolite associated with the browning response ([@B54]). In our present study, the biosynthesis of terpenoids was also detected after cutting at the transcription level, as well as polypeptides and antibiotics. In contrast, the next generation sequencing technology used in our study is an effective means to comprehensively find new types of secondary metabolites responsible for browning. However, their functions during browning still need further study and verification.
Conclusion
==========
This study reports a progressive and detailed characterization of the browning response in *M. formosana* after cutting and proves that the browning is not lethal. The combination of *de novo* transcriptome sequencing and DGE profiling based on Illumina sequencing technology proved to be a rapid and powerful method to explore the molecular regulation of browning. Putative DEGs involved in the stress response, signaling pathways, and secondary metabolism were highlighted and discussed to study the molecular mechanism of browning after cutting. To our knowledge, this is the first publication of transcriptome and DGE profiling for *Medinilla* without prior genome annotation. The bioinformatics data from this study provide an important resource for understanding the molecular mechanism of plant browning in *M. formosana*, and might help develop strategies to eliminate browning damage more effectively in the future.
Author Contributions
====================
Conceived and designed the experiments: YW, YtW, and JC. Performed the experiments: YW, KL, and XS. Analyzed the data: YW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YW and YtW. Wrote the paper: YW.
Conflict of Interest Statement
==============================
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
This work was jointly supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 31301800) and the Introduction of International Advanced Agricultural Science and Technology Plan, Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (Program 948, No. 2011-G31).
<http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pheatmap/index.html>
<http://www.genome.jp/kegg/>
Supplementary material
======================
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: <http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2016.01897/full#supplementary-material>
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**Correlation analysis of DGE libraries.** Dots in the figures indicate individual tag entities. Pearson correlation coefficients (R^2^) are shown in the lower right corner of each plot. The correlation between 0 h, 4 h, and 4 days libraries are shown.
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**Coefficient analysis between gene expression ratios obtained from DGE and qRT-PCR data**.
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**KEGG pathway of plant hormone signal transduction**.
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**KEGG pathway of plant-pathogen interaction**.
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**KEGG pathway of alpha-Linolenic acid metabolism**.
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**KEGG pathway of AMPK signaling**.
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**Annotation of unigenes from *M. formosana* transcriptome**.
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**DEG sub-clusters with different expression patterns**.
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**Primer sequences of RT-PCR analysis**.
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[^1]: Edited by: *Jaime Prohens, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain*
[^2]: Reviewed by: *Ezio Portis, University of Turin, Italy; Bo Zheng, Huazhong Agricultural University, China; Pejman Azadi, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran, Iran*
[^3]: This article was submitted to Crop Science and Horticulture, a section of the journal Frontiers in Plant Science
| 55,067,832 |
Do liberals have any arguments for their idiotic ideas besides calling their opponents "racist"?
The two big public policies under attack by the left this week are "stop-and-frisk" policing and voter ID laws. Democrats denounce both policies as racist. I'm beginning to suspect they're getting lazy in their arguments.
Stop-and-frisk was a crucial part of the package of law enforcement measures implemented by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani that saved the city. Under David Dinkins, who preceded Giuliani, murders averaged about 2,000 a year. There were 714 murders in New York the year Giuliani left office. Continuing Giuliani's policing techniques, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New York had only 419 murders last year.
Just during his first year in office, Giuliani's policies cut the murder rate an astonishing 20 percent. That first year of his administration was responsible for 35 percent of the crime drop nationwide from 1993 to 1995. The New York Times hailed this remarkable achievement with an article headlined, "New York City Crime Falls but Just Why Is a Mystery."
It was mostly black lives that were saved by Giuliani's crime policies. By the end of his administration, the Rev. Calvin Butts, liberal pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, was comparing Giuliani to King Josiah of the Bible, who "brought order, peace, the law back to the land." The black minister told The New York Times, "I really think that without Giuliani, we would have been overrun."
About the same time as the Rev. Butts was comparing Giuliani to King Josiah, Richard Goldstein of The Village Voice claimed he felt less safe in New York under Giuliani. It was the ravings of a madman, like saying winter is warmer than summer. But now, Goldstein's ideas are being delivered from the federal bench by Judge Shira Scheindlin, who recently held New York City's stop-and-frisk policies unconstitutional.
Yes, Democrat Bob Filner can pat down his female employees, but cops can't pat down suspected criminals.
Liberals wail about guns, but how do they imagine police get guns off the street without going to high-crime neighborhoods and stopping young men acting suspiciously? Giuliani's policing policies, including stop-and-frisk, reduced gun homicides in New York by 75 percent within five years.
It is precisely the fear of being caught with a gun that induces young hoodlums not to carry them. The word gets out: Don't carry a gun! It's not worth the risk.
Of course cops don't find many guns anymore! That's because they're doing stop-and-frisk.
By liberals' logic, the government should stop doing meat inspections because it turns up so few cases of contamination these days, anyway. We can also drop the metal detectors at airports. How many people does the TSA actually catch trying to sneak guns onto airplanes?
Have liberals polled the elderly black residents of high-crime neighborhoods on stop-and-frisk? As soon as the word gets out that it's now safe to carry weapons, spray paint, drugs and stolen goods again, criminals will rule the streets and the elderly will, once more, be confined to their homes. As Martin Luther King said, crime is "the nightmare of the slum family."
But liberals don't care about the innocent black victims of crime. They don't care about citizens being prisoners in their own homes -- as long as it's not in their neighborhoods. The important thing is to self-righteously preen about racism.
When a policy that has saved thousands of black lives is attacked as "racist," the word has no meaning. At this rate, liberals will be claiming that peanut butter sandwiches are racist -- except that wouldn't be as crazy.
Voter ID laws don't actually save black lives the way stop-and-frisk policies do, but it's not clear how such laws hurt them. I suppose the argument is that by allowing Democrats to steal elections, they can pass all those laws that improve black lives immeasurably, like promoting trial lawyers, gay marriage, abortion and amnesty for illegals. You know, the Democratic policies that really enhance black lives.
The claim that modern voter ID laws are a racist Republican plot to prevent minorities from voting is complicated by the fact that, in 2011, such a law was enacted by the overwhelmingly Democratic Rhode Island legislature and, in fact, was pushed through by black Democrats.
Despite the pleas of national Democrats who realized their cover was being blown, the state senate's only black member, Democrat Harold Metts, sponsored a voted ID bill. He said he'd heard complaints about voter fraud for years, telling the story of one poll worker who encountered a voter who couldn't spell his own last name.
A black legislator in the House, Anastasia Williams, complained that when she showed up to vote in 2006, she was told she had already voted. Another time, she saw a Hispanic man vote, go to the parking lot and change his clothes, then go back in and vote again.
If white liberals are so concerned about black votes counting, why don't they ever vote for black representatives in their own congressional districts? Black Republicans are always elected from majority white districts: Gary Franks, J.C. Watts, Tim Scott and Allen West.
But black Democrats apparently can get elected to Congress only from specially designated minority districts. How come white liberals won't vote for a black representative? Can't a black person represent Nita Lowey's district?
Democrats do nothing for black Americans except mine them for votes, which they do by telling tall tales about racist Republicans. | 55,067,867 |
Travel Matters
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Giving and Receiving, Loving and Laughing
Pulling stuff out of my battered duffel bag, it feels like
Christmas! I feel pure joy in giving the gifts I’ve been collecting for months
while Millicent and her team express pure delight in receiving loads of goodies
for the Faraja Community Centre in Chogoria, rural Kenya.
My bag was full of good quality, second-hand colourful
clothes I’d bought from charity shops back home in Tenterden, Kent to donate to
the local ladies to sell in the markets and make some income for themselves
with a percentage going to Faraja.
I give Fridah sewing supplies I’d bought cheap on Amazon, give
Millicent musical instruments, games and books for the children and Faith and
Robert notebooks, pens and stationery for their fieldwork taking health
information to remote villages; items I’d bought cheap from Poundland that can
make their work easier.
I ask Fridah to hem a dress and long skirt and take in some
baggy pants for me as part of the mending project, which generates income for
Faraja.
Caring visitors from other countries can donate clothes to
support this little income-generating business and bring other useful resources to
support the work of the centre.
Fridah hard at work sewing bags
Faith and Robert who take health information to remote villages
And then I show Millicent and Garama my idea for the kitchen
in the corner of the large, spacious room, for use in the feeding program for
the kids and how we can teach nutritious cooking classes and even have a café
that draws in the whole community. We discuss how we could install flush
toilets and go outside to the rough but fertile ground and visualise a
community vegetable garden.
Millicent and Garama on the site for the community vegetable garden
The dynamic and dedicated couple are overwhelmed with
excitement, saying they have always wanted to make these improvements to the
centre but lacked the funds.
So now the vision for adding the electricity, plumbing
and kitchen and expanding the services of Faraja will be possible with some
enthusiastic volunteers pitching in with the trade skills and labour and a fundraising campaign
amongst supporters in the UK, Australia and the States.
A realistic plan is starting to form in our minds and
hearts, which already feels unstoppable and achievable.
The Friday night party at the guesthouse for the hospital
staff and their gorgeous children is a fun-filled occasion with a potluck
dinner and rowdy games and quizzes. My instant new friends warmly welcome me to
join in.
Meeting The Faraja Kids
Saturday is my first experience meeting the Faraja kids. It’s
such a pleasure to watch the children sitting quietly and tucking into their
hearty meal of rice and beans before playtime erupts, with boys kicking balls
and doing handstands and filling the room with laughter.
The children eating their meal of rice and beans
Ball games and hand stands!
Around 30 children, aged 4 to 14, come to the centre every
Saturday for food and fun! They are vulnerable children from troubled, unstable
families and many are orphans living with relatives in poor conditions.
I introduce myself as ‘Mama Dee’ and then ask each child to
come forward and write their name and age in my book. It is such a simple
exercise but the children are enthralled watching intently and applauding riotously
as each child completes the task and beams with pride!
Me leading the 'name game'!
But my idea for singing and dancing is a flop! I’d
brought a jawbone speaker to sync to my iphone playlist but the music isn’t
loud enough above the noise of the excited kids. So I decide to buy an
old-fashioned CD player for next week’s session and Millicent suggests we teach
the children the words to the songs before they try to sing them! What a good
idea! In my eagerness to jump in, I have overlooked the obvious!
But Pastor Garama saves the day by telling the kids an
animated Bible story about the Good Samaritan with the message of being kind
and helping each other.
Pastor Garama tells a bible story
Dinner with new American Friends
Beth and Larry from Alaska are living in a house in the
hospital compound. Larry is a senior doctor training medical staff and Beth is
a human rights lawyer. They are dedicated humanitarians and Christians devoted
to Making A Difference to the community here during their two-year tenure.
They kindly invite Millicent and Garama and me for dinner on
Saturday night and over a delicious meal of spaghetti we talk about the
volatile political situation in Kenya with a second disruptive election and
we all agree that peace is the most important issue for people struggling daily with poverty.
Ree’L and Jason, a paediatrician, and their young son Silas
pop by. The adventurous family from Los Angeles are devoting five years to
working here. Ree’L is a business expert and has volunteered to create a new website
for Faraja and so I offer to write the content. It is funny how things are just
flowing naturally with like-minded people coming together!
Ree'L who is creating a Faraja website
Sunday is for Praise and Worship
I wake up at 5 am to the heavenly sound of the girls at
Boarding School singing hymns in rich harmonies that float across the misty gardens.
Sunday is devoted to church and groups of men and
ladies, dressed in immaculate suits, hurry to services at a myriad
churches, all singing praises to God,throughout the vibrant community.
I join the congregation of Pastor Garama’s Baptist Church to
sing hymns together, and hear his inspiring sermon, in English, Meru and
Swahili. It is a joyful, uplifting experience worshipping God and praying
together and meeting everyone.
The congregation of the Baptist church
Glorious Locations
That night in the guesthouse, over dinner, Uli, a university student from Germany, and Mark, a Kenyan surgeon, and myself talk about
the challenges of social change and how the beauty of God’s own country gets
into your soul. Looking at a faded map of East Africa on the wall, Mark points
out some of the most glorious locations to visit, which I add to my wish list!
The idea of bringing groups of visitors to volunteer in the
Faraja centre combined with experiencing adventurous wildlife safaris is taking
shape in my mind.
Checking Out Accommodation
So on Monday morning, drenched in sunshine, Millicent and
her friend Rebecca, driven in the mini-van by her son Eliud, collect Beth and me to
visit the imposing hotel being built near by.
From the outside the Snow Peak Hotel, on the busy main road,
looks like a building site with the top floor still under construction but inside
the lower area is impressive with shiny marble floors, 14 pristine guest rooms,
a busy restaurant overlooking the rainforest, stylish bar and spacious conference
room.
Rebecca, me, Millicent, Kuka and Beth on the balcony of the Snow Peak hotel
Kuka, a vivacious
woman with an irresistible sense of humour, shows us around and we all agree
that Snow Peak would provide quality accommodation at a very reasonable rate
for groups of visitors.
With Beth and Rebecca opting to walk back to the hospital,
Eliud drives Millicent and me to check out another accommodation option.
Driving through lush farmlands we reach the idyllic Kilimo Talii resort with
nine beautiful thatched roof huts providing luxurious privacy to guests amid
the tranquil tropical gardens.
Beautiful thatched roof cottages at Kilimo Talii
Relaxing with soft drinks in the traditional circular
restaurant, Eliud tells me he has a German Shepherd puppy called Daisy. As a
dog lover missing my two Cocker Spaniels, I’m captivated and we chat about
puppies. I can’t wait to meet her!
That afternoon, I get stuck into writing content for the
Faraja website, my creativity flowing with enthusiasm. Back home in Kent, my
ideas for making a difference were all theoretical but now, being here, the
whimsical dreams become feasible!
Tuesday morning I ceremoniously wave farewell to the three German
hikers who have conquered majestic Mount Kenya. Karl, Holger and his son Uli are
off for their next adventure in Tsavo National Park to see the beautiful
African wildlife: elephants, rhino’s, lions, leopards, zebras, giraffes and
antelope.
Karl, Holger and Uli with Douglas, their hiking guide and driver setting off for Tsavo
Meeting with Ree’L over coffee we discuss our shared goal to
attract international interest in the humble community centre with its massive
potential to transform lives.
That afternoon Millicent introduces me to charming David and
Justus, retired teachers, who serve on the executive board of the Faraja
Community Centre.
When I lay out the vision to install power, plumbing and
a kitchen, the men are elated and bursting with ideas. Justus wants to
introduce local kids and adults to the wonders of healthy fresh juices made by
a Juicer!
Board member Justus and David with Millicent and Garama at the Faraja centre
Discovering the Markets
I meet Jane, over dinner, who is staying at the main guesthouse
while she leads a series of seminars on Preparing for Retirement for hospital
staff. I meet her son Paul, a super intelligent young man highly qualified in maths,
science and computer programming, who has driven his mum from Nairobi.
It’s Wednesday already and after another morning of working
solidly writing the website copy, I venture to the nearby markets with my purse
and camera, returning with some delightful photos of colourful street life, a
new long dress, a t-shirt, African fabric for Fridah to make bags and bunches
of spinach and avocadoes for Douglas and Anne in the kitchen!
Chogoria's colourful markets
Feels like home
In less than two weeks I have settled into the funny old guesthouse
and the relaxed rhythm of life here. I am soaking up the fragrance of tropical
flowers on the gentle breeze, basking in the clear blue skies and caressing sunshine,
and delighting in the purple Jacaranda, Bougainvillea, pretty Hibiscus,
orange Poinciana and red Banksia reminding me of my former home on the
Sunshine Coast, Australia.
I am overjoyed to meet warm and friendly local people who
smile and say ‘Jambo, karibu’… ‘Hello, you are welcome’ and good-hearted
humanitarian workers who share the dream to make a difference for people living
with the horrendous challenges of poverty.
And my courage to take a risk to commit to the ambitious
project of fundraising and recruiting volunteers to build amenities in the
Faraja community centre has taken me by surprise.
Suddenly the impossible seems possible … if I can just inspire
enough people to care.
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About Me
Hello Friends,
Rather than focusing on what the world can do for you, consider what you can do for the world!
Our planet is in crisis and needs us all to solve problems and improve the quality of life.
Everyone, whatever age, can use their wisdom, compassion and skills to improve life for humans, animals and the planet.
I challenge you to embrace a life of love and purpose.
I am an experienced journalist with a long career writing for newspapers, magazines and online publications in Australia and the UK. I'm also a qualified counsellor and workshop facilitator.
These days, I'm passionate about empowering communities with knowledge about health, human rights and ending harmful practices across Africa.
Share my journey and be inspired to Make A Difference! | 55,067,916 |
Kingdom Hearts III hints within KH 3DS, says Nomura
Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura has said that those anticipating the unannounced Kingdom Hearts III will find some answers regarding it with Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance on 3DS.
The KH creator made the remark in this week’s issue of Famitsu.
Nomura said that KH3 would also be the final chapter of Xehanort’s story in the series.
In terms of where the series will go after 3, Nomura said that a framework is in place, and that Sora would continue to be the main protagonist.
When asked if it would re-release old titles onto the HD consoles, Nomura said that Square Enix was looking into HD tech for previous titles. It isn’t clear if this is just for Kingdom Hearts or for other Square IPs as well.
For Dream Drop Distance, development is 40-50 percent completed and it will continue the series tradition of adding in a secret movie. No date for that as yet, though. | 55,067,991 |
Introduction {#s1}
============
Cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis (CBTp) and CBT based interventions, such as Metacognitive Training for psychosis (MCT), have been found to be effective in symptom reduction, relapse prevention and, increased quality of life (Moritz et al., [@B32]). A number of reviews (Tarrier et al., [@B42]) and meta-analyses (Wykes et al., [@B44]) have confirmed that group CBT (including MCT) is effective for psychosis (Lecomte et al., [@B23]), but there is significant heterogeneity in outcome (Zimmermann et al., [@B45]), with some patients able to gain significantly from participating in psychotherapy, whereas others gain minimally. Given the limited resources available for psychotherapy in psychosis, an important endeavor is the identification of factors that may optimize the allocation of those resources (Zimmermann et al., [@B45]; Freeman, [@B9]). While there is a growing body of literature on factors influencing outcome in psychotherapy (Luborsky et al., [@B28]), that has examined patient, therapist and treatment factors, there is a relative paucity of research focussed on outcomes in group psychotherapy for psychosis. In this opinion paper, we highlight a number of patient factors (including aspects of symptomatology, cognition and personality) that might play a role in outcome in group psychotherapy for psychosis. These factors are based on research of psychotherapeutic outcomes (in psychosis and other disorders), with additional observations based on our clinical experience.
Symptom related factors
-----------------------
### Paranoia, lack of insight and their effects on treatment alliance
There is a large body of literature that has focussed on the non-specific factors associated with outcomes in other psychiatric disorders, and synthesizing it is beyond the scope of the current paper. The bulk of this research has looked at the importance of the therapeutic alliance (Martin et al., [@B29]), as perceived by the therapist and the client, and suggests that client perceptions of alliance are better predictors of outcome (Krupnick et al., [@B19]). Crucial to the alliance is the client\'s belief that they can trust the therapist, and feel understood by them (Frank and Gunderson, [@B8]). In the context of groups, an additional factor is the ability to trust the other group members. These critical components are negatively impacted by paranoia, and therapists working with clients with psychosis need to grapple with therapeutic ruptures and to avoid being integrated into the client\'s delusional framework.
CBT based interventions also require ways to discuss specifics of the delusional beliefs (such as the nature of evidence used to maintain the belief), as well as finding shared goals, even when clients have poor insight into their symptoms. This can be a delicate process, with a lot of potential for damaging the alliance. Goldsmith et al. ([@B13]) found that the duration of therapy was associated with symptomatic improvement in those with good treatment alliance, but was actually detrimental for those clients with poor treatment alliance.
Skilled therapists find creative solutions to negotiate these processes. For some clients, particularly those with paranoia, relatively poor insight and an unwillingness to discuss the specifics of their delusional system, a more indirect approach (such as the one provided by MCT) (Kumar et al., [@B20]) may provide a more fruitful avenue of engagement (Menon et al., [@B31]). This is because MCT involves a group discussion of cognitive biases commonly associated with psychosis, and opportunities to examine the impacts of these biases in session, using non-delusion specific, and thus less threatening, material (Woodward et al., [@B43]).
### Grandiose delusions
In general, one could argue that changing beliefs is difficult, due to the anxiety caused by any challenge to one\'s belief structure. However, there may be more motivation to challenge beliefs (such as persecutory delusions) associated with negative self-evaluations and anxiety (Bentall et al., [@B3]). In contrast, grandiose beliefs may be particularly intransigent to therapy as they may serve an ego protective function (Smith et al., [@B41]; Knowles et al., [@B18]). This may be particularly true when there is little associated distress, even if the belief has other negative effects on the client\'s relationships and life. Recent research (Garety et al., [@B12]) has suggested that patients with grandiose delusions may show even more pronounced cognitive biases (such as the jumping to conclusions bias) than those with persecutory (but non-grandiose) delusions. The goals of therapy may therefore need to be modified with this subgroup, with the initial focus being on minimizing the impact of their beliefs on their relationships. Unfortunately, these individuals also tend to be less receptive to challenges from peers. We therefore hypothesize that these individuals may benefit from individual psychotherapies (including MCT+), rather than group approaches.
It may also be worth exploring whether group therapy is more efficacious in individuals with similar types of delusions or dissimilar beliefs. The former provides a better milieu for common goal development, but could lead to inadvertent reinforcement of beliefs by group members, while the latter allows for members with differing beliefs to help each other in exploring disconfirmatory evidence.
### Mood and anxiety
Depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD (Brady et al., [@B4]; Shevlin et al., [@B40]) are commonly comorbid with psychosis (Kessler et al., [@B17]). In socializing to the CBT model, we find that patients are more willing to explore the impact of their thoughts and behaviors on their depressive and non-psychotic anxiety symptoms. Thus, mood and "mood awareness" as targets for treatment may be initially less threatening than the potentially more threatening targeting of positive symptoms. Many participants identify with challenges and attribution biases related to depression and negative symptoms, while those associated with the positive symptoms are less frequently endorsed. Furthermore, addressing these difficulties can lead to an improved quality of life, as well as improved self-esteem and an increased sense of self-efficacy that can, in turn, build resilience and the capacity to challenge beliefs about hallucinations and targeting delusions.
Neurocognitive deficits and illness duration
--------------------------------------------
Neurocognitive deficits have been widely recognized as being a core feature of schizophrenia (Heinrichs and Zakzanis, [@B15]). Intervention studies for psychosis (both psychotherapeutic/CBTp and cognitive remediation) often involve exclusion criteria for individuals with learning disabilities or lower premorbid or current IQ (Garety et al., [@B11]; Freeman et al., [@B10]). In our groups, we find that patients may be able to comprehend core concepts, but may have difficulty retaining and understanding how these apply to their own symptoms or daily life. Nonetheless, recent research has suggested that neurocognitive functioning does not predict treatment retention (Baker et al., [@B1]) or treatment response in psychotherapy for psychotic disorders (Lincoln et al., [@B27]), and instead suggests that duration of illness is more closely associated with outcome, which may be indirectly related to cognition.
Although therapy might be helpful irrespective of the duration of the illness, it has repeatedly been noted that individuals might have maximal gains with early intervention (Lieberman et al., [@B26]). They may be more willing to challenge or change their beliefs given that these are not longstanding beliefs and patterns of thinking/behavior. Such individuals may tend to have more stable relationships and have not had the attrition in their social networks that occur over long duration of illness, and may be better able to engage in the social processes necessary to test alternative hypotheses.
Social cognition
----------------
A growing body of research has suggested that social cognition might mediate the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome in individuals with schizophrenia (Schmidt et al., [@B38]), thus indicating therapies that target and/or improve social cognition, such as social cognitive skills training (SCIT) (Horan et al., [@B16]; Roberts and Penn, [@B37]) and cognitive behavior social skills training (CBSST) (Granholm et al., [@B14]) may serve to improve functioning (Schmidt et al., [@B38]).
While MCT and CBT are distinctly different than social skills training, there is significant emphasis on improving social cognition through both psychoeducation (e.g., education regarding limitations in social perception, theory of mind) (Balzan et al., [@B2]), as well as exercises that encourage social interaction (during and outside group), and testing one\'s own abilities in these domains (Moritz et al., [@B33]). Although it may be hard to see overall differences between groups in head-to-head studies, we recommend studies comparing active interventions such as MCT and CBSST, to understand who might benefit more from social skills focussed interventions. Component analyses may provide another avenue by which to evaluate the utility of interventions across patient subtypes.
Stigma
------
Stigma around psychosis and schizophrenia (both external and internalized) are common in our patients. In our experience, patient comfort with acknowledging their illness varies considerably. While patients may have the awareness of their symptoms and insight into how these symptoms manifest, they may be less comfortable discussing this in a group setting. We have noted that patients may take several sessions to endorse or engage in the therapeutic process. A true benefit of the group setting, and particularly a group with rolling intake, is that individuals can observe and attend to others\' discussion of symptoms and self-chosen labels in order to gain comfort with terminology that they might not use in their everyday. Comparing approaches of a fixed entry vs. a rolling entry to groups and its impact on cohesion and stigma are areas that need to be examined in future studies.
Personality factors
-------------------
Psychotic disorders are associated with general personality pathology (Schultze-Lutter et al., [@B39]), as well as high neuroticism, and low openness, agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness (Camisa et al., [@B5]). Personality traits such as psychoticism or schizotypy in particular have been highlighted as vulnerability factors for psychosis and potentially useful endophenotypes (Chmielewski et al., [@B6]). Yet, the prognostic or clinical utility of schizotypal personality features within treatment contexts has yet to be established.
Similar to neurocognitive factors, patient personality, particularly interpersonal features, have been linked to service utilization and clinical outcomes in patients with psychotic disorders. For example, high agreeableness and poor therapeutic alliance have been linked with poor treatment engagement and response (Lecomte et al., [@B25]). Other research has highlighted the impact of insight and attitudes related to recovery (such as optimism) (Lecomte et al., [@B24]) and stigma on alliance (Kvrgic et al., [@B22]) and outcome (Owen et al., [@B35]). In a group context, agreeableness, optimism and cohesion are particularly linked with positive outcomes (Lecomte et al., [@B24]).
Participant selection in studies
--------------------------------
We hypothesize that a part of the reason for the reduced effect sizes seen in randomized control trials (RCTs) lies in the characteristics of the participants who participate in research studies, such as personality (Kushner et al., [@B21]) and their levels of intrinsic motivation (Choi and Medalia, [@B7]). Some of our participants, when queried about their reasons for participating, pointed to extrinsic motivators (e.g., paid assessments, approval by their families etc.). In contrast, other participants gave reasons congruent with intrinsic motivation, even requesting to participate in additional groups and sessions despite no additional payment. Previous studies (Pelletier et al., [@B36]; Zuroff et al., [@B46]) of psychotherapy outcome in depression, and schizophrenia (Medalia and Richardson, [@B30]) found that intrinsically-motivated individuals generally make greater gains in psychosocial and cognitive remediation programs. Thus, we speculate that psychotherapy groups running without the financial incentives of the research assessment may have a greater proportion of participants with intrinsic motivation, and thus, better outcomes. Future studies may wish to explicitly examine reasons for participating in RCTs of psychotherapy for psychosis, using measures such as the Client Motivation for Therapy scale (Pelletier et al., [@B36]) and whether these are associated with outcome.
Conclusions {#s2}
===========
Although this paper has focussed on group interventions, the majority of the research in this field has focussed on factors influencing outcome in individual therapy.
We have highlighted patient symptom, cognitive, and personality factors associated with therapeutic alliance and outcome (in individual and group therapy settings), which we hope will be examined in detail in future studies. It is important to acknowledge that for some of the factors we have highlighted, the effect size differences between groups might be small (e.g., comparing CBT to CBSST). This leads to a research challenge as many studies may be underpowered to address issues related to combinations of individual difference variables. Yet, the potential of this line of inquiry to reduce the personal and societal impact of psychosis is substantial, and has motivated similar initiatives in other disorders (Oquendo et al., [@B34]).
We suggest that this body of research can lead us down two distinct pathways. The first involves prospective studies to evaluate whether therapeutic benefits can be optimized by better identifying individuals who might benefit from therapy for psychosis in addition to traditional treatment. The second, more inclusive strategy, might involve examining these issues in large samples, perhaps by naturalistic study designs, or by creating treatment consortia to allow for pooled data, to look at cumulative benefits (e.g., of explicitly targeting attitudes related to recovery and stigma earlier in treatments), as well as comparisons of different active interventions. These approaches may allow us to directly compare multiple subgroups of participants, to see if these variations in treatment improve who might not otherwise benefit from "standard" treatment interventions.
Funding
=======
This work was partially supported by an Operating Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research awarded to TSW and MM and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award to MM.
Conflict of interest statement
------------------------------
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
[^1]: Edited by: Gianluca Castelnuovo, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
[^2]: Reviewed by: Stefan Westermann, University of Bern, Switzerland; Stefan Weinmann, University Psychiatric Hospital Basel, Switzerland
[^3]: This article was submitted to Psychology for Clinical Settings, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
| 55,068,275 |
Sideshow: Gift shops in the Garden State now contain a new item you can purchase for your souvenir collection: Chris Christie ‘Bridgegate’ action figures. | 55,068,581 |
Exacerbated grassland degradation and desertification in Central Asia during 2000-2014.
Grassland degradation and desertification is a complex process, including both state conversion (e.g., grasslands to deserts) and gradual within-state change (e.g., greenness dynamics). Existing studies hardly separated the two components and analyzed it as a whole based on time series vegetation index data, which cannot provide a clear and comprehensive picture for grassland degradation and desertification. Here we propose an integrated assessment strategy, by considering both state conversion and within-state change of grasslands, to investigate grassland degradation and desertification process in Central Asia. First, annual maps of grasslands and sparsely vegetated land were generated to track the state conversions between them. The results showed increasing grasslands were converted to sparsely vegetated lands from 2000 to 2014, with the desertification region concentrating in the latitude range of 43-48° N. A frequency analysis of grassland vs. sparsely vegetated land classification in the last 15 yr allowed a recognition of persistent desert zone (PDZ), persistent grassland zone (PGZ), and transitional zone (TZ). The TZ was identified in southern Kazakhstan as one hotspot that was unstable and vulnerable to desertification. Furthermore, the trend analysis of Enhanced Vegetation Index during thermal growing season (EVITGS ) was investigated in individual zones using linear regression and Mann-Kendall approaches. An overall degradation across the area was found; moreover, the second desertification hotspot was identified in northern Kazakhstan with significant decreasing in EVITGS , which was located in PGZ. Finally, attribution analyses of grassland degradation and desertification were conducted by considering precipitation, temperature, and three different drought indices. We found persistent droughts were the main factor for grassland degradation and desertification in Central Asia. Considering both state conversion and gradual within-state change processes, this study provided reference information for identification of desertification hotspots to support further grassland degradation and desertification treatment, and the method could be useful to be extended to other regions. | 55,068,702 |
Fernando Alonso und Ferrari – sie stehen vor einem der größten Verträge der Sportgeschichte.
Der Spanier hat sich zu seinem 33. Geburtstag (29. 7.) einen neuen Dreijahres-Vertrag von 2017 bis 2019 gewünscht. Er will sich, wie BILD erfuhr, diese drei Jahre vergolden lassen, fordert 35 Millionen Euro im Jahr! Das sind 105 Millionen Euro, rund 140 Millionen Dollar, in drei Jahren.
Zum Vergleich: Schumi bekam in seinen besten Zeiten bei Ferrari rund 25 Mio Euro pro Saison. Alonso bekommt zur Zeit bis Vertragsende 2016 rund 18 Mio Euro, er würde sein Gehalt also verdoppeln. Alonso steigt damit künftig in die Kategorien eines Roger Federer (32 Mio), oder der NBA-Riesen Kobe Bryant (36 Mio) oder LeBron James (32 Mio) auf.
Seine Rennkünste könnten Ferrari demnächst teuer zu stehen kommen: Alonso beim Freien Training in Hockenheim Foto: AP/dpa
Warum Alonso diese fast schon unmoralische Summe fordert, und vermutlich auch bekommt, liegt auf der Hand: Ohne den Spanier würde Ferrari in diesem Jahr im Niemandsland fahren. Alonso holt aus einem wirklich schlechten Auto immer wieder unmenschliches heraus und ist der einzige Fahrer, der in diesem Jahr in jedem Rennen Punkte holte.
Der hochgelobte Kimi Räikkönen als Teamkollege kann als bestes Ergebnis auf einen sechsten Platz (zuletzt in Ungarn) verweisen und liegt mit mickrigen 27 Zählern auf dem 12. WM-Platz. Alonso ist zwar auch nur WM-Vierter, hat aber 88 (!) WM-Punkte mehr herausgefahren.
Was Alonso für Ferrari wert ist, zeigte er erst wieder beim letzten Rennen vor der Sommerpause in Budapest. Er hielt im unterlegenen Ferrari die beiden Silberpfeile von Lewis Hamilton (29) und Nico Rosberg (29) in Schach und wurde hinter Daniel Ricciardo (25, Red Bull) sensationell Zweiter.
Mehr zur Formel 1 Ecclestone-Prozess „Ich weiß nicht, wie es ausgeht“ Heute könnte Bernie Ecclestone die fünfte Strafkammer des Landgerichts München I als freier Mann verlassen.
Bei Red-Bull-Show Vettel-Auto in Flammen Bei einem Show-Event drehte Alex Lynn Donuts vor der begeisterten Menge - plötzlich stand der Red Bull in Flammen!
Silberpfeil-Chef Wolff Redet die Formel 1 nicht schlecht! Toto Wolff, Chef bei Mercedes AMG, kann die Kritik an der Formel 1 nicht mehr hören. „Unser Sport ist nicht schlecht."
Der Weltmeister von 2005 und 2006 mit Renault glaubt, neben seinem fahrerischen Können, auch noch eine andere Trumpfkarte für die Rekordgage in der Hinterhand zu haben. Ferrari braucht ihn. Die Top-Piloten, sind - bis auf Sebastian Vettel – langfristig vergeben. Mercedes hat gerade mit Rosberg bis Ende 2017 verlängert. Hamilton soll bei den Silberpfeilen bis 2018 gebunden werden. Auch mit Newcomer Ricciardo plant man bei Red Bull langfristig. Bliebe Sebastian Vettel. Der hatte seine Fühler zu Mercedes ausgestreckt und eine Absage bekommen.
Vettel zu Ferrari? Er weiß, dass dort Alonso der Platzhirsch ist – und bleibt. | 55,068,727 |
Screening for mutants that disrupt neurodevelopmental processes in model systems such as Drosophila and the subsequent identification of the causative molecules have been central to understanding of the genetic basis of nervous system development. However, the full promise of forward genetic screening to discern the total complement of genes required for a neurobiological process is rarely realized, in part due to the time and labor required to identify the disrupted genes through conventional genetic mapping techniques. Recent years have seen proof-of-principle studies on the use of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) to identify causative point mutations in chemically mutagenized C.elegans or Drosophila strains. In both cases, the strategy was fast and cost-effective. We propose to recruit WGS technology to identify the molecular lesions in a large collection of Drosophila neuromuscular junction (NMJ) synapse mutants we have generated in preliminary studies. Using conventional genetic mapping techniques, we have previously identified the disrupted genes in subset of these mutants and subsequently characterized both novel synaptic regulatory pathways as well mutations in the Drosophila orthologs of human disease relevant proteins. We will determine the causative genetic defect in an additional forty selected synaptic structure mutants with the goal to both increase our understanding of the molecular regulation of synapse development and provide a guide for future, in-depth analysis of the uncovered loci. Furthermore, the repeated, routine application of Whole Genome Sequencing will supply valuable information on the reproducibility and reliability of this approach and establish the technology as a state-of-the-art cloning technique for nervous system mutants in Drosophila and other neurogenetic model systems. | 55,068,754 |
Q:
How to hide the from email address from the receiver using c#?
I am new to programming. I want to send an email to the user, who cannot view my original from address, which is visible to him in the received mail.
Here is my code. Please guide me in what I have to to do to achieve that.
try
{
MailMessage Msg = new MailMessage();
// Sender e-mail address.
Msg.From = new MailAddress(txtUsername.Text, "Rajesh", System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);
// Recipient e-mail address.
Msg.To.Add(txtTo.Text);
Msg.ReplyTo =new MailAddress("[email protected]");
//Msg.ReplyTo = ("[email protected]");
Msg.Subject = txtSubject.Text;
Msg.Body = txtBody.Text;
Msg.SubjectEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
//txtUsername.Text,
// your remote SMTP server IP.
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
smtp.Host = "smtp.gmail.com";
smtp.Port = 587;
smtp.Credentials=new System.Net.NetworkCredential(txtUsername.Text,txtpwd.Text);
smtp.EnableSsl = true;
smtp.Send(Msg);
Msg = null;
ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript(this, GetType(), "showalert", "alert('Mail sent successfully!.Thank god.');if(alert){ window.location='default.aspx';}", true);
//ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript();
//ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(GetType(), "alert", "alert('Email sent.');", true);
//Page.RegisterStartupScript("UserMsg", "<script>alert('Mail sent thank you...');window.close();</script>");
//if(alert){ window.location='SendMail.aspx';}
//}
//Page.RegisterStartupScript("UserMsg", "<script>alert('Mail sent thank you...');if(alert){ window.location='default.aspx';}</script>");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0} Exception caught.", ex);
}
}
Please guide me the correct way to achieve my objective.
A:
Well, here is something: you can not. Point. THere must be a valid email address.
And google really does not like people playing around with spamming - which is what you are technically doing. Google will not send your email with an arbitrary email.
Want to do that? Get your own server. And expect emails to just go where they belong - the trashcan.
| 55,068,962 |
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Fair and square: New book tells the story of Birmingham's iconic Blach's specialty store
Fair and Square.JPG
Blach's "Fair and Square" logo, for which store founder Julius Blach secured a copyright in 1892, was still on the door of the old 20th Street North location of Blach's when this picture was taken in 2002. (Birmingham News file/Frank Couch)
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- As if he doesn't have enough to do filling in for another term as Alabama's secretary of state, longtime politician and former Birmingham Post-Herald reporter Jim Bennett has just finished writing his fourth book about Birmingham's past.
His latest, "Blach's: The Store, The Family, Their History," tells the story of J. Blach & Sons, the specialty store that was a downtown Birmingham institution for 103 years until the last store closed in 1988.
One of the downtown locations of Blach's, as the store was more commonly known, was at the corner of 20th Street and Third Avenue North and is now home to Blach's Lofts, a residential and commercial development.
Bennett will talk about and sign copies of his new book from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Alabama Booksmith in Homewood.
Harold S. Blach Jr., the great-grandson of Blach's founder Julius Blach and the store's last president, will also attend Wednesday's book signing.
Signed, first-edition copies of the coffee-table book are $24.95, and proceeds will benefit the Birmingham History Center, according to Alabama Bookstore owner Jake Reiss.
Bennett, who served as Alabama's secretary of state from 1993 to 2003, was appointed by Gov. Robert Bentley in July to fill out the remainder of Beth Chapman's term as secretary of state after she left office on Aug. 1 to enter private business. | 55,068,990 |
Nissan ended the 2018 campaign as the slowest of the three GT500 manufacturers, with its troubles highlighted by its failure to score a podium in the last two races of the season.
However, pre-season testing has suggested a major turnaround for Nissan, with the Impul team topping the times at Sepang, Suzuka and at Okayama in last weekend's first official test.
GT Academy graduate Mardenborough, who switched from the Impul squad to Kondo Racing over the winter, is confident that Nissan will be able to step up its performance as its aims to bridge the gap to Honda and Lexus.
“The law of averages dictate that Nissan will have a stronger year this year,” Mardenborough told Motorsport.com before the Okayama test.
“This is our third year now with the new regulations and each year Nissan has been progressing, NISMO has given us a better car.
“All I can do as a driver is give the best feedback I can to the engineers help progress the cars as far as possible.
“I want to win. I want to win championships in Super GT. and I will do everything I can to do [achieve] that so I hope the car is strong.”
Makowiecki was as confident about a Nissan fightback as Mardenborough, but feels B-Max’s all-new line-up will prevent it from delivering results until at least the second half of the season.
The French driver will pair up with two-time GT500 champion Kohei Hirate, who has been poached from rival manufacturer Toyota.
“For sure the goal is to be back in the front,” Makowiecki, who had to miss the Okayama test due to clashing commitments in the IMSA Sebring 12 Hours, told Motorsport.com.
”From my personal view we need two or three races because it’s two new drivers in the team.
“It’s also new organisation because NISMO took over quite a lot and we have a new organisation which work. That’s why at the end we need to be not arrogant at the beginning. We need to go step by step.
“I’m lucky because I have a very strong teammate, a double Super GT champion. He knows how to win the championship. Now the goal is to make it well. I want to be strong from middle of the season to the end.”
Makowiecki explains reasons behind Super GT return
Makowiecki is returning to Super GT in 2019 after a five-year hiatus, his last outing coming in 2014 with Honda.
Despite his new deal with Nissan, he will continue his factory programme with Porsche including drives in Le Mans 24 Hours and Nurburgring 24 Hours.
Asked what brought him back to Japan, the 38-year-old said he was lured by the competitiveness of the series and his links with Michelin, one of four tyre brands competing in Super GT.
“To be honest for me it’s probably for me the most challenging championship in the world,” Makowiecki said.
“It’s one of the only championships where everything is open in terms of development. You have three manufacturers involved with full tyre war between Michelin, Yokohama, Bridgestone and Dunlop. It’s really really tough.
"I had another opportunity to do the full [Porsche] RSR [programme] this year. And since several years I really want to be back in Japan, so that’s why I’m really happy that Porsche let me to do and Nissan too because it was a question of compromising both calendars.
“Really happy to be back there because it’s really hard and we try to do well.”
Additional reporting by Tomohiro Yoshita | 55,069,219 |
Bloomberg (@business)
In 1989 Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invented the first Voice over IP audio transceiver. Usually speaking, shareholders in a company, limited companions in a limited partnership, and members in a restricted liability firm are shielded from private legal responsibility for the debts and obligations of the entity, which is legally handled as a separate “particular person”.
When businesses want to boost cash (known as capital ), they often offer securities for sale. Apple ( AAPL – Get Report ) dipped slightly to $189 as analysts at Nomura lowered their already beneath-market-value target on considerations stemming from trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
It goes with out say that firms use a substantial sum of money in phone bills monthly. Stocks ended down Friday as a late report the US-China trade talks have stalled undercut earlier positive aspects. Shares started the day without work in unfavorable territory after China had mentioned America must show sincerity whether it is to hold meaningful commerce talks.
Trump, meanwhile, officially delayed applying tariffs on automobiles made in Europe and China and the White House mentioned that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would pursue additional talks with officials in Brussels and Tokyo and report back to the president within three months.
It goes without say that firms use a substantial amount of cash in phone bills monthly. Discover every kind of information about small businesses, right from beginning a small business, to getting authorities grants, analyzing the market, etc. The definition of a father or mother company differs by jurisdiction, with the definition normally being defined by means of legal guidelines dealing with companies in that jurisdiction.
As industries all over the world have change into extra specialised, an increasing number of persons are mustering the braveness to start their own businesses. In addition, a business that needs to lift cash on a inventory market or to be owned by a wide range of individuals will usually be required to undertake a selected authorized form to do so.
Now 23, Tom Honey, from Devon, has virtually decade’s experience in business after he began selling ice-cream on the seaside during his school holidays. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down Friday following a report U.S. trade talks with China are at an deadlock.
In some countries, sure businesses are legally obliged to be organized in certain ways. Being a worldwide firm we work in three totally different time zones and have gross sales and service representatives which might be available from Monday to Friday to reply all your pre gross sales or support questions.
Beginning A Business
In 1989 Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invented the primary Voice over IP audio transceiver. The day after the news on the tape and the brothers’ plea bargain broke, Brazil’s stock market posted its greatest slide since the 2008 disaster, with a circuit breaker suspending trades for 30 minutes in an early session. Accounting is the measurement, processing, and communication of economic information about economic entities 15 sixteen such as businesses and firms The fashionable area was established by the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in 1494.
No paperwork or submitting is important to create a partnership, and with out an settlement, the relationships and legal rights of the companions can be fully ruled by the regulation of the jurisdiction the place the partnership is located. Apple ( AAPL – Get Report ) dipped barely after analysts at Nomura lowered their already beneath-market-value target on concerns stemming from commerce tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
“After Weeks Spent Explaining Why He’s Running For President For A Third Time, Joe Biden
In addition, a business that wishes to boost money on a stock market or to be owned by a variety of people will usually be required to adopt a particular legal kind to take action.
It goes with out say that firms use a substantial amount of money in telephone expenses monthly. With the development and continuously-expanding use of the Web, many entrepreneurs are discovering it simpler to tap their potential market, and market their services and products to clients throughout the globe. Some specialized businesses may additionally require licenses, both because of laws governing entry into sure trades, occupations or professions, that require particular training or to lift income for local governments.
This might require patents , copyrights , trademarks , or preservation of commerce secrets and techniques Most businesses have names, logos, and related branding strategies that could benefit from trademarking. TheStreet’s Personal Finance Essentials Course will educate you cash administration fundamentals and investing methods to help you keep away from main monetary pitfalls.
The standard in client monetary-companies analysis, strategy, and perception. In his third yr, with the pizza business was booming, and taking over a lot of his time, Tom stopped promoting ice cream. Native jurisdictions might also require particular licenses and taxes just to function a business.
Residing in small town, there was ‘no street food’ close by, and Tom saw his opportunity to benefit from the 1000’s of those who take their summer holidays in Devon. TheStreet Courses offers devoted courses designed to improve your investing skills, inventory market knowledge and money administration capabilities.
Yahoo News
In 1989 Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invented the primary Voice over IP audio transceiver. The commerce dispute might have main effects on the exports of expertise corporations and farmers, tourism, provide chains, retailers, the inventory market and capital funding,” Lynn Reaser, chief economist of the Fermanian Business and Financial Institute at Level Loma Nazarene University, said in an e mail.
That’s why, you’ll be able to see what is going on within the business world proper now, increasingly businesses are migrating to VoIP with each passing day. Service businesses supply intangible goods or providers and usually charge for labor or other providers offered to government , to customers , or to different businesses.
Business & Finance
In 1989 Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invented the primary Voice over IP audio transceiver. Businesses often have vital ” mental property ” that wants safety from rivals for the company to stay profitable. 25 Many state institutions and enterprises in China and Russia have reworked into joint-inventory firms, with a part of their shares being listed on public inventory markets.
With greater than 35 individuals, U.B.S is one of the largest Search Advertising and marketing corporations. As VoIP expertise is evolving tremendously quickly, there are lots of VoIP providers available in the market, which provide their customers affordable and top quality service.
business casual dress code, business letter format, business cards free
It goes with out say that firms use a considerable sum of money in telephone expenses monthly. 17 Accounting, which has been referred to as the “language of business”, 18 measures the results of a corporation’s financial actions and conveys this info to quite a lot of customers, together with traders , collectors , management , and regulators 19 Practitioners of accounting are generally known as accountants The terms “accounting” and “financial reporting” are sometimes used as synonyms. | 55,069,450 |
Reclaiming History
Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy is a book by attorney Vincent Bugliosi that analyzes the events surrounding the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, focusing on the lives of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. He drew from many sources, including the Warren Report. Bugliosi argues that the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy is correct. The book won the 2008 Edgar Award for the Best Fact Crime category. Bugliosi explored the issues at length; the book is 1,632 pages. It was published with an accompanying CD-ROM containing an additional 1,000+ pages of footnotes. He analyzed both the assassination itself and the rise of the conspiracy theories about the event in the following years.
In 2008, Bugliosi published a shorter, paperback edition of this book, entitled Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It concentrated on the events of the assassination and aftermath. This version was adapted for the movie Parkland (2013). A second edition of his paperback was issued as Parkland (2013), to tie into the movie's release.
Research
Bugliosi based much of the book on his preparation for a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald staged by British television, in which he acted as the prosecutor of Oswald, and obtained a verdict of "guilty." He wrote in the Introduction to his book:
My professional interest in the Kennedy assassination dates back to March 1986 when I was approached by a British production company, London Weekend Television (LWT) to "prosecute" Lee Harvey Oswald as the alleged assassin of President Kennedy in a proposed twenty-one hour television trial to be shown in England and several other countries, including the United States. I immediately had misgivings. Up to then, I had consistently turned down offers to appear on television in artificial courtroom settings. But when I heard more of what LWT was contemplating, my misgivings quickly dissolved. Although this could not be the real trial of Oswald...LWT, working with a large budget, had conceived and was putting together the closest thing to a real trial of Oswald that there would likely ever be, the trial in London being the only "prosecution" of Oswald ever conducted with the real witnesses in the Kennedy assassination. Through painstaking and dogged effort, LWT had managed to locate and persuade most of these original key lay witnesses, many of whom had refused to even talk to the media for years, to testify...There would be absolutely no script...and no actors would be used.
In 2007, Bugliosi told Cynthia McFadden of ABC News that in the preceding seven years, he had devoted 80 to 100 hours per week working on the book.
Contents
The book is divided into several major parts, including a detailed chronology of the events of the assassination, as well as an exploration of the major conspiracy theories, a chapter on the trial of Jack Ruby, and a chapter featuring Bugliosi's interviews with Marina Oswald. Bugliosi also provides a "partial list of assassins...whom one or more conspiracy theorists have actually named and identified as having fired a weapon at Kennedy". The list includes 82 names.
Critical and commercial reception
In a review for The New York Times, Bryan Burrough wrote: "Bugliosi is refreshing because he doesn’t just pick apart the conspiracy theorists. He ridicules them, and by name, writing that 'most of them are as kooky as a $3 bill.'" Alex Kingsbury of U.S. News & World Report described it as "the most exhaustive of the countless narratives that have been written about that fateful day in Dallas." According to Steve Donoghue of Open Letters Monthly: "Reclaiming History, in addition to being the longest book ever written on the subject of the Kennedy assassination, is also the most enjoyable of them all to read." Tim Shipman of The Telegraph said: "Mr Bugliosi... has turned up no new killer fact. His technique instead is to expose the double-think and distortions of the conspiracy theorists." Kirkus Reviews said the point of Reclaiming History is to "dismantle [conspiracy] theories one by one, in sometimes tedious and overladen detail". Kirkus added that "Bugliosi does himself and his argument no favors with his tone of flippancy and dismissiveness," but described the book as "oddly fascinating".
The book has been criticized by conspiracy advocates and theorists. Reviewing the book's introduction for Salon, David Talbot, a conspiracy advocate, criticized Bugliosi's characterization of Robert Kennedy's views of the Warren Commission, describing Bugliosi's research as "skin-deep" and saying that he is "guilty of cooking the facts to make his case".
Later editions and adaptations
A shorter edition of the book, titled Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Norton, 2008; 688 pages; ), was published in paperback the following year. This version largely dispensed with much of Bugliosi's debunking of conspiracy theories, and concentrated on his narrative of the known events.
In discussing publication of this version in a 2009 interview with Patt Morrison of the Los Angeles Times, Bugliosi described Reclaiming History as his magnum opus. He said it was the work of which he was most proud. Comparing its sales to those for his 1974 bestseller Helter Skelter, he said to Morrison, "if you want to make money, you don't put out a book that weighs pounds and costs $57 and has over 10,000 citations and a million and a half words."
The 2008 book was adapted for the film Parkland (2013). (The title refers to Parkland Hospital, where President Kennedy was taken for treatment.) The 2008 edition was reissued and retitled in 2013 as Parkland, to tie in with the release of the film.
References
External links
Thomas Mallon, "A Knoll of One's Own", The Atlantic.
Ron Rosenbaum, "The Return of the Magic Bullet", Slate.
Who Killed Kennedy? One Man’s Answer
Video of Vincent Bugliosi discussing JFK assassination
Category:2007 non-fiction books
Category:Non-fiction books about the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Category:Edgar Award-winning works
Category:Books by Vincent Bugliosi
Category:W. W. Norton & Company books
Category:Books adapted into films | 55,070,082 |
Luke O'Reilly (20) from Kiltipper died from injuries he suffered in a 'one punch' attack
AN apprentice carpenter has been charged with seriously assaulting a student who died from injuries he suffered in a “one punch” attack on Halloween night.
Jack Hall Ellis (20) appeared in Dublin District Court today after he was arrested by gardai investigating the death of Luke O’Brien O’Reilly.
Expand Close Jack Hall Ellis, Old Court Mill, Tallaght charged with assault pictured leaving the Dublin District Courts at The CCJ today. Photo: Colin O'Riordan / Facebook
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Whatsapp Jack Hall Ellis, Old Court Mill, Tallaght charged with assault pictured leaving the Dublin District Courts at The CCJ today. Photo: Colin O'Riordan
During a bail hearing the court was told Mr O’Reilly was struck once in the side of the head as he walked home with friends from Halloween celebrations, “didn’t know what was coming” and fell to the ground where he hit his head.
He died in hospital from his injuries this week.
Mr Hall Ellis had drunk 20 measures of Captain Morgan’s rum on the night before he allegedly assaulted Mr O'Reilly, the court was told.
Judge Anthony Halpin granted him bail after hearing gardai expected to bring a further more serious charge.
Mr Hall Ellis of Old Court Mill, Tallaght, is charged with assault causing harm to Mr O’Reilly (20) at Old Blessington Road, also in Tallaght in the early hours of November 1.
Garda David Morris said he arrested the defendant for the purpose of charge at Tallaght Garda Station at 5.45pm yesterday.
Mr Hall Ellis made no reply to the charge after caution at 6.04pm, he said. He was handed a copy of the charge sheet.
Garda Morris said he was objecting to bail, citing the nature, degree and seriousness of the charge, which carries a potential five year prison term on conviction.
Outlining the allegations, he said a serious assault occurred at 2.45am on November 1. Mr O’Reilly, from Kiltipper, had just left the Metro pub in Tallaght after he had been out socialising with friends on Halloween night.
They were walking down the road when a man approached Mr O’Reilly from behind and proceeded to punch him into the side of the head, and he “didn’t know what was coming.”
This caused him to fall onto the concrete footpath where he hit his head on the ground, Garda Morris continued.
Mr O’Reilly was attended to by his friends straight away and the culprit left the scene. Mr O’Reilly’s friends called an ambulance and he was taken to Tallaght Hospital.
It was decided that his injuries were more severe than first thought and he was transferred to Beaumont Hospital, where he was treated in the Intensive Care Unit before passing away as a result of his injuries on November 13, Garda Morris said.
The garda arrested the accused as a suspect in the case and he was detained and interviewed. Mr Hall Ellis “fully admitted” assaulting Mr O’Reilly on November 1, Garda Morris told Judge Halpin.
He said an extensive file was being prepared for the DPP, more medical evidence was awaited and the gardai expected a further more serious charge would be brought in the near future.
Garda Morris said it was alleged that Mr Hall Ellis was “caught red-handed,” witness statements had been taken and there was CCTV evidence.
Defence solicitor Padraig O'Donovan said the gardai had been contacted by his office and a solicitor accompanied the accused to the station.
The accused presented himself at the station “without them having to go looking for him.”
The garda agreed with Mr O’Donovan that the accused said he only went out rarely but had had “a good bit to drink that night” - 10 double shots of Captain Morgan’s.
Mr O’Donovan said what happened was “unfortunate for both families,” who were in court, and “very tragic” for Mr O’Reilly’s family.
Garda Morris agreed with him that it was “one punch.”
Judge Halpin granted bail in the defendant’s own cash bond on €1,000 subject to conditions.
These are that the defendant lives at his uncle’s address at Ratoath, Co Meath, is of sober habits, observes a nightly curfew and does not interfere with any witnesses.
Judge Halpin also granted free legal aid after the accused’s solicitor made an application and handed a statement of his financial means in to court.
“The facts in this case tragic, there is no doubt about that,” the judge said.
The defendant, wearing a grey hooded jacket and blue jeans did not address the court during the hearing and has not yet indicated how he intends to plead.
Mr Hall Ellis took up his bail this afternoon and Judge Halpin adjourned his case to January 17.
Online Editors | 55,070,328 |
Fractal analysis of the vascular tree in the human retina.
The retinal circulation of the normal human retinal vasculature is statistically self-similar and fractal. Studies from several groups present strong evidence that the fractal dimension of the blood vessels in the normal human retina is approximately 1.7. This is the same fractal dimension that is found for a diffusion-limited growth process, and it may have implications for the embryological development of the retinal vascular system. The methods of determining the fractal dimension for branching trees are reviewed together with proposed models for the optimal formation (Murray Principle) of the branching vascular tree in the human retina and the branching pattern of the human bronchial tree. The limitations of fractal analysis of branching biological structures are evaluated. Understanding the design principles of branching vascular systems and the human bronchial tree may find applications in tissue and organ engineering, i.e., bioartificial organs for both liver and kidney. | 55,070,660 |
Gable End Style Conservatories
These are sometimes referred to by other conservatory suppliers as Regency or Georgian style conservatories. They are however, a traditional design with a ridged roof and a vertical gable end face which can have straight, vertical bars or mullions following the lines of the frames upwards or with an optional radiating starburst (sunburst) or even a full cartwheel design within the gable. We make more gable end conservatories than any other design probably due to their timeless classical looks and the beauty of the gable.
This style of conservatory gives a large and airy feel to the internal area and with the feature gable end section provides a beautiful and elegant overall look.
The picture gallery below shows various Ellwood gable end installations. | 55,070,824 |
The membrane topology of RTN3 and its effect on binding of RTN3 to BACE1.
Reticulon 3 (RTN3) has recently been shown to modulate Alzheimer BACE1 activity and to play a role in the formation of dystrophic neurites present in Alzheimer brains. Despite the functional importance of this protein in Alzheimer disease pathogenesis, the functional correlation to the structural domain of RTN3 remained unclear. RTN3 has two long transmembrane domains, but its membrane topology was not known. We report here that the first transmembrane domain dictates membrane integration and its membrane topology. RTN3 adopts a omega-shape structure with two ends facing the cytosolic side. Subtle changes in RTN3 membrane topology can disrupt its binding to BACE1 and its inhibitory effects on BACE1 activity. Thus, the determination of RTN3 membrane topology may provide an important structural basis for our understanding of its cellular functions. | 55,070,879 |
Shawshank Redemption – A Personal Finance Story
I just finished watching the The Shawshank Redemption after buying it at Target for $5.00 (money very well spent)! I’ve seen it many times before, but it’s a great movie and worth watching again and again!
This article about The Shawshank Redemption – A Personal Finance Story will be a spoiler if you haven’t seen the movie. And if you haven’t seen the movie, please do so… I think you will find that it’s worth it since it is the top ranked movie of all time (according to IMDB.com top 250 movies).
Unusual Setting
If you were to tell me that I would like a movie about a successful, honest, good person wrongfully accused of killing his wife and her lover and that during the movie he would repeatedly get brutally gang-raped, I would have said you’re nuts!
I would have thought it was a documentary that was going to depress the hell out of me! But I was wrong! I watch the movie after it was recommended by a friend that said it was better than it sounded (I missed it when it came out in the theater…). And she was right!
Hope – The Magic of the Story of The Shawshank Redemption
Andy the main character loses his wife, money, job, becomes imprisoned, get repeatedly brutally ganged raped (which thankfully we don’t see), has a good friend shot, and more than once gets beat so bad that he has to be in the infirmary for long periods.
Doesn’t sound like the typical uplifting movie, does it? But it is. The thing that makes “The Shawshank Redemption” different is hope, a solid plan, and perseverance. I have to admit, Morgan Freeman (one of my favorite actors) being in the movie sure doesn’t hurt the story either!
The Center of the Story
All these bad things happened to Andy and yet, in the end, he ended up free, in paradise with more money than at least the top 2% of the U.S. population for that time period. You’d think being in prison this couldn’t happen to Andy, but in the story it did! You see, Andy was smart and even in prison, he had value.
He displayed this value to one of the officers for a bucket of beer to share with friends while doing a roofing job, and eventually, he was doing the tax returns for the entire prison, including the warden. Eventually, the warden wanted more from Andy. So Andy started helping the warren to skim off of the top and make it so that the transactions weren’t traceable to the warden!
Then one day, potential evidence come up by another prisoner that Andy was innocent! The warden pissed Andy off by ignoring this information and killing the prisoner that was Andy’s one ticket out of the joint. Andy had a contingency plan, and after a few more months escaped, withdrawing the warren’s corrupt money, and sent the paperwork incriminating the warden to various agencies causing the warden to take his own life in the end.
Inspiration from The Shawshank Redemption
Always look for opportunities, and if they don’t exist make your own, not matter how far-fetched!
Never give up, even when you are living in hell.
Always believe in yourself, even when others are saying “No it’s not possible”. Or tell you to give it up.
Focus on your main plan and have a contingency plan! Meticulously work away at it small bites (or rock chips) at a time!
Make friends, and have a good support system. It doesn’t have to be huge, just big enough to get accomplished what you are striving to do.
Respect others, no matter what their educational, social or intelligence levels. They can still be beneficial to you in ways unforeseen and you can benefit them too. Not to mention having fun times sometimes.
Give the above line, still, try to find a group with similar thoughts and ambitions.
Sometimes you can make change happen just by being sociable and taking intelligent risks. But it can be dangerous (Andy almost got thrown off of a roof), but when you don’t have much to lose, it could be well worth it!
Andy is the proverbial turtle (albeit with a ball and change attached) in a race with a bunch of invisible, free hares. Andy found a short cut that enabled him to beat the hares he never sees. Sometimes, being unconventional works, if it makes sense and you continually work at it.
Hope and a solid plan can make a huge difference as you go through life. Make the best of it even when the setting is less than optimal.
The Shawshank Redemption, the Perfect Personal Finance Story
Everybody loves “Fight Club” (including me), but while a great story, that’s not the answer, and if it ever did happen, we all would suffer greatly for it.
Not so with the Shawshank story!!!
You see, indirectly, The Shawshank Redemption is about financial freedom! The main character goes through hell, but through paying attention and taking advantage of opportunities (and seeking out those opportunities), Andy escapes from prison and becomes financially independent.
Yes, it’s an unconventional way to become financially independent, but isn’t the path of entrepreneurship the same kind of unconventional road?
There are similarities between us working stiffs stuck in a cubicle, or an assembly line, or whatever and the prisoners being in prison!
Even the example of Brooks demonstrates Andy’s superior financial acumen! Brooks just kind of drifted through prison not trying to improve anything including himself, much like many of us do in our working lived. We do the status quo and just skim by. Eventually, he retires from the prison and then retires from life. Sad, but similar to many that retire later in life and just fade away.
But Andy had a contingency plan, one that enabled him to escape from prison and become financially independent.
If you’ve seen the movie, do you see any similarities be Andy’s story and becoming financially independent? Or am I in left field on this one?
-MR
To read about The Shawshank Redemption – Lessons Learned, clicking here. | 55,070,929 |
With the development of social economy, great changes have taken place in people's life style and dietary choices, which thus results in dramatic changes in spectrum of diseases, and chronic non-infectious diseases are becoming prominent problems endangering people's physical and spiritual health. Among these diseases, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia and leukaemia are on the rise, and epidemiological studies have shown that hyperlipidemia, hypertension and diabetes are closely associated with atherosclerosis. More seriously, hyperlipidemia, hypertension and hyperglycemia often come together, which has gradually become one of the important health hazards worldwide.
As one type of commonly used CMM, raw Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch. is the fresh tuber of Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch of Scrophulariaceae family with wide clinical applications, such as treating hematologic diseases by enriching, cooling and regulating blood. As known in China, Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch. is usually used for treating such diseases as heat diseases and deep-red tongue, interior heat and diabetes, efficiency of liver-yin and kidney-yin, hectic fever and so on. In recent years, many researches have been carried out on the chemical composition and pharmacological action of Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch. It is reported that Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch. has various biological activities on the systems of immune, endocrine and blood, the cardio-cerebral vascular system, the nervous system and so on. As the main components, phytosterols, carbohydrates, amino acids, iridoid glycosides such as catalpol and the like are included in Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch.
After extensive studies and experiments, the present applicant found that as one type of main components in Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch., iridoid glycosides such as catalpol and the like are highly polar compounds with similar chemical structures, which have low chemical and thermal stability and are difficult to be extracted and separated. As a result, there is no Rehmannia glutinasa Libosch. extract in the existing products that has a definite main effective composition, contains high content of catalpol, and has high stability and reliable efficacy in reducing blood glucose and blood lipid. | 55,071,185 |
Effect of motivational music on lactate levels during recovery from intense exercise.
The effects of music played during an exercise task on athletic performance have been previously studied. Yet, these results are not applicable for competitive athletes, who can use music only during warm-up or recovery from exercise. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of motivational music (music that stimulates or inspires physical activity) during recovery from intense exercise, on activity pattern, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), and blood lactate concentration. Twenty young, active men (mean age 26.2 ± 2.1 years) performed a 6-minute run at peak oxygen consumption speed (predetermined from the VO(2) max test). The mean heart rate (HR), RPE, number of steps (determined by step counter), and blood lactate concentrations were determined at 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 minutes during the recovery from the exercise, with and without motivational music (2 separate sessions, at random order). There was no difference in the mean HR during the recovery with and without music. Listening to motivational music during the recovery was associated with increased voluntary activity of the participants, determined by increased number of steps (499.4 ± 220.1 vs. 413.2 ± 150.6 steps, with and without music, respectively; p ≤ 0.05). The increased number of steps during the recovery was accompanied by a significantly greater decrease in blood lactate concentration percentage (28.1 ± 12.2 vs. 22.8 ± 10.9%, with and without music, respectively, p ≤ 0.05). This was associated with a greater decrease in RPE (77.7 ± 14.4 vs. 73.1 ± 14.7% with and without music, respectively; p ≤ 0.05). Our results suggest that listening to motivational music during nonstructured recovery from intense exercise leads to increased activity, faster lactate clearance, and reduced RPE and therefore may be used by athletes in their effort to enhance recovery. | 55,071,460 |
<?php
$expected = array('$this',
'$this',
'$this',
'$this',
'$this',
);
$expected_not = array('$this',
);
?> | 55,071,541 |
Q:
WSO2 Developer Studio Nullpointer exception
I am using WSO2 Developer Studio latest version 3.8.0 on Mac OS High Sierra. Each time when I drag and drop element from the tool pallet into the design workspace, It shows Null pointer exception. Also canvas title is not visible. Here below I attached a screenshot. So much appreciate your help.
Nullpointer exception
A:
I also face similar issue since I install both Oracle JDK 8 and JDK 10. Eclipse take latest JDK 10 version, but application does not support Java 10. To select Java version to use, I added following line into the /Applications/Eclipse.app/Contents/Eclipse/eclipse.ini file. Then it work fine.
-vm
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_171.jdk/Contents/Home/bin
If you are using Java 10 then you can remove it and install Java 8 or you can use both version and update eclipse.ini file to point JDK 8 version.
Hope this will be helpful.
| 55,071,702 |
2*w = -0*w - 138. Suppose 0 = -2*y - 5*f + w, -3*y + 2*f = f - 78. Suppose -y = -2*u - u. What is the units digit of u?
9
Let g = -21 + 34. Suppose g - 1 = 4*n. Suppose -5*d - 63 = -n*q, q - 3*q + 42 = -d. What is the units digit of q?
1
Suppose 461 = -3*t + 2*g, 3*g + 0*g = 4*t + 616. Let y = 405 + t. What is the tens digit of y?
5
Let t = 31 + -29. Suppose -131 = -5*o + t*u, -4*u + 4 + 4 = 0. What is the units digit of o?
7
What is the units digit of 865/2*62/31?
5
Suppose 4*x = 15 - 11. Let k(v) be the first derivative of 19*v**4/4 - v**3/3 + v**2 - v + 1. What is the units digit of k(x)?
9
Suppose 5*h + 95 - 115 = 0. Suppose -h*f + 1380 = -4*y, 4*f + 5*y = -f + 1745. What is the units digit of f?
7
Let o(t) = 2*t - 93. Let w be o(0). Let j = w + 161. What is the tens digit of j?
6
Let x be 2/3*(5 - 76/8). What is the hundreds digit of 117 - 3*2/x?
1
Let t(x) be the third derivative of x**6/30 - x**5/30 - x**4/6 + x**3/3 - 11*x**2. What is the tens digit of t(3)?
8
Let f(w) = 8*w + 6. Let c be f(-15). Let p = 27 - c. What is the tens digit of p?
4
Let o = -12 + 56. Let a = 57 + -49. Suppose 0 = -a*s + 4*s + o. What is the units digit of s?
1
Let m(p) be the third derivative of -p**5/60 - 17*p**4/24 - 3*p**3/2 - 5*p**2. What is the units digit of m(-11)?
7
Let s = -333 - -795. What is the tens digit of s?
6
Let h = 22 - 24. Let r be h + (-9)/((-27)/6). Suppose r*z = -z + 10. What is the units digit of z?
0
Let w(r) = 6*r**2 + 4*r + 6. Let t be w(-2). Suppose t*l = 24*l - 18. What is the units digit of l?
9
Let p = -85 + 87. What is the units digit of -6 + p + (42 - -14)?
2
Suppose -11*g + 8*g = m - 449, 0 = -3*m - 2*g + 1340. What is the hundreds digit of m?
4
Suppose 4*m = m - 5*s + 41, 3*m - 3*s = 33. What is the units digit of (94/6)/(-3 - (-38)/m)?
4
Suppose -l + 3*u + 1 = 6*u, 36 = -3*l + 4*u. Let s be (l/(-3) - 3)*-9. Suppose s*t - 5*g = -10*g + 15, 5*t - 4*g - 25 = 0. What is the units digit of t?
5
Let c = 164 + -71. Let j = -49 + c. What is the units digit of j?
4
Let q(j) = 10*j**2 - 12*j + 279. What is the hundreds digit of q(17)?
9
Suppose -4*f - 895 = f. Let b = f - -303. What is the units digit of b?
4
Suppose -131*j + 218 = -133*j. Let w = j - -185. What is the tens digit of w?
7
Suppose -q - 5 = 0, 4*q + 40 - 10 = -5*a. Let f(x) = -6*x + 20. What is the tens digit of f(a)?
3
Let x(w) = -5*w**2 - w - 20. Let v be x(-7). Let k = -151 - v. What is the hundreds digit of k?
1
Suppose -4*w = -6*w + 14. Suppose -9*u = -w*u - 42. Suppose 9 = 2*q - u. What is the tens digit of q?
1
Suppose 56*j = 70313 + 67335. What is the tens digit of j?
5
Suppose -216 = -f - 4*a - a, 0 = 2*f + 3*a - 418. What is the units digit of f?
6
Suppose 2*i - 1 - 41 = 0. What is the units digit of (-7)/(i/(-216)) - 2?
0
Let n be (-73)/((-2*(2 + -3))/12). Let j = n - -680. What is the hundreds digit of j?
2
Let j(s) = s**3 + 20*s**2 - 23*s - 13. Let m be j(-21). Suppose -2*z - f + 50 = -3*f, 5*f = z - m. What is the tens digit of z?
2
Let u = 12 + -10. Suppose -3*q + u*q = -12. What is the units digit of q?
2
What is the thousands digit of 12*(8/16 - 1) + 1614?
1
Let w = 1084 + -106. What is the units digit of w?
8
Let y be 1938/9 + (-36)/27. Let f = y - 80. What is the tens digit of f?
3
Suppose 3*p + 11 = 20. Suppose 2*s = 2*u - 20, 0 = -p*u + 2*s + 8 + 24. What is the units digit of u*(64/12)/2?
2
Suppose 51*z = 47*z + 2176. What is the tens digit of z?
4
Suppose 4*v = 7*v + w - 4591, 0 = 2*v + 4*w - 3044. What is the units digit of v?
2
Let t be 12/(-66) - (-35)/11. What is the hundreds digit of 119 + (-3 - -4) - 1*t?
1
Suppose 2635 - 27803 = -16*y. What is the units digit of y?
3
Let j(q) = q**3 - q**2 + 3*q + 1. Let p(s) = -2*s**2 - 11*s - 9. Let a be p(-4). What is the units digit of j(a)?
8
Suppose 18*p - 6502 = -2*g + 14*p, -2*p - 12974 = -4*g. What is the units digit of g?
5
Let l = -606 - -1365. What is the units digit of l?
9
Suppose -4*q - 8 = -64. Suppose -q*u + 4*u = -640. What is the tens digit of u?
6
Let p = 7 + -5. Suppose -12 = a + p*a. What is the units digit of a + 10 + (-1 - 1)?
4
Let n(p) = 141*p**2 - 1. What is the tens digit of n(-1)?
4
Suppose -2*u + 5*v = 11 + 76, u + 2*v = -21. Let h = u + 125. Suppose q - 4*r = 43, 75 = 5*q + 3*r - h. What is the units digit of q?
5
Let s(o) = 2*o - 14. Let z be s(6). Let i be -4 + 9/(z - 1). Let d = i + 23. What is the tens digit of d?
1
Let l = 7 + -2. Let u(b) = b**3 - 2*b**2 - 5*b + 3. Let p be u(l). Suppose -4*d = 1 - p. What is the units digit of d?
3
Suppose 0 = 6*s + s - 1218. Suppose 5*r - 351 = s. What is the hundreds digit of r?
1
Let b(p) = 34*p**3 + 1. Let u be b(-1). What is the units digit of ((-1 - u) + -1)*2?
2
Let s(f) = -3*f + 479. What is the hundreds digit of s(40)?
3
Let q(a) = 4*a**3 + 4*a**2 + 4*a - 7. Let g(j) = 5*j**3 + 3*j**2 + 3*j - 8. Let x(u) = 3*g(u) - 4*q(u). What is the tens digit of x(-6)?
1
Suppose 3*v + 870 = 10*i - 8*i, 0 = 3*i - 4*v - 1304. What is the hundreds digit of i?
4
Suppose 2*s + 3*o = 6034, -2*o - 16822 + 1699 = -5*s. What is the hundreds digit of s?
0
Suppose 2*c + 2*f - 140 = 0, -6*f = -3*c - f + 194. Suppose 5*v - 3 = -8, u + 3*v - c = 0. What is the units digit of u?
1
Let p = -82 + 98. Suppose -p*n + 242 = -14*n. What is the hundreds digit of n?
1
Suppose -49 = -4*q - 3*l + 8*l, q - l - 11 = 0. Let t(p) = -p**3 + 6*p**2 - 2. Let n be t(q). What is the units digit of (16/(-12)*3)/n?
2
Suppose 5*t - t - 1436 = 0. Let y = 562 - t. What is the tens digit of y?
0
Let n be 10*(3/(-2))/(-1). Suppose -9 = -3*r - n. What is the tens digit of 952/40 - r/10?
2
Suppose 28*l + 4*l = 3744. What is the hundreds digit of l?
1
Suppose -97 = 6*y - 403. What is the units digit of y?
1
Suppose m = -3*m. Suppose m*w + 4*w - 28 = 0. Let z(t) = 2*t - 5. What is the units digit of z(w)?
9
Suppose x + 2*x - 234 = 0. Let k be x*(-3)/(-24)*4. Suppose -l = 2*l - k. What is the tens digit of l?
1
Suppose 2*m + 320 = 82. What is the tens digit of 6/9*-3 - m?
1
Suppose 5*d - 34 = 2*p, -p = -0*d + 4*d - 22. Let c be ((-36)/(-60))/((-2)/10). What is the units digit of 6 - c/d*2?
7
Let q(u) = -u**3 - 12*u**2 - 10*u + 14. Let d be q(-11). What is the units digit of ((-302)/(-6))/(d*(-6)/(-54))?
1
Let z(x) = 3*x**2 - 5*x + 50. Let h be (-305)/(-45) - (20/18)/(-5). What is the tens digit of z(h)?
6
Let v(j) = j**2 - 14*j - 5. Let i be v(11). Let p be (-1)/(-5) + i/(-10). Suppose -p*s + 2*s = -64. What is the tens digit of s?
3
Suppose 0 = -0*m - m + 4*t + 15, 2*t - 60 = -2*m. Let z = m - 19. What is the units digit of z?
8
Suppose 5*u - 2596 = -3*w + 7*u, 4*w + u - 3476 = 0. Suppose 3*p - w - 101 = 0. What is the tens digit of p?
2
Let b(x) = x + 0*x - 19 - x - 2*x. Let f be b(-12). Suppose -2*o + 0*o = 5*z - 15, -f = 5*z - 2*o. What is the units digit of z?
1
Suppose 2132 - 180 = p. What is the tens digit of p?
5
Let c(s) be the second derivative of -s**5/20 - 5*s**4/12 - 5*s**3/6 - 5*s**2/2 - s. Let z = 9 + -14. What is the units digit of c(z)?
0
Suppose -8*i + 10 = -3*i, 4*a = -5*i + 22. Suppose a*t + 3*l = 53 + 25, -4*t + 128 = -4*l. What is the tens digit of t?
2
Suppose 531*l = 538*l - 658. What is the tens digit of l?
9
Suppose -12*g = 148 - 7132. What is the hundreds digit of g?
5
Let i(o) = o**2 - 4*o - 10. Let s be i(9). Suppose -u - 4*x + 14 = 0, 2*x = 2*u - 113 + s. Let y = 52 - u. What is the tens digit of y?
1
Let s = -40 - -300. What is the tens digit of s?
6
Suppose 87342 = 35*k - 83948. What is the thousands digit of k?
4
Suppose 4*a - 3*c = 90, -40 = -2*a - 7*c + 11*c. Suppose -6*p = -a*p + 360. What is the tens digit of p?
2
What is the units digit of -1 + 2 + (689 - -6 - -4)?
0
Let r(w) = 3*w**2 + w + 1. Let z be r(-1). Suppose -z = -5*d + 17. Suppose -10 - 2 = -d*p, u - p = 19. What is the units digit of u?
2
Suppose h - 68 = 2*h. Suppose 2*v + 192 = 2*f, -2*f = -6*v + 7*v - 195. Let o = f + h. What is the units digit of o?
9
Let j = 29 - 70. Let p = j - -76. What is the units digit of p?
5
Let b be 3/((-19)/(-36) - 18/(-81)). Suppose -3*w - 7 = -b*k - 362, -w = 4*k - 97. What is the hundreds digit of w?
1
Suppose 0 = -t + k - 0*k + 465, k = 5. What is the hundreds digit of t?
4
Suppose 3715 = 5*l + 7*y - 8*y, 737 = l + y. What is the tens digit of l?
4
L | 55,071,744 |
Etymologies
Examples
This category is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with coitus, or toward coitus performed under bizarre circumstances as in necrophilia, pedophilia, sexual sadism, and fetishism.
How about a float focusing on brave humans risking their lives for lofty objectives, exploration by robots, NASA as an agency that helps save the home planet, and space commercialization to make human space travel a * real* 21st century enterprise, rather than phallic hardware and retro-landers that belie a certain necrophilia for Apollo?
The statutory provisions for censorship in NZ have a two routes to censorship, the first being an objective list of obejectionable material such as necrophilia, child abuse, the second being a subjective "public injury" test.
This law made it an offence for an individual in future to possess material deemed as "extreme porn", described as images that depicted "explicit realistic extreme acts" - such as necrophilia, bestiality or acts that were life-threatening or likely to cause serious harm to intimate body parts - pornographic (produced for the purposes of sexual arousal), and "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character".
What feels particularly familiar is the emotive language being used by those opposing Englaro's right to die - Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, the Vatican's spokesperson on "health issues" described the planned removal of feeding tubes as "monstrous and inhuman murder", while Church newspaper Avvenire accused the court of "necrophilia". | 55,072,304 |
By Police1 Staff
DRAPER, Utah — Body cam video has been released of the fatal shooting of a suspect who fled from officers and armed himself with a knife as police were attempting to switch a pair of handcuffs.
The footage from the Wednesday shooting shows how quickly a relatively calm arrest can turn violent.
According to KSL, West Valley police Officer Jason Vincent was on his way to work when he spotted 34-year-old Jeffery Nielson slumped over the steering wheel of a parked vehicle.
Officer Vincent was in the city of Draper at the time of the incident, and called for backup from local police. A West Valley officer on the way home from work also stopped at the scene.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Nielson was placed into handcuffs after officers found unspecified items in his vehicle that gave them probable cause for an arrest.
After officers cuffed Nielson, the suspect informed them that he had a knife in his glove box. The weapon was not removed, as Nielson was already cuffed.
Police found heroin on the suspect during a search. Because the West Valley Police Department was to handle the case, officers removed a Draper officer’s cuffs from Nielson in order to place him in a West Valley officer’s handcuffs.
The incident quickly turned violent after the handcuffs were removed. Nielson rushed to his vehicle and grabbed an 8-inch blade from the glove box. West Valley Sgt. Margo Lund deployed a TASER to no effect, and another officer opened fire.
Nielson was shot five times and was pronounced dead a short time later, according to the report. 38 seconds passed between the time Nielson ran to the vehicle and an officer opened fire.
"Things will change in an instant," Draper Police Chief Bryan Roberts told KSL. “Without notice, an officer can be confronted with a violent circumstance and be involved in a fight for their life."
Police are investigating the shooting. | 55,072,417 |
Legislative Politics
Years ago, I won a History Book of the Month Club contest by identifying some parliamentary lore from the 19th century House. Back then, filling one’s head with obscure congressional procedures was worth something. Today, with the “Hastert Rule” rolling off the tongues of Washington journalists and TV personalities alike, who needs congressional junkies?
Political science navel-gazing aside, there’s been some good discussion this week (for example, here, here and here) on violations of the so-called Hastert Rule. As many legislative scholars have long argued, the Hastert Rule is better thought of as a behavioral norm than a formal rule: At least since the early 1980s, House leaders have used their leverage over the floor agenda to keep measures off the floor that might divide the majority party. Speakers have been expected to pursue measures that command the support of a majority of the majority party. Former Speaker Denny Hastert recently made plain the costs of allowing the majority to be rolled:
Maybe you can do it once, maybe you can do it twice, but when start making deals when you have to get democrats to pass the legislation, you are not in power anymore…When you start passing stuff that your members are not in line with, all of a sudden your ability to lead is in jeopardy because somebody else is making decisions.
But as John Feehery (Hastert’s aide who coined the “Hastert Rule” label) noted this week, the unwillingness of the far right of the conference to countenance compromise leaves Speaker Boehner with few alternatives: “Boehner has no choice but to vote with Democrats” on must-pass legislation. House conservatives, no doubt seeing the writing on the wall, this week launched two letter campaigns on immigration and gun control, threatening the speaker not to bring any measures to the floor without the support of a majority of the conference.
I think it’s worth pausing for a moment to take a closer look at GOP voting behavior on each of the three majority rolls this Congress. The following graph shows the percentage of the GOP conference voting with the Democrats on each of the Hastert rule violations. [UPDATE: Corrected graph posted here.]
First, note that less than fifteen percent of Republicans defected from the party to vote with the Democrats all three times. I suspect the small set of GOP reflects in part the diverse nature of the three votes: Hurricane Sandy relief attracted a regional coalition, the violence against women bill drew moderates, and the battlefield preservation bill accrued support from across the party (and no doubt from War of 1812 re-enactors). There might also be pressure within the conference to limit how often one defects from the majority position, leading to the small set of Hastert rule violators. And of course, the universe of GOP who actually want to vote like a Democrat is particularly small. Less than two dozen GOP serve in districts won by Obama in 2012, and roughly half of them sided with the Democrats on all three votes.
Second, compare the percentage of GOP always voting with the majority of the conference on the three rolls to the percentage of GOP who voted at least once with the Democrats: Roughly forty percent of the conference never crossed the aisle, while just under sixty percent voted at least once (or twice or three times) with the Democrats. A majority of the majority might in fact support the Speaker’s willingness to loosen the Hastert rule. Instead of compromising the Speaker’s authority, bending the rule might bolster it. So long as 218 GOP can’t find common ground on salient measures– and can’t count on Democrats to vote for conservatives’ proposals– Boehner might continue to afford his rank and file the chance to cross the aisle in pursuit of their policy and political goals. | 55,072,468 |
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Diane Duston, Sam, Nat, Liz and Jeff Parry | 55,072,530 |
<?php
// This file is part of Moodle - http://moodle.org/
//
// Moodle is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
// it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
// the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
// (at your option) any later version.
//
// Moodle is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
// GNU General Public License for more details.
//
// You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
// along with Moodle. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
/**
* Test target.
*
* @package core_analytics
* @copyright 2018 David Monllaó {@link http://www.davidmonllao.com}
* @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU GPL v3 or later
*/
defined('MOODLE_INTERNAL') || die();
require_once(__DIR__ . '/test_site_users_analyser.php');
/**
* Test target.
*
* @package core_analytics
* @copyright 2018 David Monllaó {@link http://www.davidmonllao.com}
* @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU GPL v3 or later
*/
class test_target_site_users extends \core_analytics\local\target\binary {
/**
* Returns a lang_string object representing the name for the indicator.
*
* Used as column identificator.
*
* If there is a corresponding '_help' string this will be shown as well.
*
* @return \lang_string
*/
public static function get_name() : \lang_string {
// Using a string that exists and contains a corresponding '_help' string.
return new \lang_string('adminhelplogs');
}
/**
* predictions
*
* @var array
*/
protected $predictions = array();
/**
* get_analyser_class
*
* @return string
*/
public function get_analyser_class() {
return 'test_site_users_analyser';
}
/**
* Everything yep, this is just for testing.
*
* @param \core_analytics\local\time_splitting\base $timesplitting
* @return bool
*/
public function can_use_timesplitting(\core_analytics\local\time_splitting\base $timesplitting): bool {
return true;
}
/**
* classes_description
*
* @return string[]
*/
public static function classes_description() {
return array(
'firstname first char is A',
'firstname first char is not A'
);
}
/**
* We don't want to discard results.
* @return float
*/
protected function min_prediction_score() {
return null;
}
/**
* We don't want to discard results.
* @return array
*/
public function ignored_predicted_classes() {
return array();
}
/**
* is_valid_analysable
*
* @param \core_analytics\analysable $analysable
* @param bool $fortraining
* @return bool
*/
public function is_valid_analysable(\core_analytics\analysable $analysable, $fortraining = true) {
// This is testing, let's make things easy.
return true;
}
/**
* is_valid_sample
*
* @param int $sampleid
* @param \core_analytics\analysable $analysable
* @param bool $fortraining
* @return bool
*/
public function is_valid_sample($sampleid, \core_analytics\analysable $analysable, $fortraining = true) {
// We skip not-visible courses during training as a way to emulate the training data / prediction data difference.
// In normal circumstances is_valid_sample will return false when they receive a sample that can not be
// processed.
if (!$fortraining) {
return true;
}
$sample = $this->retrieve('user', $sampleid);
if ($sample->lastname == 'b') {
return false;
}
return true;
}
/**
* calculate_sample
*
* @param int $sampleid
* @param \core_analytics\analysable $analysable
* @param int $starttime
* @param int $endtime
* @return float
*/
protected function calculate_sample($sampleid, \core_analytics\analysable $analysable, $starttime = false, $endtime = false) {
$sample = $this->retrieve('user', $sampleid);
$firstchar = substr($sample->firstname, 0, 1);
if ($firstchar === 'a') {
return 1;
} else {
return 0;
}
}
}
| 55,072,587 |
Text Alerts
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Community Notes
July 21, 2014
Moose Autorama
PRINCETON — The Princeton Moose Lodge will host its Moose Autorama from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 16 at the Lodge. All cars, trucks, tractors, semi-tractors and motorcycles are welcome. There is a $10 entry fee. The event will also include a DJ, 50/50 drawing, vendors, raffles, door prizes, food and awards. Proceeds from the event will go to Mooseheart and Moose charities. Everyone is invited to attend. For more information, call the Lodge at 815-879-5261 or contact Joann Jesse at 815-878-5880 or [email protected].
Manlius Day parade
MANLIUS — The Manilus Day parade will be held at 11 a.m. Aug. 2. This year’s theme is Happy. Lineup will begin at 10 a.m. at Bureau Valley High School. To submit an entry, call Joe at 815-445-2323.
Widmark group to meet Wednesday
PRINCETON — The Richard Widmark Centennial Committee will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Princeton Public Library’s Matson Meeting Room. The public is invited. For more information, visit the group’s Rediscover Richard Widmark Facebook page.
Red Hats event
PRINCETON — The Princeton Red Hats will celebrate a taste of Italy at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Princeton Elks Lodge. Members are asked to bring a small dish of your favorite Italian food.
Mingle on Main
MALDEN — Mingle on Main in Malden will be from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday. Events will include a car show, with tractors and motorcycles, street food, vendors/crafts and musical entertainment. Proceeds from the event will go to veterans. | 55,072,651 |
<?php
namespace Illuminate\Support\Facades;
use Illuminate\Http\Client\Factory;
/**
* @method static \GuzzleHttp\Promise\PromiseInterface response($body = null, $status = 200, $headers = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Factory fake($callback = null)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest accept(string $contentType)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest acceptJson()
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest asForm()
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest asJson()
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest asMultipart()
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest attach(string $name, string $contents, string|null $filename = null, array $headers = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest baseUrl(string $url)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest beforeSending(callable $callback)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest bodyFormat(string $format)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest contentType(string $contentType)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest retry(int $times, int $sleep = 0)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest stub(callable $callback)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest timeout(int $seconds)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withBasicAuth(string $username, string $password)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withBody(resource|string $content, string $contentType)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withCookies(array $cookies, string $domain)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withDigestAuth(string $username, string $password)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withHeaders(array $headers)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withOptions(array $options)
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withToken(string $token, string $type = 'Bearer')
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withoutRedirecting()
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\PendingRequest withoutVerifying()
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response delete(string $url, array $data = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response get(string $url, array $query = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response head(string $url, array $query = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response patch(string $url, array $data = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response post(string $url, array $data = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response put(string $url, array $data = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\Response send(string $method, string $url, array $options = [])
* @method static \Illuminate\Http\Client\ResponseSequence fakeSequence(string $urlPattern = '*')
* @method static void assertSent(callable $callback)
* @method static void assertNotSent(callable $callback)
* @method static void assertNothingSent()
* @method static void assertSentCount(int $count)
* @method static void assertSequencesAreEmpty()
*
* @see \Illuminate\Http\Client\Factory
*/
class Http extends Facade
{
/**
* Get the registered name of the component.
*
* @return string
*/
protected static function getFacadeAccessor()
{
return Factory::class;
}
}
| 55,073,255 |
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cable connector assembly, and more particularly to a cable connector assembly having a spacer to sort out and regulate the wires of a cable.
2. Description of Related Arts
U.S. Pat. No. 8,303,329 discloses a cable connector assembly having a connector and a cable. The connector includes an insulative housing, a plurality of contacts assembled to the insulative housing, and a metallic shell enclosing the insulative housing and the contacts. The cable includes a plurality of conductive wires mechanically and electrically connected to tail sections of the contacts by way of insulation displacement contact.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,721,361 discloses a cable connector assembly including a plurality of conductive wires mechanically and electrically connected to tail sections of corresponding contacts via a soldering process. Since the wires are not retained to any spacer, it is difficult to solder the wires.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0044886 discloses a cable connector assembly having a connector, a cable, and a spacer. The spacer has a plurality of positioning holes extending therethrough along a front-to-back direction to receive corresponding wires of the cable. | 55,073,355 |
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
How can education help tackle rising income inequality?
The gap between the rich and poor has widened in OECD countries over the past 30 years. As the latest issue of the OECD’s new brief series Education Indicators in Focus describes, the average income of the richest 10% of people in OECD countries was about nine times greater than the income of the poorest 10% before the onset of the global economic crisis. This ratio was 5 to 1 in the 1980s.
What’s more, existing income inequality may also limit the income prospects of future generations in some countries. In countries with higher income inequality – such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States – a child’s future earnings are likely to be similar to his or her father’s, suggesting that socio-economic background plays a large role in the development of children’s skills and abilities. Meanwhile, in countries with lower income inequality – like Denmark, Finland, and Norway – a child’s future income is not as strongly related to his or her family’s income status. In these countries, the development of children’s skills and abilities has a weaker link with socio-economic factors.
The implications for education policy are clear. Education policies focusing on equity in education may be a particularly useful way for countries to increase earnings mobility between generations and reduce income inequality over time. Countries can work towards this goal by giving equal opportunities to both disadvantaged and advantaged students to achieve strong academic outcomes – laying a pathway for them to continue on to higher levels of education and eventually secure good jobs.
Four top performers on the 2009 PISA reading assessment show the potential of this approach. Canada, Finland, Japan, and Korea all have education systems that put a strong focus on equity – and all have yielded promising results. In each of these countries, relatively few students performed at lower proficiency levels on the PISA reading assessment, and high proportions of students performed better than would be expected, given their socio-economic background.
Yet while each of these countries focuses on equity, they’ve pursued it in different ways. In Japan and Korea, for example, teachers and principals are often reassigned to different schools, fostering more equal distribution of the most capable teachers and school leaders. Finnish schools assign specially-trained teachers to support struggling students who are at risk of dropping out. The teaching profession is a highly selective occupation in Finland, with highly-skilled, well-trained teachers spread throughout the country. In Canada, equal or greater educational resources – such as supplementary classes – are provided to immigrant students, compared to non-immigrant students. This is believed to have boosted immigrant students’ performance.
Income inequality is a challenging issue that demands a wide range of solutions. In a world of growing inequality, focusing on equity in education may be an effective approach to tackle it over the long run.
How to read the chart: This chart shows the relationship between earnings mobility between generations of a family, and the prevalence of income inequality in different countries. Overall, countries with higher levels of income inequality tend to have lower earnings mobility between generations, while countries with lower levels of income inequality tend to have higher earnings mobility.
1 comment:
There are several possible interpretations of these figures. Another is that certain types of job should receive more equal renumeration. This is not a matter of education policy - education can contribute to society but cannot reform it all. All societies require some jobs that do not require high levels of education - these should be better renumerated. | 55,073,387 |
This invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for improving performance in systems where multiple processors contend for control of a shared resource through a lock associated with the shared resource, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for improving performance in intelligent data storage systems.
When a computer system resource is shared by multiple processes running on multiple processors, or even on one processor, often there must be some way of insuring that no more than one such process may access that resource at any one time. In designing complex data storage systems including multiple processors, synchronizing access to shared resources has been recognized as an issue which must be addressed in order to maintain the consistency and validity of the data. However, the sharing issue may arise in connection with almost any resource that might be used by multiple requestors.
Many high-performance storage systems are intelligent data storage systems which may be accessible by multiple host computers. These may include, in addition to one or more storage device arrays, a number of intelligent controllers for controlling the various aspects of the data transfers associated with the storage system. In such systems, host controllers may provide the interface between the host computers and the storage system, and device controllers may be used to manage the transfer of data to and from an associated array of storage devices (e.g. disk drives). Often, the arrays may be accessed by multiple hosts and controllers. In addition, advanced storage systems, such as the SYMMETRIX(copyright) storage systems manufactured by EMC Corporation, generally include a global memory which typically shared by the controllers in the system. The memory may be used as a staging area (or cache) for the data transfers between the storage devices and the host computers and may provide a communications path which buffers data transfer between the various controllers. Various communication channels, such as busses, backplanes or networks, link the controllers to one another and the global memory, the host controllers to the host computers, and the disk controllers to the storage devices. Such systems are described, for example, in Yanai et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,939 issued Apr. 27, 1993, (hereinafter xe2x80x9cthe ""939 patentxe2x80x9d), Yanai et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,381,539 issued Jan. 10, 1995, (hereinafter xe2x80x9cthe ""539 patentxe2x80x9d), Vishlitzky et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,492 issued Jan. 7, 1997, (hereinafter xe2x80x9cthe ""492 patentxe2x80x9d), Yanai et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,144 issued Sept. 2, 1997 (hereinafter xe2x80x9cthe ""144 patentxe2x80x9d), and Vishlitzky et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,473 issued Jul. 28, 1998, (hereinafter xe2x80x9cthe ""473 patentxe2x80x9d), all of which are herein incorporated in their entirety by reference. The systems described therein allow the controllers to act independently to perform different processing tasks and provide for distributed management of the global memory resources by the controllers. This high degree of parallelism permits improved efficiency in processing I/O tasks. Since each of the controllers may act independently, there may be contention for certain of the shared memory resources within the system. In these systems, the consistency of the data contained in some portions of global memory may be maintained by requiring each controller to lock those data structures which require consistency while it is performing any operations on them which are supposed to be atomic.
Since locking inherently reduces the parallelism of the system and puts a high load on system resources, locking procedures must be designed with care to preserve system efficiency. Adding features to the lock, such as queuing, lock override procedures, or multimodality can help to avoid some pitfalls of common lock protocols, such as processor starvation, deadlocks, livelocks and convoys. However, it is also known that, while many of these lock features have individual advantages, multifeatured lock management procedures are difficult to design and implement without unduly burdening system resources or inadvertently introducing pitfalls such as additional deadlock or starvation situations. For example, multimodal locks, which permit the requestor to identify the kind of resource access desired by the requestor and the degree of resource sharing which its transaction can tolerate, can be useful in improving system performance and avoiding deadlocks, but providing a lock override which is suitable for a multimodal lock is quite difficult. If, for example, one lock mode is set to allow unusually long transactions, a timeout set to accommodate normal transactions will cut the long ones off in midstream while a timeout set to accommodate the long transactions will allow failures occurring during normal transactions to go undetected for excessively long periods. Moreover, timeouts are competitive procedures which, in certain circumstances, undesirably offset the cooperative advantages of a queued lock. Because of the complexities introduced by multifeatured locks, it is desirable to validate features and modes which create particularly significant drains on system resources, such as long timeout modes, but introducing additional validation features can itself load system resources to the point where the system efficiency suffers.
Providing suitable procedures becomes especially difficult in complex multiprocessor systems which may contain a number of queued locks associated with different shared resources and where a requestor may have to progress through a number of lock request queues in turn in order to complete a process. In these systems, it is desirable that whatever procedure is implemented be fair, ensure that each requestor eventually obtains access to the lock whether or not all other requestors in the system are operating properly, and minimize the average waiting time for each requestor in the queue to improve system efficiency. Queued locks which implement a first-in-first-out (FIFO) protocol meet the fairness criteria because denied requests are queued in the order they are received. One such lock services procedure, often known as the xe2x80x9cbakeryxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cdelixe2x80x9d algorithm, is described, for example, in xe2x80x9cResource Allocation with Immunity to Limited Process Failurexe2x80x9d, Michael J. Fischer, Nancy A. Lynch, James E. Burns, and Alan Borodin, 20th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, San Juan, Puerto Rico, October ""79, p 234-254; and xe2x80x9cDistributed FIFO Allocation of Identical Resources Using Small Shared Spacexe2x80x9d, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, January ""89, 11(1): 90-114. When all requestors in the system are operating properly, the basic xe2x80x9cdelixe2x80x9d algorithm also meets the other criteria, but a protocol violation such as the failure of any processor in the lock request queue can lead to total system deadlock. However, in all complex multiprocessor systems, occasional protocol violations are inevitable, and the xe2x80x9cdelixe2x80x9d algorithm makes no provision either for detecting these through validation procedures or otherwise, or for handling them when they occur. Moreover, the basic xe2x80x9cdelixe2x80x9d lock is a unimodal lock.
A lock is needed which supports multiple locking modes and makes provision both for validation features to detect protocol violations and lock override procedures to manage the violations without unduly reducing system efficiency, and which also meets desirable design criteria for fairness, wait time minimization and guaranteed access.
In accordance with the present invention, a lock mechanism for managing shared resources in a data processing system is provided.
In accordance with the present invention, a method for providing queued locking and unlocking services for a shared resource is provided. The services include a cooperative lock override procedure. In one aspect, the locking services are multimodal and the cooperative lock override procedure is selectively associated with a lock mode.
In another aspect of the invention, a method for providing self-validating, queued lock services for managing a shared resource in a data processing system services includes providing a cooperative lock override procedure. The data processing system includes a plurality of processors as lock requestors. Each processor supports atomic operations and is coupled to the shared resource through one or more first common communication channels. The method includes providing for each shared resource an associated main lock data structure stored in a shared memory accessible by the plurality of processors. The main lock data structure includes in a single atomic structure, the resources needed to lock the shared resource by a successful lock requestor, to establish a queue of unsuccessful lock requestors, and to validate the existence of the lock. Resources are also provided to validate the identity of the successful lock requestor in connection with certain transactions. The method also includes providing for each shared resource, an associated auxiliary lock data structure stored in a shared memory accessible by the plurality of processors. The auxiliary lock data structure may be a single entry, the entry being a single atomic structure, or it may be an array which includes an entry for each processor, each entry being a single atomic structure. Each entry includes the resources needed to identify the successful lock requestor""s place in a queue of requestors and to identify the successful lock requestor. Each entry may also include the resources needed to save a timestamp as a reference value. The method also includes providing for each processor a monitoring procedure for detecting a predetermined indication of protocol failure by an one of the plurality of processors and identifying the failing processor. The method also includes providing for each processor a lock services procedure including a queuing procedure for unsuccessful lock requestors, locking and unlocking procedures for locking and unlocking the shared resource by a successful lock requestor, and a cooperative lock override procedure responsive to the detection of the predetermined indication of protocol failure. The method also includes detecting, by one of the processors, one of these predetermined indications of protocol failure and identifying the failing processor. The method also includes, in a single atomic operation, examining the contents of the auxiliary lock data structure by the detecting processor to determine whether the identified failing processor is the successful lock requestor, and either, if the identified failing processor is the successful lock requestor, in a single atomic operation by the detecting processor, examining the contents of the main lock data structure and writing data to the main lock data structure to reserve the lock to the next requestor in the queue of unsuccessful lock requestors and to revalidate the lock, or, if the identified failing processor is not the successful lock requestor, exiting the cooperative lock override procedure.
Prior to the step of examining the contents of the main lock data structure by the detecting processor, one of the requesting processors may, in a single atomic operation, examine the contents of the main lock data structure to determine if another requesting processor has previously locked the shared resource and if the lock contents are valid, and if it determines that the contents are invalid or no other requesting processor has previously locked the shared resource, it may write data to the main lock data structure to reserve and validate the lock.
In one aspect of the invention, the lock services procedure further includes at least two lock mode procedures and a lock mode selection procedure for selecting one from the lock mode procedures by a successful lock requestor. The locking and unlocking procedures include one or more procedures for locking and unlocking the shared resource in the selected lock mode by a successful lock requestor and the cooperative lock override procedure is selectively associated with a lock mode. The atomic main lock data structure further includes the resources needed to identify one of the lock modes and the auxiliary lock data structure further includes the resources needed to identify one from the lock modes. In examining the contents of the main lock data structure, the detecting processor may, in the same atomic operation, verify that the identified lock mode is a lock mode associated with the cooperative lock override procedure and in writing data to the main lock data structure to reserve the lock to the next requestor in the queue of unsuccessful lock requestors the detecting processor may, in the same atomic operation, invalidate the identified lock mode.
In another aspect, the invention provides an intelligent data storage system. The intelligent storage system typically includes multiple processors as requestors, and these are coupled to a shared resource through one or more first common communication channels. The system also includes a shared memory accessible over one or more second common communications channels to all of the processors. Each processor supports atomic operations. Each processor implements a monitoring procedure for detecting a predetermined indication of protocol failure by a one of the plurality of processors and identifying the failing processor. A lock services procedure is also implemented in each of the processors. The lock services procedure includes a queuing procedure for unsuccessful lock requestors, and locking and unlocking procedures for locking and unlocking the shared resource by a successful lock requestor, and a cooperative lock override procedure responsive to the detection of the predetermined indication of protocol failure. An atomic main lock data structure, responsive to the lock services procedures, is implemented in the shared memory and associated with the shared resource, The main lock data structure includes the resources needed to lock a shared resource by a successful lock requestor, to establish a place in a queue of unsuccessful lock requestors, and to validate the existence of the lock. An atomic auxiliary lock data structure, responsive to the lock services procedures, is also implemented in the shared memory and associated with the shared resource. The auxiliary lock data structure includes the resources needed to identify the successful lock requestor""s place in a queue of requestors and to identify the successful lock requestors. Each processor is operable in accordance with its monitoring procedure to detect a predetermined indication of protocol failure and identify the failing processor. Each processor is also operable in accordance with its lock services procedure, first to initiate its cooperative lock override procedure responsive to its detection of the predetermined indication of protocol failure, and then in a single atomic operation, to examine the contents of the auxiliary lock data structure to determine if the identified failing processor is the successful lock requestor, and either, if the identified failing processor is the successful lock requestor, in a single atomic operation, to examine the contents of the main lock data structure and write data to the main lock data structure to reserve the lock to the next requestor in the queue of unsuccessful lock requestors and to revalidate the lock, or, if the identified failing processor is not the successful lock requestor, to exit the cooperative lock override procedure.
Each of the requesting processors is also operable in accordance with its lock services procedure, in a single atomic operation, to examine the contents of the main lock data structure to determine if another requesting processor has previously locked the shared resource and if the lock contents are valid, and if it determines that the contents are invalid or no other requesting processor has previously locked the shared resource, it may write data to the main lock data structure to reserve and validate the lock.
In one aspect of the invention, the lock services procedure further includes at least two lock mode procedures and a lock mode selection procedure for selecting one from the lock mode procedures by a successful lock requestor. The locking and unlocking procedures include one or more procedures for locking and unlocking the shared resource in the selected lock mode by a successful lock requestor and the cooperativelock override procedure is selectively associated with a lock mode. The atomic main lock data structure further includes the resources needed to identify one of the lock modes. In examining the contents of the main lock data structure, the detecting processor may, in the same atomic operation, verify that the identified lock mode is the lock mode associated with the cooperative lock override procedure and in of writing data to the main lock data structure to reserve the lock to the next requestor in the queue of unsuccessful lock requestors the detecting processor may, in the same atomic operation, invalidate the identified lock mode.
In yet another aspect of the invention, multiple processes running on a single processor may in some aspects act as requestors, and a lock allocation process or procedure may be invoked by each of these processes, but the operation of the invention is otherwise as described above. | 55,073,394 |
internal protocol StoreInterfaceDelegate : AnyObject {
func storeInterfaceWillUpdatePurchases(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface)
func storeInterfaceDidUpdatePurchases(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface)
func storeInterfaceWillStartRestoringPurchases(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface)
func storeInterface(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface, didFinishRestoringPurchasesWith result: Result<Void, Error>)
func storeInterface(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface, didPurchaseProductWith productIdentifier: String, completion: @escaping () -> Void)
func storeInterface(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface, didFailToPurchaseProductWith productIdentifier: String, error: Error)
func storeInterface(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface, didRestorePurchaseForProductWith productIdentifier: String)
func storeInterface(_ storeInterface: StoreInterface, responseForStoreIntentToCommitPurchaseFrom source: Purchase.Source) -> StoreIntentResponse
}
| 55,074,057 |
Glycan determinants synthesized by specific glycosyltransferases play defined roles in development, cancer progression, metastasis, immunity and Notch signal transduction. In order to understand new and conserved functions of sugars in biology, the repertoire of glycan structures synthesized by model organisms (the glycome) must be defined. Genes that encode glycosyltransferases that produce the glycome must be isolated and the biochemical activities of their producs determined. The approximately 50 independent CHO glycosylation mutants that we have characterized under the auspices of this grant provide unique access to glycomes and to functional glycomics. Mutants with an established glycosylation defect have proved extremely useful for expression cloning glycosylation genes, for determining lectin binding specificities, and, most recently, for showing that fringe is a novel glycosyltransferase that directly modifies Notch and thereby inhibits Jagged-1-induced Notch signaling. We now propose to use CHO cells and the CHO glycosylation mutants to identify the activity of "orphan" glycosyltransferases predicted from genome and mutation database searches. The focus will be on glycosyltransferases that modulate Notch signaling in the CHO co-culture assay and those whose acceptor specificity is highly conserved across species. The corresponding glycosyltransferase genes will be functionally localized in developmental and signaling pathways by characterizing existing mutants or by gene silencing and antisense techniques in Drosophila, C. elegans and/or zebrafish. In a second aim, the number of CHO glycosylation mutants available for experiments in functional glycomics will be expanded by determining the biochemical defect and genetic basis of previously isolated loss- and gain-of-function CHO glycosylation mutants using rapid analytical methods and retrovirus expression cloning. Thirdly, the entire panel of CHO glycosylation mutants and certain glycosyltransferase gene transfectants which present a wide variety of multivalent, differentially galactosylated cell surface environments, will be used to characterize binding and functional interactions of galectins 1, 2, 3 and 4, which represent three distinct structural types of galectin. | 55,074,411 |
Skin Games
Skin Games were a British pop/rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Critically acclaimed as artists, they never gained commercial success, and broke up after just one album release, The Blood Rush, released in 1989. The soaring vocal style of lead singer Wendy Page has been compared with both Kate Bush and The Cocteau Twins but the music is otherwise hard to categorise. The band released a number of singles from the album, but only Brilliant Shining managed to gain any significant airplay. Other notable tracks include the Steve Hillage-produced Cowboy Joe, Where the Wild Things Are and Tirade.
Skin Games were:
Wendy Page (vocals)
Jim Marr (bass guitar)
Jonny Willett (lead guitar)
Dave Innes (drums)
Adam Lee (keyboards)
Despite sinking with relatively little trace, Wendy Page and Jim Marr went on to pen some big hits for Martine McCutcheon (Perfect Moment) and Billie Piper (Honey to the Bee, Because We Want To) and also wrote and produced Dangerous To Know on Hilary Duff's second album. In 1999, Page collaborated with production duo Tin Tin Out on the album Eleven To Fly co-writing and providing lead vocals on the majority of the tracks. She also continues to have a solo career in her own right.
External links
Adam Lee Music
Category:British pop music groups
Category:British rock music groups | 55,074,433 |
This application is a U.S. national phase filing under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7371 of PCT/EP93/01711, Feb. 7, 1993, and claims priority from Federal Republic of Germany application P 42 22 289.3, Jul. 7, 1992.
The invention relates to process for instabilizing viral quasi-species-distributions avoiding resistance phenomena by replication of the nucleic acids of the viruses present in the quasi-species-distribution by an defective replication system. Subject matter of the present invention is also an agent for executing the process according to the invention as well as nucleic acid sequences obtainable by reaction of viral replication systems with nucleotides.
Illnesses caused by viruses have been found in the hitherto existing pharmacology to be extremely difficult for treating by therapy. Up to now used conventional antiviral treatment strategies are exclusively concentrated to substances and methods having the aim to specifically suppress the reproduction of a virus in order to stop the infection in this way. This can be attained by different action mechanisms. A suitable point of attack of the reproduction of the virus is the specific virus replication system or one of the components thereof. In such a way, the viral replication apparatus can be inhibited by antimetabolites as AZT (HIV, AIDS) or Acyclovir (HSV, herpes). Other strategies are related to virus-coded enzymes which are assuming functions in quite specific replication phases of the virus. For instance, the viral protease for cleavage of polypeptide-translation products or also active principles which, e.g., prevent the built-up of a virus or prevent the release of the virus genom in the cell after infections, are belonging to
The mentioned strategies have in common that they will cause after a relatively short period of time resistance phenomena, such that the treated viruses avoid a drug therapy. In this case, the period of time, until the resistance phenomena will occur, can vary strongly for different active principles and viruses and can last for days up to years.
M. Eigen has been successful, to explain the property of the rapid adaptability of the quasi-species-distribution [M.Eigen (1971), Naturwissenschaften 58, 465-523]. By a quasi-species is understood that the xe2x80x9cwild-typexe2x80x9d-genome does not consist of a defined sequence which have all viruses of one species, but of a stable distribution of sequences of which the most frequent specific sequence is corresponding to the wild-type. It is identical with the consensus sequence which is obtainable if at every position or sequence the most frequently occurring nucleotide, respectively, is used [D. A. Steinhauer and J. J. Holland (1987), Ann. Rev. Microbiol. 41, 409-433]. However, the majority of the sequences is not identical with the wild-type sequence. That means, that indeed the viral genome is macroscopically defined and determinable as consensus sequence, but it is microscopically present in the form of a mixture of many mutants which are permanently in competition with one another. This competition maintains the genetic information of the virus in a dynamic equilibrium of mutation and selection. The genetic information modified by mutation is always re-established by selection, in such a way that the infection chain is maintained [Domingo, E., Sabo, D., Taniguchi, T. and Weissmann, L. (1978), Cell 13, 735-744].
By using a quasi-species-distribution, a population of microorganisms can adapt extremely rapidly to different environmental conditions. If, for instance, the temperature conditions change in the environment of a virus population, it is possible that the existing wild-type is in no way the variant which is reproducing most successfully under the new circumstances. Another variant among the great spectrum of the quasi-species-distribution is perhaps more suitable to replicate under the changed temperature. Possibly, also only some additional mutants are needed for a better adapted variant starting from a variant of the quasi-species-distribution instead of a wild-type sequence. By this mechanism, the great flexibility will become understandable, by which the microorganisms can adapt to changed environmental conditions in a surprisingly short period of time.
This flexibility can be paid by a high portion of lethal or partially defect descendants in the virus population. As a matter of fact, only a fractional part of the released viruses is infective in normal virus populations. The viral population can not stand to an increase of the rate of misincorporation of the viral replication system, e.g., in the case when the rate of misincorporation surpasses the theoretical error threshold belonging to the replication system. The portion of defect descendants will become that high that the infection chain can no more be maintained for a long time by viruses which still are infective.
For two reasons, this strategy is specifically directed against the distribution of viruses, especially of RNA-viruses. The viruses contain in most casesxe2x80x94contrary to their hostsxe2x80x94RNA as a genetic material. In order to enable a reproduction of the viruses, the virus must code itself at least the most important parts of the replication apparatus, since it can not fall back on the constituents of the host. Due to the lack of complicated error correcting mechanisms, narrow limits are set to the replication accuracy by the physical/chemical nature or the base-pair. The rates of misincorporation are realized in the range of between 10xe2x88x923 to 10xe2x88x925 with RNA-viruses. Furthermore, the selection is limited with viral genomes. Host cells divide after doubling their genomes and defect chromosomes become immediately apparent by disadvantages to the cell, as far as functionally needed gene places are concerned. Therefore, virus genomes are accumulated in infected cells to great populations. Defect gene products on single genomes do not cause disadvantages to the defect genome itself, because all genomes are participating in the same way to the common production. There is also no prejudice for defect matrices within the replication, such that the propagation of error is practically not hindered in the beginning. Only with some few viruses, the infective strands are read out in the late infection phase to a matrix (master template) in the meaning of a rolling-circle-model and, therefore, the propagation of error is controlled. Defects in the genome of a virus become only apparent during the next infection and only then can be eliminated by selection.
Theoretical calculations support the findings that a distribution of quasi-species-information can be maintained only in a stable way during facultative periods of time as long as a certain error threshold of the replication apparatus is not exceeded. Computer simulations have been found to give definite correlations between a pattern of selection advantages, a rate of replication error and the stability of the quasi-species-distribution. The calculation predicts a diffluence of information and therefore, the termination of a quasi-species-distribution in the vicinity of the wild-type sequence, if this error threshold is exceeded.
The relationships described by Eigen clarifies the dilemma in which the classical search for active agents is involved by screening of the active materials. When antiviral materials are discovered which prevent the propagation of the virus population by reproduction (replication), a xe2x80x9cselection pressurexe2x80x9d is exerted to the viral quasi-species-distribution, in such a way, that resistant mutants are formed which are the basis for a new viral quasi-species-distribution. Certainly, some of this quasi-species will be infective again, such that the viral infection is maintained by a new quasi-species-distribution. Therefore, the common conceptions of today for the so called xe2x80x9cdrug-screeningxe2x80x9d are even dangerous because of the permanent danger that new, possibly even stronger pathogenic viruses, are induced by this undesired selection pressure. | 55,074,480 |
Q:
VB6 Program not working in Windows Me
I have written a program in VB6. When I compile it and send it to my friend, he says it is not working. He (like me) has Windows Me.
Why my programs are not working there? Should he install something or what?
A:
Your friend will need the VB6 runtime files to run any VB6 programs. You can find them on Microsoft's site.
A:
You should be able to generate an installer project. There are a number of dependencies for the VB6 runtime (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bf9a24f9-b5c5-48f4-8edd-cdf2d29a79d5)
A:
He should install Microsoft Visual Basic run-time files that all applications created with Visual Basic 6.0 need in order to run.
You can get it from Microsoft's Download Center.
| 55,074,483 |
Trump Threatens to Withdraw Federal Funds From U.C. Berkeley After Alt-Right Speech Is Canceled Due to Violent Protests
A crowd protesting a far-right commentator's appearance at the University of California at Berkeley hurled smoke bombs, broke windows and sparked a massive bonfire, prompting officials to call off the event.
The decision came two hours before Wednesday's talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, a polarizing editor of Breitbart News, after some 1,500 people had gathered outside the venue.
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But officials said it was a smaller group of protesters dressed in black and in hooded sweatshirts that showed up as night fell to break windows, throw smoke bombs and flares, and start the raging blaze outside the building.
"This was a group of agitators who were masked up, throwing rocks, commercial grade fireworks and Molotov cocktails at officers," said UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennet.
Bennet said police determined at that point they couldn't guarantee security, canceled the event and evacuated Yiannopoulos from the building.
AP
There were no immediate reports of arrests or serious injuries, she said.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Thursday morning to comment, tweeting: "If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?"
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Prior to the burst of violence, hundreds of peaceful demonstrators carrying signs that read "Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech" had been protesting the appearance for hours.
As the evening wore on, crowds of protesters cleared away from outside the building. By 8 p.m. the crowd had thinned and at least 100 protesters that remained danced to a brass band playing music and marched off campus and into a main avenue.
Yiannopoulos, a 32-year-old right-wing provocateur, is a vocal supporter of Trump and a self-proclaimed internet troll whose comments have been criticized as racist, misogynist, anti-Muslim and white supremacist. He was banned from Twitter after leading a harassment campaign against "Ghostbusters" actress Leslie Jones.
His visit to Berkeley was sponsored by the campus Republican club. The university has stressed it did not invite him and does not endorse his ideas but is committed to free speech and rejected calls to cancel the event.
"The event has been cancelled," Yiannopoulos posted on his Facebook page. "I'll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down."
The Berkeley College Republicans said its "constitutional right to free speech was silenced by criminals and thugs."
Getty ImagesElijah Nouvelage
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"Their success is a defeat for civilized society and the free exchange of ideas on college campuses across America," it said in a statement.
The university, which had requested assistance from police in nine UC campuses, sent a notice to all students earlier Wednesday that warned of crowds near the student union, where the 500-seat, sold-out event was scheduled.
Due to violent demonstration, additional resources are being brought in. Cal students should leave the area immediately. #miloatcal
Yiannopoulos' talks have sparked protests, shouting matches and occasional violence at stops around the country. A man was shot and wounded at protests outside his Jan. 21 talk at the University of Washington.
Rowdy protests at UC Davis Jan. 13 prompted campus Republicans to cancel his appearance at the last minute. His final stop was supposed to be UCLA on Thursday but the invitation was rescinded, making Berkeley his grand finale.
A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Seventeen participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. | 55,074,485 |
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$scope.delUrl = async function (key) {
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$scope.exportBookmark = async function () {
$scope.loading = true;
let fileName = await get('bookmarkBackup');
$timeout(() => {
$scope.href = `${document.location.origin}/api/bookmarkDownload?fileName=${fileName}`;
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| 55,074,563 |
F IFTY YEARS ago investing was a distinctly human affair. “People would have to take each other out, and dealers would entertain fund managers, and no one would know what the prices were,” says Ray Dalio, who worked on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange ( NYSE ) in the early 1970s before founding Bridgewater Associates, now the world’s largest hedge fund. Technology was basic. Kenneth Jacobs, the boss of Lazard, an investment bank, remembers using a pocket calculator to analyse figures gleaned from company reports. His older colleagues used slide rules. Even by the 1980s “reading the Wall Street Journal on your way into work, a television on the trading floor and a ticker tape” offered a significant information advantage, recalls one investor.
Since then the role humans play in trading has diminished rapidly. In their place have come computers, algorithms and passive managers—institutions which offer an index fund that holds a basket of shares to match the return of the stockmarket, or sectors of it, rather than trying to beat it (see chart 1). On September 13th a widely watched barometer published by Morningstar, a research firm, reported that last month, for the first time, the pot of passive equity assets it measures, at $4.3trn, exceeded that run by humans.
The rise of financial robotisation is not only changing the speed and makeup of the stockmarket. It also raises questions about the function of markets, the impact of markets on the wider economy, how companies are governed and financial stability.
America is automating
Investors have always used different kinds of technology to glean market-moving information before their competitors. Early investors in the Dutch East India Company sought out newsletters about the fortunes of ships around the Cape of Good Hope before they arrived in the Netherlands. The Rothschilds supposedly owe much of their fortune to a carrier pigeon that brought news of the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo faster than ships.
During the era of red braces and slide rules, today’s technological advances started to creep in. Machines took the easier (and loudest) jobs first. In the 1970s floor traders bellowing to each other in an exchange started to be replaced by electronic execution, which made it easier for everyone to gather data on prices and volume. That, in turn, improved execution by creating greater certainty about price.
In portfolio management, algorithms have also been around for decades. In 1975 Jack Bogle founded Vanguard, which created the first index fund, thus automating the simplest possible portfolio allocation. In the 1980s and 1990s fancier automated products emerged, such as quantitative hedge funds, known as “quant” funds, and exchange-traded funds ( ETF s), respectively. Some ETF s track indices, but others obey more sophisticated investment rules by automating decisions long championed by humans, such as buying so-called value stocks; which look cheap compared with the company’s assets. Since their inception many of the quant funds have designed algorithms that can scour market data, hunting for stocks with other appealing, human-chosen traits, known in the jargon as “factors”.
The idea of factors came from two economists, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French, and was put into practice by Cliff Asness, a student of Mr Fama, who in 1998 founded AQR Capital Management, an investment firm that runs one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Quant funds like AQR program algorithms to choose stocks based on factors that were arrived at by economic theory and borne out by data analysis, such as momentum (recent price rises) or yield (paying high dividends). Initially only a few money-managers had the technology to crunch the numbers. Now everybody does.
Increasingly, the strategies of “rules-based” machine-run investors—those using algorithms to execute portfolio decisions—are changing. Some quant funds, like Bridgewater, use algorithms to perform data analysis, but call on humans to select trades. However, many quant funds, such as Two Sigma and Renaissance Technologies, are pushing automation even further, by using machine learning and artificial intelligence ( AI ) to enable the machines to pick which stocks to buy and sell.
This raises the prospect of the computers taking over human investors’ final task: analysing information in order to design investment strategies. If so, that could lead to a better understanding of how markets work, and what companies are worth.
The execution of orders on the stockmarket is now dominated by algorithmic traders. Fewer trades are conducted on the rowdy floor of the NYSE and more on quietly purring computer servers in New Jersey. According to Deutsche Bank, 90% of equity-futures trades and 80% of cash-equity trades are executed by algorithms without any human input. Equity-derivative markets are also dominated by electronic execution according to Larry Tabb of the Tabb Group, a research firm.
This must be the place
Each day around 7bn shares worth $320bn change hands on America’s stockmarket. Much of that volume is high-frequency trading, in which stocks are flipped at speed in order to capture fleeting gains. High-frequency traders, acting as middlemen, are involved in half of the daily trading volumes. Even excluding traders, though, and looking just at investors, rules-based investors now make the majority of trades.
Three years ago quant funds became the largest source of institutional trading volume in the American stockmarket (see chart 2). They account for 36% of institutional volume so far this year, up from just 18% in 2010, according to the Tabb Group. Just 10% of institutional trading is done by traditional equity fund managers, says Dubravko Lakos-Bujas of JPMorgan Chase. Machines are increasingly buying to hold, too. The total value of American public equities is $31tn, as measured by the Russell 3000, an index. The three types of computer-managed funds—index funds, ETF s and quant funds—run around 35% of this (see chart 3). Human managers, such as traditional hedge funds and other mutual funds, manage just 24%. (The rest, some 40%, is harder to measure and consists of other kinds of owners, such as companies which hold lots of their own shares.)
Of the $18trn to $19trn of managed assets accounted for, most are looked after by machines. Index funds manage half of that pot, around $9trn. Bernstein, a research firm, says other quantitative equity managers look after another 10-15%, roughly $2trn. The remaining 35-40%, worth $7 to $8trn, is overseen by humans. A prism by which to see the progress of algorithmic investing is hedge funds. Four of the world’s five largest—Bridgewater, AQR , Two Sigma and Renaissance—were founded specifically to use quantitative methods. The sole exception, Man Group, a British hedge fund, bought Numeric, a quantitative equity manager based in Boston, in 2014. More than half of Man Group’s assets under management are now run quantitatively. A decade ago a quarter of total hedge-fund assets under management were in quant funds; now it is 30%, according to HFR , a research group. This figure probably understates the shift given that traditional funds, like Point72, have adopted a partly quantitative approach. The result is that the stockmarket is now extremely efficient. The new robo-markets bring much lower costs. Passive funds charge 0.03-0.09% of assets under management each year. Active managers often charge 20 times as much. Hedge funds, which use leverage and derivatives to try to boost returns further, take 20% of returns on top as a performance fee. The lower cost of executing a trade means that new information about a company is instantly reflected in its price. According to Mr Dalio “order execution is phenomenally better.” Commissions for trading shares at exchanges are tiny: $0.0001 per share for both buyer and seller, according to academics at Chicago University. Rock-bottom fees are being passed on, too. On October 1st Charles Schwab, a leading consumer brokerage site, and TD Ameritrade, a rival, both announced that they will cut trading fees to zero.
Cheaper fees have added to liquidity—which determines how much a trader can buy or sell before he moves the price of a share. More liquidity means a lower spread between the price a trader can buy a share and the price he can sell one.
But many critics argue that this is misleading, as the liquidity provided by high-frequency traders is unreliable compared with that provided by banks. It disappears in crises, the argument goes. A recent paper published by Citadel Securities, a trading firm, refutes this view. It shows that the spread for executing a small trade—of, say $10,000—in a single company’s stock has fallen dramatically over the past decade and is consistently low. Those for larger trades, of up to $10m, have, at worst, remained the same and in most cases improved.
Grandmaster flash
The machines’ market dominance is sure to extend further. The strategy of factors that humans devised when technology was more basic is now widely available through ETF s. Some ETF s seek out stocks with more than one factor. Others follow a “risk parity strategy”, an approach pioneered by Mr Dalio which balances the volatility of assets in different classes. Each added level of complexity leaves less for human stockpickers to do. “Thirty years ago the best fund manager was the one with the best intuition,” says David Siegel, co-chairman of Two Sigma. Now those who take a “scientific approach”, using machines, data and AI , can have an edge.
To understand the coming developments in the market, chess offers an instructive example. In 1997 Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer, beat Garry Kasparov, the reigning world champion. It was a triumph of machine over man—up to a point. Deep Blue had been programmed using rules written by human players. It played in a human style, but better and more quickly than any human could.
Jump to 2017, when Google unveiled AlphaZero, a computer that had been given the rules of chess and then taught itself how to play. It took four hours of training to be able to beat Stockfish, the best chess machine programmed with human tactics. Intriguingly, AlphaZero made what looked like blunders to human eyes. For example, in the middlegame it sacrificed a bishop for a strategic advantage that became clear only much later.
Quant funds can be divided into two groups: those like Stockfish, which use machines to mimic human strategies; and those like AlphaZero, which create strategies themselves. For 30 years quantitative investing started with a hypothesis, says a quant investor. Investors would test it against historical data and make a judgment as to whether it would continue to be useful. Now the order has been reversed. “We start with the data and look for a hypothesis,” he says.
Humans are not out of the picture entirely. Their role is to pick and choose which data to feed into the machine. “You have to tell the algorithm what data to look at,” says the same investor. “If you apply a machine-learning algorithm to too large a dataset often it tends to revert to a very simple strategy, like momentum.”
But just as AlphaZero found strategies that looked distinctly inhuman, Mr Jacobs of Lazard says AI -driven algorithmic investing often identifies factors that humans have not. The human minders may seek to understand what the machine has spotted to find new “explainable” factors. Such new factors will eventually join the current ones. But for a time they will give an advantage to those who hold them.
Many are cautious. Bryan Kelly of Yale University, who is AQR ’s head of machine learning, says the firm has found purely machine-derived factors that appeared to outperform for a while. “But in the end they turned out to be spurious.” He says combining machine learning with economic theory works better.
Others are outright sceptics—among them Mr Dalio. In chess, he points out, the rules stay the same. Markets, by contrast, evolve, not least because people learn, and what they learn becomes incorporated in prices. “If somebody discovers what you’ve discovered, not only is it worthless, but it becomes over-discounted, and it will produce losses. There is no guarantee that strategies that worked before will work again,” he says. A machine-learning strategy that does not employ human logic is “bound to blow up eventually if it’s not accompanied by deep understanding.”
Nor are the available data as useful as might initially be thought. Traditional hedge-fund managers now analyse all sorts of data to inform their stockpicking decisions: from credit-card records to satellite images of inventories to flight charters for private jets. But this proliferation of data does not necessarily allow machines to take over the central job of discovering new investment factors.
The reason is that by the standards of AI applications the relevant datasets are tiny. “What determines the amount of data that you really have to work from is the size of the thing that you’re trying to forecast,” says Mr Kelly. For investors in the stockmarket that might be monthly returns, for which there are several decades’ worth of data—just a few hundred data-points. That is nothing compared with the gigabytes of data used to train algorithms to recognise faces or drive cars.
An oft-heard complaint about machine-driven investing takes quite the opposite tack. It is not a swizz, say these critics—far from it. It is terrifying. One fear is that these algorithms might prompt more frequent and sudden shocks to share prices. Of particular concern are “flash crashes”. In 2010 more than 5% was wiped off the value of the S & P 500 in a matter of minutes. In 2014 bond prices rallied sharply by more than 5%, again in a matter of minutes. In both cases markets had mostly normalised by the end of the day, but the shallowness of liquidity provided by high-frequency traders was blamed by the regulators as possibly exacerbating the moves. Anxieties that the machine takeover has made markets unmanageably volatile reached a frenzy last December, as prices plummeted on little news, and during the summer as they gyrated wildly. In 1987 so-called program trading, which sold stocks during a market dip, contributed to the Black Monday rout, when the Dow Jones index fell by 22% in a single day. But the problem then was “herding”—money managers clustering around a single strategy. Today greater variety exists, with different investment funds using varying data sources, time horizons and strategies. Algorithmic trading has been made a scapegoat, argues Michael Mendelson of AQR . “When markets fall, investors have to explain that loss. And when they don’t understand, they blame a computer.” Machines might even calm markets, he thinks. “Computers do not panic.”
Money never sleeps
Another gripe is that traditional asset managers can no longer compete. “Public markets are becoming winner-takes-all,” complains one of the world’s largest asset managers. “I don’t think we can even come close to competing in this game,” he says. Philippe Jabre, who launched his hotly anticipated eponymous fund, Jabre Capital, in 2007, said that computerised models had “imperceptibly replaced” traditional actors in his final letter to clients as he closed some funds last December.
And there remains a genuine fear: what happens if quant funds fulfil the promises of their wildest boosters? Stockmarkets are central to modern economies. They match companies in need of cash with investors, and signal how well companies are doing. How they operate has big implications for financial stability and corporate governance. It is therefore significant that algorithms untethered from human decision-making are starting to call the shots.
The prospect of gaining an edge from machine-derived factors will entice other money managers to pile in. It is natural to be fearful of the consequences, for it is a leap into the unknown. But the more accurate and efficient markets are, the better both investors and companies are served. If history is a guide, any new trading advantage will first benefit just a few. But the market is relentless. The source of that advantage will become public, and copied. And something new will be understood, not just about the stockmarket, but about the world that it reflects. ■ | 55,074,800 |
Pages
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The Silver Lining
My visit with the orthopaedic doc yesterday confirmed his original diagnosis. My little express ride down the stairs has caused what he called a "catastrophic injury." The place where my ACL should have been was empty, the meniscus is shattered, and the MCL is "hanging by a thread." I will be seeing the surgeon on Tuesday. The doctor said I will probably be having surgery within the next two weeks to replace the missing ACL with one from a cadaver, attempt to suture together what they can of the meniscus, and take a better look at the MCL. He is saying two weeks of non-load-bearing, followed by a lot of rehab. He is putting the kibosh on my trip to Knoxville in Aug. to see my stepson graduate. He is also telling me that I cannot start my 30th year of teaching on time. He says I will need at least the month of September off. He said that full rehab will take 5 months. Okay, so much for the dark cloud.
Now, here's the silver lining. This accident happened during the one week each year when my family is all together. I have twin brothers who are 10 months younger than I. Yes, that's right, for two months out of every year, we are all the same age. We were in the same grade together in school. Raised as triplets. I live in northern Minnesota (from whence we come) and they live near each other in Phoenix. We have an additional brother who is 8 years younger than we are. (Family planning was NOT one of our parents' strong suits.) We elder three kids were old enough to bring our little bro with us everywhere. When I got married and started having my family, he would come and spend summers with me on the East Coast. This little bro lives in the Twin Cities, as do my two now-grown kids. The Twin Cities are about 120 miles from where I live. When my daughter got wind of my little accident, she put her two jobs on hold and came home for the week. She went back yesterday, and my son is coming for the weekend today. We are a very, very close knit family.
A few years ago, 17 years ago on July 19, when I was just 35 years old (with children ages 7 and 11) I had a heart attack. My brothers had just left from their annual visit when it happened. They weren't with me then, but they called frequently. So, I've had little bumps in the health department before. I know what it takes to rehab. I know that I can get better. And my family won't let me forget that.
The silver lining in all this is my wonderful family. I am usually the care-giver in family matters, the nurturer. As uncomfortable as it has been for me to need to ask for help, they have kept me active and laughing all week long. Yesterday, the doc noticed that I've put a little bend in my straight leg brace. He asked how it happened. I told him that my bros are in town so we HAD to take in a baseball game, and go on a tour of a local mansion, AND go out to a pub for music and a diet soda. My bros would hear nothing of leaving me back when there is fun to be had. They put my butt in a wheelchair and sweating, grunting and groaning have shoved me all over the city so I wouldn't miss a thing.
Last night we were racing through an empty shopping center while leaving the local brewhouse. I had my arms over my head and was squealing while my brother whipped me in a donut before going into the elevator. Mind you, we are over 50, but still having fun. Never once did they complain about having to drag out a wheelchair and haul me along. I said, "I don't want to be a pain in the butt." Young bro said, "You've been a pain in our butts all your life, why stop now? Get in the chair."
My wise-beyond-her-years daughter told me that sometimes I can be stubborn (Really? Me, stubborn??) and maybe this is just God's way of slowing me down for awhile again. I'm one of those people who sometimes needs a big hammer to get the message. When we were in the doc's office, she said, "My mom's been really working at getting fit, can you give her some suggestions how she can keep exercising while her leg is healing?" And he did.
Yeah, this is a bummer, but it is also a blessing. I've always appreciated my family, but times like this are a good reminder. This getting fit thing is a life-long journey; and it will slow me down, but it won't stop me. Don't stop, don't quit, never give up, and once in awhile take a gander at the silver lining and whip yourself a donut. | 55,074,911 |
Lewiston police arrested 23-year-old Zach Tomaselli on Tuesday because he gave a ride to someone under 18. Police Sgt. David St. Pierre said the arrest was made a day after police received a tip. Tomaselli is being held without bail.
Tomaselli, who lives with his grandmother in Lewiston, has admitted that he sexually abused a boy when the victim was 13 and 14. He faces 11 charges including gross sexual assault and said he’s working on a plea deal.
Tomaselli has accused Fine of molesting him in 2002 in a hotel room Pittsburgh. Fine denies the allegations. | 55,074,967 |
Mary E. Peters
Mary E. Peters (born December 4, 1948) served as the United States Secretary of Transportation under President George W. Bush from 2006 to 2009. She was the second woman to hold the position after Elizabeth Dole.
Early life and education
Peters was born in Peoria, Arizona. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Phoenix and went to the John F. Kennedy School of Government. When Peters was six, her parents divorced. Her father raised Mary and her three siblings in Phoenix, Arizona.
Career
Peters joined the Arizona Department of Transportation in 1985, and was appointed by Gov. Jane Dee Hull to serve as its director in 1998.
After George W. Bush took office as president in 2001, Peters left for Washington to work as the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. She worked in that capacity until 2005.
In 2005, there was speculation that Peters would run for governor of Arizona in 2006. At the time, however, she said, while she believed she would have been a strong candidate, and was eligible to run despite having lived and registered to vote in Virginia, that questions about her eligibility would have been a distraction from the race. She was also a speculated candidate for governor in 2010, but instead served as co-chair of incumbent governor Jan Brewer's election campaign (along with former state Attorney General Grant Woods). Peters is a transportation consultant for national engineering and planning organizations.
Transportation Secretary
On September 5, 2006, Bush nominated Peters to replace Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. She was confirmed on September 29, 2006 by the United States Senate. In 2006, President Bush appointed Peters as the Co-Vice Chairwoman of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. She resigned the post of Secretary of Transportation in anticipation of the in-coming Obama administration. She was succeeded by Ray LaHood, the 16th U.S. Secretary of Transportation on Thursday, January 22, 2009.
Policies
Peters is an advocate of leasing U.S. roads and interstates to private companies and having user fees (i.e., tolls) for building new highways. In an interview, Peters said that the National Highway System will run out of money by decade's end without substantial changes and, rather than raise taxes, some states should turn to toll roads leased to private corporations to fill gaps.
Her policies of promoting open borders for commerce created opposition from labor unions.
Mary Peters held a press conference on September 5, 2008 to report that Highway Trust Fund payments to states, including her native Arizona, would be cut back because federal fuel tax collections were dropping.
While she was Secretary of DOT a rule was passed stating that dogs, cats, miniature horses, pigs as well as monkeys could be considered emotional support animals, and therefore could be taken by commercial airlines in the cabin.
Personal life
Mary married Terry Peters, a marine, at age 17. She and Terry have three children together. In 2013, Terry was convicted of sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl, and he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison.
See also
List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
References
External links
Biography at the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission
Category:1948 births
Category:21st-century American politicians
Category:Administrators of the Federal Highway Administration
Category:American people of Dutch descent
Category:Arizona Republicans
Category:George W. Bush administration cabinet members
Category:John F. Kennedy School of Government alumni
Category:Living people
Category:People from Peoria, Arizona
Category:Politicians from Phoenix, Arizona
Category:State cabinet secretaries of Arizona
Category:United States Secretaries of Transportation
Category:University of Phoenix alumni
Category:Women in Arizona politics
Category:Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Category:21st-century American women politicians
Category:Eno Center for Transportation | 55,075,059 |
James,
I agree with you that there's no need to install these kind of drivers (both
NVidia and ATI) as soon as they come out, though I am usually tempted to do
so.
90% of the changes in each release is focused in squeezing out +0.04% on
games and +0.1% on benchmarks.
Just check NVidia "Release Highlights" and it will come clear.
No real benefits for the real user.
Carlos
"James Kosin" wrote:
> On 3/25/2010 11:43 AM, Maratonmannen wrote:
> >
> > http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_197.13_whql.html
> >
>
> Are they sure this one isn't going to follow the same path as the last
> and cause any hardware issues.... like flames coming out of the computer
> case?
>
> I'll wait a bit for the fallout before upgrading this time.
>
> James
> .
>
"James Kosin" <> wrote in message
news:jQNqn.109437$...
> On 3/25/2010 11:43 AM, Maratonmannen wrote:
>>
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_197.13_whql.html
>>
>
> Are they sure this one isn't going to follow the same path as the last
> and cause any hardware issues.... like flames coming out of the computer
> case?
>
> I'll wait a bit for the fallout before upgrading this time.
>
> James
The same driver has been out since a couple days after the
discovery of the fan problem. The only difference is that
it just got its certification. It's well-tested, though.
On 3/25/2010 8:44 PM, Tom Lake wrote:
>
> "James Kosin" <> wrote in message
> news:jQNqn.109437$...
>> On 3/25/2010 11:43 AM, Maratonmannen wrote:
>>>
>>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_197.13_whql.html
>>>
>>
>> Are they sure this one isn't going to follow the same path as the last
>> and cause any hardware issues.... like flames coming out of the computer
>> case?
>>
>> I'll wait a bit for the fallout before upgrading this time.
>>
>> James
>
> The same driver has been out since a couple days after the
> discovery of the fan problem. The only difference is that
> it just got its certification. It's well-tested, though.
>
> Tom Lake
Tom,
Unless I'm mistaken, the one with the fan problem was also just released
after being well-tested.
Am 26.03.2010 14:46, schrieb James Kosin:
> On 3/25/2010 8:44 PM, Tom Lake wrote:
>>
>> "James Kosin"<> wrote in message
>> news:jQNqn.109437$...
>>> On 3/25/2010 11:43 AM, Maratonmannen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_197.13_whql.html
>>>>
>>>
>>> Are they sure this one isn't going to follow the same path as the last
>>> and cause any hardware issues.... like flames coming out of the computer
>>> case?
>>>
>>> I'll wait a bit for the fallout before upgrading this time.
>>>
>>> James
>>
>> The same driver has been out since a couple days after the
>> discovery of the fan problem. The only difference is that
>> it just got its certification. It's well-tested, though.
>>
>> Tom Lake
> Tom,
>
> Unless I'm mistaken, the one with the fan problem was also just released
> after being well-tested.
>
> James
.... and I had to step back to 196.21 because 197.13 painted black lines
as soon as OL2007 was started.
Something is wrong with this version as well.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/catalyst-10.3-for-windows-now-supports-mobile-graphics/8684.html
<quote>
the Windows release of Catalyst 10.3 finally brings mobile graphics card support to all Mobility Radeon HD graphics cards after the
2xxx series.
....
Unless you happen to own a Sony, Toshiba or Panasonic notebook: these OEMs have decided not to take part in ATI's driver program, so
if you want to download the latest Catalyst drivers for your Sony/Toshiba/Panasonic notebook from ATI's website, do so at your own
risk.
</quote>
http://vr-zone.com/articles/catalyst-10.3-for-windows-now-supports-mobile-graphics/8684.html
<quote>
the Windows release of Catalyst 10.3 finally brings mobile graphics card support to all Mobility Radeon HD graphics cards after the
2xxx series.
....
Unless you happen to own a Sony, Toshiba or Panasonic notebook: these OEMs have decided not to take part in ATI's driver program, so
if you want to download the latest Catalyst drivers for your Sony/Toshiba/Panasonic notebook from ATI's website, do so at your own
risk.
</quote>
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Welcome to Velocity Reviews!
Welcome to the Velocity Reviews, the place to come for the latest tech news and reviews.
Please join our friendly community by clicking the button below - it only takes a few seconds and is totally free. You'll be able to chat with other enthusiasts and get tech help from other members.
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Q:
How to execute "IN" subquery only once
I have a slow SQL Server query:
SELECT Style
FROM Storage
WHERE Style NOT IN (SELECT ValidStyle FROM ValidStyles)
This syntax causes SELECT ValidStyle FROM ValidStyles to execute once for each row of the parent query. How can I rewrite this to run the subquery one time only?
A:
SELECT Style
FROM Storage s
WHERE NOT EXISTS(SELECT * FROM ValidStyles vs WHERE vs.ValidStyle=s.Style)
| 55,075,500 |
Orange Moonrise Over San Francisco
It was one of my favorite moonrise shot I took in past weekend to chase the moonlight :). The timing was almost perfect but missing some famous San Francisco landmarks. Can you spot where is this location? something people like to visit , photograph it.
What I have learned in past weekend about the moonrise and moonset colors are bit different. The moonrise has more orange colors, The moonset has bite more red colors. I am not sure why. Correct me if I am wrong. | 55,075,679 |
* Note: Click the field header to sort on a field. Click it again to reverse the sorted list.# Note: We used the same viral genomic sequence for potential target identification for viral miRNAs. It is likely that viral miRNA could serve as a self-mediated feedback regulation. | 55,075,720 |
Goddess Ekadashi said she had taken a vow that one who could defeat her in the war would marry her. Demon Mura agreed and Goddess Ekadshi defeated the demon and killed him. Meanwhile, when Lord Vishnu wake up, he saw the dead body of the demon and the beautiful lady. Lord Vishnu was pleased by the victorious work done by the Goddess Ekadashi and asked her for the boon.
Goddess Ekadashi asked for the boon that devotees who keep fast on this day would be close to Lord Vishnu. It is believed that he or she who keep fast on this day would not only get rid of the sins, but also blessed with the long life, good health and wealth.
How to keep fast on Utpanna Ekadashi
Utpanna Ekadasi in 2014, falls on 18th November. If you are also going to observe the fast on this day, You have to follow certain rituals such as you have to take a bath early in the morning and then worship Lord Vishnu, read the legend behind the Utpanna Ekadashi Fast during an auspicious time between 12:06 PM to 1:25PM with full devotion and then take prasadam and charanamrit after completing your prayers. During this fast you have to just take fruits, milk, milk products, some vegetables, and fruits on this day.
This means you have to abstain yourself from taking any cereals, especially rice and any kind of non veg. One more thing you have to remember that you don’t indulge in gambling, playing cards, taking intoxicants, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes or sex. Break your fast on the next day means before sunrise. If due to some reasons, one is not able to break the fast before sunrise, then you should break it in an afternoon during 10:47AM - 12:06 AM. It is necessary to break your fast on the next day, otherwise it will be considered as an offense. It is believed that If you follow all the above rituals dedicatedly then you will definitely earn Lord Vishnu’s blessings. | 55,075,747 |
Q:
Using annotated tags for NEWS file
The GNU coding standard requires every conforming source distribution to ship a NEWS file containing a summary of changes. I think this is a good idea (but that does not matter here) and since I am using git I thought it would be great to autogenerate that file. My idea was to use the message of annotated tags (when I create a tag I also write a summary of changes) and put them into this file. However, I did not find a way to access the message in an easy way. I used the following code:
git tag -l -n100 <tag-name>
Which gives me
<tag-name> Message-Header 1
- foo
- bar
- bla
- blup
I would like to get the message without <tag-name> and those spaces. For commit messages I can use
git --format='%s %b' <id> # %s = subject, %b = body of commit message
Is there a similar command for the messages of annotated commit tags or is it not meant for such purposes?
A:
I finally found out how to do this myself, git for-each-ref --format='...' refs/tags is what I was looking for:
git for-each-ref --sort='-*committerdate' --format \
'News for %(refname:short):%0a===============%0a%0a%(body)' \
refs/tags > NEWS
This adds an entry for each git tag into the NEWS file in the following format:
News for <git-tag-name>:
========================
Annotation for the tag
The entries are inversely sorted so that the topmost one is also the most recent.
| 55,075,768 |
929 Monte Sano Drive, ScottsboroAL, 35769
Bank Foreclosure! Main channel waterfront lot in gated community inside Scottsboro city limits. Deep water, great view, already has a 2-slip boathouse. Lot is steep at the top and then turns into a slope. Room to move dirt to build your custom home. Look at similar neighbors' in area & what they did for grading. Elec, water, gas at the street with private sewer. Boat house cost over $40,000 to build, Receipt is available. Close 2 Goose Pond Colony-Golf & more! www.goosepond.org
Price
Sold Price:$70,000Sold Date:03/27/2013
Subdivision: The Promenade
County:
Jackson County
#: 692085
Status: Closed
Description
Bank Foreclosure! Main channel waterfront lot in gated community inside Scottsboro city limits. Deep water, great view, already has a 2-slip boathouse. Lot is steep at the top and then turns into a slope. Room to move dirt to build your custom home. Look at similar neighbors' in area & what they did for grading. Elec, water, gas at the street with private sewer. Boat house cost over $40,000 to build, Receipt is available. Close 2 Goose Pond Colony-Golf & more! www.goosepond.org
Scottsboro Real Estate
Scottsboro is located in Alabama.
Scottsboro, Alabama 35769 has a population of 14,722.
The median household income in Scottsboro, Alabama 35769 is
$36,470.
The median household income for the surrounding county is $36,874
compared to the national median of $53,482.
The median age of people living in Scottsboro 35769 is
44.2 years.
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Courtesy: Bonnie Ballard - CRYE-LEIKE REALTORS - Madison
This content last refreshed on 2/22/2018 12:29 AM. Some properties which appear for sale on this web site may subsequently have sold or may no longer be available. | 55,075,939 |
Beatrice Foods
Beatrice Foods Company was a major American food processing company. In 1987, its international food operations were sold to Reginald Lewis, a corporate attorney, creating TLC Beatrice International, after which the majority of its domestic (U.S.) brands and assets were acquired by Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts (KKR), with the bulk of its holdings sold off. By 1990, the remaining operations were ultimately acquired by Conagra Brands.
History
Early years
The Beatrice Creamery Company was founded in 1894 by George Everett Haskell and William W. Bosworth, by leasing the factory of a bankrupt firm of the same name located in Beatrice, Nebraska. At the time, they purchased butter, milk, and eggs from local farmers and graded them for resale. They promptly began separating the butter themselves at their plant, making their own butter on site and packaging and distributing it under their own label. They devised special protective packages and distributed them to grocery stores and restaurants in their own wagons and through jobbers. To overcome the shortage of cream, the partners established skimming stations to which farmers delivered their milk to have the cream, used to make butter, separated from the milk. This led to the introduction of their unique credit program of providing farmers with cream separators so they could separate the milk on the farm and retain the skim milk for animal food. This enabled farmers to pay for the separators from the proceeds of their sales of cream. The program worked so well, the company sold more than 50,000 separators in Nebraska from 1895 to 1905. On March 1, 1905, the company was incorporated as the Beatrice Creamery Company of Iowa, with capital of $3,000,000. By the early 20th century, they were shipping dairy products across the United States, and by 1910 they operated nine creameries and three ice cream plants across the Great Plains.
The company moved to Chicago in 1913, the center of the American food processing industry. By the 1930s, it was a major dairy company, producing some of milk and of ice cream annually. In 1939, Beatrice Creamery Company purchased Blue Valley Creamery Company, the other Chicago-based dairy centralizer. This acquisition added at least 11 creameries from New York to South Dakota. Beatrice's 'Meadow Gold' brand was a household name in much of America by the beginning of World War II. In 1946, it changed its name to Beatrice Foods Co. and doubled its sales between 1945 and 1955 as the post-war baby boom created greater demand for milk products.
1950s through 1970s
From the late 1950s until the early 1970s, the company expanded into Canada and purchased a number of other food firms, leveraging its distribution network to profit from a more diverse array of food and consumer products. It came to be the owner of brands such as Avis Rent A Car, Playtex, Shedd's, Tropicana, John Sexton & Co, Good & Plenty, and many others. Annual sales in 1984 were roughly $12 billion. During both the Winter and Summer Olympics that year, the corporation flooded the TV airwaves with advertisements letting the public know that many brands with which they were familiar were actually part of Beatrice Foods. These ads used the tagline (with a jingle) "We're Beatrice. You've known us all along." After the Olympics, advertisements for its products continued to end with the catchphrase "We're Beatrice" and an instrumental version of the "You've known us all along" portion of the jingle, as the red and white "Beatrice" logo would simultaneously appear in the bottom right hand corner. The campaign was found to alienate consumers, calling attention to the fact that many of their favorite brands were part of a far-reaching multinational corporation, and the campaign was pulled off the air by autumn.
Beatrice's Canadian subsidiary, Beatrice Foods Canada Ltd., was founded in 1969 and became legally separate from its parent firm in 1978.
In 1968, Sexton Foods was approached by Beatrice with an offer to purchase the John Sexton & Co. Beatrice was attracted to Sexton Quality Foods' distribution network, quality, variety of private-label products, specialized food offerings, sales force and profitability. Mack Sexton's initial response was no, but Beatrice Foods was very interested. Eventually both parties reached an agreement. Beatrice Foods increased the purchase price, pledged capital to expand Sexton Quality Foods' distribution network, pledged capital to introduce a new Sexton frozen product line, and pledged that the Sexton leadership would continue to lead and operate the company as a separate entity. On December 20, 1968, Beatrice acquired the business and assets of John Sexton & Co., exchanging about 375,000 shares of Beatrice's preferred convertible preference stock valued at $37,500,000. John Sexton & Co. became an independent division of Beatrice Foods, still led by Mack Sexton (son of Franklin), William Egan (son of Helen), and William Sexton (son of Sherman). Mack became a vice president of Beatrice and a Beatrice board member. John Sexton & Co. put Beatrice Foods into the wholesale grocery business and Beatrice put John Sexton & Co. into the frozen foods business. Beatrice's and the Sexton's leadership were interested in maximizing the investment in John Sexton & Co. by growing the company.
Final decade
Through the 1980s, Beatrice was a co-defendant alongside W. R. Grace and Company in a lawsuit alleging that the Riley Tannery, a division of Beatrice Foods, had dumped toxic waste which contaminated an underground aquifer that supplied drinking water to East Woburn, Massachusetts. The case became the subject of the popular book and film A Civil Action. Federal judge Walter Jay Skinner ruled that Beatrice was not responsible for the contamination, although according to the book and film, based on new evidence brought forward by the EPA later found, Judge Skinner reversed his verdict and found both companies responsible.
In the 1980s, the firm operated in South Africa during apartheid. As a private company, the campaign of divestment could not lower its stock price and thus had no impact on its business activities.
At the 87th annual meeting of Beatrice stockholders on June 5, 1984, stockholders of record were asked to change the name of the company. "Recognizing this clear departure from the past, we are proposing a new name for the company. At our annual meeting in June, stockholders will be asked to change the name to Beatrice Companies, Inc. from Beatrice Foods Co. This change is appropriate given the company's evolution and present composition. It reflects Beatrice's wide range of separate and distinct businesses, many with operations totally unrelated to food processing, yet retains the company's goodwill and reputation for quality products and services." Annual Report, February 29, 1984.
In June 1984, Beatrice acquired Esmark. The Esmark acquisition was part of the company's strategy to focus Beatrice's assets in food and consumer products businesses. In addition to several food brands, companies owned by Esmark included Avis Rent a Car, Playtex, Jensen Electronics, and STP. Because of Esmark's national brands, direct sales force, distribution network and research and development capabilities, its acquisition was expected to accelerate the attainment of Beatrice's marketing goals. The company also sought a higher public profile, adding their name to end of their brands' television commercials, and sponsoring the Newman-Haas IndyCar racing team with driver Mario Andretti. Many analysts believe the Esmark acquisition, which was pushed by then Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President James L. Dutt, put too much of a debt load on Beatrice, which hurt Beatrice's credit rating and therefore deflated the value of Beatrice stock valuation.
1985, Beatrice sold their Beatrice Chemical division to Imperial Chemical Industries. Stahl Finish, Paule Chemical, Polyvinyl Chemical Industries, Converters Ink Company, and Thoro System Products were the business units that formed Beatrice Chemical.] Other divisions sold to pay off the debt from the Esmark purchase included Brillion Iron Works, World Dryer, STP, and Buckingham Wine (distributors of Cutty Sark whisky).
In 1986, Beatrice became the target of leveraged buyout specialists Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. They ultimately took over the firm for US$8.7 billion — at the time the largest leveraged buyout in history — and over the next four years sold it off, division by division.
In 1986, investment firm Wesray Capital Corporation, acquired Avis Rent a Car System for $263 million plus the assumption of debt.
In 1986, Beatrice's Coca-Cola bottling operations (acquired by Beatrice in 1981) were acquired by The Coca-Cola Company for $1 billion. They were shortly spun off as Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. Beatrice Bottled Water Division (acquired with the Coca-Cola operations) with brands such as Arrowhead Drinking Water, Ozarka Drinking Water, and Great Bear Drinking Water were also sold to Perrier in 1987.
In December 1986, a group of Company executives, together with Drexel Burnham Lambert bought International Playtex, Inc. in a leveraged buyout and named the newly private organization Playtex Holdings. Playtex included such former Esmark brands as Max Factor, Playtex Living Gloves, Playtex Products, Almay, Jhirmack, and Halston/Orlane.
The Beatrice Dairy Products, Inc., subsidiary, which included the brands of Meadow Gold, Hotel Bar Butter, Keller's Butter, Mountain High Yogurt, and Viva Milk Products, to Borden, Inc. in December 1986 for $315,000,000.
Other divisions sold in 1986 included Americold and Danskin.
Brands like Samsonite, Culligan, Stiffel Lamps, del mar window coverings, Louver Drape window coverings, Aristokraft kitchen cabinets, Day-Timer planner, Waterloo Industries tool boxes, Aunt Nellies and Martha White were merged into a new entity called E-II Holdings, which was later purchased by American Brands for 1.14 billion. E-II was created in June, 1987, as an umbrella company for several non-food and specialty food businesses of Beatrice. Meshulam Riklis bought E-II from American Brands in 1988; American Brands bought back Aristokraft, Day-Timer, Waterloo, Twentieth Century and Vogel Peterson.
Tropicana Products, Inc. was sold to Seagram for $1.2 billion in 1988.
All of the international operations were folded into a new entity called Beatrice International Holdings in 1987, which was later purchased that year through junk bond financing for $985 million by Reginald Lewis, a corporate attorney, creating TLC Beatrice International. TLC Beatrice International became the largest business in America run by an African American and the first company to reach a billion dollars in sales, with a black man at its head. TLC Beatrice sold the Canadian operations; Beatrice Foods Canada, Ltd., in 1990 to Onyx and then Beatrice Foods, Inc. later ended up in the hands of Parmalat in 1997.
In 1987, KKR had formed a new entity, with similar intent as E-II Holdings, called Beatrice Company, which was specifically created to include Beatrice Cheese, Inc., Beatrice-Hunt/Wesson, Inc., and Swift-Eckrich, Inc.. In 1990, KKR sold Beatrice Company to CAGSUB, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of ConAgra Foods (now Conagra Brands). Most of Beatrice's brand names still exist, but under various other owners, as trademarks and product lines were sold separately to the highest bidder.
Current era
The original Beatrice Companies, Inc. (Beatrice Foods Co. before 1984, and Beatrice Creamery Company before 1946) went dormant in the late 1980s, but was revived in 2007. The Beatrice of today goes by its 1984 name of Beatrice Companies, Inc., which was approved by the 1984 stockholder meeting.
Former Beatrice brands
Absopure distilled and spring water
Accurate Threaded Fasteners
Acryon leisure and household products
Advanced Nutrition Formula|Agri-Products
A.H.Schwab children's play products
A.J. ten|Doesschate, Holland
Airstream
Allison leisure apparel
All-Pro leisure apparel
Altoids
American Hostess ice cream
American Pickles
Antoine's food products
Aqua Queen garden equipment
Argosy recreational vehicles
Arist O' Kraft cabinets
Armitage Realty Co.
Arrowhead Water
Assumption Abbey wine products
Aunt Nellie's food products
Avan recreational vehicles
Avis
Banner painting equipment
Barbara Dee cookies
Barcrest beverage mixes
Beatreme dairy products and flavorings
Beatrice dairy products
Becky Kay's cookies
Beefbreak meat specialties
Beeforcan meat specialties
Beneke bathroom accessories
Best Jet painting equipment
Bickford food products
Bighorn specialty meats
Big Pete specialty meats
Bireley's orange drink (Asahi Soft Drinks)
Bloomfield Industries
Blue Ribbon condiments
Blue Valley Creamery Company
Body Shaper plumbing supplies
Bogene closet accessories
Boizet specialty food products
Bonanza mini-motorhomes
Binkers cat treats
Bosman barbecue equipment
Bowers candies
Bredan butter
Brenner candy
Brillion Iron Works
Brookside wine products
Brown Miller condiments
Bubble Stream plumbing equipment
Burny Bros. Bakery
Butterball
Butterchef Bakery
Buttercrust baked goods
Buxton leather accessories
Byrons barbecue
California Products beverage mixes
Campus Casuals sport clothing
Captain Kids food products
Cartwheels travel bags
CCA Furniture accessories
Chapelcord school and religious apparel
Charmglow barbecue grills and outdoor products
Checkers beverages
Chicago red wine products
Chicago specialty plumbing tools and supplies
Churngold condiments
Cincinnati Fruit condiments and fountain syrups
Citro Crest beverage mixes
Clark candy
Classic travel bags
Classy Crisps
Colonial Cookie|Canada
Colorado By-Products|Agri-Products
Converts Ink CONCO
Cremo Limited|Jamaica
Cook n' Cajun barbecue equipment
Costello's food products
Country Hearth baked goods
County Line cheeses
Cow Boy Jo's meat specialities
Culligan
C.W. pickles
Dannon yogurt
Day-Timers
Eckrich
E.R. Moore Co.
Etablissements Baud|Paris, France
Farboil Paint Co.
Fibreite Composites
Franprix
Gebhardt Mexican foods
Geerpres
Good & Plenty
Harman Kardon
Hart Skis
Helados Calatayud|Spain
Henry Berry & Co|Australia
Hunt's
Imperial Oil & Grease
JH Rhodes
Jolly Rancher
Kalise Menorquina
Kobey's
Krispy Kreme
La Choy
Lakeview Pure Milk, Ltd.
Little Brownie cookies
LouverDrape
Ma Brown jams, jellies, pickles
Mario olives
Market Forge Industries Inc.
Martha White
Melnor
Meadow Gold
Mid-America Container
Milk Duds
Monson Printing & Monroe Paper Company
Morgan Yacht Company
Mrs. Leland's Candy
Now and Later
Orville Redenbacher's
The Ozarka Spring Water Company
Patra Holdings Pty., Ltd.|Australia
Peter Pan
Pfister & Vogel
Pik-Nik
Playtex
Polyvinyl Chemical Group
Premier Ice Cream Co.|Denmark
Red Tulip|Australia
Regal Packer By-Products|Agri-Products
Rosarita
Rudolph Foods
Rusty Jones
Samsonite
Sanson Gelati, S.p.A.|Verona, Italy
Sap's Donuts
Sexton Foods
Shedd's
Snowco
Soup Starter
Stahl Finish
Stiffel Lamps
Swift Ice Cream
Swiss Miss
Switzer licorice
Taylor Freezer Corporation
Termicold
THORO|Weatherproofing products
Tropicana
Utah By-Products|Agri-Products
V-H Quality Foods|Canada
Vigortone|Agri-Products
Vogel-Peterson
Wells Manufacturing
Western By-Products|Agri-Products
Waterloo Industries, Inc.
Wesson
World Dryer hand dryers
Beatrice Foods Canada Limited
Beatrice Foods Canada Ltd. is a Toronto, Ontario-based dairy unit of Parmalat Canada. The Canadian unit of Beatrice Foods was founded in 1969, and was separated from Beatrice Foods in 1978.
Consequently, Beatrice's Canadian unit was not affected by the buyout of its founders and remained in business as one of Canada's largest food processing concerns.
In 1997 Beatrice Foods Canada was acquired by Parmalat. At first, Parmalat decided to drop the Beatrice name from the company's products, but was reinstated in late 2005 during which the Italian parent company was being investigated.
See also
Lee Archer, head of North Street Capital Corporation and Archer Asset Management
A Civil Action
List of defunct consumer brands
References
External links
Parmalat Canada
Beatrice Canada
Beatrice Companies, Inc.
Beatrice Archives
Meadow Gold History
Category:Food and drink companies established in 1894
Category:Food and drink companies disestablished in 1990
Category:Defunct companies based in California
Category:Defunct consumer brands
Category:Dairy products companies of the United States
Category:Dairy products companies of Canada
Category:Food and drink companies of Canada
Category:Food and drink companies based in California
Category:Kohlberg Kravis Roberts companies
Category:Parmalat units
Category:Private equity portfolio companies
Category:Condiment companies of the United States
Category:ConAgra Foods
Category:1894 establishments in Nebraska
Category:1990 disestablishments in California
Category:1990 mergers and acquisitions | 55,076,092 |
During the workshop, the participants discussed the possibility of using this passive technology in the fishing gear tagging as a contribution that can lead to less nets being lost in the future. The ILiM will provide 3 different prototypes of tags that will be tested in cooperation with fishermen from Poland.
The idea of the RFID passive system might be a solution that would allow to easily identify lost nets and to find its owner. | 55,076,249 |
So you have spent months trying to keep fit. Dieting has been part of you and has nearly caused you unbearable torture. Exercises have made you weary. No matter how hard you try, all you end up with is physical injuries, excess cravings and hunger as well as illnesses. This is the high time you learn about top secrets of thin people that make and keep them fit.
Trust your body
Most people will tell you that if you want to be fit, you should eat 6 – 7 small meals in a day and drink lots of water to get rid of the hunger in between. | 55,076,281 |
Max Stirner is no historical materialist and yet here I am, writing a paper on Stirner’s communism. What motivates this gesture? First of all, given that we are now at the end of history, it might do us some good to look at a few of the first ideas that pointed beyond it, from within. In the 1840’s, Germany was teeming with theoretical critiques of modern bourgeois society, while France was burgeoning with practical revolts against it. It was Stirner’s genius to attack the German theoretical critiques of society for being nothing but secularized, liberal forms of its development. And it was Marx’s genius to locate and ground Stirner’s critique within a historical field of social relations of production and class antagonisms.
Second, it’s commonplace that Marx developed the “materialist conception of history” in The German Ideology around 1845. But how did he do so? Although he already had a developed philosophical account of alienation and private property, it wasn’t until he responded to Stirner’s 1844 The Ego and its Own [Der Einzige und sein Eigentum] that the philosophical-political critique became thoroughly historical, bequeathing us with the horrible moniker under which we still gather today, “historical materialism.” If the reading of Stirner gave humanity the weapon of historical materialist critique, then what else can it give us today? Is there a way to read Stirner afresh, as Engels first did when he wrote to Marx on Nov 19th 1844, that: “Clearly Stirner is the most talented, independent and hard-working of the 'Free', but for all that he tumbles out of idealistic into materialistic abstraction and ends up in limbo.” (Engels, 1982: 13)
What is this limbo that Stirner falls into? It is precisely the limbo between idealism and materialism, between heaven and earth/hell; Stirner’s theory has finally escaped idealist presuppositions, but has not moved beyond idealist targets. In other words, Stirner starts with real individuals, but seeks to move forward through confronting idealist fantasies, through acts of theoretical combat, of demystifiying abstractions such as God, Man, State, Society, Morality, Justice, Labor, Equality, Freedom, Love, and Revolution. In one of his more spectacular moments, Stirner names the imperative of his egoism as “storming heaven” [Himmelsstürmen] which can only be finished with the “real, complete downfall of heaven.” Even Satan was too narrow, for he focused solely on Earth. This technique he eventually calls, desecration.
Engels again: “This egoism is taken to such a pitch, it is so absurd and at the same time so self-aware, that it cannot maintain itself even for an instant in its one-sidedness, but must immediately change into communism. In the first place it's a simple matter to prove to Stirner that his egoistic man is bound to become communist out of sheer egoism. That's the way to answer the fellow.” (1982: 12)
And so the response to Stirner, the majority of the manuscript of The German Ideology is an attempt to prove that egoism must immediately “change into communism”, that “egoistic man” is bound to become “communist” out of egoism alone. But not only this. Engels: “But we must also adopt such truth as there is in the principle. And it is certainly true that we must first make a cause our own, egoistic cause, before we can do anything to further it – and hence that in this sense, irrespective of any eventual material aspirations, we are communists out of egoism also…” (1982: 12) Not only does egoism lead to communism, but egoism is the first cause of communism, its ground and foundation, that “irrespective of any material aspirations” makes us communists. Again from Engels: “We must take our departure from the Ego, the empirical, flesh-and-blood individual.” (1982:12)
This is what reading Stirner did to Engels. To Marx we’re not so sure, since the letter in which he described his initial reaction has been lost. Whatever it made him feel at first, it eventually provoked a lengthy 400 page vitriolic response. I can go on about the monumental importance that reading Stirner was for Nietzsche, Emma Goldman, Jules Bonnot, Renzo Novatore, Carl Schmitt, Gustav Landauer, Victor Serge, Marcel Duchamp, and the Situationist International, but I won’t. I recommend you all to follow through on it for yourselves. If nothing else, reading Stirner has historically been a source of reawakening the spirit of revolt that animates communist and anarchist critique, a source grounded not in any social cause or political ideal, but first of all in one’s relationship to their own life.
Third, does the movement from left Hegelians through Stirner to Marx mimic the structure of bland critique implicit in the left today? The young Hegelians, the “Free”, criticized bourgeois society for not living up to its ideal of man, of failing to bring justice,equality, freedom, blah blah blah to all who live within the modern state. They criticized governments, advocated for “social justice”, wrote in newspapers and signed petitions. Are they not the cell form of the modern activist of today, the liberal/socialist/democrat/critic who endlessly searches for the latest ideal to foreground the hypocrisy of the state? They both advocate for “people power”, for self-managed “free states”, for the triumph of a secular humanity against the backwardness of religion. Against this, Stirner attacks the foundations upon which such critiques stand, that is, the ideas of Man, State, Law, Justice, and Equality, Society and Freedom, arguing that all such values or ideas are spooks or abstractions that obfuscate one’s own real condition, turning the ideal itself into the foundation of the material. Stirner’s anti-moral, anti-libertarian, anti-statist, anti-work critique ends up in a call for insurrection against revolution, for whereas “the Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged.” (Stirner, 1995: p. 279) Is this not the original form of the contemporary insurrectionary critique of liberal/socialist activism? Does not the razor of insurrection cut through the crap of abstractions that litter the field of possibilities for the future, possibilities such as “participatory economics,” “socialism for the 21st century,”, “democracy-to-come,” “self-management”, “eco-socialism” etc.? Stirner sees no hope outside the negation of the present, the rendering of all things into nothing to me, the dissolution of the world as such. Only by patiently attending to each particular abstraction, and pulling at its roots, can something like a future be possible. For Stirner, all metaphysical roots lead back to the hyper-abstractions of God or State, Politics or Theology, or rather, to the original indistinction between the two. If anything remains separate from individuals, as Marx says, then alienation has not been overcome, and communism is still not achieved.
With the critical critics demolished, with the Left revealed as to its true function,what is left to be done? Marx’s project in the mid 1840’s is not to abandon Stirner’s intervention and return to the pre-Stirnerian critiques of young Hegelians, but rather to materially ground the cause of the abstractions that Stirner fights against. One by one, Marx is able to locate the material, social relations that give birth to dominant abstractions of the day. Stirner’s project is to trace modern liberal ideas to their dependence on God or State, and then to desecrate them completely, advocating for crime, the inhuman, and secession. Marx, on the other hand, situates Stirner’s critique of everything within the orbit of private property or what eventually becomes the concept of capital. God and State, Equality and Freedom are all generated historically by the material relations amongst humans in capitalist society. For Marx, these ideal abstractions come from the real abstraction of capital, the alienated form of human activity in the modern exchange society of commodity production which submits all content of human action to the form of labor directed towards value. Marx, in the German Ideology, paints Stirner as both a modern Don Quixote and a new Paul, a knight errant and a militant apostle against the old Gods, who however doesn’t necessarily confront the material relations upon which such Gods are maintained. Stirner’s unique individual, the Einzige, the ego who is able to fully develop their capacities, is only possible to Marx in fully developed communism, in which material relations are sutured to individual power, and not to the drive for valorization. Stirner’s egoism is Marx’s communism seen from the first person singular perspective. It is not the negation of the individual, but its realization. In response to Stirner in the German Ideology Marx writes (and notice the focus on individuals and individuality):
We have already shown above that the abolition of a state of affairs in which relations become independent of individuals, in which individuality is subservient to chance and the personal relations of individuals are subordinated to general class relations, etc. — that the abolition of this state of affairs is determined in the final analysis by the abolition of division of labour . . . Within communist society, the only society in which the genuine and free development of individuals ceases to be a mere phrase, this development is determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the necessary solidarity of the free development of all, and, finally, in the universal character of the activity of individuals on the basis of the existing productive forces. (Marx and Engels, 1975: 438, 439. Emphasis mine)
Marx also ties Stirner’s critique to the proletarian struggles that are already occurring in Western Europe. For Marx, criticism doesn’t need to represent such struggles, but rather only express their target in the fullest way possible. This target, which Stirner theoretically clears the ground for, is capital, and the proletarian insurrections of the 1840’s are all implicitly if not explicitly in line against it.
Is there a Marx of today, a critique which locates the insurrectionary response to the left in a global field of antagonism against the target of capital? I don’t think so, but I guess that’s why we’re here now. Perhaps this is the need, to connect proletarian revolt to their object in a manner which explains the dynamics of capital and self, property and its negation.
With that said, I will now begin a brief introduction to Stirner’s thought. First, through an analysis of the line in which he starts and ends his text, and second, with a discussion of his notion of ego, consumption and property.
Ich hab’ Mein Sach’ auf Nicht gestellt. All things are Nothing to Me. I have set my affair on nothing. I place my trust in Nothing. – That’s how it begins, and follows,
What is not supposed to be my concern! First and foremost, the good cause, then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!
…. and later….
I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything. (Stirner, 1995: p. 5)
We’ll come back to this.
Stirner steals his first line “All Things Are Nothing to Me” from the first line of an 1806 poem by Goethe called VANITAS! VANITATUM VANITAS! It goes like this:
My trust in nothing now is placed/All things are Nothing to me
So in the world true joy I taste,
Then he who would be a comrade of mine
Must rattle his glass, and in chorus combine,
Over these dregs of wine.
I placed my trust in gold and wealth,
But then I lost all joy and health,
Both here and there the money roll'd,
And when I had it here, behold,
From there had fled the gold!
I placed my trust in women next,
But there in truth was sorely vex'd,
The False another portion sought,
The True with tediousness were fraught,
The Best could not be bought.
My trust in travels then I placed,
And left my native land in haste.
But not a single thing seem'd good,
The beds were bad, and strange the food,
And I not understood.
I placed my trust in rank and fame,
Another put me straight to shame,
And as I had been prominent,
All scowl'd upon me as I went,
I found not one content.
I placed my trust in war and fight,
We gain'd full many a triumph bright,
Into the foeman's land we cross'd,
We put our friends to equal cost,
And there a leg I lost.
My trust is placed in nothing now, / All things are nothing to me
At my command the world must bow,
And as we've ended feast and strain,
The cup we'll to the bottom drain;
No dregs must there remain!
As in Stirner, we find the hopelessness of searching for meaning outside oneself. Consuming life in numerous activities – money, sex, fame, travels, war – we find that only their nothingness reveals my self, a self not composed of such qualities but revealed in the particular negation of them. For Stirner, Goethe reveals the subject of the present,the man without qualities who can only become unique in the ways in which such qualities are overcome. And is this not the definition of the proletariat? But let’s slowdown. Where does this title come from, VANITAS! VANITATUM VANITAS!?
Well, from Ecclesiates chapter 1 verse 2, which Jerome’s Latin renders as Vanitas vanitatum dixit Ecclesiastes vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas. A modern translation runs as Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher: vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Vanity here signifies a certain emptiness, meaningless, a transitory impermanence of all labor or activity under the sun, under God. The original Hebrew word for vanitas is Hevel, which means breath, or sometimes fog. Hevel is also the name of the first son in the Bible, Abel, the first worker, whose short life of labor is as meaningless as modern life under capital. However, in between the Hebrew and Latin, the Greek Septuagint translated Hevel as ma-tai-o-tais, “Devoid of truth, use-less” which comes from the verb mä-sä'-o-maī , which means “to chew, eat, devour.”
Now this is interesting, for Stirner’s main concept of action is consumption, by which he means the taking, seizing, and releasing of things from their sacred sphere to the sphere of free use and abuse. To consume is to use, and if the world is vanity, hevel, masomai, that is, empty, useless, already chewed up, then the task is not to refill it with new abstractions, but to consume it anew, to masticate it ourselves. The world as we know it is dead, consumed labor, it is nothing to me. But this nothing is not a general or empty nothing, it is the particular nothing of capital which confronts the particular nothing of I. Retreating into qualities, identities, properties is not the way out, but rather only through the making of the world into my property, into something that I use and does not use me, is Stirner’s communism possible.
In Capital, Marx describes the process by which the relations of persons assume the relations of things. Stirner’s “all things are nothing to me” both captures this process of reification and articulates the means beyond it as well, a means which follows the path of alienation to its overcoming. To annihilate the world is both the project of capital, which annihilates the content of human activity and replaces it with the form-determined imperatives of value, and the project of communism, which annuls the thinglike quality of the world, and allows the nothingness of unique individual relations to create, use,consume and dissolve each other in union.
In his Nietzsche and Philosophy (1969), Deleuze bestows high praise on Stirner for being the “dialectician who reveals nihilism as the truth of the dialectic.” (Deleuze, 1983: p. 161) By becoming the proprietor, the owner, the ego consumes the dialectic itself into its own being, dissolving all ideas and objects into itself before they can escape again. This dissolution occurs in the ego, as the ego, for the ego too must be pure nothing so that it won’t escape itself into something alienable. Deleuze writes: “The meaning of history and the dialectic together is not the realization of reason, freedom, or man as species, but nihilism, nothing but nihilism.” (Deleuze, 1983: p. 161) If the dialectic is the correlate structure of the systematic logic of capital (a structure Marx outlines repeatedly in the Grundrisse and Capital), then what Stirner reveals for Marx is the nothingness of capital, its own particular nihilism. (We could cite Walter Benjamin with a similar insight, but that would take us too far afield.)
The difficulty we are coming across is that the nothingness of the ego which Stirner describes as the condition of the unique can be seen from a Marxian perspective as either a description of the essence of capital or a description of the essence of the proletariat – the class which has no particular qualities, but only the generic form of labor-power. How is this possible? Well, is it not so different a structure than Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit or Marx’s Capital? In the Phenomenology, the movement of Spirit can be seen either from the perspective of Substance or of Subject, and the “we” of the text is nothing but the mutual constitution of the two. In Marx’s Capital, the structure of capitalism is seen from both the perspective of capital and labor, and capitalism is nothing but the mutually constitutive relation of the two. For Stirner, the movement is between the ego and its own, or better yet, the unique and its properties. Communism or Egoism is not the privileging of one side over the other, but the abolition of the separation between the two from within the negative potential of one. Subject negates and realizes substance, the unique negates and realizes property, the proletariat negates and realizes capital.
Back to the text. This nothingness is not be taken “in the sense of emptiness,” Stirner remarks in his opening, but rather in the sense of that from which and into which creation creates; in other words, presentation, appearance – labor. The name of this void from which our ‘subjectivity’ emerges is called Ego [Ich], or “I.” The ego is not the name of the identity of consciousness with itself in self-consciousness, but rather the name of an operation that traverses an abyss.
Stirner is struggling with conceptualizing the uniqueness of the nothing, its singularity. As the nothingness into which all else can be consumed and dissolved, the nothing stands apart in its nothingness. As Alain Badiou says of the void, it is different in its indifference. As Marx says of the proletariat, its unique secret is to be the universal negation of society, the “I am nothing but must be everything.”
Stirner writes: “When Fichte says, ‘the ego is all,’ this seems to harmonize perfectly with my thesis. But it is not that the ego is all, but the ego destroys all, and only the self-dissolving ego, the never-being ego, the— finite ego is really I. Fichte speaks of the ‘absolute’ ego, but I speak of me, the transitory ego.” (1995, p. 163) Stirner’s ego is always in activity, never a principle of justification or axiom of a system; it is not one, but rather only named as one by its uniqueness as such. By qualifying this account of the name ego/I, we come to a point at which we realize it’s purely functional character.
This is the fundamental ambiguity around which Stirner’s text revolves: what is the ego’s self-relation? In Marx’s terms, what is the proletariat’s relation to labor? At different points in the text, the ego posits itself, dissolves itself, consumes itself, creates itself, destroys itself, enjoys itself, swallows itself, empowers itself, reveals itself, uses itself, abuses itself, owns itself. What exactly is going on here? Is the ego really anything at all? Is it ‘acting’? Specifically, what does it mean to “consume oneself” and exist only in consuming, in which “consuming my presuppositions,” I am? It seems as though consumption means to continually recycle the creations or posit-ions of myself as myself. To recycle them, is to abuse their purpose, destroy their independence, dissolve their substantiality, and (re)use them for something again, anything at all. This is the perpetual cycle of consumption and creation, the logic of use and abuse which Stirner will call property [Eigentum].
“What then is my property?” Stirner asks at one point. Answering himself, he says, “nothing but what is in my power! To what property am I entitled? To every property to which I – empower myself . . . I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor’s power, full power, empowerment.”(1995, p. 227) Property is not itself the object which we own, although we speak of it that way. Property, more properly, is the quantity of power between the object or quality and myself. Property is mine insofar as power is mine.
Property is not a right, but an act of self-empowerment. It is always self-empowering because the power to appropriate is in me. I own my power as much as I own my property, but my power is a special property—it is the only one that is capable of making property itself. One can easily compare this with what Marx will call labor-power, that unique use-value whose use is in creating other use-values.
“Property,” Stirner writes, “is the expression for unlimited dominion over somewhat (thing, beast, man) which ‘I can judge and dispose of as seems good to me.’ According to Roman law, indeed. ‘jus utendi et abutendi re sua, quatenus juris ratio patitur’, an exclusive and unlimited right; but property is conditioned by might.” (1995, p. 223) Instead of seeing property as something constrained “within the law,” he takes property solely as a relation of power against the law.
Property is simultaneously occupation, expropriation, and reappropriation; it is an activity, a deployment of force, and not a material good. “My property is not a thing, since this has an existence independent of me; only my might is my own. Not this tree, but my might or control over it, is what is mine.” (1995, p. 245)
Stirner’s point is that this expropriation is not merely a tactic to respond to the contemporary capitalist mode of production; rather, expropriation is internal to the logic of property as such. Property is always being-expropriated, and so the goal should not be to give it up to some other body, some “democratically run” proprietor, but rather for all to be given the chance to expropriate for themselves.
Property is a relation, a certain manifestation of force that binds an object to an owner without it in turn determining the owner himself. Since property is not guaranteed by any authority, it is ultimately precarious, continuously at risk of escape. Property can be lost in two ways: it can either be taken by another (by one’s power) or it can lose itself by transforming into something fixed, independent, solid, or sacred. If I don’t keep guard over myself, what I consider mine can become other, it can become my owner.
Stirner: “I want only to be careful to secure my property to myself; and, in order to secure it, I continually take it back into myself, annihilate it in every movement toward independence and swallow it before it can fix itself and become a ‘fixed idea’ or a ‘mania’.” (1995, p. 128) If property becomes a mania, then it controls me, it determines me; it is not mine, but I am its. To test whether one has property or whether property has them is then the test of its abuse, violation, destruction. To destroy property is to reveal who is the true owner of it. When workers go on strike and destroy their own tools, when youth riot, burn their own neighborhoods and loot their own stores, when students occupy their own universities and render them inoperative, it is an assertion of ownership over the property in question, an assertion of power that validates the criteria of who and what rules. If the thing cannot be nothing to me, then it is not properly mine.
To make the world one’s property cannot occur without the dissolution of the bourgeois state and civil society: Stirner: “We two, the state and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this "human society," I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it; but to be able to utilize it completely, I transform it rather into my property and my creature; that is, I annihilate it, and form in its place the Union of Egos [Verein von Egoisten].” (1995, p. 161) Stirner’s communist union, or commune, is not guaranteed to last though, especially if its form of organization pre-determines its content. He goes on: “The dissolution of society is intercourse or union. . . [But] if a union has crystallized into a society, it has ceased to be a union [vereingun]; for a union is an incessant self-uniting; if it has become a unitedness, come to a standstill, degenerated into a fixity; it is —dead as union, it is the corpse of the union or the coalition, it is—society, community.” (1995, p. 271)
When society or community becomes the privileged form of the individual’s self-relation, then the task of the unique is to desecrate the community as much as possible. Yes, capital desecrates the world, wastes and squanders it. But the unique doesn’t retreat in the face of this, rather they outdesecrate, outwaste, and outown capital. The communist subject that is produced in such activity is not some Nietzschean ubermensch, but what Stirner calls an Unmensch, an un-man, one who’s being is indifferent to the formal structures which seek to capture it, classify it, identify it, work it.
To conclude, I’ll leave you with Stirner’s ethical problem: “the question runs not how one can acquire life, but how one can squander it, enjoy it; or, not how one is to produce the true self in himself, but how one is to dissolve himself, to live himself out.” (1995, p. 284) This is still our question today.
Bibliography
Deleuze, G. (1983) Nietzsche and Philosophy translated by Hugh Tomlinson. New York, NY: Columbia University Press
Engels, F. (1982) ‘Engels to Karl Marx, 19 November 1844’ in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected Works 38 New York: International Publishes, 9-14
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1975) “The German Ideology” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected Works 5 New York: International Publishes, 19-585
Stirner, M. (1995) The Ego and Its Own. edited by David Leopold. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press | 55,076,294 |
GPGG Summer 2013 Scavenger Hunt
The Graduate Students in Genetics and Genomics participated in a photo scavenger hunt where they were asked to perform a series of tasks from twenty clues, taking them all over Boston’s South End neighborhood.
Boston Ballet School, Boston Studio
Clue: At this school you can arabesque, brise and cabriole, down Boylston and right on to Clarendon stroll. (right) | 55,076,487 |
Black privilege: Crime is way higher than even high statistics show.
Whew: The numbers on black crime and black on white crime and black mob violence are just about as bad as you can imagine.
Black crime — especially violent crime — is 6, 8, 10, 30 even 50 times higher than white crime.
As crazy as that is, here’s something crazier: Black crime is even worse but the numbers are artificially deflated by a set of policies that can only be called black privilege.
And that is what this week’s podcast is about.
Subscribe! | 55,076,531 |
388 Pa. Superior Ct. 1 (1989)
564 A.2d 972
Steven LANCI
v.
METROPOLITAN INSURANCE CO., Appellant.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued June 20, 1989.
Filed September 28, 1989.
*2 Charles A. Harad, Philadelphia, for appellant.
Steven C. Forman, Philadelphia, for appellee.
Before McEWEN, POPOVICH and MELINSON, JJ.
MELINSON, Judge:
This is an appeal from an order denying Metropolitan Insurance Co.'s ["Metropolitan"] motion to compel enforcement of a settlement agreement. Metropolitan contends that the trial court erred in voiding a release provision in the agreement after finding that it was based on a mutual mistake.
Before addressing the merits of Metropolitan's claim, we must first determine whether this appeal is properly before the court. Upon initial review of this appeal, the court issued a rule to show cause why this appeal should not be quashed pursuant to National Recovery Systems v. Perlman, 367 Pa.Super. 546, 533 A.2d 152 (1987). In Perlman, a panel of this court, with Judge Olszewski dissenting, held that an order denying a motion to enforce an alleged settlement agreement was not appealable under the collateral *3 order doctrine enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). Under Cohen, an order is considered final and appealable if (1) it is separable from and collateral to the main cause of action; (2) the right involved is too important to be denied review; and (3) the question presented is such that if review is postponed until final judgment in the case, it will be irreparably lost. In Perlman, the court found that the order satisfied the first two elements of Cohen, but not the third because the appellant would be free to raise the issue of the validity of the settlement agreement on appeal from the judgment following trial.
In response to the rule to show cause, Metropolitan argues that this appeal is distinguishable from the appeal in Perlman. Metropolitan asserts, and we agree, that the third element of Cohen is met in the instant case. If this appeal were to be quashed, the case will proceed to an uninsured motorist arbitration hearing, rather than to trial as in Perlman. The Uniform Arbitration Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 7302(d)(2), sets forth the standard of review for arbitration awards, providing in pertinent part:
. . . a court in reviewing an arbitration award pursuant to this subchapter shall, notwithstanding any other provisions of this subchapter, modify or correct the award where the award is contrary to the law and is such that had it been a verdict of a jury the court would have entered a different judgment or judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
This standard limits appellate review to corrections of arbitration awards where it is determined that the award is the result of a mistake of law. Derry Township Municipal Authority v. Solomon and Davis, Inc., 372 Pa.Super. 213, 539 A.2d 405 (1988). A mistake of law is a mistake as to the legal consequences of an assumed state of facts. Acme Markets, Inc. v. Valley View Shopping Center, 342 Pa.Super. 567, 493 A.2d 736 (1985).
*4 Here, Metropolitan appeals from the trial court's factual determination that the settlement agreement was based upon a mutual mistake, and therefore, was not binding. Metropolitan does not contest the "legal consequences of an assumed state of facts," but rather, the facts as stated. Thus, Metropolitan is correct in its assertion that such an issue would not be subject to appellate review following an arbitration award. As a result, we find that the facts of this case are distinguishable from those in Perlman, and that the requirements of the collateral order doctrine of Cohen have been met. Having determined that this court has jurisdiction to hear this appeal, we turn to the merits of Metropolitan's claim.
The facts of this case are simple. Lanci was involved in an automobile accident with an uninsured motorist. Lanci and Metropolitan entered settlement negotiations and ultimately agreed to settle all claims for fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00). On or about October 17, 1986, Lanci signed a Release and Trust Agreement. Thereafter, he refused to accept the settlement proceeds asserting that Metropolitan had fraudulently or incorrectly represented that the policy limits were $15,000.00 rather than two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000.00), the correct amount. Thus, Lanci argued, the release and trust agreements were signed as the result of a misrepresentation or mutual mistake and were therefore a nullity. The trial court agreed, relying on correspondence from Lanci's attorney to Metropolitan dated October 12, 1986, which stated:
This will confirm and memorialize our telephone conversation of October 10, 1986 during which it was agreed that you on behalf of your principal shall tender the sum of $15,000.00 in settlement of this claim which sum you have represented to be the straight and/or stacked policy limits applicable to this claim.
The trial court held that this correspondence evidenced a mutual mistake concerning the policy limits of the insured and denied Metropolitan's motion to enforce the settlement agreement.
*5 Metropolitan argues that the record does not support the trial court's factual finding that there was a mutual mistake. Metropolitan relies on the deposition testimony of its claims adjuster, John Pellock, who refutes Lanci's assertion that the policy limits were discussed during settlement negotiations. Pellock testified that he did not discuss the limits with Lanci's attorney, nor did counsel for Lanci indicate that he was unaware of the policy limits, until after the settlement had been reached and the draft transmitted. He further testified that Lanci's attorney initiated the settlement negotiations with a demand for $15,000.00 and never asked for more.[1] We agree that this testimony, if credited, does not support a finding of mutual mistake. However, we can affirm the decision of the trial court on any basis even if the reasons given by the trial court are incorrect. Coatesville Dev. v. United Food Wkrs., 374 Pa.Super. 330, 542 A.2d 1380 (1988).
A release is binding on the parties thereto, unless executed under fraud, duress or mutual mistake. Iman v. Hausman, 354 Pa.Super. 458, 512 A.2d 41 (1986); Price v. Ross, 339 Pa.Super. 461, 489 A.2d 252 (1985). Whether relief should be granted to a party who is adversely affected by a mistake in a written contract depends upon the nature and effect of that mistake; the mistake must relate to the basis of the bargain, must materially affect the parties' performance, and must not be one as to which the injured party bears the risk before the party will be entitled to relief. Northwest Sav. Ass'n. v. Distler, 354 Pa.Super. 187, 511 A.2d 824 (1986). However, irrespective of actual fraud, if the other party knows or has reason to know of the unilateral mistake, and the mistake, as well as the actual intent of the parties is clearly shown, relief will be granted to the same extent as a mutual mistake. Hassler *6 v. Mummert, 242 Pa.Super. 536, 364 A.2d 402 (1976). See also, Com., Dept. of Educ. v. Miller, 78 Pa.Cmwlth. 1, 466 A.2d 791 (1983) (where a mistake made in contracting is not mutual, but unilateral, and is not due to the fault of the party not mistaken, but rather to the negligence of one who acted under the mistake, it affords no basis for relief unless the party not mistaken has good reason to know of the mistake).
The Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 153 provides that a contract is voidable due to unilateral mistake under certain circumstances.
Where a mistake of one party at the time a contract was made as to a basic assumption on which he made the contract has a material effect on the agreed exchange of performances that is adverse to him, the contract is voidable by him if he does not bear the risk of the mistake . . ., and
(a) the effect of the mistake is such that enforcement would be unconscionable, or
(b) the other party had reason to know of the mistake or his fault caused the mistake.
In the instant case, the record reveals that Lanci did not have a copy of his policy and that Metropolitan was advised of that fact in Lanci's Petition to Appoint Arbitrators and to Compel Arbitration Hearing.[2] Lanci's correspondence accepting the settlement offer clearly indicates his understanding that his policy limit is $15,000.00. We find, therefore, that Metropolitan knew, or should have known, that Lanci accepted the terms of this settlement offer under the mistaken belief that it was the limit of his coverage. Thus, Lanci is entitled to void the contract and the trial court did not err in denying Metropolitan's petition to enforce the settlement agreement.
Order affirmed.
NOTES
[1] The record indicates that counsel for Lanci did not appear at the deposition despite receiving notice. As a result, there was no cross-examination of Pellock, and no explanation for his failure to respond to Lanci's letter accepting the settlement offer and specifying Lanci's understanding that the limit of the policy was $15,000.00. It is also unclear whether Pellock was aware of the correct amount of the policy limits during negotiations.
[2] This petition was filed April 1, 1985.
| 55,076,556 |
Isoniazid-induced apoptosis in HepG2 cells: generation of oxidative stress and Bcl-2 down-regulation.
Isoniazid (INH) is a first-line antibiotic used in the treatment of infections caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However it has a serious limitation of being hepatotoxic. Delineating the mechanism underlying INH-induced hepatotoxicity may be beneficial in devising ways to counteract its toxic manifestations. Studies in human hepatoma HepG2 cells have indicated that INH exposure causes induction of apoptosis. This study was aimed at identifying the key components/pathways of the INH-induced apoptotic pathway using HepG2 cells. HepG2 cells were exposed to increasing concentrations of INH (6.5, 13, 26, and 52 mM). Hydrogen peroxide (0.3 mM) served as positive control. After incubating for specific time intervals cells were harvested and evidences of cytotoxicity, oxidative stress, and apoptosis were sought. The findings indicated that INH exposure causes increased ROS generation along with alteration in levels of enzymatic antioxidants such as Superoxide dismutase, Catalase, and Glucose-6-Phosphate dehydrogenase. Altered Bcl-2/Bax content, cytochrome-c translocation, caspase activation, and DNA fragmentation emphasized involvement of apoptosis. | 55,076,728 |
Hello, I am trying to get wire the LeddarOne to the Arduino Uno and I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Do you have a schematic showing how each of the pins on the LeddarOne are connected to the Arduino Uno? Also, is it necessary to preprogram, the laser? thanks for the help! | 55,076,803 |
/**
* cn - 基本用法
* -- Popover 放置在一个组件内部弹出
* en - Base
* -- The basic usage.
*/
import React from 'react'
import { Button, Popover } from 'shineout'
export default function() {
return (
<Button>
<Popover style={{ padding: '4px 8px' }}>Some text</Popover>
Hover
</Button>
)
}
| 55,076,868 |
Q:
WCF Data service, some question
I've two questions on WCF Data service:
-98% of my needs are covered by the WCF Data service, I only need one business methods, is it possible to mix a WCF Data service? Or should I create a second WCF service only for this method?
-Is it possible to host a WCF Data service into an application? I've a server, and I want that this service is accessible only when the server is launched
Thank you very much
A:
You can add service operations to your WCF Data Service: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc668788.aspx
They don't have the same power as true WCF Service operations, but they should fullfil most of your needs in this area (note that they can actually return OData feeds/entries for the client consumption).
You can definitely host WCF Data Service in your own application. The overall description is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc668805(VS.100).aspx, but there are bunch of samples around the web, just search for "host WCF Data Service".
| 55,077,000 |
Bill handling devices such as ATM (automated teller machine), CD (cash dispenser), or TCR (teller cash recycler), include a temporary housing unit that temporarily houses bills received. It is known that this type of temporary housing unit has a configuration such that a bill is housed by being wound around a drum together with a tape supplied from a reel. After a bill is received by the bill handling device, it is conveyed through a conveying section in the bill handling device, and the conveying direction is switched by a conveying-direction switching gate for the temporary housing unit so that it reaches the temporary housing unit.
The bill handling device includes an intermediate conveyance path for transferring bills from the conveying-direction switching gate to the temporary housing unit. As illustrated in FIG. 11, after a bill is received by the bill handling device, it is conveyed on a conveyance path 7a, its direction is switched toward a temporary housing unit 5 by a conveying-direction switching gate 10x, and it is housed in the temporary housing unit 5 from a delivering/discharging section 20 via an intermediate conveyance path 9.
As illustrated in FIG. 12, in the temporary housing unit 5, a bill 2 is sandwiched in a vertical direction between tapes 28, 29 that are supplied from reels 14, 15 and guided by pulleys 21 to 23 in the delivering/discharging section 20, and the bill 2 is housed by being wound around a drum 50, which is pivotally supported by the shaft in a rotatable manner, together with the tapes 28, 29. Furthermore, in the temporary housing unit 5, after the bill 2 has been wound around the drum 5D together with the tapes 28, 29, it is discharged from the delivering/discharging section 20 due to inverse rotation of the drum 5D.
Here, when the bill 2 keeps a flat state as illustrated in FIG. 13A while it is sandwiched between the tapes 28, 29 in the delivering/discharging section 20 of the temporary housing unit 5, it is smoothly housed in the temporary housing unit 5 from the conveyance path 7a through the delivering/discharging section 20 even if an intermediate conveyance path 9x has the shape illustrated in FIG. 14A, and then it is sandwiched between the tapes 28, 29 and is wound around the drum 5D.
However, when the bill 2 is in a state where both ends thereof are turned down as illustrated in FIG. 13B, the shape of the intermediate conveyance path 9x illustrated in FIG. 14A causes the turned-down ends to hit the tape 29 or the pulley 22 in front of the delivering/discharging section 20, which result in jams. Therefore, to prevent the occurrence of jams, the intermediate conveyance path 9x has the shape illustrated in FIG. 14B so that the attitude of the bill 2 with both ends turned down is corrected by being picked up and guided by the tilted part of the intermediate conveyance path 9x.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-107824
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2013-023384
Unfortunately, when an intermediate conveyance path is provided in the interval from the conveyance path and the conveying-direction switching gate to the temporary housing unit through the delivering/discharging section to prevent the occurrence of jams by correcting the attitude of a bill, there is a problem of spaces within the chassis of the bill handling device, such that the size of the chassis of the bill handling device is made larger for the space of the intermediate conveyance path, or the size of the temporary housing unit is made smaller to decrease the amount of bills housed (the amount of tape wound around the drum). | 55,077,424 |
Staying home is no option!
Month: November 2017
The venue – if you are getting married in the thick of the year’s marriage season, chances are that some of your guests would have been at your wedding venue recently. And unless you really do some drastic changes on the venue through your decorating skills (or use an A-grade venue decorator), your ceremony will not stand out to your guests. So be a little daring with your decorating in general. Alternatively, you could also host your event the destination style; where you’d cart the entire party over to an exotic venue.
The exclusiveness – unless you’re a celebrity, an exclusive wedding might not have crossed your mind. After all, weddings are generally BIG; and include almost your entire contact list. But having an exclusive event as such has many advantages. For example, if you plan on having a destination wedding, then you’ll have to think of wedding accommodation Geelong for sure. That could get expensive and nearly impossible with a big guest list.
The theme – if you don’t have the time to find a venue that will have the perfect bridal accommodation or if you really can’t cut down on your guest list, it’s perfectly alright. We understand that this is not for everyone. Instead, consider having a difference in your theme. Even choosing a different color from that which is “in style” will help you achieve this difference and make your big day standout for your guests.
The dress – let’s face it. One of the biggest attention grabber for any ceremony as such is the bride. The bride’s dress, in particular, will catch the audience’s attention. Like with the theme, you could go for a different and “out of the box” color for the dress to create a difference. If you want to do the traditional, sweeping white dress, consider having your bride’s maids and flower girls dressed in more daring designs and colors.
The food – apart from the dress and the actual “I do” moment, if there is one more part that most guests are looking forwards to, it’s the dinner and the dancing. Try to serve unusual things for your guests; perhaps from different cuisines that they wouldn’t normally try. You should, of course, keep the dietary requirements of your guests in min; so have a variety of food for them to choose from.
The music – whether it’s for the walk down the isle, or for the dancing after, having good music at a wedding is vital. To make a difference, choose a band that usually doesn’t do weddings. Opt for Acapella musicians to stir your audience’s interest, or cover singers who do unusual songs for this kind of occasions.
There are many ways in which you can plan to go on trips. It could be for many places and in different cities, there are different ways in which you can easily do so as it will help you figure out what is needed and how you can go with it. Planning is important when it comes to going on trips especially if you have a bunch of people that you are going with, this is needed because without it, you will tend to suffer with the idea that you don’t know how to do what in the place and what is needed with it to do so. There are many differences in which you need to understand that planning a trip can be a big exhaustion for the people who are trying to keep it close to everyone. As sometimes, people are not that cooperative and tend to become rather lazy in organizing these types of road trips as most of the relatives don’t tend to answer them back in accordance to what the reply for that is needed.
Sometimes, it becomes a bigger operative if at least fifty of your relatives are involved, especially if you are planning to go abroad and what the conveniences that you need to live there are. There are many things that you need when it comes to know about the conveniences, you need to pick a hotel and what is needed for you to do so. This also helps you become better in many ways, as it helps you become more scheduled and organized in what you may need. There are also different types of things that you need to look out to especially in terms of locations when planning a trip, especially a road trip. There could be many places that you can go to, it could be up north or down south with whatever is available for you to understand, there are many other things that you need to work with and the ways in which it is possible for you to do so. Locational choices are often important as they tend to deal with the fact that where you are heading and how it is that you need to go along with it. There are many differences in which this can be done especially if you are going with tons of your friends or relatives. Further below will be suggested some ways in which this is entirely possible to do so in brief in order to help you understand it in a more efficient way.
Transport services that need to reviewed.
Normally, a bus hire Wollongong is available for you to understand what is needed for you to come through the fact that you are traveling with a lot of people, but you also need to check on what type of vehicle is it and how will it be able to fit all the people that is coming along with you for the trip.
What are some other ways?
If the amount of people who are coming with you is just little and you don’t need to spend too much on the transport fares then you need to figure out the ways in which it is possible for you to do so, a mini bus charter can help you figure out to get you some easily transportation services for little people. | 55,077,471 |
Biomimetic processing of bioactive interface on silicon substrates.
To facilitate the implantation of silicon-based devices in vivo, the presence of a biocompatible and bioactive coating is noted to be an essential factor. The objective of this present work is therefore to explore a relatively simple and low cost process to induce the formation of bioactive apatite on silicon. The formation of apatite on silicon was carried out by a biomimetic approach on two orientations of silicon wafer, namely (100) and (111). The samples are functionalized by chemical etching, followed by incubation in a simulated body fluid. Scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were carried out. It was found that the growth of apatite is dependent on the orientation of the silicon wafer. Cell culturing experiment further verified the biological performance of the apatite-coated silicon samples. | 55,077,529 |
Material Detail
Brain Functional Areas3-Temporal Lobe
Video recorded by Dr Sanjoy Sanyal, Professor and Course Director of Neuroscience in Medical University of the Americas, in the presence of Neuroscience Med 3 students. It demonstrates, in graphic form, the important functional areas in the Parietal lobe of the brain, as required for USMLE Step 1. Camera (Sony Digicam) credit goes to Mark Lessard, IT Administrator of MUA. Special thanks to Neuroscience Med 3 students of Summer 2013 semester in MUA. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of...
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I created this from PowerPoint, presented it live in my Neuroscience Med 3 class students in Medical University of the Americas, Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis, while it was recorded live by the IT Administrator, Mark Lessard. It was well received by the students, who found it immensely helpful for their Exams.
I created this from PowerPoint, presented it live in my Neuroscience Med 3 class students in Medical University of the Americas, Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis, while it was recorded live by the IT Administrator, Mark Lessard. It was well received by the students, who found it immensely helpful for their Exams.
Used in course?Yes
Time spent reviewing site:1 hour
Full Description
Video recorded by Dr Sanjoy Sanyal, Professor and Course Director of Neuroscience in Medical University of the Americas, in the presence of Neuroscience Med 3 students. It demonstrates, in graphic form, the important functional areas in the Parietal lobe of the brain, as required for USMLE Step 1. Camera (Sony Digicam) credit goes to Mark Lessard, IT Administrator of MUA. Special thanks to Neuroscience Med 3 students of Summer 2013 semester in MUA.Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
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This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
2016 Budget - Articles Covering The Selling And What I Suspect Will Be A Powerful Slow Burn Of Horror.
Budget Night was May 12, 2015.
Since then the selling has been at full throttle and we have all gradually come to grips with what it means for all sorts of groups.
We have seen the childcare package come under all sorts of criticism re ‘double-dipping’ and the like, some continuing cuts to health and a pension package that seems to have many loosers.
Changes to super have been scrapped and sorting out the relationship between super and the pension system is also off the table apparently. Not credible I believe.
Pharmacy has a lot going on and continuing news seems to come from the sector.
The first Budget Back Down happened a few days ago. We have to wonder how many more will follow.
Health Minister Sussan Ley has conceded the government won't get a $1 billion budget saving on subsidised medicines through parliament.
The 2014 budget measure - which the government stood by in its second budget released a week ago - raises the safety net for general patients by 10 per cent above CPI each year over four years.
The changes, which were originally earmarked to start in January this year, would have meant general patients pay $5 more in subsidised PBS prescriptions and concessional patients would pay 80 cents more.
Senators are threatening to veto $7 billion in savings in the budget as the federal government admitted defeat on last year’s $1.3bn plan to charge patients more for subsidised medicines.
An exclusive survey of crossbench, Labor and Greens senators reveals three new budget measures are set to fail despite the government’s attempt to retreat from some of the harsh policies it advocated one year ago.
The $3.5bn childcare package, removal of “double-dipping” for paid parental leave and one-month wait for the dole for young people would not pass the upper house in their current form, according to The Australian’s analysis.
John Menadue
Australia's capacity to tackle important public issues – such as climate change, growing inequality, tax avoidance, budget repair, an ageing population, lifting our productivity and our treatment of asylum seekers – is diminishing because of the power of vested interests, with their lobbying power to influence governments in a quite disproportionate way.
Lobbying has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly in Canberra. It now represents a serious corruption of good governance and the development of sound public policy.
In referring to the so-called public debate on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut highlighted the "diabolical problem" that vested interests brought to bear. Ken Henry, a former secretary of Treasury, says he "can't remember a time in the last 25 years when the quality of public policy debate has been as bad as it is right now". He was followed as secretary of Treasury by Martin Parkinson, who has warned about "vested interests" who seek concessions from government at the expense of ordinary citizens. The former ACCC chairman, Graeme Samuel, has cautioned that "A new conga line of rent-seekers is lining up to take the place of those that have fallen out of favour". And in referring to opposition to company tax and carbon pollution reform policies, Fairfax columnist Ross Gittins says: "Industry lobby groups have become less inhibited in pressing private interests at the expense of the wider public interest. They are ferociously resistant to reform proposals."
Senior columnist at The Age
Budget 2015: The aftermath
The economy can't be run efficiently with one foot on the budgetary brake and the other foot on the monetary accelerator – not without serious damage to the growth engine.
The Reserve Bank's recent decision to lower the cash rate to 2 per cent was a signal to the government that it believes the contraction in the economy is serious, that joblessness and no real wages growth will be with us for much longer than expected, that the bank is doing its job to aid recovery and, by implication, that the federal budget should be expansionary to support aggregate demand – the prime engine of economic growth.
Tight monetary policy, by restricting the money supply and forcing up interest rates, can halt spending. Easy money can finance asset and property bubbles – as is arguably the case now. But where consumer and business confidence is low, expecting easy monetary policy to instigate spending is like pushing on a string: it doesn't work in the absence of spending initiated by the private sector or the government.
Last week’s budget attempted to show a path back to surplus. But it is a questionable path based on spending cuts from last year that have not yet passed, cuts to state funding that have yet to be agreed and projected taxation where revenue returns would need to be at the levels of the Howard years.
The dependence upon strong taxation growth from income and company tax however also throws into question the government’s taxation review. Having already ruled out a number of changes to the tax system, the reliance on revenue growth means any changes to income and company taxes will almost certainly destroy chances of a return to surplus.
When Joe Hockey released the “Better Tax” discussion paper the rhetoric at first was that very much that everything was up for discussion. For example, unlike the ALP’s tax review conducted by then treasury secretary, Ken Henry, this review would consider GST.
Reporter
The number of Australians expected to be worse off in retirement is set to boom, with some facing a 10 per cent cut to their overall income following the government's proposed pension changes.
That is the argument of Industry Super Australia, which estimated middle income Australians would be dealt the heaviest blow - losing more than $100,000 over their retirement period if changes to the asset test get the green light. The Federal government is looking to tighten pension qualification tests in a move that has drawn criticism from across the superannuation industry.
Analysis by Rice Warner, which was engaged by ISA, found that the number of new retirees affected by the proposed changes will more than double from one in three retirees today, to around seven in 10 by 2055.
Joe Hockey has ordered ministers to find alternative savings for budget measures that fail in the upper house after a surprise surrender on the government’s plan to add a $5 charge to subsidised medicines, amid signs the Senate will veto more reforms.
The Treasurer is insisting that the retreat on the medicine co-payment will not hurt the budget bottom line, setting a challenge for Health Minister Sussan Ley to find at least $1.3 billion in other savings within the health portfolio.
Patients are yet to be told where the alternative cuts will fall but appear likely to escape the increase in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme co-payment announced last year, which is being shelved in the face of objections from crossbench senators.
Doubts hang over at least $7bn in other savings unveiled in this year’s budget, including a childcare package that is conditional on the approval of cuts to paid parental leave and family tax benefits.
Nassim Khadem
EXCLUSIVE
By keeping most of the last year's budget cuts, and introducing new ones in the May budget, the Abbott government is stripping more than $15 billion over four years from families and lower-income Australians, new analysis by the Australian Council of Social Service shows.
The report, obtained by Fairfax Media, says most of the $800 million revenue increases projected over the next five years come from income tax bracket creep and projected economic growth.
The combined impact of the two budgets for low and middle income people was "devastating", ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said, with almost two thirds of the family payments cuts hitting low to middle-income households.
Private health insurance customers are switching providers at an unprecedented rate because of confusion about their coverage, putting $2 billion of revenue at risk each year, according to industry consultant Avnesh Ratnanesan.
Just under one million policyholders, or about 10 per cent, are switching providers in the $21 billion industry each year.
The main driver of that customer churn is confusion about the 48,000 different products being sold by funds, private health insurance executives told Dr Ratnanesan as part of a report to be released on Tuesday by his advisory outfit Energesse.
"Choice is not always a good thing for customers," head of customer experience at market leader Medibank Private, Harriet Wakelam, told the report.
Pharmacists could receive public funding to dress wounds, deliver vaccinations and give weight loss advice under a $19 billion deal between the Abbott government and the powerful Pharmacy Guild.
Under the five-year agreement, announced by Health Minister Sussan Ley on Monday, patients could pay $1 less per script from July under a change the government hopes will promote greater competition among pharmacists.
It will be up to pharmacists to decide whether to offer the $1 discount, and pharmacists that do offer the discount would have to absorb its cost.
Health Editor
A comprehensive health check for children aged three to five has been scrapped by the federal government to save about $144 million over four years, angering GPs and speech pathologists.
In last week's budget, the Abbott government axed Medicare funding for the "Healthy Kids Check", a consultation with a nurse or GP to assess a child's health and development before they start school. Funding for the program will stop in November.
The scheme, introduced by the Labor government in 2008, includes assessments of a child's height and weight, hearing, eye sight, oral health, toilet habits and known or suspected allergies to ensure parents understand the risk of anaphylaxis and how to prevent it.
Incentive schemes fail to woo GPs
More GPs pulled out of financial incentive schemes than the number who joined in a recent four-year period, apparently reflecting slim rewards for the time involved.
Writing in the current edition of the MJA, Professor Jane Hall of the University of Technology, Sydney, Business School, says the study confirmed previous findings that the proportion of income derived from incentive schemes and grants was not large.
Less than half of GPs (47%) reported earning any income from incentives in 2008, and three years later the proportion had slipped to 43%, according to data from a Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) sample.
“More in-depth analysis of changes across the four years of our study shows a more surprising trend – that there was a high rate of turnover among GPs who used these schemes, with some starting to use them, but a larger number ceasing to do so,” Prof Hall writes.
Federal budget 2015: side-effect means sickest patients are to pay more for drugs
Health and Indigenous Affairs Correspondent
Some of Australia's sickest people will pay more each year for their medicines due to a little-noticed change in last week's federal budget.
Health Minister Sussan Ley on Monday announced an agreement with the Pharmacy Guild which she said would deliver "cheaper, more affordable medicines for consumers", partly because pharmacies will have the option of cutting the patient contribution by $1 per script.
However, from January the government proposes to increase the amount patients have to pay each year before they qualify for free or more heavily discounted scripts under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net.
A $5 rise in co-payments for medicines will not go ahead after staunch Senate opposition forced the Federal Government to dump the proposal.
But it leaves Health Minister Sussan Ley scrambling to plug the $1.3 billion hole, a week after the Budget was handed down.
The co-payment increase was announced in last year's Budget, with the Government wanting to raise the price of a script by 80 cents to $6.90 for concession cardholders and $5 to $42.70 for everyone else.
As part of the change, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net thresholds were going to rise.
That would have meant patients had to spend more on medicines before they qualified for free or deeply discounted scripts.
Health and Indigenous Affairs Correspondent
Some of Australia's sickest people will pay more each year for their medicines due to a little-noticed change in last week's federal budget.
Health Minister Sussan Ley on Monday announced an agreement with the Pharmacy Guild which she said would deliver "cheaper, more affordable medicines for consumers", partly because pharmacies will have the option of cutting the patient contribution by $1 per script.
However, from January the government proposes to increase the amount patients have to pay each year before they qualify for free or more heavily discounted scripts under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net.
Taxpayer savings of $5 billion-$6bn across the drug supply chain appear likely after the government reached in-principle agreement with the Pharmacy Guild on major script dispensing reforms.
The next five-year Community Pharmacy Agreement — valued at $18.9bn, as foreshadowed by The Australian last week — will see the existing mark-up system replaced with a volume-based payment that provides more protection from the variability in prices brought by other reforms.
Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley has also persuaded the guild to not stand in the way of pharmacists being given the option of competing on price by absorbing $1 of the patient co-payment under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The guild remains opposed to the measure, however, which suggests it may have to be legislated rather than specified in the agreement.
Health and Indigenous Affairs Correspondent
Rules that restrict new pharmacies from opening near existing pharmacies will be extended for another five years despite numerous government-commissioned reviews recommending they be abolished.
Health Minister Sussan Ley announced on Monday that the rules would be extended until July 2020 as part of an $18.9 billion agreement with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, which will also allow pharmacists to discount the fee patients pay for prescription drugs by $1 a script from next month.
Ms Ley said the agreement would deliver "cheaper, more affordable medicines for
consumers".
CHEMISTS have a scored an average $117,000 per pharmacy per year pay rise — nearly twice the inflation rate — while every other area of health faces cuts in this year’s Federal Budget.
News Corp has calculated it will take a worker on average earnings six and a half years to pay enough tax to cover the pay increase to one pharmacy under Treasurer Joe Hockey’s new Budget fairness test.
Why waste time on a pharmacy review when the problem and the answer are simple? Alan Mitchell asks.
by Alan Mitchell
Tony Abbott is popular now because his budget was full of handouts. But his popularity may quickly fade when the public discovers that Australia is unprepared for the post-mining boom challenges.
Soaring iron ore and coal prices and the mining investment boom allowed Australians to ignore the economy's slowing productivity growth. But economists warned the mining boom would be temporary, and it was. Now the cost of Australia's extended bout of "reform fatigue" is starting to become apparent.
For economists the answer is crystal clear: growth-boosting economic reform of the kind that occurred under the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments.
-----
It is going to be very interesting to see what happens to the polls and consumer confidence over the next 2-3 months - especially if we see the Senate knocking more savings back! | 55,077,717 |
Effects of nitroglycerin and nifedipine on coronary and systemic hemodynamics during transient coronary artery occlusion.
Nitroglycerin (NTG) and nifedipine (NIF) have the potential to augment coronary blood flow in addition to reducing peripheral determinants of myocardial oxygen demand as a synergistic protective mechanism during ischemia. To examine these effects, systemic and coronary hemodynamic responses were measured continuously before and during brief periods of myocardial ischemia induced by left anterior descending coronary balloon occlusion in 26 patients undergoing angioplasty (PTCA). Data were compared for two matched occlusion periods, one control and one "drug" occlusion. In 17 patients (NTG group), 200 micrograms of intracoronary NTG was given immediately before coronary occlusion. In nine patients (NIF group), 10 mg of sublingual NIF was given 15 minutes before the "drug" occlusion. NTG significantly but transiently reduced mean arterial pressure (91 +/- 11 to 82 +/- 15 mm Hg, p less than 0.05) and augmented basal coronary blood flow (95 +/- 38 to 127 +/- 54 ml/min, p less than 0.05) but did not alter great vein blood flow (59 +/- 29 vs 61 +/- 29 ml/min) or coronary occlusion pressure (25 +/- 7 to 24 +/- 7 mm Hg) during ischemia. NIF significantly reduced systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure (119 +/- 21 to 95 +/- 8 mm Hg, p less than 0.001) and heart rate-pressure product from control. NIF maintained basal great vein blood flow (125 +/- 41 to 106 +/- 57 ml/min) during reduced myocardial oxygen demand, but did not affect great vein blood flow (73 +/- 29 to 79 +/- 37 ml/min) or coronary occlusion pressures during ischemia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) | 55,078,008 |
Sir,
At the current mortality levels, 1 in every 21 Nepalese children dies before reaching the age of one year, while 1 in every 16 children does not survive to the fifth birthday ([@B1]). Nepal has achieved a spectacular success in reducing child mortality in recent decades; however, much must be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG). Among different factors, the nutritional status of children plays a key role in determining mortality and morbidity of children.
Malnutrition is still a serious threat to child development and survival in Nepal. Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient deficiency (iodine, iron, and vitamin A deficiency) are the most common forms. Various programmes, such as control of iodine-deficiency disorders and control of vitamin A deficiency, have been undertaken to tackle the problem arisen from deficiency of micronutrients ([@B2]). Some programmes, such as the National Vitamin A Programme, have claimed to be successful public-health interventions in Nepal. Similarly, other micronutrient initiatives by different non-governmental organizations are underway. However, the Government of Nepal does not have any strong and effective programmes to tackle the pervasive problem of macronutrients, i.e. PEM.
Before 1980, most attention in developing countries was focused on PEM but the attention of the nutrition community and resources of donors were slowly attracted by the glamour of micronutrients, a largely technical, and often top-down, solution (close to a 'quick fix' magic bullet) ([@B3]).
The Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2006 showed that 49% of children aged less than five years were affected by stunting, 39% were underweight, and 13% were wasted ([@B1]). To make the matter worse, the situation of PEM is not evenly distributed across the country. Rural area, far and mid-western region, and poor and uneducated population are badly affected by PEM. When compared with the NDHS 2001, some improvements in the nutritional status of children has been observed in the last five years. The percentage of children stunted fell by 14 percentage points from 57% in 2001 to 49% in 2006. Underweight has declined only slightly (from 43% to 39%), and wasting has risen from 11% in 2001 to 13% in 2006. One of the indicators of MDG in Nepal is to reduce the prevalence of underweight children aged less than five years from 57% in 1990 by half to 29% in 2015 ([@B4]). However, the above results indicate that, achieving the MDG of a 50% reduction in the prevalence of underweight children aged less than five years by 2015 continues to be a challenge.
The current strategies of the Government of Nepal to control PEM include awareness-raising and nutrition education to the community, growth monitoring, behavioural change and communication, and nutritional rehabilitation. In other words, the response of the Government to tackle the problem is confined to a traditional approach of preventive and promotive care. The mere screening of growth of the children, educational action to change behaviours, and the suggestion of offering nutritious food to poor mothers/caretakers do not solve the problem of PEM. Food and nutrition education, in the presence of widespread food shortages, ends up in teaching people to eat what they cannot afford or do not have and, thus, has only limited potential. It reflects an attitude, such as 'keep them poor, but teach them' ([@B5]). The crux of the problem is poverty, food insecurity, skewed land distribution, etc. These are the social determinants of PEM. A mere behavioural and medical approach would only deal with the proximal cause but not with the distal and the causes of the causes of PEM. PEM is not a simple problem with a simple solution. It results from the complex interplay of social and biomedical factors. Hence, PEM is a social disease ([@B6]). A holistic and multi-pronged approach is needed with a strong socioeconomic policy reform by the Government. The policy of the Government should focus on addressing the underlying causes of malnutrition, with particular attention to the inequities in income distribution, the need for greater agricultural productivity, necessary improvement in the purchasing power of families, and on food conservation, processing, marketing and pricing mechanisms.
| 55,078,172 |
Empire actor Jussie Smollett will no longer co-star in the Broadway revival of the play Take Me Out amid lingering charges that the performer staged a hate crime against himself, according to a report.
Jussie Smollett delivered a reading of the 2003 Tony-winning play in New York City 12 hours prior to allegedly faking a racist and anti-gay attack in downtown Chicago. The Daily Mail reported Tuesday that the 36-year-old California native has since been “cut” from the play, citing the controversy surrounding the January 29th ordeal. “Everything was set to go and the producers were planning to announce that Jussie and Zachary Quinto were starring in the play last month,” a Broadway insider told the Mail, adding, “Everyone was so supportive after the attack and then suddenly, everything shifted.”
The British newspaper, citing a source with ties to Take Me Out, reports people involved with the upcoming production are in “shock” over the controversy surrounding Smollett. “Here is a kid who is on a hit television show, has made a name for himself, and gets the chance of a lifetime,” the unnamed source reportedly said. “He would have come off the sixth season of Empire and kicked off the next leg of his career with a role on Broadway. And not just that, the lead role in one of the best plays of the century in his Broadway debut.”
“Why on earth would someone throw that all away,” the source added.
Take Me Out, which won three Tony Awards in 2003, including Best Play and Best Director, is scheduled to open in April 2020. While Smollett will no longer appear in the play, Empire actress Taraji P. Henson has said Jussie will return to the Fox Entertainment program next season despite the ordeal.
Smollett, who is African-American and gay, maintains he told the truth in claiming that two masked men assaulted him, shouting slurs and wrapping a rope around his neck. He told police that his attackers also shouted, “This is MAGA country,” a reference to President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign slogan, before fleeing the area.
Last month, Cook County prosecutors dropped all 16 felony counts against the actor, stating that while the charges were provable, the case was not worth the resources that would be needed. The decision infuriated Chicago Police Department chief Eddie Johnson and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who refered it a “whitewash of justice”
Earlier April, Chicago filed a civil lawsuit against Smollett for refusing to repay roughly $130,000 that the Chicago Police Department spent on probing his purported attack. | 55,078,329 |
12-day ordeal ends for Alex Paul Menon as Maoists hand him over to their interlocutors
A 12-day hostage crisis, which tested the nerves of the BJP government in Chhattisgarh and brought counter-insurgency operations to a grinding halt, ended after Maoists released Sukma Collector Alex Paul Menon on Thursday evening.
The rebels handed him over to their interlocutors G. Haragopal and B.D. Sarma, who flew a government helicopter to Chintalnar and rode motorcycles deep inside Bastar forests.
A large media contingent, which stationed itself at Chintalnar and Sukma, was initially asked not to accompany the interlocutors but later invited to Tadmetla, where they surfaced along with Mr. Menon.
Anxiety, tension
Earlier in the day, anxiety peaked, though everyone was certain about the release of the Collector, as he was not freed in the afternoon. A helicopter was stationed at Chintalnar, the place where 76 CRPF jawans were butchered by Maoists two years ago, to fly the interlocutors and Mr. Menon to Sukma.
As the day advanced, tension built up but it was a strategic move on the part of the Maoists to ensure that the Collector came out of the rebel stronghold only in the evening which would facilitate the easy retreat of their cadres under cover of darkness. As the chopper could not fly at night, Mr. Menon went to Chintalnar and from there he was being driven to Sukma, about 45 km away, sources from Raipur explained.
The release of the 2006 batch IAS officer, who was abducted near Manjhipara village on April 21, was facilitated by discussions between Prof. Haragopal and Dr. Sharma, on one side, the government-nominated retired IAS officers Nirmala Buch and S.K. Mishra, on the other. All the four interlocutors discussed the rebel demands for three days and hammered out an agreement. Interestingly, the government did not immediately give into the demand for release of eight jailed Naxalites, though the security forces were confined to the barracks in Bastar.
As per the agreement, the government set up a high-power standing committee to ‘regularly review all cases of undertrials. These include Maoist-related cases too. “The prisoners are in distress in view of the long time taken in investigation/prosecution for various reasons and the great inconvenience caused to their near relatives/family members who come from long distances to meet them in jail,” the agreement said.
Bail moved
Meanwhile, a bail petition was moved in a Raipur court for the release of Maoist leaders Santipriya Reddy, wife of Gudsa Usendi, a member of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee; and Malati Chowdary. These two were among the eight whose release was demanded by the rebels in exchange for the abducted Collector.
Government sources refused to comment when they were asked whether the moving of a bail petition was part of the agreement. “Anyone can move a bail petition,” was their terse remark.
Panel begins work
In a related development, the high-power committee, headed by the former Chief Secretary Nirmala Buch, and consisting of Chief Secretary Sunil Kumar and DGP Anil Navaney, met in the Chhattisgarh capital, true to the promise that it would get down to work within an hour of the release of the Collector. | 55,078,360 |
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Alteration of 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 in skeletal muscle in a rat model of type 2 diabetes.
Recent investigations have demonstrated that activation of 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11beta-HSD1) in liver and adipose tissue is closely related to the pathogenesis of obesity and diabetes. However, the relationship between alteration of 11beta-HSD1 and the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes in skeletal muscle is still unclear. A rat model of Type 2 diabetes was developed by high fat diet feeding combined with multiple low dose streptozotocin injection (30 mg/kg, i.p. twice). Intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test, insulin tolerance test were performed. Fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin, total cholesterol, triglyceride were measured. The protein and mRNA level of 11beta-HSD1 and glucocorticoid receptor in gastrocnemius muscle were determined. The alteration of insulin signaling pathway related protein was investigated. We found that the protein levels of 11beta-HSD1 and glucocorticoid receptor were significantly increased (P < 0.05); the mRNA level of 11beta-HSD1 was also elevated (P < 0.05); the mRNA level of glucocorticoid receptor was decreased (P < 0.05). After insulin stimulation, diabetic rats had no significant changes in the level of the insulin receptor beta-subunit (IR-beta), AKT, as in phosphorylated AKT in the gastrocnemius muscle compared to its basal state. Similar results were observed in the protein expression level of glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4). Our data indicate that the alteration of 11beta-HSD1 at protein and mRNA level may be related to the abnormality of insulin signal pathway in skeletal muscle, this effect may be mediated by glucocorticoid receptor. | 55,078,483 |
While the level of investment required is a major “barrier” to overhauling our transport structure, Prof Caulfield said that a low carbon transport model will have “significant wider economic benefits”.
CEO of the National Transport Authority, Anne Graham, also told the Assembly that we need a complete transformation of our transport sector “notwithstanding the context of a recovering economy”.
Ms Graham said that a “significant step-change in attitudes and behaviours” from both policy makers and the public are vital in the transition to a climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable transport sector.
She added that public transport, walking and cycling needs to be at the “forefront of our thinking as part of the solution to tackle our reliance on fossil fuels” and bring down emissions.
Dublin Bikes Photo: ptrabattoni
Ms Graham said that key to this is the use of the Avoid-Shift-Improve model. This includes the reduction or avoidance of travel, a shift to more environmentally friendly modes of transport and an improvement in the energy efficiency of our vehicles greater investment.
She said that over €350m is being invested in public and sustainable transport in 2017, with additional funding for the operation of rural services. An additional €750m will be made available to fund the BusConnect programme to transform bus services in cities across the country.
“Collectively, these measures will greatly enhance the capacity of the public transport system and will provide viable alternatives to private car use,” Ms Graham said.
She added, however, that before investing in new infrastructure, the State has to maintain our current national and regional road networks which will cost in excess of €1 billion.
Environmental Journalist, John Gibbons told The Green News that he would instead prefer to hear more about actions to reduce transport emissions in the short-term as opposed to maintaining the road transport network.
“Rather than reducing, these emissions are currently rising sharply, and only radical top-down policies can impact that,” he added.
Joseph Curtin IIEA Citizens Assembly Photo: Niall Sargent
First weekend Comments
During its first sitting on climate change, the Assembly heard from policy, climate and weather forecasting experts on the current and potential impacts of climate change.
The analysis was clear that Ireland is failing to implement lasting policy change, will miss its binding 2020 emissions reduction targets, and is in line to experience more extreme weather events by mid-century.
Joseph Curtin of the Institute of International and European Affairs told the Assembly that the Irish State has “not stepped up to the plate” at any point over the past 15 years to put robust policy in place to deal with climate change.
EPA Director Laura Burke echoed Mr Curtin’s findings, telling the Assembly that Ireland’s emissions are “going in the wrong direction”, while Met Éireann’s Dr Saji Varghese said that Ireland must brace itself for significant changes in its weather system by 2050.
Afternoon Sessions and Recommendations
Later this afternoon, the Assembly will hear from international experts on how their countries have acted to tackle climate change and expects on agricultural emissions.
Tomorrow, the Assembly members will discuss and vote on recommendations for Government. The Government must then provide a response to each recommendation.
If the Government accepts a recommendation, it will provide a time frame for the holding of any related referendum.
About the Author
Niall Sargent
Niall is the Editor of The Green News. He is a multimedia journalist, with an MA in Investigative Journalism from City University, London | 55,078,543 |
Ask a Question
Is it OK to convert a fused HVL/cc to unfused with dummy fuse links?<br />Question was from Ken Beard in Canada also.
Yes is OK to convert from fused HVL/cc to Unfused.Be sure that the available fault current is 25kA Symmetrical or below. This is the unfused rating of the switch.The fuse panel is interlocked with the switch so that the dummy fuse links not accessible with the switch closed. | 55,078,748 |
The Bitcoin Cash Flippening - 0-o
http://www.bchflippening.com/
======
Meekro
Here's the super-summarized story for those who are out of the loop: the
Bitcoin community has been fighting for years over what they call the "block
size increase." From its original design, Bitcoin has capped each block to
1MB, which effectively caps the transactions per second to 4 or so. Raising
this limit would allow more transactions per second onto the network, but with
the downside of making nodes in the Bitcoin network more costly to operate.
The majority of current Bitcoin developers do not want to raise this cap.
However, a large group of users and several of the earliest developers
(including Gavin Andresen, the guy hand-picked by Satoshi Nakamoto) do want to
raise it. There is evidence that Satoshi himself thought that the cap should
someday be raised.
There was recently a compromise struck among the largest bitcoin exchanges and
mining pools. It was called the Silbert Agreement, or New York Agreement, or
Segwit2x. The agreement was to deploy a feature upgrade that the current
developers had been pushing (called Segwit) alongside a block size increase
from 1MB to 2MB. It broke a stalemate in which the big blockers had been
preventing Segwit from going live, and the Segwit supporters had been refusing
to increase the block size.
The deal was that Segwit would go live immediately, and several months later,
the block size increase would go live. Segwit did go live as agreed, but then
its proponents refused to honor the rest of the agreement (since they already
got what they wanted).
That was a few days ago, and now we're seeing the backlash: lots of users and
capital fleeing to "Bitcoin Cash," a separate branch that recently forked off
from the traditional Bitcoin. Proponents (including Gavin Andresen) consider
this new branch to be the true Bitcoin, because it's willing to scale with
user demand as Satoshi Nakamoto intended. Opponents consider it to be an
altcoin that's fraudulently calling itself Bitcoin, since its block size
increase is a departure from the original spec.
~~~
econner
Thanks for the overview. Very helpful to someone w/ no previous knowledge.
Why did the majority of developers not want to raise the block size? / How
exactly does it make nodes much more expensive to operate?
~~~
Meekro
Each node in Bitcoin's P2P network has to store a copy of every transaction
since the beginning of time. This currently takes 140GB of disk space and is
growing by 5GB per month. If more transactions are allowed to go through,
it'll grow even faster. If it grows to extremely large numbers, only those who
can afford the huge disk arrays will be able to run a node.
The fear is that eventually, only major companies and universities will be
running Bitcoin nodes. This could make it easier for governments to threaten
all involved parties into changing or dismantling the system.
However, those who want to raise the block size say that government agents
threatening Bitcoin node operators is not a realistic fear. Whereas, if
transactions can't go through because the network refuses to scale, then
businesses will abort their plans to accept Bitcoin. To big blockers, such a
scaling failure is much more likely to kill Bitcoin than government agents in
dark suits.
~~~
ajmurmann
Trying to work around the problem of all part transactions having to be
present on a node by limiting the number of transactions that can happen
honestly sounds like a silly joke. The entire point of any currency is easy,
cheap and fast transactions.
~~~
Anderkent
> The entire point of any currency is easy, cheap and fast transactions.
All of those are relative, and part of tradeoffs with other values. If you
think those are the only important properties of a currency, you're missing
the entire motivation behind crypto currencies.
~~~
ajmurmann
For a long time one of the big promises of Bitcoin was that you can easily,
cheaply and quickly transfer them even to people in other countries. I assume
the benefits you are referring to are political? Like lack of central per
controlling it? If so, I don't think that will run over every day Joe.
------
Anderkent
What does that mean? What's the 46% supposed to represent
~~~
mrb
[https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7ccohu/comment/dpp0sq6](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/7ccohu/comment/dpp0sq6)
« _The percentage represents how close BCH is to reaching half of the combined
market cap of BTC and BCH._ »
$30B / ($130B/2) = 46%
------
sillysaurus3
57 days ago, I said that it would be a good time to buy Bitcoin. If you'd
listened to me, you could have made some serious cash since then.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15259134)
Back then, the price dropped to around $3k. One of the questions was "What
makes now a good time to buy?" And the answer was simply "Bitcoin has been
crashing."
The counterintuitive thing is, if you want to get into bitcoin, you need to
wait for a crash and _then_ buy.
Bitcoin is crashing. Again, it's a good time to buy.
~~~
laichzeit0
Right now is as stupid time to consider getting rich off Bitcoin. Even if the
price doubles or triples, you'll only make 100 or 200%. That might seem like a
really good investment. Maybe if you put down $100,000. Otherwise, it doesn't
mean much. The risk is too high.
Back when it was $10 or $40, it was a great speculation. The ship has long
since sailed.
~~~
icelancer
>>Back when it was $10 or $40, it was a great speculation. The ship has long
since sailed.
Has it? Many learned people believe BTC's ceiling is in the five digits. And
back when it was $10-40, no one would believe you that it would go to
$6000-8000.
The only thing we know about BTC and cryptocurrency in general is that we're
looking at serious variance, regardless.
------
econner
Why was this flagged?
~~~
0-o
Probably because of ideology. A lot of bitcoiners don't want to see the flip
happen.
~~~
pmorici
Funny thing is if you have been holding Bitcoin since at least Aug. None of
this affects you because you got an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash and the
combined value of Bitcoin Core + Bitcoin Cash has hardly budged from all time
highs.
Some people said their Bitcoin Cash was "free money" and sold it instead of
seeing it for what it was, a hedge against developer hubris. Those folks that
sold aren't in a good place right now.
------
carvalho
Edit: ...
~~~
pmorici
Pretty simple really the community has been clamoring for a block size
increase for years now and the devs have been actively fighting it. They
managed to create enough division in the community to scuttle the last
compromise (Segwit2x) and now people are rotating en-mass to Bitcoin Cash
which has the larger blocks they want and doesn't have the divisive
developers.
Very little surprising about this at all except for maybe the speed with which
it is happening.
~~~
icelancer
>>now people are rotating en-mass to Bitcoin Cash which has the larger blocks
they want and doesn't have the divisive developers.
This isn't entirely objective. BCH has 25% of its market cap trading today in
volume. There's something weird going on. As for the developers, BCH has very
little Github activity while Core is being actively worked on and improved.
I don't have a horse in this fight as I am into other cryptocurrencies but
your statement is not very fair.
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Registration opens Saturday, July 27, 2019 at 9:00am.
The Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) Nova Scotia program hosts yearly workshops aimed at women 18 years and older to learn outdoor skills - usually associated with hunting and fishing and other outdoor activities. All classes are introductory, for people who have little or no experience. All class equipment is provided, unless indicated otherwise in class description.
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