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Slide 2 Slide 1 A Little Change Makes a Big Difference Our Mission is to alleviate animal suffering caused by neglect, cruelty and ignorance and to promote the humane treatment of companion animals through prevention, intervention, placement, education and example. Homepage We are a 501(c)3 non profit animal foster/rescue organization located in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Founded in 2001, Precious Paws is dedicated to educating the public about proper pet care, preventing cruelty to animals, managing feral cat populations, offering low cost spay neuter services, and placing adoptable animals in forever homes. Our pet selection changes frequently and we maintain a list of available dogs from owners looking to rehome their pets as well as network with other rescues. Together, we can help you find the right pet for your family. Please do not purchase pets from a pet store or a breeder without first taking a moment to do some research (backyard breeders can be just as bad as puppy mills). We always need foster homes and volunteers for a variety of activities: grant writing, feral cat trapping, adoption counseling, post adoption follow-up, etc. Latest News See Whats going On at PPAR PetFest 2018 Bridge Builders Community Foundations Week of Giving 2018 To All of Our Amazing Supporters: You understand the important work we do at Precious Paws Animal Rescue, through our low cost Spay Neuter Your Pet (SNYP) program, the Oscar Fund and our adoption programs. And because you have a relationship with our organization and have been a supporter, we need your influence to help us reach an important goal. On March 19th-23rd we will be participating in the Week of Giving, which is a collective philanthropy effort across the rural areas of Clarion, Forest, Punxsutawney and Venango counties. Please follow along with us as we raise awareness for this important initiative, and raise awareness for our mission and needs. We have a goal of raising $5,000 during this week. We need your help to get us there. Here’s what you can do: 1. Follow our social media pages on Facebook and Twitter. Comment on our posts and share our posts on your social channels. 2. Use your influence in person, via email or social media to encourage your network to consider a donation to our organization during this week. Let them know that you support us and why. 3. Make a donation to our organization during the Week of Giving on March 19-23 at www.bbcfgives.org. Your donation will be prorated through Bridge Builders Community Foundations match fund. If we are successful in meeting our goal we might also win additional cash and prize packages beneficial to our mission for the most individual donations and the largest grand total raised. Shoes Upcoming Events Check out our upcoming Events You understand the important work we do at Precious Paws Animal Rescue, through our low cost Spay Neuter Your Pet (SNYP) program, the Oscar Fund and our adoption programs. And because you have a relationship with our organization and have been a supporter, we need your influence to help us reach an important goal. On March 19th-23rd we will be participating in the Week of Giving, which is a collective philanthropy effort across the rural areas of Clarion, Forest, Punxsutawney and Venango counties. Please follow along with us as we raise awareness for this important initiative, and raise awareness for our mission and needs. We have a goal of raising $5,000 during this week. We need your help to get us there. Here’s what you can do: 1. Follow our social media pages on Facebook and Twitter. Comment on our posts and share our posts on your social channels. 2. Use your influence in person, via email or social media to encourage your network to consider a donation to our organization during this week. Let them know that you support us and why. 3. Make a donation to our organization during the Week of Giving on March 19-23 at www.bbcfgives.org. Your donation will be prorated through Bridge Builders Community Foundations match fund. If we are successful in meeting our goal we might also win additional cash and prize packages beneficial to our mission for the most individual donations and the largest grand total raised.

--- abstract: 'We report on a simple and robust technique to generate a dispersive signal which serves as an error signal to electronically stabilize a monomode cw laser emitting around an atomic resonance. We explore nonlinear effects in the laser beam propagation through a resonant vapor by way of spatial filtering. The performance of this technique is validated by locking semiconductor lasers to the cesium and rubidium $D_2$ line and observing long-term reduction of the emission frequency drifts, making the laser well adapted for many atomic physics applications.' author: - 'Fabiano Queiroga, Weliton Soares Martins, Valdeci Mestre, Itamar Vidal, Thierry Passerat de Silans, Marcos Oriá, and Martine Chevrollier' title: | Laser stabilization to an atomic transition\ using an optically generated dispersive lineshape --- Introduction ============ The use of lasers in atomic physics often demands long term stability of the central frequency of the light emission. For metrological applications the stabilization technique [@Hall1999; @Salomon1988] should be very carefully chosen and applied, frequently controlling the laser linewidth and avoiding to introduce any artificial shift in the laser emission frequency. Moreover, locking to the center of an atomic or molecular transition usually requires modulation techniques and lock-in detection. On the other hand, for many scientific and technical applications one only needs to avoid frequency drifts and, sometimes, the desired laser frequency does not lay at the maximum of an atomic lineshape, but rather at a displaced frequency, as for instance, when operating an optical cooler [@Lett1989]. For such applications a few simple and reliable techniques were developed [@Cheron1994; @Corwin1998; @Pearman2002; @Debs2008; @Robins2002; @Gazazyan2007; @Martins2010] and allow on e to deal with lasers in various long run experiments. The main idea behind many of these techniques is to generate a dispersive lineshape that will produce an error signal. In particular, for the dichroic atomic vapor laser lock (DAVLL) [@Cheron1994] and its variants [@Corwin1998; @Martins2010], the stabilization frequency may easily be chosen around the center of the Doppler-broadened line. However, a relatively uniform external magnetic field is needed to generate the Zeeman split of the probed hyperfine transition and a double detection with well balanced photodetectors is also necessary.\ In this work we report on a simple method to generate a dispersive signal in a very direct way, and therefore of easy implementation. Our technique explores the dispersive signal obtained when a Gaussian-profile light beam is sent through an atomic vapor cell and is detected after spatial filtering by an aperture (Fig. \[setup\]). We call this method ANGELLS, an acronym for Atomic Non-linearly GEnerated Laser Locking Signal.\ ![(Color online) (a) Experimental setup. Part of the laser beam is used to generate a dispersive like curve that is fed to an electronic circuit used to control the laser frequency. DL, Diode laser. OI, Optical isolator. BS, Beam splitter. (b) Detail of the beam configuration for ANGELLS[]{data-label="setup"}](Figure1.eps){width="7.5cm"} Origin of the dispersive lineshape ================================== The third order susceptibility term of an induced atomic vapor polarization by a laser beam results on a non-linear refractive index term, proportional to the laser intensity. The total refractive index of the vapor can thus be written as $n(I)=n_0+n_2I$ and the radial intensity gradient of a Gaussian-profile beam will induce a radial refractive index gradient in the medium. This index gradient will in turn act as a lens for the gaussian beam, which will therefore suffer (self)-focusing or (self)-defocusing, depending on the sign of the nonlinear refractive index [@selffocus]. The nonlinear index changes sign across a sharp resonance of the nonlinear medium. If on one side of the resonance frequency the index increment is positive (maximum on the beam axis), the medium behaves as a converging lens and the power of a initially collimated beam transmitted through an aperture will increase (peak of the dispersive lineshape). On the other side of the resonance frequency the laser-induced increment is negative (minimum on the axis), the medium behaves as a divergent lens and the transmission through an aperture yields a correspondingly diminished signal (valley of the dispersive lineshape). In other words, the nonlinear medium acts as a lens which focal length depends on the laser frequency. For a hot atomic vapor, for instance, the non-linear refractive index can be written as [@n2]: $$n_2\propto\delta e^{-\delta^2/\delta_D^2},$$ where $\delta_D=\frac{k}{2\pi}\sqrt{2k_BT/M}$ is the Doppler width, $T$ is the vapor temperature, $k_B$ is the Boltzmann constant, $k$ is the light wavenumber, $M$ is the atomic mass and $\delta$ is the laser frequency detuning relative to the atomic transition. For red detuning frequencies ($\delta<0$), $n_2$ is negative while for blue detuning ($\delta>0$), $n_2$ is positive. The power transmitted through the aperture is thus modulated when the frequency is scanned around [*an atomic transition*]{}, resulting in a dispersive-like lineshape with [*Doppler width*]{}.\ Experiment ========== In our technique, the nonlinear medium is a resonant atomic vapor, placed in the laser beam path past a converging lens to enhance nonlinear effects with higher light intensity radial gradients. Our experimental setup is sketched in Fig. \[setup\]. A 852 nm cw tunable semiconductor laser beam is splitted by a 90/10 beam splitter. The lower-intensity beam ($\sim50 \mu W$), of approximately Gaussian spatial profile (no spatial filter needed) and of slightly saturating intensity, is focused by a 150 mm-focal-length lens. A warm (40 to $\approx$ 60$^\circ$C, corresponding to densities of $2\times10^{11} at/cm^3$ - $10^{12} at/cm^3$) atomic cesium vapor [@cesium] contained in a 1-mm-long optical cell [@cell] is placed close ($\approx$ 20 mm) to the focus of the laser beam. We detect the transmission of the laser beam through an aperture adjusted so as to capture $\sim20\%$ of the beam power (typically 2-mm aperture for a beam of diameter 6 mm). When the frequency is scanned around the Cs $6 S_{1/2}, F=4 \longrightarrow 6 P_{3/2},F'=3,4,5$ Doppler transition, the nonlinear refraction turns from self-focusing to self-defocusing. This gives rise to a dispersive-like lineshape superimposed to a non-zero offset corresponding to the out-of-resonance aperture transmission (no vapor-induced modifications). Very small structures on these spectra are attributed to non-linear effects due to the beam reflection on the cell windows. The comparable dimensions of the beam diameter and the cell thickness makes the prevention of this high-order interaction difficult. However, this does not pose any additional problem to lock the laser at any position in the broad range inside the Doppler width.\ The error signal is the subtraction of a reference voltage (corresponding to a frequency within the Doppler line) from the photodetector amplifier voltage. Such an error signal is amplified and sent to the control of the laser frequency to correct for laser frequency drifts. In semiconductor lasers, the frequency is changed mostly through the injection current, the junction temperature or, in the case of extended cavity configuration, the external diffraction grating angle. We worked with a DFB laser diode resonant with the Cs D$_2$ line and a Fabry-Pérot semiconductor laser with extended cavity, emitting around the Rb D$_2$ line. The electronic correction signal is fed back in the junction current in the DFB or in the piezoelectric actuator in the extended-cavity laser [@DF]. For the sake of simplicity, we have operated both systems with a home-made electronic circuit having only proportional and integral gains.\ ![Schematics of the circuit to choose and lock the laser to an atomic frequency.[]{data-label="circuit"}](Figure2.eps){width="7.5cm"} A scheme of the locking circuit is shown in Figure \[circuit\]. A voltage ramp generator allows one to scan the laser frequency (through current or cavity PZT modulation) around the atomic resonance. We choose a locking frequency with the help of a reference saturated absorption (SA) spectrum carried out in an extra vapor cell and exhibiting characteristic sub-Doppler features (see Fig. \[locked\]a). We use the SA signal obtained in this additional cell as frequency reference (Fig. \[locked\]a) as well as to monitor the locking performance (Fig. \[locked\]c). The locking procedure follows some basic steps: the ramp is turned off and the offset finely tuned until the laser frequency is at the desired locking point [**($\omega_L$)**]{}, marked by dots in Figs. \[locked\]a and \[locked\]b. The error signal is then brought to zero by adjusting the reference voltage (Fig. \[locked\]b) and a switch closes the loop, ultimately locking the laser at the desired frequency (Fig. \[locked\]c). Modifying the reference voltage allows one to lock the laser at any point within the Doppler width and thus to explore the different hyperfine transitions shown in the SA spectrum. Notice that the reference voltage brings the error signal around zero and so compensates for the non-resonant background signal.\ ![(Color online) (a) Cs saturated absorption (SA) spectrum from an extra reference cell (not shown in Fig. \[setup\]), (b) dispersion curve for the error signal as a function of frequency detuning relative to the atomic resonance, and (c) the ANGELLS-frequency-locked as well as an unlocked SA signal. The chosen frequency of stabilization ($\omega_L$) is marked by a red dot in spectra (a) and (b)[]{data-label="locked"}](Figure3.eps){width="8.0cm"} Results ======= Figure \[locked\]c exhibits the SA signal with the laser locked at the selected frequency, over a period of a few minutes, as well as the SA signal for an unlocked laser. The system remains locked for hours even after we have strongly and repeatedly hit our home-made optical table. The short-term rms frequency width is the same for the locked and the unlocked laser, i.e. of the order of 2 MHz or less, as measured using the saturated absorption line flank as a frequency discriminator. The long-term frequency fluctuations of the locked laser remains limited to less than 2 MHz rms, while the frequency of the laser unlocked for a few minutes fluctuates in excess of 20 MHz.\ ![(Color online) Error signal as a function of frequency detuning relative to atomic resonance (a) for different temperatures of the atomic vapor and (b) when the cell (Cs vapor) is placed a few millimeters before ($z<0$, dashed line) and after ($z>0$, solid line) the beam minimum waist.[]{data-label="dispersion"}](Figure4.eps){width="8.0cm"} We checked the stabilization sensitivity to vapor density and cell alignment along the beam. Although the vapor temperature has been varied between 45 and 63 $^\circ$C, the lineshape of the generated signal is stable against temperature changes as shown in Fig. \[dispersion\]a. The Doppler-profile center position changes very little ($\approx 2$MHz/$^\circ$C) over this 20 $^\circ$C temperature variation. Each lineshape in Fig. \[dispersion\]a has been recorded at a given temperature (values indicated in the figure frame), fluctuating less than 1 $^\circ$C from its reference value. Thus, the laser frequency locking, particularly at the Doppler center, is not affected by small temperatures fluctuations of the vapor which lead to frequency drifts of the order of magnitude or less than the rms frequency width, as evidenced in Fig.\[locked\]c. Even to lock the laser at frequencies other than at the line center, we have only monitored the cell temperatur e, without active control. More noticeable modifications appear on the profile wings, that do not play a role in the stabilization process inside the Doppler width. Similarly, the error signal remains approximately unchanged over $\approx$ 2-mm displacements along the beam, around the optimal position of the cell ($\approx$ 20 mm on either side from focal point). Another characteristic of using the ANGELLS technique is the possibility of choosing the sign of the error signal slope by purely optical means, as shown in Figure \[dispersion\]b. The dispersive curve gets inverted when the vapor is displaced *across the focal position* (see Fig.\[setup\]). We also emphasize here the fact that semiconductor lasers are well known to exhibit very stable amplitude [@AmpNoise], allowing us to disregard amplitude noise in the detected signal. For lasers with higher intensity fluctuations a second photodetector may be used to ’normalize’ the frequency error signal.\ Conclusion ========== In summary, we have presented an opto-electronic stabilization method based on the direct generation of an optical dispersive-like signal. The ANGELLS technique has proved to be an easy and robust locking method against diode laser frequency drifts. For similar performance, the set-up is simpler than traditional locking techniques, not requiring magnetic fields or beam modulation. The set-up is flexible: different combinations of laser power, beam diameter, focalization, cell length and vapor density have been used, the values given in the article corresponding to those used for the presented results. ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This work was partially funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, contract 472353/2009-8) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). F.Q., W.S.M., I.V. and M.C. acknowledge grants by CNPq. [99]{} See, for instance, J.L. Hall, L.-S. Ma, M. Taubman, B. Tiemann, F.-L. Hong, O. Pfister, J. Ye, IEEE Trans. on Instr. and Meas. **48**, 583 (1999) C. Salomon, D. Hils, J. Hall, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B **5**, 1576 (1988) The dispersive force in an optical molasses is maximized at a frequency red shifted half a linewidth from the cyclic cooling transition frequency. See, for instance, P.D. Lett, W.D. Phillips, S.L. Rolston, C.E. Tanner, R.N. Watts, C.I. Westbrook, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B **6**, 2084 (1989) B. Chéron, H. Gilles, J. Havel, O. Moreau, H. Sorel, J. Phys. III **4**, 401 (1994) K.L. Corwin, Z.-T. Lu, C.F. Hand, R.J. Epstein, C.E. Wieman, Appl. Opt. **37**, 3295 (1998) C.P. Pearman, C.S. Adams, S.G. Cox, P.F. Griffin, D.A. Smith, I.G. Hughes, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. **35**, 5141 (2002) J. E. Debs, N.P. Robins, A. Lance, M.B. Kruger, J.D. Close, Appl. Opt. **47**, 5163 (2008) N.P. Robins, B.J.J. Slagmolen, D.A. Shaddock, J.D. Close, M. B. Gray, Opt. Lett. **27**, 1905 (2002) E.A. Gazazyan, A.V. Papoyan, D. Sarkisyan, A. Weis, Laser Phys. Lett. **4**, 801 (2007) W. S. Martins, M. Grilo, M. Brasileiro, O. di Lorenzo, M. Oriá, M. Chevrollier, Appl. Opt. **49**, 871 (2010) See, e. g., T. Ackemann, T. Scholz, Ch. Vorgerd, J. Nalik, L.M. Hoffer, G.L. Lippi, Opt. Commun. **147**, 411 (1998) C.F. McCormick, D.R. Solli, R.Y. Chiao, J.M. Hickmann, Phys. Rev. A **69**, 023804 (2004) We have performed similar experiments of laser stabilization using an atomic Rb vapor to lock a 780 nm diode laser to different transitions of the two rubidium isotopes. The cell length was chosen to have a thickness small compared to the lens focal length. Stabilization was also observed with longer cells (10 mm and 20 mm), however thin cells help enhance dispersive effects over absorptive ones. Our home-made external cavity is tuned thanks to a low-voltage piezoelectric actuator (displacement of about 6$\mu$m/volt). K. Peterman, *Laser diode modulation and noise* (Kluwer Ac., Dordrecht,1991)

It was one heck of a long trip home from Sweden for Jonathan Drouin and Canada’s world junior squad that year. The team got stuck for more than 12 hours at Heathrow Airport after a cancelled flight in January of 2014 before finally getting to Toronto. Drouin then flew to Montreal, and his parents picked him up for the 90-minute drive home to Mont-Tremblant, Que. Upon arrival, as the story goes, Drouin promptly grabbed his skates and headed directly to the outdoor rink across the street for three hours. “Yeah, going to that rink every time is like going to the spa for me,” Drouin said with a smile, recalling the memory. “It’s so relaxing. It’s a small city. Not many people around. I went there just to relax. Just wanted to get a little time to myself.” Now there will be nowhere to hide as he heads to the league’s most passionate market. Drouin, 22, is poised to make his Montreal Canadiens debut...

Business Apr 24, 2013 | 02:44 Co-operatives cash in on austerity April 24 - As much of western Europe still grapples with austerity and weak economic growth, the co-operative economy is proving remarkably resilient sparking a revival of employee owned businesses. Hayley Platt visits UK-based Delta T whose turnover has doubled in the last five years. TRANSCRIPT + Workers at Delta T discuss the latest sales figures. They have a vested interest in them - they all own the British company. The scientific instrument maker is one of a growing number of co-operatives in Europe. Austerity is fuelling their popularity and helping them grow despite a weak economy. Delta T's soil moisture reading devices have helped double its turnover in the last five years. Chris Nicholl is Chairman of its management committee. SOUNDBITE: Chris Nicholl, chair of management committee, Delta T, saying (English): "We have made very good investment decisions together and that we have been continually reinvesting the profits we've made rather than those being paid out to shareholders or to a CEO." In 2010 there were 160,000 co-operatives in Europe - employing 5.4 million people. And Britain has seen a 20 percent increase in the past five years. Many well known products are made by co-operatives. Nearly all French champagne is produced by them, as is Danish bacon, exported to over 100 countries. And 90% of Italy's Parmesan cheese. A quarter of Germany's banking sector is also co-operatively run. As is Barcelona Football Club. Ed Mayo, from Co-operatives UK, says Europe's economies would be more productive if more companies adopted the model. SOUNDBITE: Ed Mayo, Secretary General, Co-operatives UK, saying (English): "There is no greater power to motivate people to a business end then having a share in the benefits that come from creating that value. We are a country and an economy for example with very high levels of staff disengagement, people are really not motivated to work there. We know that engaging staff through giving them an ownership stake, a say in the enterprise is a fabulous way of motivating staff." That's certainly the case at Delta T. SOUNDBITE: Stephen Williams, Head of Technical support, Delta T, saying (English): "Everyone's listened to, everyone's respected and you feel like an equal, it doesn't feel like a typical, you know boss at the top telling everyone what to do." SOUNDBITE: Lynnette Caicco, Manufacturing Co-ordinator, Delta T, saying (English): "In the past when I worked in restaurants, I worked very hard but the bottom line was so money, money money money and I was of course exploited. The owners were all living better than I was." John Lewis is one of the best known co-operatives. It's also one of the few major homewear and fashion retailers in Britain doing well - staff recently got a 17% bonus. Finding growth like that is key to Europe's recovery. SPONSOREDSTORIES Reuters is the news and media division of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. *All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.

Alexis Curvers Alexis Curvers (24 February 1906, Liège – 7 February 1992) was a French-speaking Belgian writer. He was married to hellenist Marie Delcourt. Biography Alexis Curvers' mother died when he was three years old and his father when he was nineteen. He followed the courses of Marie Delcourt at the University of Liège. Appointed a professor of rhetoric at Alexandria, he returned to Liege where he married Marie Delcourt. In 1933 he published an article entitled De l'objection de conscience which led him to be excluded from teaching. In 1940, he took refuge in the south of France, where he met other writers at Mme Mayrisch, before he returned to Liège. In 1957, his novel Tempo di Roma, rejected by Éditions Gallimard but published by Éditions Robert Laffont thanks to Marie de Vivier (pen name of Marie Jacquart, writer from Belgium) achieved great success. Tempo di Roma obtained the Prix Sainte-Beuve in 1957 and was adapted to the cinema by Denys de La Patellière in 1963 under the same title: . In 1960, Alexis Curvers received the prix littéraire Prince-Pierre-de-Monaco for all his work. Works Novels 1937: Bourg-le-Rond, Paris, Gallimard, (with Jean Sarrazin, Jean Hubaux's pen name) 1939: Printemps chez des ombres, Paris, Gallimard, (prix Auguste-Beernaert) 1957: Tempo di Roma, Paris, Robert Laffont Short stories 1942: La Famille Passager, études et contes, Brussels, Libris, 1942. (Coll. Le balancier, 8). 1958: Mercredi des cendres, in Vingt nouvelles belges, Verviers, Marabout, 1958. (Coll. Melio) p. 66 sqq. 1955: Entre deux anges, chroniques et nouvelles, Brussels, Audace et le Rond-Point, 1955. 1967: Jean ou le monastère des deux saints Jean, in Prénoms (Paris, Plon, 1967) 1937: Le Ruban chinois in Reflets, Brussels, Noël 1954: Le Massacre des innocents et Le ruban chinois, Paris, Les belles lectures Poetry Cahier de poésie (1922-1949), typography François Bernouard, Paris, 1949. La Flûte enchantée, Cahiers d'art poétique, published in Liège from 1953 to 1962. Theatre Ce vieil Œdipe, four-act satirical drama, prose and verse, after Sophocles, Brussels, De Visscher, 1947. (Coll. du Rideau de Bruxelles). Essais and critics De l'objection de conscience, état de la question, le Flambeau, June 1933 and Brussels, Finacom, 1933. Sur la réforme de l'orthographe et la pédagogie nouvelle, réflexions d'un observateur, in "Bulletin de l'Académie Royale de Langue et de Littérature Françaises de Belgique", 1954. Reproduit dans le Bulletin de l'Association des Classiques de l'Université de Liège, nE2, 1954, p. 8-22. Pie XII, le pape outragé, Paris, Laffont, 1964. (Second edition revised and expanded: Pie XII, le pape outragé; Bonne nuit très saint Père; petite histoire anecdotique de ce livre, s.l., Dominique Martin Morin, 1988.) La théologie secrète de la prétendue Adoration de l'Agneau, in "Approches de l'Art", mélanges d'esthétique et de sciences de l'Art presented to Arsène Soreil, Brussels, Renaissance du Livre, 1973. Une clef architecturale de l'Agneau mystique des frères Van Eyck, in "Il était douze fois Liège", Liège, Mardaga, 1980. , by Alexis Curvers and Marie Curvers-Delcourt, Antwerp, De Sikkel, s.d. (monographs on Belgian art, 5th série, nE7). Entretien Georges Moucheron - Alexis Curvers, Mons, R.T.B.F., centre de production du Hainaut, s.d. Collaborations Alexis Curvers collabiorated with the magazines Les cahiers mosans, Le courrier des poètes, La gaillarde, Revue Générale Belge, Marginales, Raf, Savoir et beauté, Le flambeau, Synthèses, Empreintes, Cahiers du Nord, Itinéraires, Lecture et tradition... Participation to the anthology Il était douze fois Liège, Liège, 1980 considered as a response to La Belgique malgré tout by published the same year prior to the (1983) which Curvers didn't sign. References Bibliography Alexis Curvers, l'homme et l'œuvre, n° spécial de la revue Ouvertures, 1981 S. et N. De Winter, "Alexis Curvers", in André Malraux, Alexis Curvers, Francis Ponge, Brussels, Hatier, Auteurs contemporains, 1986, p. 45-67. "Alexis Curvers, pour son 80ème anniversaire", Itinéraires, n° 306, sept.-oct. 1986. Marie de Vivier, "Alexis Curvers", Le Thyrse, n°59, 1957. External links Alexis Curvers on Babelio “Tempo di Roma”, d’Alexis Curvers, présenté par Christian Libens (video) Alexis Curvers on Culture, Université de Liège Catherine Gravet, Alexis Curvers, Journal (1924-1961) on OpenEdition Cent Wallons du siècle Category:University of Liège alumni Category:Belgian writers in French Category:Walloon people Category:Prix Sainte-Beuve winners Category:1906 births Category:1992 deaths Category:People from Liège Category:Members of the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique

Police said the suspects, identified as Rizwan and Irfan, sexually abused and killed the minor in a Sabzazar neighborhood of the provincial capital. The suspects’ father was also involved in the heinous crime, but he was still on the run, the police official KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) Chief Dr Farooq Sattar is to chair a key party meeting today (Monday) after a senior party leader announced joining the rival Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP). The meeting is to be held just a day after the MQM-P suf ISLAMABAD: Ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s lawyer requested the top court to fix his appeal against the Registrar Office’s objections over his petition for hearing at the earliest. Sharif through his lawyer has filed an application, asking the court t ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has decided on Monday to examine the financial records submitted by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) during the ‘foreign funding case’ proceedings. Hearing a petition filed by one of the PTI founding m KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Karachi President Ali Zaidi on Saturday said that the PTI has submitted a request to Chief Secretary Sindh in writing over the release of probing reports in cases concerning Baldia Factory fire, notorious Lyari gang-war RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) on Wednesday endorsed death sentences of another four hardcore terrorists for being involved in various heinous crimes related to terrorism including abduction and killing of Law Enforcement Agencies’ (LEAs) personnel. PTI, PML-N in focus as polling for NA-120 by-election underway NA-120 at a glance: PTI, PML-N in a fierce showdown Tehsildar among seven killed in Bajaur Agency blast Oil tanker fire kills four in Punjab 300 MW Bahawalpur Solar Power Project to be completed in PAKISTANAsif says Pakistan wants good ties with all its neighboursWeb Desk ByWeb DeskPosted on September 5, 2017 Khawaja Asif ADVERTISEMENT ISLAMABAD: A three-day conference of Pakistani diplomats has begun in Islamabad on Tuesday to review Pakistan’s foreig KARACHI: Eid-ul-Azha celebrations continued on Sunday for second day across the country as many people are sacrificing animals today, ARY News reported. The faithful are slaughtering their sacrificial animals in remembrance of Sunnat-e Ibrahimi which will cont

Monday, February 29, 2016 Recording sessions involving musicians who do not regularly work together can be notoriously unproductive, the shelves of second hand record shops are littered with dusty remnants of what might have been a great session. Happily 'Tramp' is a very fine exception to this rule, perhaps because although there is plenty of creative and spontaneous playing on these tracks, the songs themselves, written by Bob Hall and Dennis Cotton, are economical, witty and tightly constructed; there are no twelve minute guitar solos on this record. Every musician contributed hugely to the overall strength of performance that is obvious throughout the set. Dave and Jo-Anne Kelly are renowned for their ability as blues singers, and they tackled each song whole-heartedly, often adding new ideas whilst actually recording. Bob Hall is surely the finest boogie pianist in Britain, and has never played better than on these sessions. Bob Brunning is also a highly experienced bass player who has worked and recorded with many blues giants, forming a unit with Bob Hall which has become much in demand by impressed visiting American performers, many of whom have invited them back to the States to form a permanent band! Mick Fleetwood has been the mainstay of Fleetwood Mac for a long time, and when one listens to this exciting playing on this album, one can see why - listen to his inspired and absolutely spontaneous drum lead in during the entirely unrehearsed piano break in 'Too Late For That Now' which leads incidentally to one of the most exciting solos heard in a long while. Danny Kirwan plays crisply and economically, showing his ability, unusual among rock guitarists - to know when not to play, nevertheless turning in some pleasing solos. Dave Brooks proves just how easily he recently stole the show on some of the '73 American Blues Legends performances, and last but not least, percussionist Ian Morton adds a lot of excitement to the proceedings. Here then is a fresh and exciting album representing of more than worthwhile gathering together of some well known musical 'Tramps'. Saturday, February 27, 2016 Not to be confused with the “My Sharona” guys on Capitol, the mid-‘60s California band that also recorded for Capitol, or even the ‘60s Argentinean beat combo known as the Knacks, this Knack hailed from Britain and started life as the Londoners in 1965, debuting with a rather ordinary single pairing covers of Elvis Presley’s “That’s My Desire” and Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me” while playing an extended engagement at the legendary Star Club in Hamburg, Germany. Renaming themselves the Knack after a Richard Lester movie upon returning to the UK the same year marked a turning point for the band, who went on to record six mostly solid singles over the next two years. The a-side of the first was a gritty cover of the Kinks’ “Who’ll Be the Next in Line”, but the real excitement was on the flip, a stellar cover of the Clique’s “She Ain’t No Good” with strong Beatlesque harmonies. The Clique, incidentally, were not the US band who had hits later in the decade, but an obscure British beat band—though that obscurity didn’t prevent the Knack from covering yet another Clique song on their next single, “Time Time Time”, which was done as adeptly as the previous outing. The a-side, a beat remake of Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ “It’s Love Baby (24 Hours a Day)”, was almost as good, featuring a brief-but-nifty guitar solo (presumably by Gurvitz). Their commercial desperation manifested in passable but ordinary covers of two Lovin’ Spoonful hits, “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” and “Younger Girl”, and a lament of unknown origin called “Red Hearts”, but their quest also produced a first-rate harmony pop tune in “Save All My Love for Joey” (Joey being a girl). The buoyant beat of “Stop!” was also worthy, if perhaps out of date in the changing musical environment of 1966, a description that also fits their final single from 1967, “(Man from the) Marriage Guidance and Advice Bureau” backed with the band’s only released original, Gurvitz’s “Dolly Catcher Man”. Both the acoustic Rubber Soul-like pop of the a-side and the dreamy pop of the flip showed maturity, but with the rest of the UK dropping acid and/or plugging into fuzzboxes, it was hopelessly anachronistic, and being on a faltering label didn’t help. The Knack, however, did branch into psychedelia on Gurvitz’s excellent (and previously unreleased) “Lights on the Wall”, a huge step forward from 1967 that signaled a new direction for the band. But with membership shuffling that ultimately brought in Adrian Gurvitz on guitar and Louis Farrell on drums as Paul switched to bass, that direction would be taken up by the rechristened Gun, not the Knack. Gun were indeed the better of the two bands, but the Knack’s Time Time Time compilation is worth a listen for anyone seeking to dig deeper into British beat. Friday, February 26, 2016 This is the first long-player from '60s blues keyboardist Barry Goldberg (organ/piano/vocals). His early association as Bob Dylan's organist during Dylan's electric debut at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival garnered Goldberg ample exposure. Within a few months he had teamed up with Steve Miller to create the Goldberg-Miller Blues Band. Although the combo were signed by Epic Records and cut a pair of 45s, Miller headed for the flourishing San Francisco psychedelic music scene and left Goldberg and the remnants of the short-lived Goldberg-Miller union to their own devices. In addition to the 10 tracks on the album Blowing My Mind (1966), the Goldberg-Miller Blues Band also recorded "The Mother Song," and "More Soul, Than Soulful," which appear on the 2003 release Goldberg-Miller Blues Band 1965-66. Goldberg is then joined by the likes of Roy Ruby (bass), who contributed to some early Michael Bloomfield recordings, and Maurice McKinley (drums), whose musical rap sheet included a previous stint with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The combo also featured the respective talents of Harvey Mandel (guitar) and Charlie Musselwhite (harmonica). One of the most evident factors in the success of the Barry Goldberg Blues Band is the impeccable ensemble work as they propel through a blend of effective originals as well as an atypical combination of cover material. The title track is a mid-tempo Goldberg/Ruby tune that features a slightly edgy feel, reminiscent of Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street." "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "That'll Be The Day," are both recommended reworkings that perhaps best exemplify the bluesy synthesis that defined the Barry Goldberg Blues Band, at least on this initial effort. Rather than attempting a note-for-note recreation, they fuse their own blend of electric blues into the well-known and already established melodies. The same holds for the cover versions of Jimmy Reed's "Can't Stand To See You Go" and Jimmy McCracklin's seminal side "Think." One non-LP outtake is also included, a strong rendering of Geoff Muldaur's "Ginger Man." Wednesday, February 24, 2016 After leaving The Electric Flag, pianist and organist Barry Goldberg formed his own briefly lived group and continued to play the blues, albeit spicing it up with unusual psychedelic rock songs and a fabulous cover of the Beatles’ Fool on the Hill (misspelled as Fool on a Hill on the album). There’s No Hole In My Soul is the record output for the group, a dense piece of varying styles that has something for everyone. Following Goldberg from the Electric Flag to the Barry Goldberg Reunion is Harvey Mandel on guitar. The album’s cover is a hint to what’s inside: the cover is a jumbled mess of photographs of faces, blending into one another. The album’s songs are a mixed bag as well, often at odds with one another, representing a variety of styles.s Goldberg’s instrument of choice, the organ, plays heavily on all tracks, occasionally dwarfing the overall sound, but on songs like the lead off track it remains a tasteful accompanier. Sitting In Circles is a masterful, booming number that brings multiple elements to the table. Echo graces the track, filling up the spaces where the organ, strings, guitars, and drums aren’t playing with excess sound. Goldberg moans the lyrics in a rather contemporary fashion, sort of an older John Mayer cum Leonard Cohen. The lyrics are suitably basic, placing the emphasis on the music, which is excellent and just a bit complex. Fool on a Hill sounds like a Velvet Underground outtake, though not a word is spoken. Two or three organs come together (Beatle pun unintended) to make a drone that is otherworldly, while drums keep time by soloing faintly in the background. On occasion the drums will serve a more central role to the song, but it’s really all about the organ and guitar duet that functions as the main melody. The song is a Blue Jay Way interpretation of a classic, fuzzy and hazy, barely holding together rhythmically and absolutely delightful. The organ captures the spiral into the clouds that Paul’s vocals carry on the original as he improvises around “round\round\round\oh oh oh”. While slight homage is paid to the original, the Barry Goldberg Reunion is not afraid to push the limit, psychedelic-izing an already trippy song. While the lyrics on other tracks deal with liberation of the mind and riding on rainbows, Fool on a Hill takes credit for being the most psychedelic song on the record. It’s followed by a goofy blues number that hammers shut side one called Capricorn Blues. It’s a bit of astrology rock\blues, as the protagonist struggles to get a date with the proper astrological sign, something Goldberg laments. Side two is fairly basic blues and rock, but the final track, a live number called The Answer’s In Your Head is a stirring utopian vision along the lines of We Love You. by the Rolling Stones (“lost within our minds\cos we love you!”) The mind is the best place to method the stresses of social change and of being led and being imprisoned by American corporate society. The band presents a convincing argument for the hippie school of thought, that through experimentation with drugs and less hang ups one can make a revolution, though the radical leftists of the sixties chose to carry out more concrete actions. A rousing Doctor John style piano boogie is attached at the beginning of the track, building up to the introduction of the actual song. The noise of a concert jam fades into a country and western track, Goldberg’s voice soaring over the song, backed up by what sounds like a live audience on joyous cries of “the answer’s in your head!”. The song deals with Goldberg recognizing the potential of mindfulness and liberation just around the corner, while describing the loss of his ego. It’s a joyful celebration of the counterculture, complete with whoops and handclaps, inviting the audience into the musical painting. Tuesday, February 23, 2016 Holland's Brainbox were founded by Jan Akkerman in the mid-'60s. While H.P. Lovecraft kept changing members around the drummer, this band would release a record with totally new people in 1972, entitled Parts. Yet the original Brainbox do have qualities somewhat resembling the earlier H.P. Lovecraft, and their eponymous album is a worthwhile collection of musically diverse and eclectic performances. The decent liner notes call this "progressive pop," and in some respects it is, though they shift gears from the Simon & Garfunkel classic "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" to the 17-minute plus original "Sea of Delight," and take lots of other directions in between. The Damned had a song called "New Rose," which is where the French record label got its name, and there was the aforementioned Savage Rose, but Brainbox start the album with "Dark Rose," a blend of Jethro Tull meets the Mothers of Invention. Brainbox ups the ante by sliding into Tim Hardin and a very credible cover of "Reason to Believe" a full two years before Rod Stewart would get a B-side hit with it (the original A-side of the "Maggie Mae" single), they pull off a chameleon-like change on this to become folk rockers. Casimirz Lux has a very appealing voice with a bit of Stewart's rasp, making "Reason to Believe" a highlight of the album. The liner notes credit Jimmy Smith for writing "Baby, What You Want Me to Do," but the tracking properly gives it to Jimmy Reed, and his Top 40 1960 hit is as bluesy as you can get here, the band changing styles yet again and showing their grasp and appreciation of American music. From progressive rock to folk-rock to blues-rock to the folk-pop of Simon & Garfunkel, who is to say they weren't rewriting Blind Faith's lengthy "Do What You Like" by way of "Sea of Joy" for their epic "Sea of Delight"? The album is a dense amalgam of sounds and themes from England and America, but is reverent in its borrowing and presentation. Brainbox's rendition of "Summertime" sounds like Deep Purple adding heavy keyboard sounds and slowing up the Billy Stewart 1966 hit reinvention of the Gershwin tune from Porgy & Bess. Of course, Janis Joplin did it two years earlier than Brainbox and psychedelicized it with an immortal performance -- but a good song is a good song, and this is Jan Akkerman before he would give us "Hocus Pocus" from Focus, and that fact makes the album more than just a curiosity. Since these gents were so enamoured of American music, it seems credible that they took the Vanilla Fudge sound -- famous in Europe a year before it hit in America -- and put it on a Janis Joplin favorite. Released with five bonus tracks on CD, including additional versions of "Sea of Delight," this is much more than the "bargain bin" item many American record buyers passed it off as. It's a real diamond in the rough. Monday, February 22, 2016 By 1968 guitarist Lonnie Mack had been playing professionally for a decade. Ironically, it took a lengthy article in Rolling Stone magazine to finally capture the attention of major record labels. Signed by Jac Holzman's Elektra Records, Mack finally seemed poised for the big time. Produced by Russ Miller, 1969's "Whatever's Right" is the resulting mix of blues, gospel and country genres was clearly souped up to appeal to a rock audience. While the spotlight was clearly on Mack's Gibson Flying V (and his speed of light whammy bar), to my ears the biggest surprise here was Mack's singing. As exemplified by tracks like 'My Babe, 'What Kind of World Is This?' and his cover of Bobby Womack's 'I Found a Love' the guy actually had a great voice. Interestingly, the two best songs here are also the only two Mack originals. 'Mr. Healthy Blues' was a killer instrumental that showcases how fast this guy could play, while Elektra marketing executives should have been fired for not having pulled 'Gotta Be An Answer' as a single. Saturday, February 20, 2016 Best known for his work with a band that bridged the gap between R&B and garage rock, Ray Stinnett was also an unsung hero of the Memphis music scene whose most personal music would wait over 40 years to find an audience. Stinnett was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1944, and like so many kids growing up in Memphis, he developed a love for music early on, getting his first guitar when he was 12 years old. Stinnett claims he bought the instrument at the same pawn shop where Elvis Presley was said to have gotten his first guitar, and as Stinnett was walking home, he spotted Presley driving by in a Cadillac, who called out to the youngster, "Hey, cat." Suitably encouraged, Stinnett set about learning the guitar, and by his mid-teens, he was playing around town in a duo act with drummer Jerry Patterson, as well as working with a teen rock band called Johnny and the Electros and doing occasional session work. In mid-1963, a Texas-based group called the Nightriders, led by keyboard man Domingo "Sam" Samudio, were booked into a standing gig at a Memphis nightspot called the Diplomat Club when their guitar player and drummer both quit; Stinnett and Patterson signed on to replace them, and when the Nightriders' engagement ended, the Memphis boys hit the road with the band. A few months later, the Nightriders changed their name to Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, and after they cut a single for a small Memphis label, MGM Records picked up the disc for national distribution. "Wooly Bully" became the top-selling single of 1965, spending 14 weeks in Billboard's Top 40, and a pair of minor hits followed ("Ju Ju Hand" and "Ring Dang Do"), but Stinnett's tenure with the group was short-lived; within a year of "Wooly Bully" hitting the charts, the Pharaohs had a falling out with Samudio over business matters, and they found themselves replaced with a new set of Pharaohs, who scored a hit of their own with "Li'l Red Riding Hood." Stinnett, Patterson, and their fellow ex-Pharaohs cut a single for Dot Records as the Violations, "The Hanging" b/w "You Sure Have Changed," which dealt metaphorically with their anger and disappointment, but the record went nowhere commercially and the group split up. In 1967, as Americans became aware of the growing counterculture, Stinnett headed to Northern California and embraced the hippie lifestyle while living at a celebrated commune, the Morning Star Ranch; a year later, back in Memphis, he formed a psychedelic band called 1st Century, who lasted long enough to release one single for Capitol Records, "Looking Down" b/w "Dancing Girl." While 1st Century quickly dissolved, Stinnett struck up a friendship with legendary producer and instrumentalist Booker T. Jones, and as Stinnett began putting a greater focus on his songwriting, Jones encouraged him and gave him occasional gigs. By the dawn of the 1970s, Stinnett and his wife were living on a commune in California and searching for spiritual enlightenment. Stinnett's life path reflects the shifting cultural Zeitgeist of the 1960s with commendable accuracy, but thankfully he never stopped playing guitar like a Memphis boy who dug the blues, as evidenced by A Fire Somewhere, an album Stinnett recorded in 1971 that finally earned a long-overdue release in 2012. When Booker T. Jones produced an album for his then-wife Priscilla Coolidge-Jones, 1970's Gypsy Queen, Stinnett played guitar on the sessions and wrote two songs that appeared on the LP. Stinnett was a protégé of Booker T. Jones, and when Jones signed a deal with A&M Records, he persuaded them to sign Stinnett as well, and if what Stinnett was writing was a long way from classic Memphis R&B, Stinnett's sharp, emphatic guitar work and easygoing sense of timing suggest he learned more than a little from the cats at Stax Records, though his vocals weren't always on a par with his picking. As a songwriter, Stinnett conjures up a fine, swampy fusion of soul, country, blues, and rock, with occasional side trips into psychedelia and gospel, and though it's true Stinnett's spiritual and philosophical conceits sometimes sound a bit clumsy after 40 years of gathering dust, Stinnett never sounds less than entirely sincere, and when he deals with the nuts and bolts of love and relationships, he strikes a bull's-eye. And Stinnett was blessed with a rhythm section as idiosyncratically gifted as he was in bassist Mike Plunk and drummer Jerry Patterson. Differences with A&M over marketing and management caused Stinnett to walk away from his record deal, and A Fire Somewhere got left by the wayside, buried in the label's vaults. This re-release of the album doesn't quite resurrect a lost classic, but this is an entertaining, often fascinating set of well-crafted swamp rock that showcases a talent that deserved a hearing it didn't get in 1971. The album was remastered from the original session tapes, Friday, February 19, 2016 Released in 1972, the Rowan Brothers' eponymous debut arrived with a great deal of hype, including an ad featuring a quote from Jerry Garcia in which he stated that Chris and Lorin Rowan "could be like the Beatles. They're that good." Produced by Bill Wolf and David Grisman (credited as David Diadem), the first effort from the Stinson Beach, CA, duo never even came close to living up to such lofty praise. Though it can give a young artist a boost, this sort of hype can quite often be devastating, and probably hurt the pair in the long run. The Rowan Brothers is a mix of country-rock, folk, and pop tunes with cosmic ("the universe is nothing but a fantasy/of life's illusions throughout eternity") and hippie ("we'll put on our costumes, bring the music along/come on friends we'll sing a happy song") underpinnings, which are often trite and very much artifacts of the time. Although they may lack lyrical muscle, Chris and Lorin are capable of pleasant, catchy tunes that can be light and spirited or lush and pretty. Ignored at the time and somewhat dated today, The Rowan Brothers is another forgotten relic from the late-'60s and early-'70s San Francisco music scene. Wednesday, February 17, 2016 Lonnie Mack was born in Ohio and raised in nearby southern Indiana, he was raised on blues, country and roadhouse rock. His singing incorporated all three styles. To him, they were all part of the same fabric of Southern music that carpeted the area around his home base in Cincinnati. Mack didn’t get much of a chance to showcase his vocal talent, however, until he signed at the end of the 1960s with Elektra Records, a folk label that was trying to branch out into rock. His Elektra albums didn’t make much of a dent when they were issued; Mack’s bluesy roots music was out to style. Today they sound like long-lost gems. At times, they invite comparison to the recordings of the late Eddie Hinton, the blue-eyed soul man from Tuscaloosa. Mack’s 1969 release, “Glad I’m in the Band," showed him to be a formidable vocalist, especially on blues and r&b. Mack’s remake of Huey “Piano" Smith’s New Orleans rocker “Roberta" was a particularly fine welding of his skills as a player and a singer, and he turns in a very credible performance on Little Willie John’s 1959 blues ballad, “Let The Talk." From his stash of early 1960s recordings, he resurrects “Why," a tough, slow blues, and “Memphis," which loses little of its bite in a more contemporary setting. Tuesday, February 16, 2016 Wild Butter was started in 1970 by drummer/lead singer Rick Garen and keyboard player Jerry Buckner. Garen had previously been in the Collection and recorded a demo called "Little Man". Former Rogues member Jerry was impressed and got Eric Stevens, WIXY program director and manager of Damnation of Adam Blessing, interested as well. Stevens took it to New York and after a week or two Buckner got a call saying the band had a LP recording deal with United Artists - only there was no band, yet, although UA didn't know that. "Put a band together" was the request and Rick and Jerry talked to their Akron peers and found Jon Senne' (guitar) and Steve Price (bass) willing to get on board. Wild Butter played a month or so before recording the LP at Cleveland Recording. "Little Man" was not done, but a whole LP was, including excellent songwriting contributions from everyone. Considering the short time the band had to work up the songs, the high level of writing, musicianship, and vocals are amazing, and the LP is certainly a lost treasure of 1970 contemporary unpretentious melodic rock. The recordings included some guitar parts from Mark Price (Steve's high school aged brother and future Tin Huey member), Jim Quinn and Bob Kalamasz (both from Damnation). The Senne' penned "Roxanna (Thank You for Getting Me High) was chosen as a 45 track backed with "Terribly Blind". The cover photos were taken in a Akron industrial area at Stevens' suggestion. A few shots were taken before some hardhats objected to the 'longhairs' and chased them out! Wild Butter played the NE Ohio club scene including places like Admiral Bilbos in Westlake where they had to use a fan to cool down their primitive Heathkit PA amp. If the amp overheated, it was instant 15 minute break time. "Roxanna" got some local airplay on stations like WIXY and the band got an appearance on Upbeat, sharing the show with Blues Image who were riding the top of the charts with "Ride Captain Ride" at the time, summer of '70. During the Friday afternoon taping the band got the offical thumbs down stare from Cleveland's 1st lady of establishment telejournalism, Dorothy Fuldheim, as she walked past them in the WEWS TV station hallway! Friday, February 12, 2016 Born in Sayre, Pennsylvania on February 11, 1917. As a child, his father Antonio (Tony) played an Enrico Caruso disc for young Johnny and from that time on Johnny knew what he wanted to do with his life. As a result he became a child prodigy singing whenever possible in public or private in the Sayre, Athens and Towanda area of Pennsylvania, as well as Waverly, New York, and as far as Scranton, Pennsylvania and Elmira, New York. He turned professional as a child after winning a talent show/contest that was produced in Sayre at the Sayre Theatre by the great 'Blackstone the Magician' in c.1926. Young Johnny sang for every club or organization in the area that needed or wanted talent to perform for their various causes,i.e. The Elks, Lions, The D.A.R. et,al. In 1932 after a fire almost destroyed the family home, young Johnny, with his father's blessing, decided to travel alone to NYC to become a band vocalist. His childhood idols and inspirations were Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, Red McKenzie, as well as Caruso. The album was released in a private edition of 300 copies and most of them were given away to family and friends. In the late 80s, one of those copies was unearthed by rare record dealer Paul Major, who was one of the first persons to appreciate the singularities of “Reachin’ Arcesia”. Since then, the album, which mixes over the top crooner vocals with late 60s acid-rock / pop arrangements is now considered a lounge-psych / real people masterpiece. Thursday, February 11, 2016 Tales of Justine only had one single, 1967's "Albert (A Pet Sunflower)"/"Monday Morning," both sides of which are included on this release. But with the addition of 13 tracks recorded between August 1967 and January 1969 that were unreleased at the time, there's enough for a full album with this LP, pressed in a limited edition of 1000 copies. Entirely written by David Daltrey (except one song he co-wrote with Paul Myerson), it's very much in the school of flowery British pop that, ahem, flowered in the period just post-Sgt. Pepper's Even by the gaudy standards of the style, it's inclined toward storybookish lyrics and precious melodies, quite possibly taken to excess on "Obsolete Incident," which manages to fit in references to whitewashed coal, chocolate flowers, a clock that runs backwards, and sunburned toast just in the first 40 seconds. Orchestration gets loaded into the mix on the five tracks recorded in December 1968, perhaps looking forward to the kind of musicals on which producer Tim Rice and arranger Andrew Lloyd Webber would collaborate in the near future. If you're the kind of listener who just loves, say, the Hollies in their most psychedelic period around the time of Butterfly, you may well find this to your liking, though it's on the candy-coated side even in comparison with the Hollies' sweetest pop-psychedelia. A harder side surfaces on "Evil Woman," with its pungent psychedelic organ. basic mod rock, and freak-out instrumental break, but that's an atypical effort in the context of this collection. Though Tales of Justine were yet more precious in their approach. Bandmember and singer/songwriter David Daltrey was featured in the early Rice-Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and later formed the group Carillion, a support act in a tour during David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust phase. The group's single, and numerous unreleased tracks from 1967-1969, were compiled on the 1,000-copy limited-edition Tenth Planet LP Petals from a Sunflower in 1997. Wednesday, February 10, 2016 You Well-Meaning Brought Me Here is generally considered Ralph McTell's finest album; it is also one of the best albums of the singer/songwriter movement of the early 1970s. Gus Dudgeon (Elton John) was enlisted as producer, and he brought in guitarist Caleb Quaye, as well as Roger Pope and, on mandolin, Davey Johnston. The sessions also featured soon-to-be-famous keyboardist Rick Wakeman and arranger/conductor (and future David Bowie producer) Tony Visconti, among others. Like Dudgeon's early Elton John records, You Well-Meaning Brought Me Here had a restrained production in which the added instrumentation and string arrangements were only used to support McTell's vocals and acoustic guitar. The songs made for a loose concept album that began with creation ("Genesis I Verse 20"); continued with primitive man ("First and Last Man"); and, while taking in love ("In Some Way I Loved You"), drinking, and celebration ("Lay Your Money Down"), man's best friend ("Old Brown Dog"), and war ("Pick Up a Gun"), merged into the singer's own autobiography. The second half of the album revolves around character and story songs, but the whole album reflects McTell's broad experience, especially of some of the seamier sides of life. In that sense, the substitution on the American version of the album of his most famous song, "Streets of London," for "Chalkdust," which appeared on the British version, was an appropriate one, since it fit with the sympathetic depictions of other poor people on the record. McTell's calm singing and the discreet touches of Dudgeon's production gave these portraits even greater depth, making this a singularly impressive work. Monday, February 8, 2016 This unique and fascinating album has belatedly garnered a considerable following in recent years as a result of the new interest in what is nowadays referred to as Acid Folk. In reality it’s finely-structured acoustic folk-rock, but with strong elements of psychedelic studio treatment and twentieth-century avant-garde classical and choral music. Until now it’s only rated a couple of oblique references in these pages; now it’s time to give it the full exposure it deserves. The album was the product of a chance conversation between Los Angeles periodontist Linda Perhacs and one of her patients, film score composer Leonard Roseman. Perhacs had written the songs as a hobby sideline, composing with just modally-tuned acoustic guitar and her own beautifully clear voice. Stimulated by Perhacs’s own graphic visualisation of her composition “Parallelograms” as “visual music sculpture” encompassing light, form and colour as well as sound, Roseman offered to develop her songs into an album, arranging and enhancing them in George Martin fashion and utilising the services of his studio’s state-of-the-art technology plus session musicians including guitarist Steve Cohn and percussionists Milt Holland and Shelley Manne. The stunning results found a release on Kapp records, but there the interest stalled; the label pressed the songs out of sequence with dull AM-friendly equalisation on poor quality vinyl, and then proffered no publicity for it, and the brashly commercial Los Angeles AM radio stations refused to play it. When what would become her first and only album in almost four decades tanked, Perhacs went back to the day job. Over thirty years later she was alerted to the fact that the new generation of Acid Folk musicians such as Devendra Banhart were drawing inspiration from her long-lost work. Reissued by Wild Places in 1996 and by Sunbeam in 2008, the currently-available CD is correctly sequenced, beautifully remastered and comes with eight bonus demos, alternative versions and unreleased songs plus a superb booklet history by Perhacs herself. Perhaps best of all, its belated success has induced Perhacs to start creating music again and she’s issued two albums of new music in partnership with musician/producer Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl since 2007. The quirky acoustic guitar tunings of Parallelograms may suggest early Joni Mitchell and the clear, crystalline vocals similar-period Joan Baez, but on this album Linda Perhacs utterly transcends both with her dazzling originality. The gently-rippling guitar arpeggios and cascading multi-tracked harmonies of the opening “Chimacum Rain” set out the collection’s predominant motifs, but the following “Paper Mountain Man” is surprisingly funky and blues-inflected with its jazzy percussion and distant, ethereal harmonica, and the wonderfully ironic critique of South Californian society marital celebrations, “Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding”, rocks along similarly on oriental percussion and delightfully atonal 12-string. Head and shoulders above the rest, the title track even eschews proper lyrics, the singer’s tongue playing mischievously with the syllables of the title and the names of other geometric forms in a sinuous flow of sound, broken by a Gyorgy Ligeti-like musique concrete interlude, all being the product of Roseman’s realisation of Perhacs’s original scroll-like pictorial depiction of the song. “Moons And Cattails” and “Morning Colours” are similarly, though slightly less, experimental, the former again utilising superbly melismatic vocals and the latter glorious electronically-processed flute obbligati. The rest is more conventional, but still well to the left of the field. As with the avant-garde music that largely inspired it, this is an album to be listened to, not merely heard. Sunday, February 7, 2016 In its original vinyl form, Dr. Z's Three Parts to My Soul rates among the most valuable British prog albums of all time. But it is a rarity among such rarities in that it is also as good as a high three-figure value leaves you hoping it would be. Dr. Z was discovered by Nirvana UK frontman Patrick Campbell-Lyons, who is also credited as executive producer on the album. But Three Parts could not be further from its mentor's taste for eclectic airiness. The dominant mood is of percussive keyboards, alternately majestic and militaristic, the sound, if you like, of a Keith Emerson harpsichord concerto if Carl Palmer matched him note for note on a kettle drum. The vocals, meanwhile, have that kind of bellowed edge of conviction which makes every lyric resonate like a profoundly meaningful motto. The first half of the near-singalong "Spiritus Manes et Umbra" moves like a battalion of tanks, with the LP's title itself rendered as compulsive a chant as any "gabba gabba hey" could be. There are moments of less-than-scintillating activity: the four-minute drum solo which punctuates that same song flags long before the chorus careens back into view, while "Summer for the Rose" is a ponderous snarling in desperate need of melody. At its most inventive and textured, however, Three Parts is an excellent example of early-'70s prog at its deepest and darkest, as inventive as it is occasionally magpie-like. "Burn in Anger," the most commercial song in sight, is a dead-ringer for a classic rock hit which will forever float just beyond your ability to name it, while the closing "In a Token of Despair" is a tour de force of Floydian winds, Crimson-ish signatures, and electifyingly symphonic structure. The Si Wan reissue concludes with two bonus tracks drawn from a similarly rare Dr. Z single released a year or so before the LP. Produced by the Pretty Things' Dick Taylor, "Lady Ladybird" and "People in the Street" have little in common with the main attraction beyond a similar taste for crashing drums and keyboards; the world's first orchestral garage band. by Dave Thompson Dr. Z's first and only album is the most rare record released on the Vertigo-swirl label. It sold only about 70 copies (!!) when it was released, and the rest of the pressings were trashed. Wednesday, February 3, 2016 Redbone's story is interesting from more then one point of view. The band itself of course, who had a great career, with ups and downs. The fact that the musicians were all native americans from different origins (Cherokee, Yaquis, Apaches and Shoshones...). Their political implication and the fact their were censored that shows a very interesting political and social background of the US nation. All this plus the fact that they produced a unique, powerfull and soulfull music ! Lolly and Pat Vegas were well-known musicians in the rock and jazz "milieu"in Los Angeles during the sixties. Candido Albelando Vasquez (Lolly Vegas) and Patrick Morales Vasquez (Pat Vegas) were born in Fresno, California. The brothers were of mixed Yaqui/Shoshone and mexican descent. Very early the singing/guitar playing brothers began their musical careers backing and touring with Jimmy Clanton of "Just A Dream" fame. In 1961 the brothers relocated to Los Angeles. The brothers played with Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson at the Monterey Jazz and Pop Festival before relocating to Los Angeles in 1963. Calling themselves the Avantis, the brothers attempted to cash in on the surf craze popularized by Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys, with such songs as "Gypsy Surfer" and "Wax 'em Down" on the Chancellor label, and "The Phantom Surfer" on the Regency label. The Avantis featured future Beach Boy drummer Mike Kowalski, and their recordings earned them an opening slot on a Beach Boys' tour. The Vasquez brothers also recorded the singles "Let's Go" as the Routers, "Surf Stomp" and "Batman" as the Mar-kets, and "Hotrodders' Choice," "Dawn Patrol," "Double A Fueller," and "Satan's Chariot" as the Deuce Coupes. The 1963 Deuce Coupes' sessions featured impressive session help from Glen Campbell, David Gates, and Leon Russell. They then meet manager/producer Bumps Blackwell who suggest they change their names to Pat & Lolly Vegas. In 1963, Pat & Volly Vegas recorded "Boom, Boom, Boom" and "Two Figures" for the Reprise label (Reprise 20199). Bumps Blackwell helped the brothers become the house band at Los Angeles' The Haunted House. In 1966, produced by Leon Russell and Snuff Garrett they would record an album for Mercury entitled "Pat & Lolly Vegas At the Haunted House" While fulfilling a residency at a Los Angeles nightclub named Gazzarri's, the Vegas brothers met guitarist Tony Bellamy. A Yaqui Indian who had performed with Dobie Gray, and a member of Peter and the Wolves (a San Francisco band that evolved into the psychedelic band Moby Grape), Bellamy had grown up in a family of dancers and musicians. He had learned to play flamenco guitar as part of his musical education as well, and he was recruited by the Vegas brothers to accompany them on session work with Odetta, John Lee Hooker, and the Everly Brothers. According to Pat, it was Jimi Hendrix who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group. Vegas told Record Collector writer Jeremy Isaac, "Hendrix was a friend of ours.... and he was half Indian. Once he knew that we were Indian too he used to come and hang with us because of that. Jimi made me aware of my roots: He'd say 'Native American is beautiful, man, be proud of that.'" Signed to CBS's Epic subsidiary in 1969, the band took its name from the Cajun epithet "Rehbon", meaning half-breed, and its self-titled debut album Redbone, released in 1970, was an extraordinary affair. Think of it: an unknown band producing its first record and releasing a double album. Redbone played primarily rock music with R&B, Cajun, Jazz, tribal, and Latin roots. This first album was released as a double album in North America. In Europe it was released both as a double (EPC 67242) and as a single album (BN 26280) on the Epic label. Lolly was one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of the distinctive Leslie rotating speaker effect in his electric guitar amplification set-up. Vegas played improvised, jazz-influenced guitar. Drummer Peter DePoe (born 1943, Neah Bay, Washington) is credited with pioneering the "King Kong" style of drumming, which features sharply accented polyrhythms involving the bass and snare drums and is similar to funk styles of drumming. The band referred to DePoe's "King Kong Beat" in their lyrics to the song "Prehistoric Rhythm" on their debut album. Pat Vegas' style of bass playing is still coveted by bass players in the world, even taught in college courses of music. The level of creativity each member held on his own instrument added to the power of the band. Tuesday, February 2, 2016 Wake Up! was originally recorded and released in 1970 by a band that seemingly lacked the wherewithal to manage such a thing. A practised and experienced live outfit that had made a name for itself in and around Munich, the members of Out Of Focus hit the studio for the first time having procured label support from Eckart Rahn’s Kuckuck which had established itself the year before. However, the band was usually stoned and their live set featured prolonged jams that could see them playing for 3 hours. The discipline and rigour of the studio presented a challenge to the band who had to be made aware of the need for accuracy, tuning and brevity. “It took them a bit of adjustment,” remembers Rahn. Nevertheless, there was a genuine desire to allow the band their artistic freedom and capture something of the socially conscious, psychedelic, and slightly surreal live experience that had made them a popular act in the first place. So they had two long weekends to track the album and, on listening to it, it has that cohesive, driven quality that often comes from the exquisite pressure of time. Opening with See How A White Negro Flies, we get an immediate sense of the musical direction this album is going to take. A heavy, plodding, psychedelic groove supported by a spectacular ‘walking’ bass motif combines tightly with Klaus Spφri’s energetic and busy drumming while Remigius Drechsler pulls off a riff that would turn Ennio Morricone green. Drechsler’s guitar work is a highlight of the album and the band’s overall sound. He combines spastic thrashing rhythm work with electrifying, fuzzed and distorted lead work as well as dealing in clean picked box-riffs and gently strummed atmospherics. You get a real sense of this range in God Save The Queen Cried Jesus which cycles through vivid shades and phases led as much by Moran Neumόller’s wonderfully dynamic flute work as his off-the-wall, impassioned and theatrical vocal delivery. Neumόller’s declamatory squawking is something of an acquired taste however, often sounding too much like a hangover from ‘60s American protest music, although occasionally, he sounds passingly like Jim Morrison. Hey John is an extended jam on a rising and descending chord pattern held dramatically and melodically in tow by Neumόller’s flute. Again Spφri’s athletic drumming is powerfully supported at every turn with fluid and intuitive bass runs while Hennes Hering (organs, piano) and Neumόller interject lengthy improvisational solos over the shifting weight and changing light of the band’s delicately calculated soft/loud dynamic. No Name has a similar feel in its brief, shouty moment and is perhaps remarkable in that it predates by some 7 or 8 years the raucous, New Wave aggro of early Ian Dury And The Blockheads. Out Of Focus’ strength lies firmly in their instrumental endeavours. With the two closing tracks being longer than ten minutes each, there’s plenty of scope for the improvisatory excursions that have served them well throughout the album. There’s little development of the formula, just energetic, occasionally frenetic shaping of the dynamics. It’s raw and vivid, but I’m not getting much out of it by the end, just roach burn. This is a fairly convincing debut that mashes several strands of the underground scene from the late ‘60s into a blend of Traffic, The Doors, early (Saucerful Of Secrets) Floyd with the hard rock of The Edgar Broughton Band and Atomic Rooster. Having said that, Out Of Focus are resolutely their own band with their own sound and their own take on the underground music scene of their day. It has an immediate appeal, made all the more attractive by Ben Wiseman’s excellent remaster.

Q: Why is my Crosstab being cut off in Excel? I'm attempting to create an excel spreadsheet using BIRT. The spreadsheet is a crosstab mapping two objects together. The number of rows and columns are dynamic based on values in a MySQL database. Currently I have a working implementation of the report for PDF output. Now, I am trying to create a second version of the report for Excel. I have copied the report design and begun adjusting it to work with Excel. Everything looks good, but only the first 3 columns are displayed after the header. All rows appear correctly. I have tried the following: I tried setting Overflow to Visible on every element on the page. This had no effect. I tried setting the master page's height and width to ridiculously large values. All of the information displayed correctly, but I am hoping for a solution without hard coded values. In the future the data width might exceed my arbitrary value again and be cut off. I am constrained in the following ways: I am not able to switch reporting engines (I have to use BIRT). I am not able to switch Excel emitters. This blog entry mentions my problem: http://www.spudsoft.co.uk/2011/10/the-spudsoft-birt-excel-emitters/ but it does not offer a solution other than an emitter switch. The specific quote is "The files also have problems with page layout that I could not work around (specifically wide reports would be cut off)." Beyond the one blog entry my googlefu has failed me. Any help is appreciated! Thank you! A: There are two questions here. The first one is relatively easy, the second is complex. 1.Why is my Cross tab being cut off in Excel? 2.How do I dynamically adjust the master page width based on the number of columns in the report at runtime? A1: The Cross tab is being cut off because column widths have been manually set, where the number of columns will expand past the set width of the Master page. Anytime you grab report design element and adjust, BIRT assumes you know what your doing and does not override your setting. The solution is to recreate the report element (Table or Cross Tab) and not manually adjust any sizes. When run in HTML or Excel all the columns will be automatically set to display in the available master page width. Screen shot of a BIRT 4.2 Cross Tab, Report Item with a 2 inch master page width and 30 columns A2: This is not easy, and I will not be providing the answer at this time. I will point toward the solution and identify a couple of the road blocks. A valid solution to this question must include a functioning solution using the Sample Database. (as of BIRT 4.2.1) Challenge1 - The Master Page Width is set BIRT Report Scripting in events prior to report Table or Cross Tab item being completed. You can not simply count how many columns are in the report; If you wanted to count, columns -- Report Design intialize columnCount = 0; Cross Tab, onCreate columnCount ++; In my research there are two paths suggested for counting columns prior to the Cross Tab item being created. Either Run the data set in the beforeFactory (this means two queries to the data base, one to count and one for the report), then get a count and use it. Calculate the value in your intial query and harvest it in the Data Set, onFetch. I followed the Data Set, onFetch, option using a computed column but did not get it working. Challenge2 - The Width Property of the Master Page must be set on or before the Report Design, beforeRender. With the beforeFactory being the most often recommended. Additionally the Width Property of the Master Page is only available when the Master Page "Type" is set to "Custom", in my attempts I set this manually in the Property Editor General. Passing Values from the onFetch to beforeFactory must be done using a PersistentGlobalVariable which can only pass strings, not integers. I found all kinds of way for this to not work. Even passing "12in" in PersistentGlobalVariable failed to adjust the master page Width Either of these codes in beforeFactory will adjust the Master Page Width (when Type = Custom) Pass the Value reportContext.getReportRunnable().designHandle.getDesignHandle().findMasterPage("Simple MasterPage").setProperty("width","12in"); Calculate a value and pass it increaseWidth = 20; reportContext.getReportRunnable().designHandle.getDesignHandle().findMasterPage( "Simple MasterPage").setProperty("width",((2+increaseWidth)+"in")); In the end I have been unable to find or create a functional report that adjusts the Master Page Width passed on the number columns generated at report run time. I think it is possible, but doing so is beyond my current skills.

Zach Davies Zachary Ryan Davies (born February 7, 1993) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Baltimore Orioles selected him in the 2011 MLB draft. Davies appeared in the All-Star Futures Game in 2015, and later that year was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers. He made his MLB debut for Milwaukee in 2015, and was traded to San Diego after the 2019 season. Career Davies attended Mesquite High School in Gilbert, Arizona. He played for the school's baseball team as a middle infielder, becoming a pitcher in his junior year. The Baltimore Orioles selected Davies in the 26th round of the 2011 MLB draft. Davies signed with the Orioles, forgoing his commitment to Arizona State University for a $575,000 signing bonus. Davies made his professional debut with the Delmarva Shorebirds of the Class A South Atlantic League in 2012, where he pitched to a 3.86 earned run average (ERA). He had a 3.69 ERA for the Frederick Keys of the Class A-Advanced Carolina League in 2013. In 2014, he pitched for the Bowie Baysox of the Class AA Eastern League. For Bowie, Davies pitched to a 3.35 ERA. He represented the Orioles in the Arizona Fall League after the regular season. Davies began the 2015 season with the Norfolk Tides of the Class AAA International League, and was chosen to represent the Orioles at the 2015 All-Star Futures Game. With Norfolk, Davies pitched to a 2.84 ERA in 19 games. On July 31, 2015, the Orioles traded Davies to the Milwaukee Brewers for Gerardo Parra. The Brewers assigned Davies to the Colorado Springs Sky Sox of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League, and promoted him to make his major league debut on September 2. On November 27, 2019, the Brewers traded Davies, Trent Grisham, and cash considerations or a player to be named later to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Luis Urías and Eric Lauer. Scouting report Davies has a three pitch repertoire featuring a two-seam fastball, a curveball, and a changeup. His fastball typically is around with great sinking movement. His changeup is widely considered his best pitch, as it is thrown deceptively and has a very sharp downward break as it approaches the batter. His pinpoint control is also a strength and should become more consistent with experience. Personal life Davies married longtime girlfriend Megan White on December 3, 2016. References External links Category:1993 births Category:Living people Category:Sportspeople from Puyallup, Washington Category:Sportspeople from Chandler, Arizona Category:Baseball players from Arizona Category:Major League Baseball pitchers Category:Milwaukee Brewers players Category:Delmarva Shorebirds players Category:Frederick Keys players Category:Bowie Baysox players Category:Glendale Desert Dogs players Category:Norfolk Tides players Category:All-Star Futures Game players Category:Colorado Springs Sky Sox players

Beer Fed Steaks Beer Fed Fillet Steak For our most tender of steaks choose our 28 days dry aged beer fed beef fillet steak, its almost described as being butter soft. You could literally cut it with a spoon. We only use Shorthorn … Read More Beer Fed Rib on the Bone It really doesn’t get any better than a slow roasted Beer Fed Rib on the Bone. It’s delicious beyond words. If you’re having a family occasion or a get together with friends then this … Read More Beer Fed Silverside/Topside Silverside or Topside, that is the question!? There’s not a lot of difference really. The Beer Fed Silverside is a nice lean roast and perfect if you’re not keen on fat subsequently there’s a little fat in … Read More

/* 20020611-1.c from the execute part of the gcc torture suite. */ #include <testfwk.h> #ifdef __SDCC #pragma std_c99 #endif /* PR target/6997. Missing (set_attr "cc" "none") in sleu pattern in cris.md. Testcase from [email protected]. */ int p; int k; unsigned int n; void x () { unsigned int h; h = n <= 30; if (h) p = 1; else p = 0; if (h) k = 1; else k = 0; } unsigned int n = 30; void testTortureExecute (void) { x (); if (p != 1 || k != 1) ASSERT (0); return; }

15 Worst Finishers in WWE Today From the boring to the ineffective, these are some of the worst finishers in the WWE I don’t think the problem with Seth Rollins’ King’s Landing finisher is the move itself: a high-knee to the face of his opponent. This could convincingly knock out many unsuspecting people. Despite this, there are many factors at work outside the maneuver that make it a little lame. First is the name: King’s Landing, which is a move that is used by a man who calls himself the “King Slayer”. We get it, Seth, you like Game of Thrones. It doesn’t make the move seem cooler, it just makes the wrestler in question seem like a giant nerd. It would be like a Final Fantasy fan naming his finisher the “One-Winged Angel”. (Oh, wait… that is a thing). But the second thing that works against Seth here with the King’s Landing is that it is a bit lack-luster compared to his other two finishers. Compared to two moves in the Curb Stomp and Pedigree that drives the opponents head into the mat, a knee strike to the face just seems kind of… meh. Maybe I’m just being a little nit-picky here though.

Festival season is upon us, and where else do we go to for our festival wardrobe but overpriced vintage shops such as "What Goes Around Comes Around," thrift shops on St. Marks, and - if we're not feeling like falling down the Etsy rabbit hole - Free people? Well, Coachella is now suing Free People and Urban Outfitters (who happens to own Free People) for copyright infringement. *Record scratch on a limited edition vinyl record of the "Dazed and Confused" soundtrack on an artisanal record player you bought in a vintage shop in a back alley all the way in Camden when you were over there for Glastonbury* Wait, what? That's right, Coachella, which is infamous for capitalizing off of cultural appropriation such as ripping off Indian bindis and making sacrosanct Native American headdresses into some sort of fashion statement is suing FREE PEOPLE for copyright infringement. So, Pot, meet Kettle. You're both black. Coachella alleges that Free People is monetizing their "distinctive" brand by selling festival swag geared towards Coachella attendees even though Coachella already made a deal with H&M that they alone have the rights to design and sell attire specialized for Coachella. Free People is notorious for selling hippy dippy, bohemian clothing that is perfect for a day of sand and surf, a yoga retreat, or a festival with friends. So Coachella suing Free People for this is tantamount to the Kentucky Derby suing Lilly Pulitzer and Ralph Lauren for copyright infringement. This whole lawsuit is making Coachella look litigious, and lest we say it, tacky. We already knew it was becoming mainstream, but this is a bit ridiculous.We'd rather be buying molly off of shady dealers, getting weird tan lines from crochet tank tops, and waiting in ridiculously long lines for a port-a-potty at a festival that is a little less contentious and a lot more "power to the people"...think Nativa, Bonnaroo, or somewhere more luxe like #C2CMLN (however you pronounce that one). [Photo via @coachella]

Five Types Of Pool Cleaners To Choose From! If you have a pool at home, it is extremely important that you keep an eye on maintenance and upkeep, especially when the use extends beyond the summer months. There is a wide range of ways to clean the pool. You can choose to hire professional services for monthly cleaning, or else, you can invest in a pool cleaner. The designs and signs of pool cleaners are extremely varied, and you have to decide the option based on what you can afford. Make sure that you check websites like poolurchin.com, where you can find a lot of reviews, but before that, check these common types of cleaners. The first one is a manual one, which works like a vacuum and pulls out the dirt and debris from the floor, walls and steps. If you don’t mind in spending time on cleaning the pool, this is a great option that works extremely well for any budget. Manual cleaners are good for small in-ground pools. If you want something better, the next option is a suction side automatic cleaner. There are various options in suction cleaners, and the prices are considerably in budget. For pools that get large debris like falling leaves and flowers, this is the best choice by all means. The costs are higher than manual cleaner. The third choice is pressure-side pool cleaner, which have a motor and uses the pump of the pool for cleaning. Ideally, pressure-side pool cleaners last for decade or even more, as long as one takes proper care. Such cleaners are expensive as compared to suction cleaners, but perform better. One of the costly but amazing options is robotic cleaner. These cleaners work automatically and don’t have to be monitored. Right from the scrubbing of floors to cleaning of the debris, these cleaners work perfectly without any supervision. The costs are usually very much higher than other options, but the performance and convenience is surely worth considering. The final choice is a solar powered pool cleaner, which is a new option on the block and harnesses the energy from the sun for cleaning. However, these cleaners don’t clean the bottom of the pool, which is an aspect to consider. Author Bio:Silke Gebauer is the founder of poolurchin.com. Silke loved holding her breath under water and jumping from diving boards before she could swim properly, which is how she got her nickname Poolurchin. She still loves exploring and blogging about anything water and pool relate

Birth Clubs Groups by topic Vacation without baby I’m leaving Tuesday to Bahamas without our 16 month old and I’m getting such bad guilt. We are gone for 8 days, hubby had to go for work and I decided it would be fun to make it into a trip for us both without baby. Has anyone else gone for that long and that far? Scares me so much that it will be like minimum 13 hours to get home in an emergency. I’m really questioning my decision to go 😫 I haven’t done it yet, but I think what you are feeling is totally normal and nothing to feel guilty about. I don’t think anyone will ever feel comfortable being so far away from their kids no matter how old they get. However, this vacation will be so nice for you and hubby and if your LO is anything like mine...he/she will have a fantastic time with whoever is babysitting. My husband & I went to Cuba for a week when our kids were 4 & 1 AND we went to Vegas this past summer when our kids were 17, 11, 8 and 11 months. We also got snowed in at our cottage recently and missed our now 9 year olds birthday! We FaceTimed her 4 times throughout the day and she didn’t even really care lol I went to ireland without my husband and son this past July. I understand how you’re feeling being soooo far away if anything was to happen. But once you get to the Bahamas (jealous!) you’ll feel so much better. Trust me. I felt better once I was in Ireland it’s just getting there that was difficult and saying goodbye to my husband and son. but your time will fly by and your baby will do great without you! And before you know it you’ll be back home. Enjoy :) OTHER SITES This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a doctor or other healthcare professional. Please review the Terms of Use before using this site. Your use of the site indicates your agreement to be bound by the Terms of Use. This site is published by BabyCenter, L.L.C., which is responsible for its contents as further described and qualified in the Terms of Use.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <!--NewPage--> <HTML> <HEAD> <!-- Generated by javadoc (build 1.6.0_65) on Fri Nov 07 08:22:20 PST 2014 --> <TITLE> MediaStoreStreamLoader (glide 3.4.0 API) </TITLE> <META NAME="date" CONTENT="2014-11-07"> <LINK REL ="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="../../../../../../stylesheet.css" TITLE="Style"> <SCRIPT type="text/javascript"> function windowTitle() { if (location.href.indexOf('is-external=true') == -1) { parent.document.title="MediaStoreStreamLoader (glide 3.4.0 API)"; } } </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> </NOSCRIPT> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="white" onload="windowTitle();"> <HR> <!-- ========= START OF TOP NAVBAR ======= --> <A NAME="navbar_top"><!-- --></A> <A HREF="#skip-navbar_top" title="Skip navigation links"></A> <TABLE BORDER="0" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR> <TD COLSPAN=2 BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A NAME="navbar_top_firstrow"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="3" SUMMARY=""> <TR ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top"> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../overview-summary.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Overview</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="package-summary.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Package</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1Rev"> &nbsp;<FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1Rev"><B>Class</B></FONT>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="package-tree.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Tree</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../deprecated-list.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Deprecated</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../index-all.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Index</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../help-doc.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Help</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> </TR> </TABLE> </TD> <TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ROWSPAN=3><EM> </EM> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="NavBarCell2"><FONT SIZE="-2"> &nbsp;<A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/HttpUrlGlideUrlLoader.Factory.html" title="class in com.bumptech.glide.load.model.stream"><B>PREV CLASS</B></A>&nbsp; &nbsp;<A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/StreamByteArrayLoader.html" title="class in com.bumptech.glide.load.model.stream"><B>NEXT CLASS</B></A></FONT></TD> <TD BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="NavBarCell2"><FONT SIZE="-2"> <A HREF="../../../../../../index.html?com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/MediaStoreStreamLoader.html" target="_top"><B>FRAMES</B></A> &nbsp; &nbsp;<A HREF="MediaStoreStreamLoader.html" target="_top"><B>NO FRAMES</B></A> &nbsp; &nbsp;<SCRIPT type="text/javascript"> <!-- if(window==top) { document.writeln('<A HREF="../../../../../../allclasses-noframe.html"><B>All Classes</B></A>'); } //--> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="../../../../../../allclasses-noframe.html"><B>All Classes</B></A> </NOSCRIPT> </FONT></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD VALIGN="top" CLASS="NavBarCell3"><FONT SIZE="-2"> SUMMARY:&nbsp;NESTED&nbsp;|&nbsp;FIELD&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#constructor_summary">CONSTR</A>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#method_summary">METHOD</A></FONT></TD> <TD VALIGN="top" CLASS="NavBarCell3"><FONT SIZE="-2"> DETAIL:&nbsp;FIELD&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#constructor_detail">CONSTR</A>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#method_detail">METHOD</A></FONT></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <A NAME="skip-navbar_top"></A> <!-- ========= END OF TOP NAVBAR ========= --> <HR> <!-- ======== START OF CLASS DATA ======== --> <H2> <FONT SIZE="-1"> com.bumptech.glide.load.model.stream</FONT> <BR> Class MediaStoreStreamLoader</H2> <PRE> <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.lang">java.lang.Object</A> <IMG SRC="../../../../../../resources/inherit.gif" ALT="extended by "><B>com.bumptech.glide.load.model.stream.MediaStoreStreamLoader</B> </PRE> <DL> <DT><B>All Implemented Interfaces:</B> <DD><A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model">ModelLoader</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>,<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt;</DD> </DL> <HR> <DL> <DT><PRE>public class <B>MediaStoreStreamLoader</B><DT>extends <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.lang">Object</A><DT>implements <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model">ModelLoader</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>,<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt;</DL> </PRE> <P> An <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model"><CODE>ModelLoader</CODE></A> that can use media store uris to open pre-generated thumbnails from the media store using <A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/provider/MediaStore.Images.Thumbnails.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.provider"><CODE>MediaStore.Images.Thumbnails</CODE></A> and <A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/provider/MediaStore.Video.Thumbnails.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.provider"><CODE>MediaStore.Video.Thumbnails</CODE></A> if the requested size is less than or equal to the media store thumbnail size. If the given uri is not a media store uri or if the desired dimensions are too large, it falls back to the wrapped <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model"><CODE>ModelLoader</CODE></A> to load the <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io"><CODE>InputStream</CODE></A> data. <P> <P> <HR> <P> <!-- ======== CONSTRUCTOR SUMMARY ======== --> <A NAME="constructor_summary"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="1" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" CLASS="TableHeadingColor"> <TH ALIGN="left" COLSPAN="2"><FONT SIZE="+2"> <B>Constructor Summary</B></FONT></TH> </TR> <TR BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="TableRowColor"> <TD><CODE><B><A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/MediaStoreStreamLoader.html#MediaStoreStreamLoader(android.content.Context, com.bumptech.glide.load.model.ModelLoader)">MediaStoreStreamLoader</A></B>(<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.content">Context</A>&nbsp;context, <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model">ModelLoader</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>,<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt;&nbsp;uriLoader)</CODE> <BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD> </TR> </TABLE> &nbsp; <!-- ========== METHOD SUMMARY =========== --> <A NAME="method_summary"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="1" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" CLASS="TableHeadingColor"> <TH ALIGN="left" COLSPAN="2"><FONT SIZE="+2"> <B>Method Summary</B></FONT></TH> </TR> <TR BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="TableRowColor"> <TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="1%"><FONT SIZE="-1"> <CODE>&nbsp;<A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data">DataFetcher</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt;</CODE></FONT></TD> <TD><CODE><B><A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/MediaStoreStreamLoader.html#getResourceFetcher(android.net.Uri, int, int)">getResourceFetcher</A></B>(<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>&nbsp;model, int&nbsp;width, int&nbsp;height)</CODE> <BR> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Obtains an <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data"><CODE>DataFetcher</CODE></A> that can fetch the data required to decode the resource represented by this model.</TD> </TR> </TABLE> &nbsp;<A NAME="methods_inherited_from_class_java.lang.Object"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="1" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="TableSubHeadingColor"> <TH ALIGN="left"><B>Methods inherited from class java.lang.<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.lang">Object</A></B></TH> </TR> <TR BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="TableRowColor"> <TD><CODE><A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#clone()" title="class or interface in java.lang">clone</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#equals(java.lang.Object)" title="class or interface in java.lang">equals</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#finalize()" title="class or interface in java.lang">finalize</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#getClass()" title="class or interface in java.lang">getClass</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#hashCode()" title="class or interface in java.lang">hashCode</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#notify()" title="class or interface in java.lang">notify</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#notifyAll()" title="class or interface in java.lang">notifyAll</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#toString()" title="class or interface in java.lang">toString</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#wait()" title="class or interface in java.lang">wait</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#wait(long)" title="class or interface in java.lang">wait</A>, <A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Object.html?is-external=true#wait(long, int)" title="class or interface in java.lang">wait</A></CODE></TD> </TR> </TABLE> &nbsp; <P> <!-- ========= CONSTRUCTOR DETAIL ======== --> <A NAME="constructor_detail"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="1" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" CLASS="TableHeadingColor"> <TH ALIGN="left" COLSPAN="1"><FONT SIZE="+2"> <B>Constructor Detail</B></FONT></TH> </TR> </TABLE> <A NAME="MediaStoreStreamLoader(android.content.Context, com.bumptech.glide.load.model.ModelLoader)"><!-- --></A><H3> MediaStoreStreamLoader</H3> <PRE> public <B>MediaStoreStreamLoader</B>(<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/content/Context.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.content">Context</A>&nbsp;context, <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model">ModelLoader</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>,<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt;&nbsp;uriLoader)</PRE> <DL> </DL> <!-- ============ METHOD DETAIL ========== --> <A NAME="method_detail"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="1" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="3" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" CLASS="TableHeadingColor"> <TH ALIGN="left" COLSPAN="1"><FONT SIZE="+2"> <B>Method Detail</B></FONT></TH> </TR> </TABLE> <A NAME="getResourceFetcher(android.net.Uri, int, int)"><!-- --></A><H3> getResourceFetcher</H3> <PRE> public <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data">DataFetcher</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt; <B>getResourceFetcher</B>(<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>&nbsp;model, int&nbsp;width, int&nbsp;height)</PRE> <DL> <DD><B>Description copied from interface: <CODE><A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html#getResourceFetcher(T, int, int)">ModelLoader</A></CODE></B></DD> <DD>Obtains an <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data"><CODE>DataFetcher</CODE></A> that can fetch the data required to decode the resource represented by this model. The <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data"><CODE>DataFetcher</CODE></A> will not be used if the resource is already cached. <p> Note - If no valid data fetcher can be returned (for example if a model has a null URL), then it is acceptable to return a null data fetcher from this method. Doing so will be treated any other failure or exception during the load process. </p> <P> <DD><DL> <DT><B>Specified by:</B><DD><CODE><A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html#getResourceFetcher(T, int, int)">getResourceFetcher</A></CODE> in interface <CODE><A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/ModelLoader.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.model">ModelLoader</A>&lt;<A HREF="http://d.android.com/reference/android/net/Uri.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in android.net">Uri</A>,<A HREF="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/InputStream.html?is-external=true" title="class or interface in java.io">InputStream</A>&gt;</CODE></DL> </DD> <DD><DL> <DT><B>Parameters:</B><DD><CODE>model</CODE> - The model representing the resource.<DD><CODE>width</CODE> - The width in pixels of the view or target the resource will be loaded into<DD><CODE>height</CODE> - The height in pixels of the view or target the resource will be loaded into <DT><B>Returns:</B><DD>A <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data"><CODE>DataFetcher</CODE></A> that can obtain the data the resource can be decoded from if the resource is not cached, or null if no valid <A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/data/DataFetcher.html" title="interface in com.bumptech.glide.load.data"><CODE>DataFetcher</CODE></A> could be constructed.</DL> </DD> </DL> <!-- ========= END OF CLASS DATA ========= --> <HR> <!-- ======= START OF BOTTOM NAVBAR ====== --> <A NAME="navbar_bottom"><!-- --></A> <A HREF="#skip-navbar_bottom" title="Skip navigation links"></A> <TABLE BORDER="0" WIDTH="100%" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="0" SUMMARY=""> <TR> <TD COLSPAN=2 BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A NAME="navbar_bottom_firstrow"><!-- --></A> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="3" SUMMARY=""> <TR ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top"> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../overview-summary.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Overview</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="package-summary.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Package</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1Rev"> &nbsp;<FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1Rev"><B>Class</B></FONT>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="package-tree.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Tree</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../deprecated-list.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Deprecated</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../index-all.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Index</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> <TD BGCOLOR="#EEEEFF" CLASS="NavBarCell1"> <A HREF="../../../../../../help-doc.html"><FONT CLASS="NavBarFont1"><B>Help</B></FONT></A>&nbsp;</TD> </TR> </TABLE> </TD> <TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ROWSPAN=3><EM> </EM> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="NavBarCell2"><FONT SIZE="-2"> &nbsp;<A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/HttpUrlGlideUrlLoader.Factory.html" title="class in com.bumptech.glide.load.model.stream"><B>PREV CLASS</B></A>&nbsp; &nbsp;<A HREF="../../../../../../com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/StreamByteArrayLoader.html" title="class in com.bumptech.glide.load.model.stream"><B>NEXT CLASS</B></A></FONT></TD> <TD BGCOLOR="white" CLASS="NavBarCell2"><FONT SIZE="-2"> <A HREF="../../../../../../index.html?com/bumptech/glide/load/model/stream/MediaStoreStreamLoader.html" target="_top"><B>FRAMES</B></A> &nbsp; &nbsp;<A HREF="MediaStoreStreamLoader.html" target="_top"><B>NO FRAMES</B></A> &nbsp; &nbsp;<SCRIPT type="text/javascript"> <!-- if(window==top) { document.writeln('<A HREF="../../../../../../allclasses-noframe.html"><B>All Classes</B></A>'); } //--> </SCRIPT> <NOSCRIPT> <A HREF="../../../../../../allclasses-noframe.html"><B>All Classes</B></A> </NOSCRIPT> </FONT></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD VALIGN="top" CLASS="NavBarCell3"><FONT SIZE="-2"> SUMMARY:&nbsp;NESTED&nbsp;|&nbsp;FIELD&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#constructor_summary">CONSTR</A>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#method_summary">METHOD</A></FONT></TD> <TD VALIGN="top" CLASS="NavBarCell3"><FONT SIZE="-2"> DETAIL:&nbsp;FIELD&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#constructor_detail">CONSTR</A>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<A HREF="#method_detail">METHOD</A></FONT></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <A NAME="skip-navbar_bottom"></A> <!-- ======== END OF BOTTOM NAVBAR ======= --> <HR> </BODY> </HTML>

# -*- Mode: python; tab-width: 4; indent-tabs-mode:nil; coding:utf-8 -*- # vim: tabstop=4 expandtab shiftwidth=4 softtabstop=4 # # MDAnalysis --- https://www.mdanalysis.org # Copyright (c) 2006-2017 The MDAnalysis Development Team and contributors # (see the file AUTHORS for the full list of names) # # Released under the GNU Public Licence, v2 or any higher version # # Please cite your use of MDAnalysis in published work: # # R. J. Gowers, M. Linke, J. Barnoud, T. J. E. Reddy, M. N. Melo, S. L. Seyler, # D. L. Dotson, J. Domanski, S. Buchoux, I. M. Kenney, and O. Beckstein. # MDAnalysis: A Python package for the rapid analysis of molecular dynamics # simulations. In S. Benthall and S. Rostrup editors, Proceedings of the 15th # Python in Science Conference, pages 102-109, Austin, TX, 2016. SciPy. # doi: 10.25080/majora-629e541a-00e # # N. Michaud-Agrawal, E. J. Denning, T. B. Woolf, and O. Beckstein. # MDAnalysis: A Toolkit for the Analysis of Molecular Dynamics Simulations. # J. Comput. Chem. 32 (2011), 2319--2327, doi:10.1002/jcc.21787 # """ PQR topology parser =================== Read atoms with charges from a PQR_ file (as written by PDB2PQR_). No connectivity is deduced. Note ---- The file format is described in :mod:`MDAnalysis.coordinates.PQR`. Classes ------- .. autoclass:: PQRParser :members: :inherited-members: .. _PQR: https://apbs-pdb2pqr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/formats/pqr.html .. _APBS: https://apbs-pdb2pqr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/apbs/index.html .. _PDB2PQR: https://apbs-pdb2pqr.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pdb2pqr/index.html .. _PDB: http://www.wwpdb.org/documentation/file-format """ import numpy as np from . import guessers from ..lib.util import openany from ..core.topologyattrs import ( Atomids, Atomnames, Atomtypes, Charges, ICodes, Masses, Radii, RecordTypes, Resids, Resnums, Resnames, Segids, ) from ..core.topology import Topology from .base import TopologyReaderBase, squash_by, change_squash class PQRParser(TopologyReaderBase): """Parse atom information from PQR file *filename*. Creates a MDAnalysis Topology with the following attributes - Atomids - Atomnames - Charges - Radii - RecordTypes (ATOM/HETATM) - Resids - Resnames - Segids Guesses the following: - atomtypes (if not present, Gromacs generated PQR files have these) - masses .. versionchanged:: 0.9.0 Read chainID from a PQR file and use it as segid (before we always used 'SYSTEM' as the new segid). .. versionchanged:: 0.16.1 Now reads insertion codes and splits into new residues around these .. versionchanged:: 0.18.0 Added parsing of Record types Can now read PQR files from Gromacs, these provide atom type as last column but don't have segids """ format = 'PQR' @staticmethod def guess_flavour(line): """Guess which variant of PQR format this line is Parameters ---------- line : str entire line of PQR file starting with ATOM/HETATM Returns ------- flavour : str ORIGINAL / GROMACS / NO_CHAINID .. versionadded:: 0.18.0 """ fields = line.split() if len(fields) == 11: try: float(fields[-1]) except ValueError: flavour = 'GROMACS' else: flavour = 'ORIGINAL' else: flavour = 'NO_CHAINID' return flavour def parse(self, **kwargs): """Parse atom information from PQR file *filename*. Returns ------- A MDAnalysis Topology object """ record_types = [] serials = [] names = [] resnames = [] chainIDs = [] resids = [] icodes = [] charges = [] radii = [] elements = [] flavour = None with openany(self.filename) as f: for line in f: if not line.startswith(("ATOM", "HETATM")): continue fields = line.split() if flavour is None: flavour = self.guess_flavour(line) if flavour == 'ORIGINAL': (recordName, serial, name, resName, chainID, resSeq, x, y, z, charge, radius) = fields elif flavour == 'GROMACS': (recordName, serial, name, resName, resSeq, x, y, z, charge, radius, element) = fields chainID = "SYSTEM" elements.append(element) elif flavour == 'NO_CHAINID': # files without the chainID (recordName, serial, name, resName, resSeq, x, y, z, charge, radius) = fields chainID = "SYSTEM" try: resid = int(resSeq) except ValueError: # has icode present resid = int(resSeq[:-1]) icode = resSeq[-1] else: icode = '' record_types.append(recordName) serials.append(serial) names.append(name) resnames.append(resName) resids.append(resid) icodes.append(icode) charges.append(charge) radii.append(radius) chainIDs.append(chainID) n_atoms = len(serials) if not elements: atomtypes = guessers.guess_types(names) guessed_types = True else: atomtypes = elements guessed_types = False masses = guessers.guess_masses(atomtypes) attrs = [] attrs.append(Atomids(np.array(serials, dtype=np.int32))) attrs.append(Atomnames(np.array(names, dtype=object))) attrs.append(Charges(np.array(charges, dtype=np.float32))) attrs.append(Atomtypes(atomtypes, guessed=guessed_types)) attrs.append(Masses(masses, guessed=True)) attrs.append(RecordTypes(np.array(record_types, dtype=object))) attrs.append(Radii(np.array(radii, dtype=np.float32))) resids = np.array(resids, dtype=np.int32) icodes = np.array(icodes, dtype=object) resnames = np.array(resnames, dtype=object) chainIDs = np.array(chainIDs, dtype=object) residx, (resids, resnames, icodes, chainIDs) = change_squash( (resids, resnames, icodes, chainIDs), (resids, resnames, icodes, chainIDs)) n_residues = len(resids) attrs.append(Resids(resids)) attrs.append(Resnums(resids.copy())) attrs.append(Resnames(resnames)) attrs.append(ICodes(icodes)) segidx, chainIDs = squash_by(chainIDs)[:2] n_segments = len(chainIDs) attrs.append(Segids(chainIDs)) top = Topology(n_atoms, n_residues, n_segments, attrs=attrs, atom_resindex=residx, residue_segindex=segidx) return top

The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) commemorates its 83rd anniversary of foundation. ICP, 01 April 2017 The editorial of “Tareeq Al-Shaab” (People’s Path), the daily newspaper of the Iraqi Communist Party, commemorated the 83rd anniversary of foundation of the Party. The editorial also referred to Party's demand to end the sectarian-ethnic quota system that is voiced in mass demonstrations since last summer. The 83rd anniversary of the founding of our Iraqi Communist Party on 31st March 2017 was celebrated throughout the country and abroad by its members and sympathizers, according to the editorial. It was said that 'The emergence of an organized political force at the turn of the last century, based on an ideological approach that is committed to justice, equality and freedom from all forms of exploitation, marked the early maturity of the Iraqi national movement.' The Communist Party, built by 'the enlightened figures of our people’s revolutionary movement' had placed at the core of its main tasks 'defending the immediate class interests of the toilers' and 'their future social aspirations for salvation from the exploitation of man by his fellow man.' This objective was formulated as “a Free Homeland and a Prosperous People”. The Communist Party, challenged by despotic and dictatorial regimes throughout the country's history, had remained faithful to its principles which formed the basis for its 10th National Congress that was held four months ago. The editorial went as follows: 'Today, in the face of the many challenges facing our country, which include defeating terrorism, resolving the all-encompassing crisis, rebuilding what has been destroyed by wars and devastated by corruption, the Communists and sincere citizens, in all arenas of mass protest, are confronting the system of sectarian and ethnic quotas that is responsible for the crises.They have raised the banner of change, to build a democratic civil state, on the basis of citizenship and social justice, fully determined to achieve it.' At the beginning of March, the ICP, in an interview in “Nameh Mardom”, the central organ of the Tudeh Party of Iran, had evaluated the attack in 11 February on the mass demonstration in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in central Baghdad as an attack towards the people's opposition against corruption and the sectarian-ethnic quota system. Such demonstrations had been taking place also in other provinces since late July 2015 which called for urgent political reforms and judicial reforms, as well as the provision of basic services. According The Baghdad Post, the ICP had also met with the delegation of the Sadrist Movement to discuss the enhancing cooperation and coordination of peaceful protests.

NATO Is Winning in Afghanistan Like the United States Was in Vietnam The Pentagon released a sobering report on December 10, 2012 on the war in Afghanistan. The report was ready before the United States presidential election in early November but not made available to “respect” the election cycle. The delay from the Pentagon can only be viewed as an attempt by the Obama administration to keep the bleak findings of the report from the American public before they went to the polls. During the election charade, the 11-year war in Afghanistan, like any other meaningful US foreign-policy topic, was conveniently ignored by both candidates. The war is unpopular, and it has slowly but surely become the forgotten war, even though 68,000 US troops are still involved in Afghanistan’s quagmire. Endless war or transition to a Taliban takeover The raw numbers are grim, as the prospect of a real withdrawal by the US in 2014 seems increasingly unlikely, unless the Obama administration declares victory and shortly afterwards just lets the Taliban take over. According to the Pentagon, only one of the 23 brigades of the Afghan National Army would be able to operate without NATO support. According to official data from the Department of Defense, since 2001, the conflict has cost US taxpayers more than $500 billion, and 2,146 American troops have died. In this war of attrition, thousands of NATO troops have already died and will keep dying in vain. The Pentagon report spans from April 1 to September 30, 2012. “During the reporting period, enemy initiated attacks (EIAs) were up one percent compared to the same period last year. The campaign continued to face challenges including a rise of insider attacks. The insurgency’s safe havens in Pakistan, the limited institutional capacity of the Afghan government, and endemic corruption remain the greatest risks to long-term stability and sustainable security in Afghanistan. The Taliban-led insurgency and its al-Qaeda affiliates operate from sanctuaries in Pakistan. Although the insurgency’s kinetic capabilities have declined from their peak in 2010, the insurgents remain resilient and determined, and will likely attempt to regain lost ground and influence through continued assassinations, intimidation, high-profile attacks, and the emplacement of IEDs ( improvised explosive devices). Widespread corruption continues to limit the effectiveness and legitimacy of the Afghan government,” says the 172 page Pentagon report. US taxpayers should know that, according to the Pentagon, the estimated cost of the report or study for the Department of Defense was around $161,000 for the 2012 fiscal year. This included $23,000 in “expenses” and $138,000 in “DOD labor.” Lesson from Vietnam: Defeating a skilled and determined guerrilla army is militarily impossible History is not America’s forte. The United States of America suffers from amnesia when it comes to the valuable lessons that the country should have learned from Vietnam. If people had done their research in Washington before impulsively invading Afghanistan in 2001, they would have reconsidered their actions after learning that nobody has ever defeated recent history’s best guerrilla force: the Pashtuns. The Taliban are mostly Pashtuns, and this fearless tribe has won the well-deserved reputation of providing a “burial ground” for empires. They did this with the British empire and, in the 1980s, with the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration played a pivotal role in arming and funding what he called Afghanistan’s “freedom fighters” when they were taking on the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union. A few decades later, Reagan’s freedom-fighter friends became the Taliban. Washington never made an effort to understand the Taliban and the reasons why they are such a tough and resilient enemy. The late French President General Charles de Gaulle once said: “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.” De Gaulle was correct in his assessment of America’s geopolitical IQ. More than 50,000 US troops died in vain in Vietnam to maintain an illegitimate and corrupt government, all in the name of countering the danger of communism’s “domino effect.” Three million Vietnamese were killed in that conflict. The same cold-war rationale was at play when Reagan was a crucial ally of Osama Bin Laden and his friends. This absurdly short-sighted, one-train-behind, US foreign policy is now being applied to Afghanistan, Pakistan — with the drone attacks — and of course Syria, where the US is de facto supporting a Talibanization of the country.

On October 21, 12 Australian news outlets joined forces in an effort to bring awareness to the government secrecy laws wreaking havoc on the country’s press freedoms. Australia has a history of creating crude laws to trap and control journalists. Sixty new laws have been reinforced and added to the Australian government over the past twenty years to create limitations for journalists. The “Rights to Know Coalition” is a result of the tension between the media and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) after June raids were performed on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst at her home and ABC Sydney headquarters. The “Rights to Know Coalition” is fighting to reform laws on freedom of information, the right to contest search warrants, restrict what the government deems secret and further protections for whistleblowers. Statement from the committee of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery on the police raid on @annikasmethurst today: pic.twitter.com/Oo6vHTfDzx — David Crowe (@CroweDM) June 4, 2019 This past June, AFP officers raided a variety of journalists’ homes and offices to find a connection to various “leaked” articles. Seven AFP officers spent hours searching Smethurst’s home, mobile phone and computer trying to find a connection between Smethurst and “alleged publishing of information classified as an official secret.” Smethurst has been considered a high-profile journalist since first exposing government secrets in 2018. Her article contained a “top secret” memo, revealing that senior government officials were considering moves to empower the Australian Signals Directorate to monitor Australian citizens. In the following days, the ABC Sydney was raided due to its 2017 “Afghan fillies” report based on hundreds of pages of leaked secret defense force documents. The documents showcased the allegation of misconduct by the Australian special forces. In 2018, the government introduced a new espionage, foreign interference and secrecy offense law that carries up to seven years of imprisonment for anyone found guilty of violating the law. In reaction to the recent raids, lawyers and the media have expressed their fears and claimed that the introduction of the “new espionage, foreign interference and secrecy offense” was inappropriate. Whistleblowers in Australia have taken a multitude of hits in the past years for the stories they have uncovered. Whistleblower Richard Boyles was charged in February 2018 with 66 offenses and faces 161 years in jail for revealing that the Australian Taxation Office can seize funds from bank accounts of taxpayers regardless of their personal circumstances. Boyles’ case could be the first major one testing whistleblower protection laws for federal public servants. In Australia, the United States, and elsewhere, journalists are being targeted for reporting on secret government info. The public’s right to know would be severely inhibited if the press could only publish news the government decides is not “secret.” https://t.co/rHf00Z1lFO — Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) June 7, 2019 Unfortunately, Boyles is not a unique case. Australia has no current law in its government protecting or explicitly allowing free speech even though the country is considered one of the most stable democratic nations in the world. Reports Without Borders ranked Australia in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index at 21 out of 180, two rankings down from last year, mainly due to the tough defamation laws imposed in 2018. According to Reporters Without Borders, Australia is in the running to become the world’s ‘defamation capital’ with its strict and various laws limiting speech. The Australian Constitution lacks the real meaning of free speech but, “implied freedom” is listed, demonstrating the country’s weak press freedom protections. Radio journalist Ben Fordham was targeted after Smethurst’s raid due to his story on six asylum-seeker boats that were intercepted in the Indian Ocean trying to reach Australia. An employee in the Department of Home Affairs explained to Fordham that only a limited number of people knew about the information at hand. The state wanted Fordham to name his source. HAPPENING NOW: AFP raid ABC headquarters in Sydney over a 2017 story on 7.30. @annikasmethurst yesterday, then @BenFordham asked by Home Affairs for a source, now the ABC. Is this the new normal? — John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) June 5, 2019 The Conversationalist quoted Fordham on the matter: “The chances of me revealing my sources is zero. Not today, not tomorrow, next week or next month. There is not a hope in hell of that happening.” The media has been unable to report on a variety of issues due to the government’s opinion of “lacking public interest.” Attorney-General Christian Porter launched a new order preventing the prosecution of journalists without his approval. However, other members of the council disagree with this goal of increasing protections for journalists. Law Council President Arthur Moses told ABC News that he does not view the Attorney-General’s efforts as long-term solutions. He also spoke to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, stating, “This puts the Attorney-General—a politician—in the position of authorizing prosecutions of journalists who may have written stories critical of his or her government.” The push for a change in legislation is happening now. Multiple groups such as the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance have drafted an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Parliament. Citizens are able to read the letter and send a copy with their signature to the prime minister and others to show their support. Advocates are pushing for six main proposals for “necessary and urgent” reform: The right to contest search warrants Protections for whistleblowers Restrictions on secrecy Freedom of information reform Journalist exemptions Defamation law reform The inquiry into new laws, conducted by the intelligence and security committee, is examining the impact of national security laws on press freedom. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has issued a directive to the federal police stating they should consider the “importance of a free and open press” and broader public-interest implications before involving media outlets in investigations.

Automotive Market With 150 speakers, 200 booths and 3000 attendees it really is the world’s biggest conference & exhibition dedicated to automotive tech. It will assist the allied well being care practitioner in understanding and advocating for people looking for automotive automobile modification solutions, whilst also teaching practitioners about the unique process involved in evaluating, selecting and purchasing appropriate automotive possibilities. Mentor is hosting a series of events aligned to the key automotive mega-trends in its new Mentor Automotive Lab in Novi, Michigan. This could take place due to the fact there is a particular person, for the sake of less costly rates than the competition in between sellers of new cars per unit of some components replaced with high quality No. 2, and the original is stored to be sold again. As a major supplier to the automotive market place, Microsemi solutions a broad variety of applications such as sophisticated driver assist (ADAS), collision avoidance and infotainment systems, power management, motion sensing, motor handle, telematics and far more. Due to the increase in the number of applications, MICHSON AUTOMOTIVE will NOT be in the position to contact applicants who fails to meet all requirements of the application. The client, an Automotive Tier 1 wanted to generate auto codes from the models in the shortest possible time to validate their new CVT’s architecture for a production program. The mechanic works on the automobile, but ends up finishing the repair in six hours, alternatively of 8. And then you nonetheless get charged the complete eight hours of labor expense. Hi, i am so delighted more than the write-up of yours on net regarding on how to begin up an auto repair tat 1 day i will unfailingly my own function shop.I have no concept on auto mobile repairs but i so significantly have passion on automobile repairs that i want to start up my own,but i know i will make it large when i start.I am from Nigeria,south-east of Nigeria e-mail is [email protected] write to me a lot more on how to start off up my Biz. A” names: As an auto repair shop, you’re up against a lot of competitors so it actually helps to get your name at the top of any listings that may be offered to shoppers such as telephone books or online listings. Consequently you can rest assured that you can get the service you require when you come to RS Automotive in Kumeu, West Auckland. What are the likely gear can one particular commence an auto repair shop with, been going to function on any brand of modern cars. The distributed automotive computing architecture has evolved more than many product generations as new characteristics and innovations have been added even though new hardware modules. Automotive Repair Pasadena H&R is conveniently situated at 2655 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91107 in PASADENA area. A keen young mechanic at times has the typical sense and potential to be an exceptional workshop owner, but may possibly lack the cash to get began in their personal automotive business, so I am going to show how it can be carried out on a shoestring. I was asked to drive a friend’s car to Hartford CT from Baltimore MD, so that the folks at my destination Sports Car Restoration”, could execute an estimate on some minor touch up function.

Q: How can I test the background scan and launch the application in background with iBeacon-Android? I am using the pro library. But I just found doc for free library I cannot find any doc for pro version. Also, I don't know how to implement the background mode even using the pro sample. Here are the steps: Build the pro sample project start the iBeacon source(using iPad) and it can be detected start the application and then press home button the make it in background Turn off the iBeacon source Turn on the iBeacon source However, more than 5 minutes, the application does not launch So, can anyone verify the step I did? How can I test the background mode more easily? Also, for the BootstrapNotifier, is it just work only first time when the device reboot? After that, even I put application in background, the application will not launch when it detect iBeacon? A: Your testing method sounds fine. I think the issue is that the reference app for the pro library only auto launches the app on the first detection after boot. After that, it sends a notification instead, and tapping on that notification launches the app. This is purely for demonstration purposes. You can change it to auto launch on every detection if you wish. Simply alter the haveDetectedIBeaconsSinceBoot logic in this code: @Override public void didEnterRegion(Region arg0) { // In this example, this class sends a notification to the user whenever an iBeacon // matching a Region (defined above) are first seen. Log.d(TAG, "did enter region."); if (!haveDetectedIBeaconsSinceBoot) { Log.d(TAG, "auto launching MainActivity"); // The very first time since boot that we detect an iBeacon, we launch the // MainActivity Intent intent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class); intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK); // Important: make sure to add android:launchMode="singleInstance" in the manifest // to keep multiple copies of this activity from getting created if the user has // already manually launched the app. this.startActivity(intent); haveDetectedIBeaconsSinceBoot = true; } else { // If we have already seen iBeacons and launched the MainActivity before, we simply // send a notification to the user on subsequent detections. Log.d(TAG, "Sending notification."); sendNotification(); } } The javadoc link was missing from the main documentation page when you posted this question. That is fixed now.

Illustration: Chen Xia/GT Mithila Phadke, an Indian woman living in Beijing, recently published an article on Scroll.in about her experiences in the local dating scene. "There's a part of me that takes unconscious pleasure in being exotic, and another part that cringes at being scrutinized for my race," Phadke wrote. Her article was met with across-the-board derision by netizens of all nationalities, including Caucasian expats on Reddit's r/China ("Indian girl goes to China, only f*cks white guys, goes on rant about white privilege"), Indian nationals on r/India ("Doesn't seem like she even bothered to see if there were any non-white men available and interested in her, in Beijing of all places!") and Eurasian offspring on r/Hapas ("Why is it that unattractive women have to lash out at everyone?"). As an ethnic Indian "fempat" (what foreign males in China call female expatriates) residing in Shanghai, I agree that the Indian dating pool is tragically limited in China, forcing women of color like me and Phadke to date other races or risk staying single. In fact, just three weeks before her article was published, I penned my own rant ("Brown girls like me get no love in pale-crazed Shanghai" Global Times Metro Shanghai 2017/3/22) with very similar views. Coincidence? With few female or male Indian friends here, this can naturally isolate us in a country where having darker skin and more hair definitely stands out. But as much as I agree with most of Phadke's points, we must remember that it's not only China that behaves this way. The UK, the US and Scandinavia are also known for their racialism when it comes to people of brown color. I am a British Indian, so by no means can our experiences be completely the same, however, in the eyes of the Chinese I'm sure that Phadke and I look similar. I have experienced some doubt when I tell locals that I am an England national. I can also relate to her comments about being the "only brown female face" and being "racialized." I mentioned in my own article that a young local student who I tutor often comments on my physical appearance. But as I have been in China longer than Phadke, I have learned to understand that the Chinese are very matter-of-fact when it comes to expressing their opinions. Ironically enough - and Phadke dropped the ball in this regard - should her or I openly comment about a Chinese person with tan skin (a mark of shame among urban Chinese), we would probably be screamed at and accused of hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. Unlike Phadke, who seems genuinely unhappy in China, my experiences here have been quite positive. Also, I take pleasure in being unique, different and "exotic," and I think this can be attributed to Shanghai itself, which historically is a much more diverse, cosmopolitan and open-minded metropolis than Beijing. Perhaps this is the perfect case study to contrast and compare a tale of two cities. Apart from my adolescent student, I have never experienced any racism here. What Phadke forgets is that whiter, paler skin is a popular desire all across Asia among those who don't have it. The Chinese abhor tan skin and the sun itself, taking every measure - from bleaching creams to parasols to keeping the curtains closed - to avoid turning brownish. But another craze for "less-brown" skin is taking place in Phadke's own Mumbai, where Bollywood often casts the whitest, least-Indian-looking starlets in leading roles, which in turn gets them commercials to advertise skin-whitening products pitched at dark Indians, perpetuating the shame echoed in Phadke's article ("I tell myself I am hairier, I am smellier, I am bumpier and lumpier. Sometimes before a date, I find myself wishing I could climb into new skin"). Nevertheless, with China advancing so far forward economically, perhaps it could also take this milestone of acceptance and surge forward in embracing a fully diversified society, perhaps someday even more than England or New York. Shanghai's economy is in fact largely dependent on international companies and foreign talent - including the English teachers that Phadke admits to looking down on as "something that requires little skill" - who are the driving force behind all the global communication and deal-making coming out of this city. On a global scale, then, it makes sense to accept all people from every country, ethnic group, skin color, language, accent, appearance and religion. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Global Times.

--- abstract: 'By proceeding from a simple non-polarized formalism, we consider in detail the polarization procedure as applied to the generating equations of the quantum antibracket algebra, in terms of the parametrized generating operator.' --- [**Quantum antibrackets: polarization and parametrization**]{} [Igor A. Batalin$^{(a,b)}\footnote{E-mail: [email protected]}$, Peter M. Lavrov$^{(b, c)}\footnote{E-mail: [email protected]}$ ]{} ${{}^{(a)}}$ [*P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute,\ Leninsky Prospect  53, 119 991 Moscow, Russia*]{} ${{}^{(b)}} $[*Tomsk State Pedagogical University,\ Kievskaya St. 60, 634061 Tomsk, Russia*]{} ${{}^{(c)}} $[*National Research Tomsk State University,\ Lenin Av. 36, 634050 Tomsk, Russia*]{} [*Keywords:*]{} quantum/derived antibrackets\ PACS numbers: 11.10.Ef, 11.15.Bt Introduction ============ Given a fermionic nilpotent operator $Q$, one can define, for any two operators $X$ and $Y$, their quantum 2-antibracket [@BM; @BM1], \[i1\] ( X, Y )\_[Q]{} =: ( \[ X, \[ Q, Y \] \] - \[ Y, \[ Q, X \] \] (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Y]{} + 1 ) ]{} ), or the derived bracket in mathematical terminology [@K-S; @Vo; @CSch]. These objects have very nice algebraic properties such as the anti-symmetry, the Jacobi relations, and the Leibnitz rule. It appears remarkably that the quantum 2-antibracket (\[i1\]) arises naturally when studying BRST - invariant constraint algebra [@BT; @BB] as well as in formulating quantum dynamical equations [@BL] and in the general representation of the gauge fields [@BL1]. The quantum 2-antibracket (\[i1\]) generalizes the usual antibracket of the field-antifield BV formalism [@BV; @BV1] (see also [@SZ; @ND; @GST]). Indeed, when being operators $X$ and $Y$ in (\[i1\]) functions of the field-antifield variables only, one identifies $Q = - \Delta$, where $\Delta$ is the odd Laplacian, and then uses $[ \Delta, Y ] = ( \Delta Y ) + {\rm ad}( Y ) (-1)^{ \varepsilon_{Y} }$, to get $( X, Y )_{Q}= ( X, Y )^{ (BV) }$. In the present paper, we proceed from the non-polarized version of the (\[i1\]) as defined at $X = Y = B$, with any bosonic operator $B$, \[i2\] ( B, B ) \_[Q]{} =: - \[ B, \[ B, Q \] \]. So, we call the (\[i1\]) as the polarized quantum 2-antibracket. In fact, that is just being $X \neq Y$ we mean as the polarization, in the general sense. Given the (\[i2\]), one can polarize that by considering formally $B = \alpha X + \beta Y$, with $\alpha$ and $\beta$ being the respective parameters, and then taking the $\alpha\beta$ derivative of the (\[i2\]), \[i3\] ( X, Y )\_[Q]{} = \_ \_ ( B, B )\_[Q]{} (-1)\^[ \_[Y]{} ]{}. It appears that the basic definitions and the general analysis look simpler essentially in the non-polarized formalism. On the other hand, the generating equations of the quantum antibracket algebra can be formulated naturally in terms of the parametrized generating operator, \[i4\] =: { \^[a]{} f\_[a]{} } Q { - \^[a]{} f\_[a]{} }, being $\{ f_{a} \} $ a chain of operators, and being $\{ \lambda^{\alpha} \}$ the respective parameters. In this way, the generating equations of the quantum antibracket algebra do acquire their geometrically-covariant status. We call the representation (\[i4\]) as the parametrization. All higher quantum antibrackets are defined in terms of derivatives of the generating operator (\[i4\]) with respect to the parameters. Complete set of the structure relations of the quantum antibracket algebra is generated by the nilpotence of the operator (\[i4\]). Basics on quantum antibrackets ============================== Let $Q$ be a fermionic nilpotent operator, \[r1\] Q: (Q) = 1, Q\^[2]{} = 0, and let $B$ be an arbitrary bosonic operator, \[r2\] B: (B) = 0. Introduce a quantum 2-antibracket, \[r3\] ( B, B )\_[Q]{} =: - \[ B, \[ B, Q \] \], then we have the main property \[r4\] \[ Q, ( B, B )\_[Q]{} \] = \[ \[ Q, B \], \[ Q, B \] \]. Let $A$ be the associator multiplied with a parameter $\beta$, \[r5\] A =: ( B, ( B, B )\_[Q]{} )\_[Q]{}. It follows then \[r6\] \[ Q, A \] = = 0 A = \[, Q\]. By choosing the operator $\mathcal{A}$ as \[r7\] = \[ B, (B, B)\_[Q]{} \] = ( B, B, B )\_[Q]{} =: - \[ B, \[ B, \[ B, Q \] \] \] = 6, we arrive at the non - polarized form of the Jacobi relation \[r8\] 6 ( B, ( B, B )\_[Q]{} )\_[Q]{} = \[ ( B, B, B )\_[Q]{}, Q \], as an identity with respect to $B$. Indeed, denote the operators \[r9\] X =: \[ B, \[ \[ B, Q \], \[ B, Q \] \] \], Y =: \[ \[ B, Q \], \[ B, \[ Q, B \] \] \], such that \[r10\] X = - 2 Y. Then, we have \[r11\] ( B, ( B, B )\_[Q]{} )\_[Q]{} = ( X + Y ) = - Y, \[r12\] \[ ( B, B, B )\_[Q]{}, Q \] = X - Y = - 3 Y, which is equivalent to (\[r8\]). Polarization ============ In the definition (\[r3\]), consider the Boson $B$ of the form \[p1\] B = X + Y + Z, with $\alpha, \beta $ and $\gamma$ being parameters. It follows then the polarized quantum 2-antibracket \[p2\] \_ \_ ( B, B )\_[Q]{} (-1)\^[ \_[Y]{} ]{} = ( X, Y )\_[Q]{} =: ( \[ X, \[ Q, Y \] \] - \[ Y, \[ Q, X \] \] (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Y]{} + 1 ) ]{} ). In analogy with the main property (\[r4\]) we have its counterpart for polarized quantum\ 2-antibracket (\[p2\]) \[p2a\] \[Q,(X,Y)\_Q\]=\[\[Q,X\],\[Q,Y\]\]. In turn, by using (\[p2\]), we have the polarized version of the Jacobi relation (\[r8\]) &&( X, ( Y, Z )\_[Q]{} )\_[Q]{} (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) ]{} + [cyclic permutations]{} ( X, Y, Z ) =\ &&= \_ \_ \_ ( B, ( B, B )\_[Q]{} )\_[Q]{} (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) + \_[Y]{} ]{} =\ &&= \_ \_ \_ (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) + \_[Y]{} ]{} =\ &&= \[ ( X, Y, Z )\_[Q]{}, Q \] (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) ]{}. \[p3\] Thus, we identify the polarized quantum 3-antibracket, \[p4\] &&( X, Y, Z )\_[Q]{} =: \_ \_ \_ ( B, B, B )\_[Q]{} (-1)\^[ \_[Y]{} ]{}=\ &&= - (-1)\^[ ( \_[X]{} + 1 ) ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) ]{} ( \[ X, ( Y, Z )\_[Q]{} \] (-1)\^[ \[ \_[X]{} ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) + + \_[Y]{} \] ]{} + [cyclic permutations]{} ( X, Y, Z ) ). The modified Leibnitz rule for quantum 2-antibracket (\[p2\]) reads &&( XY, Z )\_[Q]{} - X ( Y, Z )\_[Q]{} - ( X, Z )\_[Q]{} Y (-1)\^[ \_[Y]{} ( \_[Z]{} + 1 ) ]{} =\ \[j217\] &&= ( \[ X, Z\] \[ Y, Q \] (-1)\^[ \_[Z]{} ( \_[Y]{} + 1 ) ]{} + \[ X, Q \] \[ Y, Z \] (-1)\^[ \_[Y]{} ]{} ). Parametrization =============== Here we include in short the generating equations for the quantum antibracket algebra [@BM1]. Let us introduce an operator valued exponential \[A1\] U = { \^[a]{} f\_[a]{} }, U|\_[= 0]{} = 1, where $\{ f_{a}, a = 1, 2, ... \}$, is a chain of operators, $\varepsilon( f_{a} ) = \varepsilon_{a}$, and $\lambda^{a}$ are parameters, $\varepsilon( \lambda^{a} ) = \varepsilon_{a}$. Introduce the $U$-transformed $Q$-operator, \[A2\] = U Q U\^[-1]{}, \^[2]{} = 0. The latter equation (\[A2\]) does generate the complete set of the higher Jacobi relations following (\[p4\]). Further, we have the generating equations \[A3\] \_[a]{} = \[ R\_[a]{}, \], R\_[a]{} = ( \_[a]{} U ) U\^[-1]{}, \_[a]{} = , |\_[= 0]{} = Q, \[A4\] \_[a]{} R\_[b]{} - \_[b]{} R\_[a]{} (-1)\^[ \_[a]{} \_[b]{} ]{} = \[ R\_[a]{}, R\_[b]{}\] . It follows from (\[A4\]) that the equation holds with the Euler operator, $N=: \lambda^{a} \partial_{a} $, \[A4a\] ( N + 1 ) R\_[b]{} = \_[b]{} - \[ R\_[b]{}, \], where \[A4b\] = \^[a]{} R\_[a]{}, is an operator describing the arbitrariness in a choice of $\lambda$ parametrization. By making the rescaling \[A4c\] &&\^[a]{} t \^[a]{},\ \[A4d\] && R\_[a]{} \_[a]{} =: t R\_[a]{}( t ),\ \[A4e\] && =: \^[a]{}R\_[a]{}(t ), we convert the equation (\[A4a\]) to the form \[A4f\] = \_[b]{} - \[ \_[b]{}, \], with the boundary condition \[A4g\] \_[b]{} |\_[ t = 0 ]{} = 0. The Cauchy problem (\[A4f\]), (\[A4g\]) resolves in the form \[A4h\] \_[b]{}( t ) = \_[0]{}\^[t]{} dt’ U( t, t’ ) ( \_[b]{} ( t’ ) ) U\^[-1]{}( t, t’ ), where $U( t, t' )$ resolves the Cauchy problem \[A4j\] = ( t ) U( t, t’ ), \[A4k\] U( t, t’ ) |\_[ t = t’ ]{} = 1. In parallel to the above geometric formulae (\[A4f\]) - (\[A4k\]), we suggest a simpler derivation for the “current” $R_{a}$ (\[A3\]), R\_[a]{} &=& \_[0]{}\^[1]{} dt { t } ( \_[a]{} ) { - t } = \_[0]{}\^[1]{} dt { t ( ) } ( \_[a]{} ) =\ \[A4l\] &=& ( \_[a]{} ), where \[A4z\] =\^a f\_a, and we have used the identity \[A4z1\] \[A, {B}\]=\_0\^1 dt {t B}\[A,B\]{(1-t)B}, for $A=\partial_a$, $B=\psi$. Notice that the following relation holds between the $\Psi$, (\[A4b\]), and the $\psi$, (\[A4z\]), \[A4v\] = ( N ). By multiplying the equation (\[A4f\]) with $\lambda^{b}$ from the left we get an identity, as expected, which implies that the $\tilde{\Psi}$, (\[A4e\]), is an arbitrary operator. Then, by choosing in (\[A4h\]) - (\[A4k\]) $\tilde{\Psi} = \psi$, with $\psi$ being given in (\[A4z\]), we arrive at the representation (\[A4l\]). Indeed, it follows from (\[A4f\]) that the equation \[A4t\] \_[t]{} t = N holds, which implies in turn \[A4u\] t \_[t]{} = \^[a]{} N R\_[a]{}( t ). That is just an identity expected. Due to (\[A4e\]), the left-hand side of (\[A4u\]) rewrites in the form \[A4o\] \^[a]{} t \^[b]{} R\_[a]{}( t ) = \^[a]{} N R\_[a]{}( t ). Thus, the $\tilde{\Psi}$, (\[A4e\]), remains arbitrary. The Lie equation (\[A3\]) and the Maurer-Cartan equation (\[A4\]) do serve as the generating equations for quantum antibrackets. Here we present explicitly only the case of quantum 2-antibracket. It follows from (\[A3\]) by $\lambda$ differentiating, that &&- \_[a]{} \_[b]{} (-1)\^[\_[b]{}]{} + \[ ( \_[a]{} R\_[b]{} + \_[b]{} R\_[a]{} (-1)\^[ \_[a]{} \_[b]{} ]{} ) (-1)\^[\_[b]{}]{} , \] =\ \[A5\] &&= ( \[ R\_[a]{}, \[ , R\_[b]{} \] \] - ( a b ) (-1)\^[ ( \_[a]{} + 1 ) ( \_[b]{} + 1 ) ]{} ) = ( R\_[a]{}, R\_[b]{} ) \_[ ]{}. In turn, it follows from (\[p4\]) and (\[A5\]) that the next equation holds, &&- (-1)\^[ ( \_[a]{} + 1 ) ( \_[c]{} + 1 ) ]{} ( \[ R\_[a]{}, \_[bc]{} \] (-1)\^[ ( \_[a]{} ( \_[c]{} + 1 ) + \_[b]{}) ]{} +\ \[A5a\] &&+ ( a, b, c ) ) = ( R\_[a]{}, R\_[b]{}, R\_[c]{} )\_[ ]{}, where we have denoted \[A5b\] \_[ab]{} =: - \_[a]{} \_[b]{} (-1)\^[ \_[b]{} ]{} + \[ Y\_[ab]{}, ( ) \], \[A5c\] Y\_[ab]{} =: ( \_[a]{} R\_[b]{} + \_[b]{} R\_[a]{} (-1)\^[ \_[a]{} \_[b]{} ]{} ) (-1)\^[ \_[b]{} ]{}. In the latter notation, the equation (\[A5\]) takes the form \[A5d\] \_[ab]{} = ( R\_[a]{}, R\_[b]{} )\_[ ]{}. It follows from (\[A5\]) at $\lambda = 0$, \[A6\] - ( \_[a]{}\_[b]{} ) (-1)\^[ \_[b]{} ]{} |\_[= 0]{} = ( f\_[a]{}, f\_[b]{} )\_[Q]{}, where we have used \[A7\] ( \_[a]{} R\_[b]{} ) |\_[= 0]{} = \[ f\_[a]{}, f\_[b]{} \]. The next equation (\[A5a\]) takes the form \[A7z\] \_[abc]{} = ( R\_[a]{}, R\_[b]{}, R\_[c]{} )\_[ ]{}, where \[A7x\] \_[abc]{} = - \_[a]{} \_[b]{} \_[c]{} (-1)\^[ \_[b]{} ]{} + = 0. In its more explicit form, the second term in right-hand side in (\[A7x\]) reads \[A7y\] &=:& (-1)\^[ ( \_[a]{} + 1 ) (\_[c ]{} + 1 ) ]{} { ( \_[b]{} \[ \_[c]{} R\_[a]{}, ( ) \] (-1)\^[ \_[a]{} ( \_[b]{} + \_[c]{} ) ]{} + \[ \_[b]{} R\_[a]{}, \_[c]{} ( ) \] (-1)\^[ \_[a]{}\_[b]{} ]{} +\ &&+ \[ R\_[a]{}, \[ ( \_[b]{} R\_[c]{} + \_[c]{} R\_[b]{} (-1)\^[ \_[b]{} \_[c]{} ]{} ), ( ) \] \] )(-1)\^[ ( \_[a]{} + 1 )( \_[c]{} + 1 ) + \_[b]{} ]{} +\ \[A7y\] && + (a, b, c ) }. It follows in a similar way that higher $\lambda$ derivatives of $\tilde{Q}$ do yield all higher quantum antibrackets, - ( \_[a\_1]{}\_[a\_n]{} ) (-1)\^[ E\_n]{} |\_[= 0]{} = ( f\_[ a\_[1]{} ]{} , ... , f\_[ a\_[n]{} ]{} )\_[Q]{} = - [Sym]{}( \[ f\_[ a\_[1]{} ]{}, ... , \[ f\_[ a\_[n]{} ]{}, Q \] ... \] ) (-1)\^[ E\_[n]{} ]{}, where we have denoted E\_[n]{} = \_[ k = 1 ]{}\^[ \[ n/2 \] ]{} \_[ a\_[2k]{} ]{}, ( X\_[ a\_[1]{} ... a\_[n]{} ]{} ) = S\_[ a\_[1]{} ... a\_[n]{} ]{}\^[ b\_[n]{} ... b\_[1]{} ]{} X\_[ b\_[1]{} ... b\_[n]{} ]{}, n! S\_[ a\_[1]{} ... a\_[n]{} ]{}\^[ b\_[n]{} ... b\_[1]{} ]{} = \_[ a\_[1]{} ]{} ... \_[ a\_[n]{} ]{} \^[ b\_[n]{} ]{} ... \^[ b\_[1]{} ]{}. It has also been shown in [@BM1; @Ber], how these equations enable one to derive the modified Jacobi relations for subsequent higher quantum antibrackets. Summary ======= In the present article we have considered a simple non-polarized form of the quantum antibracket algebra (Section 2), and then derived its polarized form (Section 3). Also, we have introduced a natural parametrization (\[A2\]), and then derived the respective generating equations (\[A5d\]), (\[A7z\]) (Section 4). In an obvious way the construction can be extended to cover all higher quantum antibrackets. Acknowledgments {#acknowledgments .unnumbered} =============== The authors would like to thank Klaus Bering for useful discussions. The work of I. A. Batalin is supported in part by the RFBR grant 17-02-00317. The work of P. M. Lavrov is supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, grant 3.1386.2017 and by the RFBR grant 18-02-00153. [99]{} I. Batalin, R. Marnelius, [*Quantum antibrackets*]{}, Phys. Lett. B [**434**]{} (1998) 312. I. Batalin, R. Marnelius, [*General quantum antibrackets*]{}, Theor. Math. Phys. [**120**]{} (1999) 1115. Yv. Kosmann-Schwarzbach, [*Derived brackets*]{}, Lett. Math. Phys. [**69**]{} (2004) 61. Th. Voronov, [*Higher derived brackets and homotopy algebras*]{}, J. Pure Appl. Algebra [**202**]{} (2005) 133. A. S. Cattaneo, F. Schatz, [*Equivalence of higher derived brackets*]{}, J. Pure Appl. Algebra [**212**]{} (2008) 2450. I. A. Batalin, I. V. Tyutin, [*BRST-invariant constraint algebra in terms of commutators and quatum antibrackets*]{}, Theor. Math. Phys. [**138**]{} (2004) 1. I. A. Batalin, K. Bering, [*Reducible gauge algebra of BRST-invariant constraints*]{}, Nucl. Phys. B [**771**]{} (2007) 190. I. A. Batalin, P. M. Lavrov, [*Superfield Hamiltonian quantization in terms of quantum antibrackets*]{}, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A [**31**]{} (2016) 1650054. I. A. Batalin, P. M. Lavrov, [*Representation of a gauge field via intrinsic “BRST” operator*]{}, Phys. Lett. B [**750**]{} (2015) 325. I. A. Batalin, G. A. Vilkovisky, [*Gauge algebra and quantization*]{}, Phys. Lett. B [**102**]{} (1981) 27. I. A. Batalin, G. A. Vilkovisky, [*Quantization of gauge theories with linearly dependent generators*]{}, Phys. Rev. D [**28**]{} (1983) 2567. A. Sen, B. Zwiebach, [*A note on gauge transformations in Batalin-Vilkovisky theory*]{}, Phys. Lett. B [**320**]{} (1994) 29. A. Nersessian, P.H. Damgaard, [*Comments on the covariant Sp(2)-symmetric Lagrangian BRST formalism*]{}, Phys. Lett. B [**355**]{} (1995) 150. M. A. Grigoriev, A. M. Semikhatov, I. Yu. Tipunin, [*Gauge symmetries of the master action*]{}, J. Math. Phys. [**40**]{} (1999) 1792. K. Bering, [*Non-commutative Batalin -Vilkovisky algebras, strongly homotopy Lie algebras, and the Courant bracket*]{}, Comm. Math. Phys. [**274**]{} (2007) 297.

Q: NoSuchMethodException when instantiating a generic class I have a class as follows: public class StreamEventSuccess<T> { private final T event; public StreamEventSuccess(final T event) { this.event = event; } public T getEvent() { return event; } } I try to instiate it: StreamEventSuccess<BusinessEvent> success = new StreamEventSuccess<BusinessEvent>(event); and I get: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: com.ryan.protocol.StreamEventSuccess.<init>(Lcom/ryan/domain/event/BusinessEvent;)V Any idea why? the event parameter is of type BusinessEvent A: The problem you are describing would happen if: your-library-version-1 had a constructor StreamEventSuccess(BusinessEvent event) you have a project (or class) project-x that was compiled with your-library-version-1. your-library-version-2 was made generic StreamEventSuccess(T event). And you are running project-x with your-library-version-2. If that's the case, just recompile the class that calls your new constructor. That happens because the actual type of that constructor in the generic form is <init>(Ljava/lang/Object;)V so you must recompile the dependencies after generifying that class, because their bytecode is pointing to the old (non generic) version of the constructor <init>(Lcom/ryan/domain/event/BusinessEvent;)V

Riven Rock Riven Rock is a 1998 novel by American author T. Coraghessan Boyle. It concerns the life of Stanley McCormick, a son of Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper, and Stanley's devoted wife, Katherine McCormick, daughter of Wirt Dexter, a prominent Chicago lawyer. The locale of most of the story is Riven Rock, an estate located near Montecito, Santa Barbara County, California, and owned by the McCormick family. Stanley, having developed severe mental problems, is confined to the estate for the rest of his life, during which repeated attempts to cure him by various medical experts are to no avail. Stanley and Katharine live largely separate lives. The reader comes to know Katharine slightly better than her husband, if only because she is a functioning member of society (albeit sexually deprived) whereas he is either catatonic or in a violent rage for much of the time. (He has been diagnosed as suffering from dementia praecox, among other conditions, his deepest fears—and hatreds—reserved for women.) A third protagonist, Eddie O’Kane, is Stanley’s chief nurse throughout his stay at Riven Rock. O’Kane and his tumultuous relationships with women are described in numerous sections in the novel, forming a third storyline interwoven with those of Katharine and Stanley. Boyle thus ranges between accounts of high society (and its madnesses) and the alcoholism and romantic desperation of O’Kane, the Irish-American stiff. The three parts of the novel parallel those times during which three different psychiatrists preside over Stanley’s care, a unique though essentially arbitrary division (because the main story continues virtually unchanged throughout). The first caretaker is Dr. Hamilton, someone more interested in studying the apes and monkeys he has brought to the estate than in helping Stanley to improve. The second is Dr. Brush, something of a nonentity who quickly gives up on any prospect of saving the patient. The third is Dr. Kempf, a psychoanalyst who achieves some success in bringing Stanley around to being able to interact with women, including, after nearly twenty years, his wife Katharine. In the end, though, the patient reverts to abnormal behavior, and Katharine sues (unsuccessfully) in court to obtain full control over Stanley’s care (where for the duration she has shared it with the McCormicks). Riven Rock probes male-female relationships, the nature of psychiatric care (as it existed in the early twentieth century), and the crazy mix of classes and ethnicities that is modern America. It also shows, above all, how much is to be gained by giving literary treatment to historical characters and events—an exercise that Boyle repeats in The Women and other of his works. References in popular culture In Season 1, Episode 6 of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano's therapist, Dr. Melfi, is shown reading the novel. Book information Riven Rock by T. C. Boyle Hardcover - (First edition, February 1, 1998) published by Viking Press Paperback - (January 1, 1999) published by Penguin Books External links T.C. Boyle official web site Category:1998 American novels Category:Novels by T. C. Boyle Category:Montecito, California Category:Novels set in California Category:Viking Press books

The Neurotoxicology program aims to develop sensitive markers of human toxic exposures that would be particularly hazardous to the nervous system. Both behavioral and biochemical markers are being developed. One promising approach employs brief, objective tests of neurobehavioral function that can be used both in field studies with humans, including children, and with laboratory animals. The test is noninvasive and thus can be administered repeatedly to humans at their homes or workplace for health surveillance. The ability to apply these neurobehavioral tests to both humans and animals improves confidence in extrapolating results from experiments that can only be done with animals, e.g., the examination of histopathological and neurochemical changes in the brain which are the criteria for neurotoxicity. These behavioral markers can document the role of environmental toxins in developmental disabilities such as lead-related deficits in learning of children. A promising biomarker is glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), which increased in the monkey brain during exposure to trimethyl lead and in the rat brain soon after exposure to methylmercury. We detected GFAP in brain and CSF of rats, and in brains of pigeons, fish and nonhuman primates. Thus, GFAP is a very promising marker because it is present in most species of animals of interest as laboratory models or environmental sentinels. In rats and pigeons, GFAP is an early indicator of exposure to neurotoxicants (cadmium, methylmercury, acrylamide) but not to chromium, which appears to lack specific neurotoxicity. GFAP and related proteins of neuronal tissue origin will be examined in CSF and in peripheral blood as markers of cellular and functional changes in the nervous system. These neurotoxicologic assays are being integrated with the ecological projects, where proteins in the brains of wild fish and birds can serve as markers for biological impact of ecological pollution. Finally, this project continues to provide the entire program with detailed evaluations of the oral exposures used with rats so as to identify potential confounding factors such as reduced water consumption or body weight.

BOSTON—Because both criminal violence and gun rights have become contentious political topics, research on the health and safety aspects of gun ownership in the US is barely funded. In fact, many have questioned whether it should be studied at all. But Northeastern University's Matthew Miller used a talk at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to argue that there's an area where the data shows a clear link between gun access and public health and that this topic reveals some hints as to how to better manage safety. The issue in focus is suicide. While the focus on gun safety has been in terms of violent crimes, suicide is actually a larger problem. In 2015, it was the 10th leading cause of death, and half of the suicides occurred through the use of firearms. That's roughly 22,000 of them—4,000 more than were killed in all forms of homicide. This large difference has held steady for several decades. While surveys indicate the mental distress that triggers suicide is similar in all states, the suicide rates vary dramatically. The primary driver of this? The state's gun ownership rate. States with high rates of gun ownership average nearly seven times the suicide rate as those with low gun ownership, while non-gun suicides show no real pattern among the states. This trend has been identified in 20 different independent studies. Overall, the risk of death through suicide is estimated to be three times higher if there's a gun in the house. While the data is correlative, the strength of the correlation makes any other explanation unlikely, Miller argued. For some other factor to explain the data, it would have to be present in 80 percent of the houses where guns are present and only within 10 percent of the houses without guns. So far, alternative explanations have come up short. It isn't that gun owners are especially prone to suicide—studies have indicated that gun owners are no more likely to experience the sort of mental distress that triggers suicide attempts. Instead, Miller suggested two things contributed to these findings. The first is that suicide is an impulsive act, and access to a means of suicide makes a big difference. In support of this, he showed statistics from survivors that indicate that 70 percent of them took less than an hour between making the decision to try their attempts. The second is that using a gun is highly effective. Suicide attempt rates don't vary by state, but attempts using firearms are fatal 90 percent of the time. Those using pills or cutting only result in death about five percent of the time. If the data is so persuasive, why isn't anyone treating it as the public health issue it is? Miller detailed misconceptions about the issue at nearly every level. To begin with, the public doesn't realize the extent of the problem. Polling data indicates that the public thinks that the homicide rate is much larger than the suicide rate rather than the converse. Rather than viewing it as an impulsive act, the public views suicide as a commitment: as if once someone decides to do it, they'll find a way. Miller illustrated this with a polling question about putting an effective, well-designed suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. Most respondents didn't think the barrier would make much difference, since people would just find alternative ways to kill themselves. Surprisingly, about half the physicians answered the same way—and they're the ones treating suicidal patients. So, it's not surprising that only about 20 percent of the physicians who have suicidal patients have ever talked about gun ownership with them. All of that's unfortunate, because this is where public health data can actually help us target interventions. It turns out that 90 percent of the guns used in suicides were purchased more than two weeks before they were used, many much earlier than that. So, trying to intervene at the level of gun sales probably won't do much good. Hand guns and long guns are used with equal frequency, so targeting a class of weapons won't be effective, either. Instead, in keeping with the impulsive nature of the act, the way the gun is stored makes a big difference: Miller indicated there's data that either keeping the gun in locked storage or storing it unloaded can cut suicide risk by about two-thirds. With more research, it might be possible to identify other factors that can influence access to guns by the most vulnerable. But Miller thinks it's going to take a cultural change to have these make a difference. The example he used was drunk driving; it didn't used to be common to set a designated driver or take people's keys away, but they're both now part of social norms. It might be time, he suggested, to start shifting the social norms on things like how guns are stored. Given that the number of drunk driving fatalities is now much lower than the number of suicides, it doesn't seem to be an unreasonable hope. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or ideation, please take advantage of the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 in the US, or the Samaritans at 08457 90 90 90 in the UK.

et k(w) = w**2 + 2*w. Let m be k(-2). Suppose 0 = -4*v + 4*p + p + 89, m = 4*p + 4. What is the units digit of v? 1 Suppose -4*b + 0 = -3*y - 1, -2*y - 4*b + 26 = 0. What is the units digit of y? 5 Suppose -12 = -9*f + 6. Let d = 41 + f. What is the units digit of d? 3 Let c(f) = f**3 - 8*f**2 + 5. Let p be c(8). Let i = -2 + p. What is the units digit of i? 3 Suppose 0*i - 7 = 3*i - 2*w, i = -4*w + 7. Let r be -1 - -1*(5 - 1). Let u = i + r. What is the units digit of u? 2 Suppose 3*u - 2710 + 8935 = 3*o, 5*o = -u + 10351. What is the hundreds digit of o? 0 Let n = 1208 + -676. What is the hundreds digit of (-1 - 16/(-10)) + n/5? 1 Suppose 0 = -w - 2*o + 847, 5*o - 232 = w - 1114. What is the hundreds digit of w? 8 Let q be 22*1/(-2 - -1). Let o = 349 + -307. Let k = q + o. What is the units digit of k? 0 Suppose 3*t - u = -4, 0*t - 3*u + 12 = -t. Suppose t*r - 160 = -r. What is the hundreds digit of r? 1 Let d(n) = -n**3 - 15*n + 26. What is the units digit of d(-4)? 0 What is the units digit of (2/5)/((-74)/(-52910))? 6 Suppose -3*y = -o - 10070, -9*y + 5*y + 5*o = -13412. What is the thousands digit of y? 3 Let m be 1/(-1 - 0/2). What is the tens digit of -9*10/3*m? 3 Suppose 0 = -5*s + b + 447, -4*b + 3*b + 3 = 0. Let j = s - 54. Suppose 5*m = 3*a + j, 2*m + 3*a - 4 = -a. What is the units digit of m? 6 Let x = 7 - 3. Suppose 0 = x*w + 3*n - 5*n - 14, 4*n = 12. Let d = w + 11. What is the tens digit of d? 1 Suppose -5*a = a + 36. Let j(i) = -6*i + 18. What is the tens digit of j(a)? 5 Let m be 66/4*4/(-3). Let i = -18 - m. What is the units digit of i + 0 + 0 - -44? 8 Suppose -8*d - 3*o - 7 = -6*d, 3*o = 3*d - 27. What is the hundreds digit of ((-6)/d)/(36/(-5088))? 2 Suppose -2*k + 4*k = 5*m + 1, k - 5*m = 3. Let z(w) = 19*w**2 - 2*w. Let t be z(k). Suppose -3*x - x + t = 0. What is the tens digit of x? 2 Let z = 171 - -32. What is the hundreds digit of z? 2 Suppose 2*l - 4*l + 244 = 5*g, 2*g = -8. Suppose v - l = -5*v. What is the tens digit of v? 2 Suppose 0*a + 3*g = -2*a + 19, -3*a = -2*g - 9. Suppose 19 + 6 = 3*r + 2*f, a*r - 2*f = 63. Suppose 2*k - r = 39. What is the units digit of k? 5 Let k(q) = 379*q + 82. What is the hundreds digit of k(1)? 4 Let i(p) = -4*p**2 + p + 4. Let g be i(0). Suppose -237 = -2*h - 5*v, -g*h - 2*v = -79 - 371. What is the tens digit of h? 1 Let u(w) = 7 - 3 - 4 - 9*w**2. Let y be u(-1). Let r = 26 + y. What is the units digit of r? 7 Suppose 7*h - 2259 = 1038. What is the units digit of h? 1 Suppose c - 5*w - 510 = 287, -4*c = 5*w - 3113. What is the tens digit of c? 8 Let r(i) = -28*i**2. Let y be r(-1). Let t = y - -44. Suppose -b - 2*z + t = 0, b - 5*z - 4 = 5. What is the units digit of b? 4 Let r = 68 - 63. Suppose 60 = 15*n - r*n. What is the units digit of n? 6 Let l = -1053 + 1708. What is the hundreds digit of l? 6 Let m be (-36)/(-24)*(3*2 + 0). What is the units digit of 446/6 + (-12)/m? 3 Let i = 121 - -74. What is the tens digit of i? 9 Let h(r) = 1 + 9*r**2 + 2*r**2 - 5 + 5. Let c be h(1). What is the units digit of c/(-9) - (-39)/9? 3 Let q be -5*48/(-42) - 2/(-7). What is the units digit of 734/q - (-1)/((-3)/(-2))? 3 Let c(y) = -1. Let a(m) = -2. Let x(o) = -a(o) + c(o). Let r(f) = 4*f + 17. Let b(v) = -r(v) + 6*x(v). What is the tens digit of b(-8)? 2 Let k(i) = -2*i**2 + 6*i - 1. Let y be k(5). Let s = -20 - y. What is the units digit of s? 1 Let d(h) = 433*h + 25. What is the tens digit of d(2)? 9 Suppose 43*k - 37191 = 10*k. What is the tens digit of k? 2 Let o = 2 - 4. Suppose -4*f + 24 = -0*f. What is the units digit of (-2)/3*f*o? 8 Let x be (112/(-24) - -7) + (-2)/(-3). What is the units digit of x/(1145/(-290) + 4)? 8 Let t be 1248/20 - (2 - (-16)/(-10)). Let r = t + -33. What is the tens digit of r? 2 Let p(s) = 2646*s**3 + s**2 - 1. Let r be p(1). Suppose 15*k - r = 444. What is the hundreds digit of k? 2 Suppose -6*r + 9*r - 9 = 0. Suppose -r*a - 16 = -4*a. Suppose 10*f - a = 9*f. What is the tens digit of f? 1 Let d(l) = 2*l**3 - 9*l**2 - 3*l + 24. What is the tens digit of d(7)? 4 Let m = 7 - -56. Suppose 8*w = 33 + m. What is the tens digit of w? 1 Suppose 5*o - 10 = -2*z, 6*z - o - 49 = 3*z. Let v = z - 19. What is the tens digit of 9/((-12)/v) + 44? 4 Let k(a) = 10*a + 6. Suppose -5*h + 4*v + 4 = -26, 0 = 2*v. What is the units digit of k(h)? 6 Let z be ((-45)/(-12))/(-4 - 83/(-20)). What is the units digit of z/(8 + -3) + 0 + -1? 4 Let f = 2235 - 1559. What is the tens digit of f? 7 Let m(x) = -12*x - 27. Let c be m(-24). Suppose -6*s + c = -3*s. What is the tens digit of s? 8 Let w(c) = -c**3 - 18*c**2 - 17*c - 15. Let t(p) = 3*p**3 + 53*p**2 + 50*p + 44. Let x(l) = 4*t(l) + 11*w(l). Let s = 76 - 89. What is the tens digit of x(s)? 1 What is the tens digit of ((-11)/1)/((-13)/5499)? 5 Let o = 15 + -13. Let y be (9/6)/((-1)/o). What is the tens digit of y/((-9)/60 + 0)? 2 Let w = 505 - 251. What is the tens digit of w? 5 Let a(g) = -g + 15. Let t = 22 - 11. Let r be a(t). Suppose -r*m = 3*l - 122, 5*l + 2*m - 166 = l. What is the tens digit of l? 4 Let t(g) = 4*g + 7. Let r be (-4)/(-1) + (-10 - -9). Suppose 35 = 2*p + r*p. What is the tens digit of t(p)? 3 Let r(t) = -t**2 + 7*t + 2. Let l be r(7). Let n = 9 - l. Suppose n*y - 2 - 5 = 0. What is the units digit of y? 1 Suppose 0 = 2*s + 4*z + 1572, 5*s - 4*z = -2*z - 3942. What is the units digit of (-3)/(24/s) + 1/2? 9 Let x = 618 - -1094. What is the tens digit of x? 1 Suppose -7*h = -12*h + 25. Let o = -18 - h. Let z = 59 + o. What is the units digit of z? 6 Suppose 2*r = 18 - 8. Suppose 0 = -h + 4*o + 94, 0 = r*h + 5*o - 3*o - 470. What is the tens digit of h? 9 Let w(c) be the second derivative of -3*c**3 + 3*c**2/2 - 4*c. Let h be w(-5). Let t = h - 59. What is the tens digit of t? 3 Let c(s) be the second derivative of s**4/6 - s**3/6 + s**2 + 10*s. What is the units digit of c(5)? 7 Let v(m) = 5*m + 1. Let u(b) = -9*b - 3. Let l(n) = -3*u(n) - 5*v(n). Let p be l(8). Suppose 3*x - 7*x + p = 0. What is the units digit of x? 5 Suppose -2*p + 2*s - 4*s = -10, -2*s - 2 = 0. Let c be 9*-1*p/9. Let g = 21 + c. What is the units digit of g? 5 Suppose 4 - 13 = -3*s. Suppose v = 5*i + 51, 0 = -s*v - v - 5*i + 229. What is the tens digit of v? 5 Let y = -12 - -17. Suppose -225 = -2*l - 0*l - y*w, l - 5*w - 150 = 0. Suppose 5*p - 150 = 6*m - m, 3*m = 4*p - l. What is the tens digit of p? 3 Suppose 0 = -2*k - 0*k - 18. Let j(s) = 13*s + 23. Let z(h) = 7*h + 11. Let r(l) = -4*j(l) + 7*z(l). What is the tens digit of r(k)? 1 Suppose -2 = 3*f - 14. Suppose 504 = f*j - 700. What is the hundreds digit of j? 3 Let m(y) = -y**2 - 10*y + 3. Let f be m(-10). Suppose r - 8 = -f*r. Suppose -c + 42 = r*c. What is the units digit of c? 4 Let s be 24/(-9)*(-15)/2. Suppose 4*d + 4 - s = 0. Suppose 0*z + 4*z = p, 4*z + 12 = d*p. What is the units digit of z? 1 Suppose 1800 = -9*a + 12141. What is the units digit of a? 9 Let f = 376 - 264. Let t = f + -73. What is the units digit of t? 9 Suppose -208 = -2*i + 1058. What is the tens digit of i? 3 Let o = -1 + -129. Let v = 49 + o. What is the units digit of (-2)/(1 - v/(-75))? 5 Let q be 4 + 4/(-4)*1. What is the units digit of ((-28)/q)/((-4)/6) - -1? 5 Suppose -5*h + 49 = -16. Let m = h + -17. Let b(z) = 3*z**2 + 4*z + 10. What is the units digit of b(m)? 2 Suppose -109*i + 105*i + 3036 = 0. What is the units digit of i? 9 Let n = -30 - -32. Suppose 4*z - n*g + 7*g = 11, 0 = z - 5*g - 9. Suppose 6 = 2*r - z*r, -m + 2*r + 50 = 0. What is the tens digit of m? 4 Suppose -1 = -w + o, 1 = -w - 3*o + 2. Let b = 7 + w. Suppose -3*f - f + b = 0. What is the units digit of f? 2 Let c(f) = -f**3 - 2*f**2 - f - 3. Let m be 6*(3 - 4/12). Let j = m + -19. What is the units digit of c(j)? 9 Suppose 8*x + 335 - 2119 = 0. What is the tens digit of x? 2 Let z(g) = g**2 + 3*g + 9. Suppose -2*y = -5*y - 5*c - 23, -4*y - 23 = -c. What is the units digit of z(y)? 7 What is the hundreds digit of ((-215754)/378 + (-2)/9)*-7? 9 Let u(x) = -x**3 + 6*x**2 + 25*x - 10. Let g be (38 + -24)*((-6)/(-4) + -1). What is the units digit of u(g)? 6 Let v be 0/(2/(-4)*4). Suppose u - 6*u = v. Suppose -68 = -4*g - a, -2*g = -u*g - a - 34. What is the tens digit of g? 1 Let f(y) = y**2 + 3*y - 6. Let r be f(5). Let p(a)

Wednesday Poem: A Trenta-Sei of Mixed Feelings at the Early Onset of Winter~ Maryann Corbett As the first flakes are caught in streetlight-glimmer, you gasp: Lovely! Your gasping throat still raw, the truth grips like catarrh: a Midwest winter beautiful? Like a left hook to the jaw, the knuckled, scraping wait for spring’s mud-brown. You bend your mind to months of hunkering down. You gasp. Lovely? Your gasping throat still raw, outward you bound to boisterous winter sports! Thrill to the wind chill! (When will the fingers thaw?) Joy! when the frozen stiffs stagger indoors! (And what in this routine vaguely recalls old saws that feature banging, and heads, and walls?) The truth grips like catarrh: a Midwest winter makes short work of its fairy tale. Snow-white soils itself on plows. Ice-daggers splinter, murder-minding the pavement. Ice-dams blight cold attics. Traffic slogs and spins awry. The bus slings up a wad of slush at an eye. Unbeautiful. Like a left hook to the jaw— except those fugitive seconds of pure peace: Silence of evening shoveling, when you saw that famous moonlight. Snow sculpting the trees. Benches, fences slathered like wedding cakes. Streetlights. Indigo dark, and the clean flakes. The knuckled, scraping wait for spring’s mud-brown craves every beauty bagged in the tangled mind for cold-comfort. Sucks the marrowbone of song. Tongues at old poems jarred and brined like olives. Hears the orchard, shiver-thinned, keen to itself: the sweep of easy wind…. You bend your mind to months of hunkering down: You load the chafing dish. You light the sterno. You heat the buttered rum. You cannot drown your memory of those stanzas from the Inferno at the tale-end of the terza rima spell where Hell is cold. Where cold is the heart of Hell. Welcome everyone to my blog! My name is Cate and I recently decided that, rather than keep my reviews of books I’ve read limited to one medium, I would create a blog for every book lover to access on the internet. Why? Well, because I love to read and also because I want to help out authors by giving their books a spotlight on my blog, and possibly help them reach a wider audience. So take a look around and enjoy yourself!

There is a famous song about the man who has just scorched Manchester City’s hopes of a quadruple. And in the closing moments here it is doubtful if “Will Grigg’s on fire” has ever reverberated around this stadium with greater noise and fervour. City were on their way out of the FA Cup and once again it was Wigan – little, patronised Wigan – who had left the most expensively assembled group of players in English football history on their knees. Wigan’s shock win over Manchester City sparks angry scenes at DW Stadium Read more They will cherish Will Grigg’s breakaway, 79th-minute winner here with almost as much fondness as that never-forgotten moment when Ben Watson’s header in the 2013 final gave Wigan the greatest victory of their history. Grigg is now the leading scorer in the competition with seven goals and Wigan, having already beaten Bournemouth and West Ham, have become only the second team from outside the top two divisions to knock out three top-flight clubs in one FA Cup campaign since the second world war. Southampton are next in the quarter-finals. That made it a wretched night of humiliation for City and Pep Guardiola, one imagines, will not take any consolation from the fact he had repeatedly warned everyone he did not think it possible to win four trophies in one season. City have a 16-point lead at the top of the Premier League and are virtually guaranteed a place in the Champions League quarter-finals, with the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal on Sunday. Yet their manager looked almost as frazzled at the end as Roberto Mancini had at Wembley five years ago. The only downside of a glorious night for the third-placed team in League One came after the final whistle when Sergio Agüero, swapping shirts with Chey Dunkley, was goaded and attacked by a Wigan fan before losing the plot and trying to go after the aggressor. Agüero had to be chaperoned away, with Dunkley trying to stop it getting out of hand, and when hundreds of pitch invaders started goading the away fans it was almost inevitable there would be a reaction. Police reinforcements had to be called as things quickly escalated. Missiles were thrown by both sets of fans and City’s supporters could also be seen pulling down the advertising boards to hurl them on the pitch. The Football Association is bound to investigate and it is also possible City will face disciplinary action because of the way their players crowded round the referee, Anthony Taylor, to remonstrate after Fabian Delph’s red card late in the first half. As Paul Cook, the Wigan manager, pointed out afterwards, Delph’s dismissal made a considerable difference and Taylor did not help himself by initially pulling out a yellow card. Pep Guardiola’s gamble backfires and Wigan complete unlikely FA Cup hat-trick | Paul Wilson Read more Something clearly changed his mind about the severity of Delph’s flying challenge on Max Power. It was a strange set of events, to say the least, and Delph’s team-mates were probably entitled to suspect the referee had been influenced by the reaction of the Wigan players. Guardiola insisted afterwards that he agreed with the sending-off although his reaction at half-time, when he confronted Taylor in the tunnel, and another angry outburst afterwards indicated those might not have been his true feelings. Neither he nor Cook wanted to discuss the argy-bargy in the tunnel at half-time. Yet Cook, his voice hoarse with emotion, had a nice line when he was asked to describe the nerve-shredding moments when City poured forward in search of a late equaliser. “Shut your eyes and pray,” the victorious manager explained. Play Video 1:14 Pep Guardiola backs his Manchester City players despite FA Cup loss at Wigan – video In many ways this was actually a greater shock than 2013 bearing in mind Wigan, now two divisions lower, had also lost their most creative player, Nick Powell, to a first-half injury. Yet even when the two sides had equal numbers City had looked strangely out of sorts inside a ground where the advertising boards promote Uncle Joe’s mint balls and Ribble Farm fruit and vegetables. City always look more vulnerable when Claudio Bravo is in goal. Danilo, selected ahead of Kyle Walker at right-back, was particularly accident-prone and Wigan must have been encouraged by the space when they did venture forward. Wigan Athletic v Manchester City: FA Cup fifth round – as it happened Read more Guardiola had given Ederson, Raheem Sterling and Nicolás Otamendi the night off, with Kevin De Bruyne restricted to a substitute’s appearance, but City still had enough mega-money signings on the pitch to have done much better. Their two centre-backs alone cost well in excess of £100m and it was noticeable that Guardiola did not defend Delph for what was a silly and risky challenge. For his troubles Delph will be suspended from Sunday’s trip to Wembley. Cook had joked beforehand that he was applying for special permission to field 14 players. As it turned out, his side had the numerical advantage through unforeseen circumstances. Wigan still had to defend for their lives and for long spells City’s 10 men still dictated the pace and tempo in the second half, with Danilo and Walker often playing as auxiliary wingers. But then the ball was aimed through the inside-left channel and Walker, a half-time substitute, did not react quickly enough. Grigg still had a lot of ground to cover before he was inside the penalty area but he took his shot early, Bravo never likes having to dive and Wigan, incredibly, had done it again.

Q: Object position (line, column) in XML after deserialization .NET How can I get position in the original xml file of an xml tag after deserialization into a .NET object using XmlSerializer ? Here is an example XML <ArrayOfAddressDetails> <AddressDetails> <Number>4</Number> <Street>ABC</Street> <CityName>Bern</CityName> </AddressDetails> <AddressDetails> <Number>3</Number> <Street>ABCD</Street> <CityName>Prague</CityName> </AddressDetails> </ArrayOfAddressDetails> XMLto C# object mapping [XmlRoot("Root")] public class AddressDetails { [XmlElement("Number")] public int HouseNo; [XmlElement("Street")] public string StreetName; [XmlElement("CityName")] public string City; } Desired result XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<AddressDetails>)); var list = serializer.Deserialize(@"C:\Xml.txt") as List<AddressDetails>; // this is what I would like to do // getting information to origin of the property City of the 2nd object in the list var position = XmlSerializerHelper.GetPosition(o => list[1].City, @"C:\Xml.txt"); // should print "starts line=10, column=8" Console.WriteLine("starts line={0}, column={1}", position.Start.Line, position.Start.Column); // should print "ends line=10, column=35" Console.WriteLine("ends line={0}, column={1}", position.End.Line, position.Start.Column); // should print "type=XmlElement, name=CityName, value=Prague" Console.WriteLine("xml info type={0}, name={1}, value={2}", position.Type, position.Name, position.Value); A: Another, more simple approach: Let the deserializer do the work. Add LineInfo and LinePosition properties to all classes for which you would like to have position information: [XmlRoot("Root")] public class AddressDetails { [XmlAttribute] public int LineNumber { get; set; } [XmlAttribute] public int LinePosition { get; set; } ... } This of course can be done by subclassing. Load an XDocument with LoadOptions.SetLineInfo. Add LineInfo and LinePosition attributes to all elements: foreach (var element in xdoc.Descendants()) { var li = (IXmlLineInfo) element; element.SetAttributeValue("LineNumber", li.LineNumber); element.SetAttributeValue("LinePosition", li.LinePosition); } Deserializing will populate LineInfo and LinePosition. Cons: Line information only for elements that are deserialized as class, not for simple elements, not for attributes. Need to add attributes to all classes.

The 26 interviews Interview no.1: Robina Scott Addis Robina Addis (1900-1986) was one of the earliest professionally trained psychiatric social workers in Great Britain, qualifying in 1933. She went on to have a varied career, first in child guidance and then with the National Association for Mental Health from which she retired as a staff member in 1965 after eleven years of service. As the interview reveals, she continued to take a keen interest in the work of NAMH and the causes it supported. She also had a concern for the development of the social work profession as a whole; this would undoubtedly be the reason she was invited to serve on the Working Party on social workers in the local authority health and welfare services, the ‘Younghusband Working Party’. Alan Cohen’s interview draws out her wide range of interests and commitments: in relieving the suffering caused by war and famine; in social work and child guidance in support of families and children; in comparative international approaches to mental health questions; and in writing and teaching. The interview also conveys her sense of humour as she comments on some of the incidents in her life. Readers interested in researching her life and work in depth should consult her papers, donated by her nephew David Addis, at the National Archives held at the Wellcome Library. Interview no.2: Geraldine Aves Geraldine Aves (1898-1986) was born into a socially committed family that had traditions of social inquiry on her father’s side and suffragist activism on her grandmother’s. She graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1920 and during her time there became president of the Women’s University Settlement (in South London) and that, she said, had a determining influence on her choice of career. The Settlement, founded in 1887, was directly linked to six women’s colleges within the universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford and its work was focused on the welfare of women and children “in the poorer districts of London.” Her first major job was as an assistant organiser for the care committee service of the London County Council 1924. In 1938 she was heavily involved in the planning for the evacuation of children from London in the event of war; and she was seconded to the Ministry of Health as chief welfare officer with responsibilities that included the recruitment of social workers. In 1946 she was appointed by the Ministry to the permanent position of Chief Welfare Officer and made key contributions to post-war reforms of welfare services and the development of personal social services and social work training. Her wide experience and personal strengths gave her the platform for a second career at senior levels (often as chair or board member) in the voluntary and professional sectors. One of her many influential projects was chairing an independent inquiry into the roles of volunteers in the social services and her report in 1969 led to the foundation of the Volunteer Centre and its successor organisations. [Source: Oxford DNB entry written by Phyllis Willmott.] Interview no.3: Ursula Behr Ursula Behr (1912-?2001) emerges from the Cohen interview as an interesting but somewhat self-effacing personality, given the outstanding and pioneering contribution she made to the development of social work in the field of child care. Luckily we have first hand testimonies about her qualities that counterbalance the innate modesty. In interview no 24 Clare Winnicott remarks on the frequent movement by Children’s Officers from authority to authority and “Nobody stayed. Ursula Behr is quite exceptional, stayed in her job all the way. The rest moved.” Professor Olive Stevenson recalls (in her Reflections on a Life in Social Work) the painful occasion when, as a student on Clare Winnicott’s child care course at LSE, during her field work placement an unnamed unqualified worker in Surrey opined that she would not make a good social worker. “Clare…cleverly placed me instead with a most unusual qualified worker who also had a PhD. Her name was Ursula Behr, a German Jewish refugee. She was comfortable with my urgent and powerful interest in the role and I was comfortable working with her. She was not threatened by my challenging (or rather cheeky) behaviour, which included, I seem to recall, teasing her that she took her hands off the steering wheel when she was talking. (She did.) As with so much in my life, the fact that Ursula was Jewish was a strand in my long- term interest in Jewish people and their history. Not that Ursula talked of it but I had by then seen films of Auschwitz and was well aware of the Holocaust. When I met her mother I made these connections. I greatly respected Ursula Behr. Best of all, she respected me as I was; that freed me to be myself.” Interview no.4: Rose Mary Braithwaite Rose Mary Braithwaite (1914–2012) came from a socially concerned family. Her father resided for a time at Toynbee Hall and was a major figure in community enterprises and a leading member of the Lloyd George team that created the National Insurance scheme prior to the first world war. Her mother was an early member of the London County Council’s care committee staff - a vital influence on many of the pioneers interviewed by Alan Cohen. It was therefore no surprise that she became a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) and, once there, switched from the study of economics to take the two-year Social Science Certificate. Her first job, in 1939, was as a probation officer at a juvenile court in the east end of London and thus began a distinguished career in the probation service and in social work more generally. In common with other Cohen interviewees, she had a period (1948) of training at the New York School of Social Work. And her abilities as a supervisor were recognised by LSE in 1954 when she was appointed to the staff of the first Applied Social Studies (“Carnegie”) course. Her hands-on probation practice continued for several years and she was given senior training responsibilities by the London probation service; and this was followed by a teaching post on the first social work post-graduate course at Bedford College and later to an advisory post in the early 1970’s at the newly formed CCETSW. She wrote a number of articles, including The Probation Officer, His Training and Skills for the Probation Journal in 1959. Interview no.5: Molly Bree There is relatively little in public records about Molly (Hettie) Bree (1900-1994) and the Cohen interview captures a career history that might have otherwise been lost. There is uncertainty as to what the diminutive ‘Molly’ stood for with one source giving ‘Mary’ and another offering ‘Muriel’. However the interview clearly records her professional interests and her progress from junior cashier in an insurance office to training in Birmingham and then a place on the LSE Mental Health course in 1937-38. From then on as a psychiatric social worker (PSW) she clearly gained the confidence of eminent mental health specialists such as Sybil Clement Brown, Margaret Ashdown and Sir Aubrey Lewis. The interview has many vivid and telling anecdotes - lunchtimes at the Canonbury Child Guidance Clinic saw the ten students crammed into a hut at the end of the garden while the two tutors ate more graciously in the house. And she was obviously not impressed by the LCC’s Asylum Committee who would travel down to Epsom on a certain day, have lunch, rubberstamp the medical superintendent’s recommendations about patients and then go home. It was in the long stay large mental health hospitals that she did her best work after an uncertain reception: “I do remember going and complaining to Janet Jackson that life as a PSW wasn't quite what I thought it might be and that there didn't seem to be any point in what I was doing. She reminded me we were pioneers. I hadn't thought of myself as a pioneer, nor much liked it. If you are a pioneer, you can't have a structured, clear position, but that's not the same as being unrecognised as a pioneer or even existing among thousand, who all had their proper places.” Interview no.6: George Chesters George Chesters was one of the six interviewees who never worked in London, having probation officer experience in Manchester, Leeds, Stoke and Hull. He was drawn to it through the Scouts but when he approached the Manchester office in 1933 to do voluntary work he was told he was “the kind of chap that the Home Office were looking for” (an intriguing method of selection!) and he became an “approved candidate”. His early experiences were interesting as he joined the service at the tail end of the domination by the police court missionaries. The overt religious influence was still strong: Protestant and Catholic staff sat separately and didn’t supervise the others’ clients; the new approved candidates were seen as “soulless and godless”; probation officers ran “tin missions” which boys on probation would be expected to attend. But Chesters was at pains in the interview to stress that one “mustn’t underrate the old police court missionaries”. They were seen as “friends of the delinquent” and they paved the way for the new probation officers and made them acceptable to the community. It is a view similar to Francesca Ward’s (interviewee no 20) who was keen to point out the importance of the old style almoners, the “grand old girls” as she called them. The past paves the way. Training was often “just watching” with visits frequently a learning experience. There were no “concise rules about interviewing”. But he became aware of a social worker hierarchy, with the psychiatric social workers thinking themselves “very superior” and the “almoners really a cut above us all in their estimation”. Yet the probation officer thought he was the “cat’s whiskers” as he had the authority of the court behind him. Certainly the perceptions of a hierarchy featured in many of the Cohen interviews. As more probation officers came back from the Home Office training courses in the late 1940s, Chesters found that the acquired jargon had added little and that some staff had become “disturbed” by the apparent psychoanalytic emphasis. For him it all came down to “care and concern”, the hallmark of the old missionaries, which for him “really did work”. Interview no.7: Sybil Clement Brown Sybil Clement Brown (1899-1993) is one of Alan Cohen’s very well known interviewees and there is ready access to many of her own writings and to others commenting on her life and work. For example, ten years before the Cohen interview she published (in the final 1970 commemorative issue of the BJPSW) her Looking Backwards: Reminiscences 1922 -1946. She mentions her chapter on social casework in the 1939 book edited by F. C. Bartlett, The Study of Society and there is an impressive list of published articles and books in the 1930’s and 40’s, followed by Social Services and Mental Health with Margaret Ashdown in 1953. Much more can be found about her in R.G. Walton’s Women in Social Work (1975) and Margaret Yelloly’s Social Work Theory and Psychoanalysis (1980). Walton gives two illuminating SCB quotations: she wishes to emphasise the social rather than the psychiatric in the psychiatric social worker job title and stresses that the essence of social work is “that its function shifts with social change and its disciplines must be constantly developing”. Having been a leader of the Association of Psychiatric Social Workers for many years she was well placed to make that observation. Her summary of the greatest gain made by the profession in the 1930’s was “perhaps the realisation that the process of bringing about any sort of growth in individuals, and harmonising of human relationships is the highest sort of art, learned only through disciplined experience, through a constant stirring of the imagination, and not just through the simple application of knowledge”. Interview no.8: Cecil French A few of the interviewees mention Relieving Officers, for example Mary Sherlock (interviewee no 16) comments on how as an almoner it was very helpful in terms of obtaining resources to be “on very good terms with the Relieving Officer”. Cecil French who qualified as a Relieving Officer in 1936 gives us considerable insight into just what the role could entail. Although French was working at the tail end of the Poor Law system it was still as he saw it judgemental and unjust. There was a vast hierarchy of people to be chased when trying to obtain information about paying for someone who was chargeable on the rates. Making sure the right authority paid was also essential, hence French and a colleague escorting a person from Bedfordshire to Scotland as the latter was his original home. It was important to distinguish between “lunatic” and “defective” as the latter had better support from the local authority. The workloads were astonishing. French when newly qualified, aged 21, had 90 cases to be seen each week and this rose to 250 with promotion. You had to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 50 weeks a year. French remembers being called out from the cinema for work. With the 1948 reorganisation it was at last possible to work in depth though still not seeing himself as a social worker. He moved then into the Health Department, under the Chief Medical Officer, to deal with mental illness and mental deficiency. His subsequent career, entirely spent in Bedfordshire, was marked by his psychiatric social worker training in Edinburgh, his work with colleagues commenting on the drafts of the 1959 Mental Health Act and his development of what he described as “one of the best mental health services in the country”. French worked with three professional associations in submitting evidence to the Royal Commission (the Percy Commission) which led to the 1959 Mental Health Act and felt that this and other work did influence the final outcome. It was the absence of financial provision which was to be the Achilles heel of the new system. The development of mental health services in the county was what French felt most proud of when interviewed by Alan. In 1971 the Bedfordshire County Council published French’s report to its Health Committee: A History of the development of the mental health service in Bedfordshire 1948-1970. Earlier in 1966 Cecil French had written a report entitled An attempt to evaluate some aspects of a community mental health service for 1949-1964. This was a report for the council but it was published in Public Health 80 (3), March 1966. French argued that with an adequate strength of officers and a training programme the admissions to hospital under compulsory powers could be reduced. Interview no.9: Elizabeth Gloyne Successful career choices can have unexpected starting points. Elizabeth Gloyne decided against medicine as her father was a doctor and mother a nurse - but social work seemed possible and medical social work was chosen as her father said they were “the best dressed”. By her mid-twenties she was qualified and thereafter handled a range of challenges which were a far cry from what was probably a comfortable upbringing in Buckinghamshire, though no doubt she had heard many medical tales. She speaks highly of her training as being “very rigorous”, though she highlights how little was written in case records and how much was learnt from “hearing other people’s skills in practice”. During her training she was visiting clients in tenement houses, a client in a large lodging house and on one placement was asked to read and comment on the case histories of five patients who had had operations to change sex because of physical problems. When qualified, the second world war saw her as an on-call registering officer for casualties of the blitz, as were other of the Cohen interviewees. She experienced jobs one of which at Redhill County Hospital she viewed as “the most wasted two years of my professional life” and others where she made a great difference. Appointed to the post at the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, being the only applicant, and working single handed for a year, she stayed for four years until 1950 leaving a stronger department and having bedded it in for the new Health Service. It is worth remembering she was still only in her thirties. As practitioner and trainer (tutor at the Institute of Medical Social Workers) she clearly had a lot to offer but found, for example, after two years in America (1956-8) that “nobody was interested in my splendid experience” and in this she was certainly not alone. She wrote very little and simply talks of maybe finding things scattered around “with my initials on”. Interview no.10: Jack Hanson In common with several of the Cohen interviewees, the remarkable nature of Jack Hanson’s personal story is partly disguised by the modesty of its narrator. But his progress from teenage clerical assistant to Relieving Officer and eventually into the ranks of the post-Seebohm cohort of Directors of Social Services (and to the Presidency of their Association) is very interesting. Fortunately Alan’s final question about lifetime achievements draws out two revealing comments from Hanson. After the closure of the long-stay hospitals he sees that more is required from society: “my message is that we still underestimate the potential of the mentally handicapped.” And on the rigours of launching a new era in social work he comments, “I had to build Bromley from nothing.” Apart from the invaluable Cohen interview, we suspect that most of the evidence of Jack Hanson’s achievements are buried deep in the archives of the local authorities he worked for. We could find only one publication to his name: a 1972 NISW booklet on residential care. And there is the archived record of his efforts, as Honorary General Secretary, on behalf of the Institute of Social Welfare. Fortunately we have the recollections of two eminent people. Firstly, Lady Gillian Wagner was the Chair of the Independent Review into Residential Child Care in the 1980’s and she recalls that as a member of the review body he held certain very strong views that compelled him to resign at one stage. However, he rejoined and was a full signatory in 1988 to the final report, A Positive Choice. Sir William Utting wrote to the Editors to say “I knew Jack Hanson as the DSS for Dorset when I was DSS for Kensington and Chelsea and later as Chief Social Work Officer of the DHSS. He was one of the ablest of the former Chief Welfare Officers and highly thought of by his colleagues –as his Presidency of the ADSS suggests – and I share that view. He was wise and experienced, hard-headed but committed to the welfare of service users whose needs he sensibly and forcibly advocated at national level. He was also a great champion of local government. I am sure his dry sense of humour helped maintain his balance during difficult years for social services and local government.” Interview no.11: Lettice Harford The work and reputation of Lettice Harford was clearly well known to a number of the 26 interviewees and indeed to Alan Cohen but in the interview with her she really fails to do justice to her own career. This is almost certainly due to her age at the time and her failing memory, allied to an innate modesty. During the 1930s and 1940s there were various committees of which Miss M.L. Harford was a member but to which she makes no mention in the interview. For example in 1943 the government appointed a Social Welfare Advisory Committee of “metropolitan experts” to advise on “social welfare in urban and rural communities in the colonies”. Miss Harford was a member and listed as the Chief Woman Officer of the National Council of Social Service. She does talk about her work on the Our Towns report when at the NCSS but makes no reference to her own paper towards that report on Personal Hygiene and Sanitary Habits. By 1943 she was able to announce that 5000 copies of the report had been sold. In fact she wrote very little which makes tracing her career in any detail that much more difficult. However there is little doubting her practical contribution. She was described as a "dynamic warden" of the Lady Margaret Hall Settlement where she was from 1935-39 and where she was actively involved in the British Association of Residential Settlements (BARS) of which she was then to become President. The second world war saw settlements concerned about their financial future but with grants from charitable trusts and other sources a grants committee to assist them was set up in 1940 of which Lettice Harford was one of three members along with Sir Wyndham Deedes and Miss H Escreet. She shows quiet pride about her membership of the Curtis Committee in 1946 which came after an active social work career starting in 1919. One slight mystery remains about her name which appears as Laetitia in one source, nowhere as Lettice and invariably as Miss M L Harford. It would have been satisfying to have had the interview solve that but, in the light of all she achieved, not that important. Interview no.12: Noel Hunnybun Noel Kathleen Hunnybun (1889-1984) was an early trained psychiatric social worker: one of a group of five selected for a Commonwealth Fund scholarship in 1927 for training in the USA at the new York School of Social Work. Like some other Cohen interviewees, she had gained valuable experience working as an assistant for the London County Council’s School Care Committees and then had a fortuitous conversation on Mile End tube station about the available scholarships. And like some others she experienced some resentment on her return from the USA. The interview gives an absorbing picture of a full and challenging career -- and of a woman willing to tackle almost anything. For example, pre-war she was very active in the child guidance movement and in the development of her professional association, the Association of Psychiatric Social Workers. She gives a frank account of her work on evacuation of children from London during the second world war followed by an unsatisfactory spell placing European children in American homes. The many war time privations are taken in her stride. Then post-war she was engaged by John Bowlby as his senior social worker at the Tavistock Clinic and this led to her being a major force in academic and practice teaching. When money is needed to launch a new course she simply writes to “a millionaire I met in America”. She is one of the Cohen interviewees who wrote about her work and regularly submitted material for publication. There is an impressive list of pamphlets and articles to her credit in the 1940’s and 50’s and her co-authored The Caseworker’s Use of Relationships, first published in 1962 and then re-issued, was read by at least two generations of students. Nevertheless Hunnybun tells Alan that “it was not a very good book” though her co-author Margaret Ferard “had a good head on her”. Several interviewees comment on the importance of the Social Casework in Britain book edited by Cherry Morris and published in 1950 and it is interesting to note, in terms of Hunnybun’s influence and powers of persuasion, that she claims to have “instigated” the book: a very believable claim in that she had published a chapter on Psychiatric Social Work in Great Britain in a collection edited by J. R. Rees the previous year. Interview no.13: Elizabeth Irvine Elizabeth Irvine gives Alan Cohen a glimpse of how she almost accidentally slipped into social work through the bankruptcy of two schools. She was a graduate of Cambridge University in modern and medieval languages and teaching may, at the end of the 1920s, have seemed an obvious career choice. Fortunately some friends knew about child guidance and steered her towards the LSE social science course: we hear of the practice placements, chasing up money owed for dentures and begging letters seen as an art form. Following the completion of the LSE Mental Health course she was launched on a career as a psychiatric social worker, principally in child guidance. As a young woman she must have had much independence of mind: no one else in her group seemed willing to clash with the formidable Aubrey Lewis. In the central part of the interview we hear about her pre-war service in several child guidance clinics and a mental hospital, some of it rewarding and some distressing, and then her post-war work in Israel with Gerald Caplan until 1952. Thanks to Caplan’s recommendation she was then appointed to the staff of the Tavistock Clinic where she worked for 14 years and, as Senior Tutor, set up the Advanced Casework course. In 1966 Irvine became Reader in Social Work at the University of York where she initiated the first British Masters course in social work. Following that, in 1973, she was a consultant to the Open University on the Social Work, Community Work and Society course. An important service to the profession was her chairing of the working party that produced BASW’s original Code of Ethics. Interview no.14: Kay McDougall Kay McDougall (nee Long) (1910—1999) was a psychiatric social worker, author, teacher, editor and diplomat in the field of social work politics. Alan Cohen encourages her to speak about all of these aspects of an outstanding career. She was remarkably successful in all of the projects she took on. For example, the launching of the Case Conference journal provided a platform for describing what social workers were doing, debating the ideas underpinning the work and examining the social policy implications. And her patient diplomatic skills were much needed over the long years of bringing the various professional bodies together into a unified British Association of Social Workers: she certainly earned membership card no 1. With some of his interviewees Alan is keen to explore their networks of influence and their important family and professional contacts. With Kay McDougall what strongly emerges is that her influence was based on her progressive personal values, particularly in the field of mental health, and her ability to connect social policies (or the lack of them) with their impact on people. The Editors had the privilege of working with her on a national committee of Family Service Units in the1970’s and have clear memories of her personal concern for parents and children who were coping with awful life experiences, and of her ability to resolve issues through sheer common sense. She seemed unfazed by heated organisational blow-ups and, having read the Cohen interview, we now understand why Joan Baraclough has written Kay’s entry in the Oxford DNB and cites one of her many value statements that bear repetition. “We cannot make our professional life a nine to five persona…the need for other interests and for not taking client problems home with us are important, but a profession is a way of life and not a job of work. We are judged in the end by how we are seen to behave towards clients and towards each other.” Interview no.15: Edgar Myers Edgar Myers had a long and varied career including many years work in the field of alcoholism and with alcoholics. In 1956 he, with David Lewis and Michael Shepherd, published, in the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, a two-year follow-up of fifty alcoholics, together with an analysis of prognostic factors. In the field of post-war alcohol research this paper was a turning point. It discussed “outcome” as a concept. He served as a member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Psychiatric Social Work and two examples of his own contributions were The Caseworker’s Problems in Meeting the Inner and Outer Needs of Clients (1954) and ‘The Royal Commission and the Psychopath (1958). Professor Herschel Prins wrote in his autobiographical reflections “I also renewed my acquaintance with the late Edgar Myers. I had first met him when he accompanied a very difficult client of his to an appearance Biggleswade Magistrates Court. He was a very perceptive and well informed psychiatric social worker with a considerable interest in psychopathy. He subsequently joined the academic staff of LSE and later became our external examiner on the PSW Course at Leeds University.” In correspondence with the Editors Professor Prins went on to describe him as ‘a lovely and very erudite man’. Interview no.16: Mary Sherlock Mary Sherlock wanted to do medicine but finances would not permit. Coming from a “sheltered background” she found an early Charity Organisation Society placement in Liverpool a daunting experience, running for her life on one occasion down Scotland Road. By 1942 she had qualified after a great deal of “sitting by Nellie” training and six weeks of lectures. Some of the former was listening to interviews behind a partition, so with no opportunity to observe any interactions. As with all the interviews there are memorable vignettes as when Mary Sherlock describes trying to conduct an interview during gas mask drill but needing to wear glasses without which she could not see the patient. In her early twenties she was, like many of the other interviewees, coping with major challenges during the blitz and found this gave her valuable experience that “oiled the wheels for other things”. An even greater challenge was to be appointed after two years of war work, as the sole almoner at Doncaster Hospital. It was difficult not least because she was “very isolated”, had no colleagues and hence no one to discuss anything with. The contrast between this job and a later one in 1946 in the skin department at Leeds Infirmary was stark and this often huge variation is a feature of the experiences of all the medical social workers interviewed. But for Mary Sherlock the Leeds experience was to be followed in 1953 by a job in a London Hospital which was “highly unsuitable “ and which no London social worker would have applied for. She stayed six months which was longer than the one day that Ilse Westheimer (interviewee no 22) stayed after an equally dire appointment. Fortunately a number of locums in major London hospitals restored her confidence and nine years at Hammersmith Hospital followed with opportunities for staff and student supervision. The years in which as she said “social work was nothing if not practical” must have seemed a very different world. Yet she was rooted in the practitioner role finding much of the social work literature “unreadable” and drawing on classic literature, such as George Eliot’s novels, for insights. Above all as she said “the patients taught you”. After Alan Cohen’s 1959 cut-off date Mary Sherlock had five years with the Council for Training in Social Work which she relished and it enabled her to realise how much she knew. The interview gives us just a glimpse, but an invaluable one, of that knowledge and experience. Interview no.17: Margaret Simey Margaret Simey (1906–2004) was born in Scotland and had periods of study and work in London and the Caribbean. But her main stamping ground as a social activist, writer and local politician was in the city of Liverpool. In 1928 she became the first woman social science graduate at the University and, under the influence of Eleanor Rathbone, became involved with the city’s less conservative voluntary organisations. This commitment was exemplified by her 1951 book Charitable Effort in Liverpool. She married the social scientist Tom Simey in 1935 and they later collaborated on overseas development work, academic studies and the writing of a biography of Charles Booth. She was elected as a Labour councillor in 1963 and remained an active local politician until 1986. Formidably outspoken, she continued to be involved in local organisations and radical causes. Among her later publications were Democracy Rediscovered (1988) and The Disinherited Society (1996). Interview no.18: Jean Snelling Alan Cohen's interview with Jean Snelling (b. 1915), medical social worker and author, was brisk and well-informed about the events of her time, and she gives an interesting account of her career, beginning with the positive role model of the beautifully named Marion Perfect. After graduation from Oxford University and the LSE, she obtained the Institute of Almoners Certificate with practical training at the Brompton Hospital. Her reference from a Lady Almoner at the time said she “…had a critical approach to her work, inspires confidence in patients and fellow workers…has the makings of a very capable Almoner”. And so it proved to be, though Snelling and many contemporaries could not wait to get rid of the ‘Lady’ part of their job title. During the second world war she held posts in Hemel Hempstead and at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and her talents were further recognised in 1946 when she became head almoner at Churchill Hospital, Oxford and a tutor on the Institute of Almoners 1947 emergency training courses. She gives an informative and entertaining account of the post-war gathering that took place in Tring, Hertfordshire where the eminent authors of Social Case Work in Britainwere saved from starvation by a supply of oatmeal biscuits from the village shop. She was keen to have a year’s study and practice in the USA, returned to a lecturership at the Social Studies Department of Edinburgh University and in 1958 she was appointed Director of Studies at the Institute of Medical Social Workers where she worked until 1970. Interview no.19: Thomas Tinto Thomas Tinto is remembered as a very important figure in the field of social care in Scotland. His career in Glasgow spanned the period between two great reforms - the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1929 and the Social Work (Scotland) Act of 1968 - and therefore also embraced the radical health and welfare reforms of 1948. His areas of interest and responsibilities expanded during this period and included public assistance, care of the elderly, health and welfare, residential care, community care and voluntary organisations supporting families in need. Mr. Bob Winter - later to become Director of Social Work for Strathclyde Region and also Lord Provost of Glasgow - recalls a long and rigorous interview conducted by Tom Tinto when applying at the age of 17 for his first job as a trainee welfare officer. Thereafter, in a long social work career, he developed admiration for this man who represented the best values of the profession and who was widely respected as a role model for the younger generation of social workers (all this despite his bowler hat and pinstripe suit). Given his dedication to the cause of good quality training for front line social workers, he was the natural choice to represent Scotland on the Younghusband Committee from 1955-59. He is also remembered as a compassionate man, ever willing to support those in need of help, and probably driven by a deep personal faith. Given his long connection with the Iona Community and the Church of Scotland, it is reasonable to assume that he was of a Christian socialist persuasion, though he avoided attaching labels to himself. Interview no.20: Francesca Ward Although early in the interview Francesca Ward says Alan is taxing her “aged memory” she was probably only in her sixties at the time (1980), though as in many of the interviews the timelines are not always easy to follow. She is however clear that the early hospital social work was a “medley of routine work” and essentially “fringe social work”. But her training at the LSE was of “absorbing interest” and the practical placements integrated theory and practice, though she admits she was lucky and not all such placements were good. She was far from dismissive about the first generation of almoners whom she described as “grand old girls who had the intellectual grasp as well as the social background and authority”. The latter was crucial as they had to hold their own in a rather class conscious medical world, though Francesca Ward did see in the late 1940s a time when “impeccable accents” were no longer an absolute requirement. Francesca did not endure some of the dreadful jobs that others unwittingly applied for and in fact spent virtually all her career in Oxford, first for three years in the local authority Treasurers Department chasing up money owed by patients and by tenants, which was ultimately recognised as not an almoner’s role, but it brought her into contact with “real poverty”. Then in 1943 she moved to the Radcliffe Infirmary where she remained until her retirement. From her account and others his seems to have been a department that you would have fought to join. She admits it was a “pretty cosy set up”, though that applies to the team spirit and intellectual stimulus rather than the work itself. It was common to see up to 50 patients in a morning and having to assess in five minutes who needed social work help. They worked all hours as they had the liberty to do so because above all they wanted to “demonstrate our point” – their role and value. The war experience came when they received D-day casualties which was a “sort of chaos” but very much had to be fitted in to the normal parts of the job. Stress was encountered when she moved to the paediatric department and came into contact with the battered baby problem which had not yet surfaced to any extent in this country. But here team work and an outstanding head almoner (Helen Rees) greatly helped. She ways up carefully the pros and cons of staying so long in one place, perhaps recognising that someone needs to but obviously not everyone. The “norm bearer” is an important role. In her time she witnessed the “fast development” of social work and the value of the new ideas, as on a practical level you needed to understand why people behaved as they did and why they responded or didn’t. Her “first love” remained “the huge rewards of the individual work with patients” and the cases she recounts are a testimony to the value of some staff at least staying put. Interview no.21: Enid Warren Enid Charis Warren (1903-1980) was highly regarded as a medical social worker and as a person by her contemporaries and by the generation that followed in her footsteps. It was very fortunate that Alan Cohen contacted her towards the end of her life and as a result we can hear her clear personal recollections of people and events. There are many gems in this interview, including her account of the almoners’ organisations that she served so well and also her frank assessments of a number of men who later rose to the highest political ranks: Clement Attlee, Hugh Dalton and Harold Laski. And she was obviously unimpressed by Barbara Wootton’s comments on social work. Her achievements and character have been described by Joan Baraclough and others in the 1981 A Portrait of a Social Worker. “Tall, erect and angular in build, she moved with an air of dignity and freedom. The direct and searching gaze of her blue eyes could, and usually did, express a steadiness and calm that was immediately reassuring.” The authors stress that her philosophy and practice were always based on the central importance of the patient. Her people skills were greatly appreciated in the establishment of the British Association of Social Workers. Her career is summarised in an Oxford DNB entry written by Joan Baraclough. Interview no.22: Ilse Westheimer Ilse Westheimer (1921-2004) lived a personal and professional life capable of inspiring anyone at any time in history. All of her immediate family relatives in Germany were killed by the Nazi regime and she was the sole member to survive because her mother obtained an exit visa for her. Alan Cohen directly asks questions about the circumstances which brought her alone as 17 year old to the UK - and we may assume with much empathy. In the interview she gives a very full picture of how determined she was to have a professional training and of her time studying and working in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This in turn opened academic doors and sheer ability qualified her for scholarships and further professional training. People who knew her well said she could be very outspoken - and this side of her temperament no doubt explains why, as a student at LSE, she preferred the pyrotechnics of Harold Laski to those tutors who specialised in “long silences”. In her obituary in The Independent (5th June 2004) a former student Jean Robertson-Molloy wrote “I vividly remember my first meeting with her, a petite dark-haired, vivacious woman, with a big, captivating smile. As a supervisor she was meticulous but also relaxed; she had the knack of bringing out the best in people.” Professional staff supervision is a topic that runs through this interview and Westheimer can be forgiven for losing patience with the “We do not need supervision because we are qualified” argument she encountered many times. Part of her legacy is her The Practice of Supervision in Social Work: a guide for staff, published in 1977 and dedicated to her mother. It repays reading today. Towards the end of her life she endowed a charitable trust for refugees in the UK to assist with their education. Interview no.23: Mary Wilkinson The interview with Mary Wilkinson is the shortest of the 26 and in many ways the most difficult to categorise as the interviewee represents an older style of working, within the probation service, rather than the more pioneering and reflective approaches of the other 25 interviewees. Mary Wilkinson’s voice is however clear and forthright and offers valuable points to consider when reflecting on the history of social work development. She stayed in one area, Bedfordshire, all her working life (1939-1972) and placed great emphasis on the importance of having roots in the community and being widely known in the area. She saw this as enabling her to do a better job and was critical of those who perhaps only stayed for two years. She had a direct and down to earth approach which she strongly believed was of benefit to the clients, being as far from jargon as it was possible to be. Mary Wilkinson acknowledged that she was a “lone wolf” and was probably an uncomfortable colleague, representing a way of working that the courses, discussed by many of the other interviewees, were intended to put an end to. Alan had found a fascinating counterpoint to the background and social work philosophy of the other people he interviewed. When Mary Wilkinson says that the clients remember her and that they stop to talk to her as she walks round the town after her retirement one senses a deep satisfaction in a job well done for all that she went against so much of the newer approaches so enthusiastically taken up elsewhere. She is certainly a lively reminder of the other side of the pioneering coin. Interview no.24: Clare Winnicott (nee Britton) Clare Winnicott (née Britton) (1906–1984), social worker and psychoanalyst, was one of the first psychiatric social workers to be trained in England, completing the London School of Economics (LSE) Social Science course in 1937 and the Mental Health course in 1940. She created the first Child Care Course in the UK, which she ran at the LSE from 1947-1958. This was an intensive programme of integrated theory and practice that prepared staff for local authority departments set up under the Children Act of 1948. The Curtis Committee had recommended refresher courses and training for senior staff as well as basic training for heads of homes, but her framework extended training to all staff and provided a graduated scheme of training. The course covered child development, paediatrics, legal issues in child welfare, and sociology. She speaks touchingly of the impact on her of the LSE’s decision to amalgamate the course with another. Fom 1964-1971 she was Director of Child Care Studies at the Home Office and then assumed a new position as Head of the Social Work Department at the LSE, responsible for training the new profession of social workers. With her husband Donald Winnicott, she founded the Association of Child Care Officers which was the main professional body for social workers involved in the welfare of children in the United Kingdom from 1949 to 1970. They were appointed as the only life members. Clare Winnicott’s positive influence was profound and diffuse. Several eminent social work practitioners and academics - for example Professors Olive Stevenson and June Thoburn – have a recorded their indebtedness to her and Bob Holman’s book Champions for Children and the Joel Kanter edited collection Face to Face with Children place her centre stage. Interview no.25: Reg Wright Part 1 of the interview provides an interesting narrative of Reg Wright’s early career: Army service including the Medical Corps and working alongside psychiatrists; discharge in 1948 followed by the social administration course with Barbara Rodgers at Manchester University. Then the critical decision to take the LSE Mental Health course - an action which his contemporaries in Manchester thought was “mad” - which in turn shaped the middle section of his career and introduced him to new ideas, new people and new organisations such as the Association of Psychiatric Social Workers, which he chaired at the end of the 1950s. Despite his better judgement, he served as a psychiatric social worker for a local authority before taking a lecturer post at LSE on the Mental Health course in the early 1960’s and had Alan Cohen as one of his students. In 1963 he was appointed as Chief Professional Adviser to the Council for Training in Social Work (CTSW) and a curious feature of both parts of his interview is the absence of any reference to his specific work there or at the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) where he was for many years an Assistant Director. He had a very long standing commitment to social work education and perhaps the reason for his presence in these two organisations was taken for granted. Interview no.26: Eileen Younghusband Eileen Louise Younghusband (1902-1981) is described in the AIM25 archives as a “social work pioneer” despite her comment in the interview with Alan Cohen “I’ve never been a kosher social worker”, by which she meant that none of her qualifications were from a recognised course of study for social work. There is considerable irony in this - often remarked on by her qualified contemporaries - given how much she did in her career to establish recognised training courses for social workers. Her cv is longer than any other Cohen interviewees and after her time as a student at the LSE she operated at a high level among ‘the great and the good.’ In the fields of social work, probation, family welfare, penal reform, youth justice and international bodies she was very active and respected. She gives Alan a very lucid account of her involvement in major events including the famous Reports that bear her name and there is no need to rehearse these here. However, anyone wishing to study the Younghusband contribution in depth is referred to Karen Lyons extended essay in Social Work and Society where all aspects of EY’s life and work are discussed and key biographical documents are referenced. This includes the special 1982 edition of International Social Work edited by Kathleen Kendall and containing a dozen tributes to Dame Eileen. Researchers may also consult an extensive collection of her papers archived at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.

[Digital volume tomography (DVT) and multislice spiral CT (MSCT): an objective examination of dose and image quality]. In the last five years digital volume tomographs (DVT) have found their way into the diagnostic imaging of the facial skull. In this study both the image quality and dose of DVT and multislice spiral CT (MSCT) in this field of application were investigated using established physical methods for CT. Measurements on DVT scanners of various manufacturers and on a modern MSCT scanner were performed. The investigation was based on equivalent dose levels for both modalities (CT dose index, CTDI). For this purpose, the dose was measured with an ionization chamber in a cylindrical PMMA phantom. For the evaluation of image quality, the spatial resolution, contrast and noise were investigated with phantoms established for CT. MSCT exhibited spatial resolution values of 1.0 to 1.6 lp/mm, while DVT provided resolution between 0.6 and 1.0 lp/mm only. Thus, MSCT offered similar or better resolution at an equivalent dose. For soft tissue resolution, DVT showed significant image artifacts. MSCT yielded higher homogeneity and no significant artifacts, and the contrast steps of the phantom were more verifiable. The different DVT devices, from image intensifiers to modern flat-detector (FD) devices, showed significant differences in favor of the FD devices. For medium and high contrast applications (teeth/bones), DVT scanners can be an alternative to MSCT at comparable radiation exposure. However, MSCT offers advantages in terms of constantly good and controlled image quality with significantly more flexible scan parameters at a constant or lower dose and should therefore be given preference.

Much has been written about the Millennials, the generation born in the 1990s — or as early as the 1980s and I suppose as late as the new millennium which gives them their name. You can find articles about their political views, their work habits, and their buying trends. You can also find complaints from non-affluent Millennials that these discussions don’t apply to them. The Millennial Generation is not very religious, and Millennials are not very orthodox even when they are. But at places like Benedictine College, where I work, you meet a hybrid version of them: The Hardcore Catholic Millennial. They are truly hardcore Catholics. They are also truly Millennials. Their religion does not wipe out their generation’s culture any more than their culture wipes out their religious beliefs. So, what are they like? A more formal study could be made. But observing them up close at a college campus and asking them questions about their future is adding up to a theory I have: Their Millennial traits transform their Catholicism and vice versa such that they are likely to do great things for the Church. A few observations … Millennials consider themselves special; that means hardcore Catholic Millennials consider their Catholic identity special. Maybe Millennials see hugs where there are none because Millennials have been hugged a lot. They have been carefully taught that they are special from childhood on. Their good qualities have been appreciated and celebrated; their bad qualities have been excused and dismissed. Social media turbocharges that specialness, allowing each of them to construct an online universe with themselves at the center. It is virtual narcissism that easily becomes actual narcissism. But hardcore Catholic Millennials have something else: a confidence about their faith that my peers never had. We never felt comfortable when we were different from the culture. Millennials are special, so they have permission to be different. They don’t just accept their Catholic identity: They brand-manage it. They create Tumblrs and Pinterest Boards filled with Catholic art, Catholic quotes and inspirational gifs. Their Instagram accounts share pictures of churches and statues alongside the pictures of friends and sunsets. I saw this robust attitude toward Catholic identity when we were doing a video for Benedictine College in a dorm lobby. Unexpectedly, a group of students congregated in the lobby and started praying the rosary. When I was at a hardcore Catholic college in the 1980s, we said the rosary too … in our rooms. I think we would have been too timid to be quite so out in the open with it. We didn’t know our Catholic identity was special. Millennials are sheltered; that means hardcore Catholic Millennials seek shelter in God. Many Millennials have lived all their days under supervision. At the college we are well aware of the heavy involvement many of their parents take in their lives. The term “helicopter parents” has been no longer does justice to it: These are “bulldozer parents,” clearing all obstacles in their children’s way. This can leave a Millennial frozen when the parents inevitably leave the scene. Hardcore Catholic Millennials are no different. Catholic blogger John Lim wrote about his generation’s tendency to call passivity “discernment.” “Before we do anything, we must discern,” he said. “This isn’t a false idea, but we’ve taken it to a point where we’re discerning about discerning. It is plaguing our generation and preventing us from truly following God’s will for our lives.” Another Millennial summed it up for me this way: “For us, adoration and Mass are legitimate excuses to use to get out of doing things.” So I can see how these can be a problem: Thinking too much about what God wants; going to Mass and adoration too much. But it strike me as a good problem to have. My generation was always told to think of the consequences of our actions; these people are actually doing it. A Benedictine College professor told me about a meeting he had in a college conference room. He had neglected to book the room properly, and when he left his meeting he found 85 students crammed into the hallway outside, waiting. They had organized an informal chastity discussion group … and dozens of students showed up. These are clearly young men and women who want to make good choices. Good for them. Connected. Being constantly supervised doesn’t just make you safety conscious: It makes you group-oriented. My generation were latchkey children. We went home after school and we got together with other kids if we happened to be home when they called or knocked on the door. The Millennials grew up together at play-dates, sharing after-school activities and organized sports. The social media paradigm – meeting and chatting in a semi-public forum – is not a new phenomenon to them, but just a different way of doing what they were already doing. Hardcore Catholic Millennials are using these these technologies to connect with God … and introduce others to him. “They’re on ipads and iPhones before, during and after Mass … praying with the liturgy of hours and the readings,” one Millennial told me. “The apologetics discussions are everywhere, always online.” If you ask a previous generation of Hardcore Catholics what it means to be Catholic, they might cite politics or personal religious practices. I asked that question of seven different hardcore Catholic Millennials: Every one of them said “Evangelization.” That strikes me as a better answer. Millennials Need to Feel Appreciated; Hardcore Catholic Millennials too … One tweet from St. Peter’s Square struck me as capturing the spirit of the Hardcore Catholic Millennial: “The long tour of the Popemobile looks like a hug of B16 to all of us present here in the square.” Of course it was moving to see the Pope’s appreciative gesture … but why does it need to be a hug? The need to be personally noticed, appreciated and contacted: That is a quintessential Millennial trait. They are sometimes called Trophy Kids — named for the trophies they receive whether they win or not, and the trophies they are considered to be by their parents. The desire to be recognized can be problematic when you’re looking for the approval of an increasingly dark world. Too many young people have wanted to feel hugged by the wrong people. But when you’re trying to feel hugged by the Pope … well, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. …. At any rate, as much as Millennials may scare me with some of their traits, Hardcore Catholic Millennials fill me with hope for the Church’s future. I know they are not perfect. They can be superficial and their work ethics need improvement. But along with the bad come some counterbalancing virtues: They insist on authenticity, transparency and sincerity; they are compassionate, curious and open-minded. They will surprise us with what they accomplish.

6 comments: I agree that poetry is a simple truth - a heart song - a life line. I don't know where I'd be without it. I love the reassurance that poetry isn't just for the poet but also for the reader, which makes me feel wanted and respected and my heart isn't one bit sad after reading your words! Search This Blog Follow by Email quote “Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours, and that you be a true poet. This last is essential.” modified quote http://www.annelllivingston.com In the studio Geoform Geoform is an online scholarly resource and curatorial project whose focus is the use of geometric form and structure in contemporary abstract art being made by artists from around the world. Geoform explores, documents and celebrates the rich diversity of style and aesthetic intent that characterizes this broad vein of contemporary non-objective abstraction. Such diversity attests to the profound resonance that geometric form and structure have had for people across time and place. Geoform is edited by Julie Karabenick (karabenick-art.net). It has been online since May, 2005.

Accuracy of hysteroscopy in the diagnosis of endometrial cancer and hyperplasia: a systematic quantitative review. Hysteroscopy (direct endoscopic visualization of the endometrial cavity) is used extensively in the evaluation of common gynecologic problems, such as menorrhagia and postmenopausal bleeding. However, there is a continuing debate about the value of this technology in the diagnosis of serious endometrial disease. To determine the accuracy of hysteroscopy in diagnosing endometrial cancer and hyperplasia in women with abnormal uterine bleeding. Relevant articles were identified through searches of the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, and EMBASE (1984-2001), manual searches of bibliographies of known primary and review articles, and contact with manufacturers. Studies were selected blindly, independently, and in duplicate if accuracy of hysteroscopy was estimated in women with abnormal uterine bleeding, using histopathologic findings as a reference standard. Our search identified 3486 articles; 208 of these were deemed to be potentially eligible and were retrieved for detailed data extraction. Sixty-five primary studies were analyzed, including 26 346 women. Data were abstracted on characteristics and quality from each study. Results for diagnostic accuracy were extracted to form 2 x 2 contingency tables separately for endometrial cancer and endometrial disease (cancer, hyperplasia, or both). Pooled likelihood ratios (LRs) were used as summary accuracy measures. The pretest probability of endometrial cancer was 3.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.7%-4.2%). A positive hysteroscopy result (pooled LR, 60.9; 95% CI, 51.2-72.5) increased the probability of cancer to 71.8% (95% CI, 67.0%-76.6%), whereas a negative hysteroscopy result (pooled LR, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.13-0.18) reduced the probability of cancer to 0.6% (95% CI, 0.5%-0.8%). There was statistical heterogeneity in pooling of LRs, but an explanation for this could not be found in spectrum composition and study quality. The overall accuracy for the diagnosis of endometrial disease was modest compared with that of cancer, and the results were heterogeneous. The accuracy tended to be higher among postmenopausal women and in the outpatient setting. The diagnostic accuracy of hysteroscopy is high for endometrial cancer, but only moderate for endometrial disease (cancer or hyperplasia).

Q: In Python, is there a concise way of comparing whether the contents of two text files are the same? I don't care what the differences are. I just want to know whether the contents are different. A: The low level way: from __future__ import with_statement with open(filename1) as f1: with open(filename2) as f2: if f1.read() == f2.read(): ... The high level way: import filecmp if filecmp.cmp(filename1, filename2, shallow=False): ... A: If you're going for even basic efficiency, you probably want to check the file size first: if os.path.getsize(filename1) == os.path.getsize(filename2): if open('filename1','r').read() == open('filename2','r').read(): # Files are the same. This saves you reading every line of two files that aren't even the same size, and thus can't be the same. (Even further than that, you could call out to a fast MD5sum of each file and compare those, but that's not "in Python", so I'll stop here.) A: This is a functional-style file comparison function. It returns instantly False if the files have different sizes; otherwise, it reads in 4KiB block sizes and returns False instantly upon the first difference: from __future__ import with_statement import os import itertools, functools, operator def filecmp(filename1, filename2): "Do the two files have exactly the same contents?" with open(filename1, "rb") as fp1, open(filename2, "rb") as fp2: if os.fstat(fp1.fileno()).st_size != os.fstat(fp2.fileno()).st_size: return False # different sizes ∴ not equal fp1_reader= functools.partial(fp1.read, 4096) fp2_reader= functools.partial(fp2.read, 4096) cmp_pairs= itertools.izip(iter(fp1_reader, ''), iter(fp2_reader, '')) inequalities= itertools.starmap(operator.ne, cmp_pairs) return not any(inequalities) if __name__ == "__main__": import sys print filecmp(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]) Just a different take :)

Ce lundi, le tribunal administratif de Nice a ordonné au maire Christian Estrosi d'autoriser, dans les cinq jours, l'ouverture d'une mosquée financée par l'Arabie saoudite à laquelle l'élu s'oppose farouchement. La justice, qui avait été saisie ce vendredi en référé par l'association culturelle et cultuelle En Nour, gestionnaire de la mosquée, a considéré que « la condition d'urgence était remplie du fait de la capacité insuffisante des salles de prière musulmanes à Nice » et « de la période de ramadan » qui a débuté lundi. Elle estime par ailleurs que le refus du maire de Nice d'autoriser l'ouverture porte « une atteinte grave et manifestement illégale à la liberté de culte ». Le tribunal relève en outre que la commission d'accessibilité et la commission de sécurité communales avaient émis des avis favorables à l'ouverture au public des locaux et que le maire de Nice « ne s'opposait pas à l'ouverture de la salle de culte pour des motifs relatifs au respect de la législation », mais « compte tenu de ses doutes sur l'origine du financement des travaux et de sa crainte de prêches dangereux » : cela constitue, pour le juge, « un détournement de procédure ». « Je ne ferai courir aucun risque à ma ville » Christian Estrosi a indiqué dans un communiqué avoir « décidé de se pourvoir immédiatement en cassation auprès du Conseil d'État ». « En tout état de cause, je ne ferai courir aucun risque à ma ville et nous n'exécuterons une décision de justice que lorsqu'elle sera devenue définitive », indique-t-il. Un tel recours n'est toutefois pas suspensif. « C'est extraordinaire et en même temps c'était prévisible », s'est de son côté félicité l'ancien conseiller municipal Razak Fetnan, proche des dirigeants de la mosquée : « Il y avait un enjeu de justice et en même temps de reconnaissance des Français de confession musulmane. » En avril, Christian Estrosi avait fait adopter par son conseil municipal des délibérations l'autorisant notamment à attaquer devant la justice administrative le préfet des Alpes-Maritimes, à qui il reprochait de refuser de prendre un arrêté portant déclaration d'utilité publique (DUP) pour un projet de crèche qu'il souhaitait implanter à la place de l'édifice religieux. Le préfet avait toutefois demandé la mise en place, avant le 1er août, d'une direction collégiale à la tête de l'association cultuelle devant gérer la mosquée et le transfert à cette association, via un legs, de la propriété des locaux qui appartiennent au ministre saoudien des Cultes.

1) People are so much nicer!Typically the DC crowd is pretty close-lipped, but slap a green cast on you and you’ve got a door holding, conversation starting, discount delivering, community around to support you. 2) Most people wouldn’t be doing this.I pretty much hear this comment in words, looks or some other body language 3+ times per day. See thing #5 for why I think this is. 3) Northwest DC is pretty accessible.Scooting around for a few blocks really isn’t that bad. It’s slow. But you get used to it. 4) The bus is best. I can’t imagine taking anything else in this occasion. It’s down the road from the tiny house, and it drops me off a few blocks from where I need to be in DC. It’s practically a charter bus. 5) A clear purpose makes all the difference. I get to help make people healthier in drastic ways. The fact that pays the bills and allows me the freedom to be home with my wife and toddler more than most people is PLENTY purpose enough to figure things out and put on a happy face. In summary...Injuries never happen at a good time. They require sooooo much energy to heal from and still accomplish normal every-day tasks. And let’s just say that it’s much harder to take advantage of opportunities if everything requires more energy. At the end of the day though you really just have two choices. You can stew over opportunities lost, or leverage your current opportunities. One is an exercise in futility, the other is an exercise in strength. My advice remains the same: The Idea...You know how sometimes you have these ideas that are hanging around on the outskirts of your mind and you can’t quite grasp what they are? I’ve been feeling that way lately about what my opinion is of working out/exercising. Don’t get me wrong, I love to work out. Especially in the right environment. I love lifting heavy weights, listening to Disturbed, and sweating it out. At least I did before I had a baby. I haven’t gotten back into that kind of lifting yet since becoming a mom. We evolved to move But what if part of the reason so many people struggle to get into a routine going to the gym and “working out” is because it is completely unnatural? At VIVO Training Systems, we tend to gravitate towards the more evolutional when it comes to ideology. Except for the smart phone technology… I know, I know, so hypocritical. But you have to pick your battles. The question is the answer The question I have been asking myself is this: How can we help people move and become more healthy (or achieve their physical goals of weight loss or strength etc) in a way that is fun and sustainable? I am even struggling with this myself. I have one scheduled workout a week and that is all that I have been doing as far as exercise goes. At least as far as structured exercise goes… Is there another way? Writing a workout program for a recent client has got me thinking about the possibility of other options. Let’s think about this for a minute: what are the real goals behind most workout programs? To lose weight To gain mobility/flexiblity To get stronger To prevent injury What if instead of just writing workout programs for people, we wrote lifestyle’s? In a way that they could achieve results without ever stepping in a gym? A possible gold standard The nutrition program that we are just starting to offer at VTS is all about the big picture. They don’t just give you a list of meals to eat, they help you with your eating habits, they help you with your environment, they help you with your support system, so much more than just a list of foods. And yet we write workout programs for people that are really just a list of exercises. And don’t get me wrong, many people see awesome results with our programs. And there is nothing wrong with that. But what if there was another way? Thinking Outside the App Sometimes I think we are a little too attached to our workout program App. It almost defines us as a company. I’m thinking I need to start thinking outside the App so to speak. Facebook is great but it is very limiting as well. It’s all about the delivery... How could I develop and deliver a lifestyle to people? Well the writing/development is the easy part, time consuming, but the logistics aren’t hard. ​The delivery of this lifestyle would be the hard part.​ “If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” -Frank A. Clark

Must Love Pekes is a blog for those who love Pekingese, their looks, their antics, their personalities. It is written by me, Linda, and I have been rescuing Pekingese for 14 years. Lots of them have gone through our home. We have loved them all. Followers Monday, July 12, 2010 OLLIE AND BUFFY Ollie and Buffy were both adopted from PVPC. They parents adore them and can't imagine what life would be without them. BORING I'm sure! The Pekes keep them very entertained! These two really love each other and they romp and play and run through the house stealing toys from each other and having tugs of war. They both love walking and visiting around the neighborhood. Oh, don't you love looking at this picture in July!! It's so hot outside (except in Australia where Lady Jicky is and it's cold there), so pretend you are sitting in the snow with Buffy and you'll cool right down. Buffy loves the snow! Ollie is on the alert-- I love his harness. Pekes should wear harnesses when they go for a walk to protect their throat. Ollie was one of my foster dogs and was adopted before Christmas several years ago. This past year, I took my grandkids up to see their house at Christmas and it's going to become a yearly tradition. I love visiting and seeing their beautiful decorations!! (Okay, is talking about Christmas making you cold-- I hope so, we can use anything to cool us down.) They all came to the Peke Picnic this year. Buffy is meeting a new friend-- it's not Starlight. It looks like Starlight the Terror, but it's not. All the Pekes at the picnic were so cute! And there I am at the picnic holding Caleb and Maggie-- Maggie was one of my foster dogs who was adopted last year. And Caleb, of course, now contributes to the blog now and then. ;-) He's our "Maryland contributor." Back at home, Buffy loves sitting in front of the window, surveying the neighborhood. Here is Buffy with Flat Stanley-- he was a school project for one of the grandkids. Buffy looks very innocent here, but don't let her fool you. She pulled Flat Stanley apart! Yes, she did! She also likes to nip at Ollie whenever he gets any attention from anyone and she won't let him get on the bed or his mom's lap without a fuss. She's such a girl! Female Pekes can try to rule! I know-- we have Queen Cranberry here! Here they all are with Flat Stanley-- I think he's still in one piece there. It was a long day-- and they're both tired. I think they're going to take a npa. I think Ollie will be asleep first. I'm Ollie and Buffy's Aunt and they are the best friends. Ollie scrapbooks with me, he sits in my lap, while Buffy sleeps on my feet. Their Mom and Dad are the best parents and I enjoy my days spent with all of them.

About This Game Play in a well-lit room Do not play if you are drowsy or fatigued RocketGirl is the greatest game ever made. Take control of a beautiful heroine and grab a stolen rocket. Can you help her escape, with an army of baddies in hot pursuit? Stunning visuals. Awesome soundtrack. Non-stop action. Are you up for the challenge?PHOTOSENSITIVE SEIZURE WARNINGA very small percentage of people may experience a seizure when exposed to certain visual images, including flashing lights or patterns that may appear in video games. Even people who have no history of seizures or epilepsy may have an undiagnosed condition that can cause these “photosensitive epileptic seizures” while watching video games.These seizures may have a variety of symptoms, including lightheadedness, altered vision, eye or face twitching, jerking or shaking of arms or legs, disorientation, confusion, or momentary loss of awareness. Seizures may also cause loss of consciousness or convulsions that can lead to injury from falling down or striking nearby objects.Immediately stop playing and consult a doctor if you experience any of these symptoms. Parents should watch for or ask their children about the above symptoms. Children and teenagers are more likely than adults to experience these seizures.The risk of photosensitive epileptic seizures may be reduced by taking the following precautions:If you or any of your relatives have a history of seizures or epilepsy, consult a doctor before playing.

The following blog posts are simply a collection of the crazy thoughts that run through my mind. Life doesn't always turn out the way you hope it will but you just have to keep moving forward. There is something better on the horizon, Better Than Chicken. Saturday, February 14, 2015 Kirsten Dunst Time for a random blog post, which is actually what this blog was meant to be. I started this blog as a way to simply get out what was going through my mind at the time. There is no rhyme or reason to this blog or what the posts are about. I've been through a lot in my life and trying to build a better life for myself. I was married, still technically married, but found out that my wife had been sleeping with her ex boyfriend the entire time that we were engaged. After we were married I discovered that they were both sending "I love and miss you messages back and forth". Needless to say that killed the marriage. Anyway, I am getting sidetracked. The original name of this blog, which is the name of my email, was to be "Drunken Ramblings Of A Sober Mind". I decided to name the blog "Better Than Chicken" for no other reason that I personally thought it had a nice ring to it. Well, I will admit, the intention for this blog was random, yet sober, ramblings. This is not one of those times. It is not technically still Valentine's Day but I have been drinking since then so this post is not a sober one. If for some reason this does not come out right, my apologies... I am in love with Kirsten Dunst. I can say that proudly as I am currently not sober having enjoyed a bottle of bourbon. Now, that does not mean that I am some crazed fan that thinks she will be my next ex wife. Unless of course she wants to be! In all seriousness, for whatever reason I love the movie Elizabethtown. I watched it for the simple reason that it was based in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. I had no expectations of the film. However I was very pleasantly surprised. I ended up loving the movie. I loved how the characters played by Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst met. I loved that it was not a mushy and intense romance. It was about two people who met serendipitously due to the unfortunate event of Orlando Bloom's character, Drew's, father's passing. I loved the way that they became friends by chance and how that friendship developed. There is also something about Kirsten Dunst that resonates with me. Her facial structure, the way she talks and just her presence. While I have met a few celebrities, I have never met her in person. I have no clue what she is actually like in real life. However, in this film, there is just something about her that draws me to her. Granted I am in love with the character that she plays, there is a part of me that wishes I could just sit down and have a conversation with her to learn more about who she is as a person. However I feel quite confident that will never happen. Then again, if she is reading this right now, my email is [email protected] . In all seriousness, for whatever reason I loved the film Elizabethtown. Just something about the story line between Orlando Bloom's and Kirsten Dunst's characters. I love how their relationship developed. I loved how it culminated at the end when Orlando Bloom's character, Drew, went on a road trip that was planned out by Kirsten Dunst's character, Claire. One day I myself just want to take a solo road trip. To get away and clear my mind. To finally figure life out. While Kirsten Dunst won't be "the girl in the red hat" waiting for me along the way, perhaps I will at least learn something along the way. So, for the two people who actually read this blog, my apologies. This is my first non sober blog post. For anyone who stumbles upon this, stick around. Sometimes I actually have something somewhat intelligible to say.

Q: How to do De-Houghing of a Hough transform'ed Image? I'm working with code found at Rosetta Code for creating a Hough transform. I now want to find all the lines in an image. To do so I need the ρ and θ values of each of the peaks in the Hough space. A sample output for a pentagon looks like this: How can I find a single [θ,ρ] coordinate for each of the 'hot spots' visible in the Hough space? A: You are finding the coordinates of the peaks and then uses the axis to scale those into [θ,ρ] coordinates. Depending on how noisy the data, how many false peaks you expect and how much time you have, there are a few ways of doing it. Easiest is to pick some level that is a a real peak, cut of all data below that and then do a center of gravity on each peak to get it's center. You could also erode/dialte the image until each peak is a single pixel.

800 N.E.2d 984 (2003) Theodore & Joyce ALEXANDER, Husband and Wife; on behalf of themselves And all others similarly situated, Appellants, v. PSB LENDING CORPORATION, et al., Appellees. No. 82A04-0212-CV-592. Court of Appeals of Indiana. December 31, 2003. *986 Daniel Myers, Kevin Oufnac, Richardson Patrick Westbrook & Brickman, LLC, Mount Pleasant, SC, Eric G. Calhoun, Lawson Fields McCue & Campbell, P.C., Addison, TX, Stephen L. Williams, Mann Law Firm, Terre Haute, IN, Attorneys for Appellants. Terry Farmer, Michele S. Bryant, Bamberger Foreman Oswald & Hahn, LLP, Evansville, IN, Mark S. Melodia, Lauren Graham Delehey, Reed Smith LLP, Princeton, NJ, Thomas L. Allen, Roy W. Arnold, Reed Smith LLP, Pittsburg, PA, David Sturgeon-Garcia, Reed Smith LLP, San Franciso, CA, Ronald J. Ehinger, Michael H. Michmerhuisen, Barrett & McNagny LLP, Ft. Wayne, IN, Brian K. Carroll, Johnson Carroll Griffith & D'Amour, Evansville, IN, Russell J. Pope, Gregory Lockwood, Pope & Hughes, Towson, MD, Richard Malad, Cohen & Malad LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Alan S. Brown, Locke Reynolds LLP, Indianapolis, IN, Steven K. Huffer, Huffer & Weathers, P.C., Indianapolis, IN, Michael J. Feiwell, Indianapolis, IN, Danny E. Glass, Fine & Hatfield, Evansville, IN, Pamela M. Conover, Ward B. Coe, III, Whiteford Taylor & Preston LLP, Baltimore, MD, Cory Brundage, Indianapolis, IN, Daniel J. Tobin, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, Washington, DC, Paul E. Ridley, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, Dallas, TX, Patrick A. Shoulders, Robert L. Burkart, Ziemer Stayman Weitzel & Shoulders LLP, Evansville, IN, James D. Johnson, Rudolph Fine Porter & Johnson LLP, Evansville, IN, Robert R. Clark, R.C. Richmond, III, Andrew T. Kight, Sommer Barnard Ackerson, Indianapolis, IN, Jeffrey W. Ahlers, Steven S. Hoar, Kahn Dees Donovan & Kahn, LLP, Evansville, IN, Robert K. Stanley, David R. Hamer, Erica S. Black, Baker & Daniels, Indianapolis, IN, Peter A. Velde, Eric Johnson, Kightlinger & Gray, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellees. *985 OPINION FRIEDLANDER, Judge. Between October 10, 2001 and February 4, 2002, nine putative class action complaints were filed in Vanderburgh County by plaintiffs-appellants (Named Plaintiffs) on behalf of individuals and/or married couples, as well as those similarly situated, who had obtained loans secured by second mortgages on their Indiana homes.[1] All nine complaints alleged similar violations of the Indiana Uniform Consumer Credit Code (IUCCC), namely, that excessive (greater than 2%) origination fees were *987 charged on their second mortgage loans in violation of Ind.Code Ann. § 24-4.5-3-201(8) (West, PREMISE through 2003 1st Regular Sess.). Each complaint identified the respective lender (the Originator) that initially made the second mortgage loans to Named Plaintiffs, but only some of the complaints named the Originator as a defendant. Additionally, the complaints named over eighty entities as defendants (Non-Holder Defendants) who were not alleged to have originated or held Named Plaintiffs' loans, but rather were alleged to have purchased loans issued by the Originators to borrowers other than Named Plaintiffs. No complaint identified the current holder of Named Plaintiffs' loans. In May 2002, the trial court consolidated the nine putative actions for pretrial purposes. All appearing defendants filed motions to dismiss alleging a variety of defects in Named Plaintiffs' complaints. The trial court heard oral argument in September 2002, and on November 11, 2002, entered a Dismissal Entry dismissing all nine putative actions for various reasons: The defendants having filed their motions to dismiss, and the plaintiffs having filed their responses thereto, and the Court having heard the argument of counsel and being duly advised in the premises, now finds that all motions to dismiss of all defendants should be granted, based where applicable upon lack of personal jurisdiction, lack of standing, lack of standing based on bankruptcy of the particular plaintiff, arbitration agreement, and/or the "safe harbor provision" of I..C. [sic] 24-4.4-6-104(2)[sic]. Appellants' Appendix at 41.[2] The Dismissal Entry did not identify which Defendants were dismissed for which reason. On appeal, Named Plaintiffs contend that the trial court improperly granted the Defendants' motions to dismiss. The following issues are dispositive of our review: 1) Did the trial court correctly determine that Named Plaintiffs lacked standing against the Non-Holder Defendants? 2) Did the trial court correctly determine that Named Plaintiffs failed to state a claim based on the "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC?[3] Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.[4] *988 The facts are undisputed that Named Plaintiffs obtained loans secured by second mortgages on their Indiana homes between April 1997 and August 2000. The loans originated from six different lenders and ranged in amount from $17,000 to $35,000. Only two Originators remain in this appeal, Bann-Cor Mortgage Corporation (Bann Cor) and Independent Realty Capital Corporation d/b/a Independent Mortgage Company (Independent Realty), Defendants in the Drake and Simms actions, respectively. No direct connection was alleged between the remaining sixty-four Non-Holder Defendants and Named Plaintiffs, rather, the Non-Holder Defendants are alleged holders of promissory notes relating to loans made to Named Plaintiffs and the putative class members. None of the complaints identifies the actual holders of Named Plaintiffs' loans. In their complaints, Named Plaintiffs assert that the Defendants had violated the IUCCC, specifically, I.C. § 24-4.5-3-201(8), by charging more than a 2% origination fee as permitted by the statute. Defendants contend that charging more than a 2% origination fee is permissible so long as the total loan finance charge does not exceed 21% of the principal value of the loan as permitted by I.C. § 24-4.5-3-201(1). Alternatively, Defendants argue that the loan charges conformed with a written interpretation of the statute by the Department of Financial Institutions (DFI), the agency charged with administering and interpreting the IUCCC, and, thus, the IUCCC's "safe harbor" provision, I.C. § 24-4.5-6-104(2), shielded Defendants from liability. Additionally, all Non-Holder Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of standing, and the IMPAC and Trust Defendants, a subset of the Non-Holder Defendants, moved separately to dismiss Named Plaintiffs' complaints for lack of personal jurisdiction. Named Plaintiffs counter that they have established standing under Indiana law against all Non-Holder Defendants, and, alternatively, that standing may be properly determined on a classwide basis, via the juridical link doctrine, or through permissive joinder under Trial Rule 20. Named Plaintiffs assert that Indiana courts have personal jurisdiction over the IMPAC and Trust Defendants by virtue of these Defendants holding second mortgages on real property located in Indiana. After a hearing, the trial court granted motions to dismiss as to all Defendants, and this appeal ensued. Named Plaintiffs argue that the trial court erroneously dismissed all Defendants based on lack of standing, personal jurisdiction,[5] and an incorrect interpretation of the IUCCC and its "safe harbor" provision. Upon review of a trial court's dismissal for lack of standing, we apply a de novo standard of review. Schulz v. State, 731 N.E.2d 1041 (Ind.Ct.App.2000). The facts alleged in the complaint must be taken as true and only where it appears that under no set of facts could the plaintiff be granted relief is dismissal appropriate. City of New Haven v. Allen County Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 694 N.E.2d 306 (Ind.Ct.App.1998), trans. denied. Similarly, *989 statutory interpretation is a question of law reserved for the court and is reviewed de novo. In re K.J.A. 790 N.E.2d 155 (Ind.Ct.App.2003). 1. Standing is a fundamental, threshold, constitutional issue that must be addressed by this, or any, court to determine if it should exercise jurisdiction in the particular case before it. The issue of standing focuses on whether the complaining party is the proper one to invoke the court's power. Scott v. Randle, 736 N.E.2d 308 (Ind.Ct.App.2000). The standing requirement assures that litigation will be actively and vigorously contested, as plaintiffs must demonstrate a personal stake in the litigation's outcome in addition to showing that they have sustained, or are in immediate danger of sustaining, a direct injury as a result of the defendant's conduct. Id. To establish standing, therefore, a plaintiff must demonstrate a personal stake in the outcome of the lawsuit and that the injury is a result of the defendant's conduct. Hibler v. Conseco, Inc., 744 N.E.2d 1012 (Ind.Ct.App.2001). If properly challenged, when a plaintiff fails to establish standing in the pleadings, the court must dismiss the complaint. Schulz v. State, 731 N.E.2d 1041. Moreover: Although the Indiana constitution contains no "case or controversy" requirement, the federal limits on justiciability are instructive, because the standing requirement under both federal and state constitutional law fulfills the same purpose: ensuring that the litigant is entitled to have the court decide the merits of the dispute or of particular issues. Id. at 1044. Under the federal test, to establish standing a plaintiff must allege a personal injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and is likely to be redressed by the requested relief. Id. (citing Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984)). Named Plaintiffs contend they have standing to maintain claims against all sixty-six remaining Defendants—the two Originators, Bann-Cor and Independent Realty, and the sixty-four Non-Holder Defendants. We agree that Ernest and Mary Drake and Dean and Laura Simms have standing to assert claims against Bann-Cor and Independent Realty, respectively, who are the Originators of their loans and named Defendants in their complaints.[6] Since Bann-Cor and Independent Realty originated the second mortgage loans and charged the alleged excessive origination fee directly from the Drakes and Simms, respectively, a personal stake and potential injury caused by those Defendants is clearly demonstrated. Defendants impliedly concede this point in their briefing, as their standing arguments reference only the Non-Holder Defendants.[7] The standing issue, therefore, relates only to the Non-Holder Defendants, i.e., the sixty-four defendants not alleged in the complaints to hold or to have ever held any of Named Plaintiffs' second mortgage loans. Standing requires a concrete adversity between the parties, that is, that the defendant caused plaintiff's injury and therefore the defendant is the proper party from whom to seek redress. Named *990 Plaintiffs' complaints do not allege that the sixty-four Non-Holder Defendants are current or former holders of the second mortgage loans at issue, nor do Named Plaintiffs allege any relationship between themselves and the Non-Holder Defendants, contractual or otherwise. Rather, the complaints merely contend that the Non-Holder Defendants hold promissory notes related to the mortgage loans made to Named Plaintiffs and the putative class members. Named Plaintiffs, therefore, fail to establish any personal stake in their lawsuits against the Non-Holder Defendants, and cannot establish any injury or harm caused by the Non-Holder Defendants. Even assuming Named Plaintiffs were correct, i.e., that the loan origination fees were excessive, it would be impossible for Named Plaintiffs to recover from the Non-Holder Defendants who have no alleged connection to them or their loans. In short, the Non-Holder Defendants are not proper defendants. As to Named Plaintiffs, dismissal of the Non-Holder Defendants on the basis of standing was proper.[8] Attempting to overcome this fatal defect in their complaints, Named Plaintiffs assert that standing may be properly determined: (1) on a classwide basis; (2) via the so-called juridical link doctrine, or (3) through permissive joinder under T.R. 20.[9] We address each argument in turn, but find none persuasive. First, Named Plaintiffs contend that standing may be determined on a classwide basis so long as the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 23 are met. That is, if a class is certified, Named Plaintiffs will acquire standing by virtue of the Non-Holder Defendants holding notes of now-absent class members. In support of this contention, Named Plaintiffs rely on Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 119 S.Ct. 2295, 144 L.Ed.2d 715 (1999), in particular, the following quote: "But the class certification issues are, as they were in Amchem, `logically antecedent' to Article III concerns, and themselves pertain to the statutory standing which may properly be treated before Article III standing." Id. at 831, 119 S.Ct. 2295 (citations omitted). *991 We find Ortiz, and the standing issue it addressed, inapposite. Ortiz involved a global settlement of an asbestos class action under Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 23. The settlement class consisted of persons with potential claims for personal injuries not yet manifested at the time of settlement. The issue presented, therefore, was if a case or controversy existed without an injury in fact.[10] Without resolving the standing issue, the Court held that the trial court's certification of the class on a limited fund rationale was improper and rejected the settlement. Recognizing the unique situation presented, the Court prefaced the above-quoted passage with: "Ordinarily, of course, this or any other Article III court must be sure of its own jurisdiction before getting to the merits." Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. at 831, 119 S.Ct. 2295. Therefore, in the narrow factual context of a global settlement of unrealized asbestos claims, the Ortiz Court commented that class certification could be considered before standing. The facts of the instant case are readily distinguishable. Unlike the putative plaintiffs in Ortiz, if Named Plaintiffs have an injury at all, that injury has already occurred and a concrete claim exists. The specific issue presented here, therefore, is if the Non-Holder Defendants are the proper parties to redress Named Plaintiffs' alleged harm. In that regard, we find the Seventh Circuit's opinion in Jackson v. Resolution GGF Oy, 136 F.3d 1130 (7th Cir.1998), more helpful and on point. In Jackson, a group of borrowers filed a complaint on behalf of a putative class alleging that lenders had charged points in excess of those permitted by Illinois law. In affirming the dismissal of a non-holder defendant, the Seventh Circuit held: [T]here is a question what Norwest Financial Illinois, Inc., one of the defendants, is doing in any court. Norwest has bought some of Harbor's paper but does not hold the notes signed by any of the plaintiffs, and it asked the court to dismiss it from the case on the ground that none of the plaintiffs had standing to pursue a claim against it. The district judge did not act on this motion. Like any other jurisdictional issue, this subject should have received priority consideration. Norwest's position is impeccable. Some other borrowers may have claims against it, but none of these plaintiffs does—and as the case was not certified as a class action, the only claims before the court are those of the plaintiffs personally. We need not decide whether Norwest would have been a proper defendant had a class been certified even though none of the representative plaintiffs held a legal claim against it. There is no case or controversy between Norwest and any of Named plaintiffs so Norwest must be dismissed as a party. Jackson v. 136 F.3d at 1132. The holding in Jackson is more persuasive—and applicable—than Named Plaintiffs' citation to the out-of-context sentence from Ortiz. Standing, as a threshold, jurisdictional issue, must be given priority consideration. Additionally, simply framing a lawsuit as a class action does not remove Named Plaintiffs' burden to demonstrate standing: "[E]ven named plaintiffs who represent a class `must allege and show that they personally have been injured, not that injury has been suffered by other unidentified *992 members of the class to which they belong and purport to represent.'" Simon v. E. Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 40 n. 20, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 518, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975)). More importantly, it must be noted that in the case before us the "Class" has not been certified. The complaints are merely "proposed" class actions. We therefore reject Named Plaintiffs' argument that standing may be properly determined on a classwide basis against the Non-Holder Defendants. Next, Named Plaintiffs ask this court to adopt the so-called juridical link doctrine to establish standing against the Non-Holder Defendants. The juridical link doctrine has never been cited to or approved by any published Indiana state court opinion. The doctrine, however, has been addressed in other jurisdictions, including the Northern District of Indiana and the Seventh Circuit, and Named Plaintiffs urge application of the doctrine to the instant case. Responding to Named Plaintiffs' argument requires a brief discussion and understanding of the juridical link doctrine and its application. The juridical link doctrine is a judicial construct which developed largely from a Ninth Circuit decision, La Mar v. H & B Novelty & Loan Co., 489 F.2d 461 (9th Cir.1973). As succinctly explained by the Seventh Circuit: La Mar held that a plaintiff without a cause of action against a specific defendant cannot `fairly and adequately' protect the interests of those who do have such causes of action for purposes of Rule 23(a). Nevertheless ... the court went on to hold that if the plaintiffs as a group—named and unnamed—have suffered an identical injury at the hands of several parties related by way of a conspiracy or concerted scheme, or otherwise `juridically related in a manner that suggests a single resolution of the dispute would be expeditious,' the claim could go forward. Payton v. County of Kane, 308 F.3d 673, 678-79 (7th Cir.2001). Post-La Mar caselaw has applied the juridical link doctrine in limited factual circumstances, namely, where "all the defendants took part in a similar scheme that was sustained either by a contract or conspiracy, or was mandated by a uniform state rule." Id. at 679. For example, in Moore v. Comfed Sav. Bank, 908 F.2d 834 (11th Cir.1990), the Eleventh Circuit noted that juridical links were most often found when a contractual obligation existed among all defendants or a state or local statute required common action by the defendants. Id.[11] Similarly, in Payton v. County of Kane, the Seventh Circuit applied the juridical link doctrine to a putative class action where arrestees brought an action against county sheriffs in nineteen different Illinois counties challenging bail bond fees collected pursuant to a state statute. 308 F.3d 673. The Seventh Circuit applied the doctrine, noting "given that the bail bond fee is imposed *993 pursuant to a state statute, and that the county sheriffs are for this purpose an arm of the state ... it is reasonable for the putative plaintiff class to try to hold all the counties accountable within one suit." Payton v. Kane, 308 F.3d at 680. See also Hopson v. Schilling, 418 F.Supp. 1223 (N.D.Ind.1976) (finding a juridical link among defendants who were all government actors (township trustees) acting in accordance with state statutes); Mudd v. Busse, 68 F.R.D. 522, 527-28 (N.D.Ind. 1975) (construing La Mar and finding that "`juridical links' would most often be found in instances where all members of a defendant class are officials of a single state and are charged with enforcing or uniformly acting in accordance with a state statute, or common rule or practice of state-wide application, which is alleged to be unconstitutional"). Here, Named Plaintiffs do not allege any of the factual circumstances that would warrant application of the juridical link doctrine. No contractual relationship, concerted conduct, or conspiracy between the Non-Holder Defendants is contended. In fact, the Non-Holder Defendants are largely competitors for the same business, thus undercutting any argument that they did, or would, act in concert with one another.[12] Named Plaintiffs also fail to allege any state of local statute requiring common action by the Non-Holder Defendants, nor are the Non-Holder Defendants alleged to be government actors. Thus, Named Plaintiffs fail to establish the narrow factual circumstances in which the juridical link exception has been found applicable. Moreover, we find persuasive a recent Supreme Court of Alabama decision, Funliner of Alabama, L.L.C. v. Pickard, 2003 WL 21205391 (Ala. May 23, 2003). The Funliner court rejected the trial court's certification of a defendant class based on the juridical link doctrine finding substantial due process concerns raised by the fact that each named plaintiff did not have a cause of action against each member of the defendant class: [T]he trial court attempted to rely upon the fact that each plaintiff and each defendant interacted in essentially the same manner and, therefore, the claims of the plaintiff class could relate to the defendant class as a whole ... the defendants sought to be named as a class in this action are not state officials charged with enforcing, or acting uniformly in accordance with, a state statute. They are simply business entities and individuals located throughout this state that have engaged in the business of operating or leasing video-gaming machines. The fact that the defendants engage in similar or related business is insufficient to overcome the due-process concerns raised by plaintiffs' attempt to certify a defendant class. Funliner v. Pickard, 2003 WL 21205391, at * 17. Based on the foregoing, we hold that the juridical link doctrine is inapplicable to the instant case and cannot cure the fatal defect in Named Plaintiffs' claims against the Non-Holder Defendants. To hold otherwise would expand the juridical link doctrine beyond the properly narrow context in which it has been applied and create the danger of misapplication by litigants attempting to circumvent the threshold requirement of standing. Finally, Named Plaintiffs assert that applicability of the juridical link doctrine is similar to the analysis of permissive *994 joinder under T.R. 20. Named Plaintiffs contend that the Non-Holder Defendants are proper defendants since Named Plaintiffs' claims, as well as those of the currently unknown class members, arise out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions and give rise to the same questions of law and fact. Ostensibly, Named Plaintiffs argue that T.R. 20 joinder may properly substitute for standing. We disagree. Permissive joinder is a procedural device, the nature of which "is to allow parties to be joined as defendants if the plaintiff has a cause of action against them. Thus, defendants may join as co-defendants only those parties which the plaintiff could have originally named as defendants under this rule, but for some reason chose not to." City of Elkhart v. Middleton, 265 Ind. 514, 520, 356 N.E.2d 207, 212 (Ind.1976). As discussed previously, the Named Plaintiffs lack standing, and a cause of action, against the Non-Holder Defendants. A procedural trial rule cannot trump this fundamental, threshold, and constitutional requirement. In conclusion, as a matter of law, Named Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden of demonstrating standing to assert claims against the sixty-four Non-Holder Defendants. The trial court's dismissal of the Non-Holder Defendants based on lack of standing was proper. 2. Named Plaintiffs also challenge the trial court's determination that the "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC warranted granting some of the Defendants' motions to dismiss. Since Named Plaintiffs lack standing to assert IUCCC claims against the sixty-four Non-Holder Defendants and were properly dismissed by the trial court, only two defendants remain for our review: Bann-Cor (in Drake) and Independent Realty (in Simms). As previously noted, the Drake and Simms Plaintiffs have standing to assert claims against Bann-Cor and Independent Realty. Further, personal jurisdiction was not raised as a defense by either Independent Realty or Bann-Cor, and bankruptcy and arbitration agreements are not defenses to either of these Originators. Thus, we must determine if the "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC provided a proper ground for dismissal of Bann-Cor and/or Independent Realty.[13] First, while both parties assert that the trial court's ruling addressed the merits of their respective arguments regarding excessive origination fees under the IUCCC, the Dismissal Entry only addressed the application of the "safe harbor" provision. Appellants' Appendix at 41. The Dismissal Entry did not resolve the underlying merits of any of Named Plaintiffs' claims, including those of the Drakes and the Simms, under the origination fee provision of the IUCCC. The April 10, 2002 letter from the DFI responded to an April 4, 2002 inquiry from Defendants' counsel. The letter offered explanations of various portions of the IUCCC, including: (1) I.C. § 24-4.5-3-202, charges that may be imposed on a consumer loan in addition to the loan finance charge, (2) I.C. § 24-4.5-3-201, maximum rates of a loan finance charge that can be contracted for on consumer loans; (3) I.C. § 24-4.5-3-201(8), loan origination fees; and (4) I.C. § 24-4.5-3-209(2), prepaid finance charges. The letter further stated: "The maximum loan *995 finance charge under I.C. 24-4.5-3-201 can include other `points' or `origination fee' [sic] as long as the total of all loan finance charges except for the contracted for loan origination fee allowed under I.C. 24-4.5-3-201(8) do not exceed the maximum twenty-one percent (21%) maximum rate." Appellants' Appendix at 313-14. Bann-Cor and Independent Realty claim this language and letter relieve them of any potential liability based on the "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC. Interpretation of the "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC is a matter of first impression for this court. Interpretation of a statute is purely a question of law and we, therefore, review the trial court's decision de novo. In re K.J.A., 790 N.E.2d 155. The primary goal in interpreting the meaning of a statute is to determine and effectuate legislative intent. Herron v. State, 729 N.E.2d 1008 (Ind.Ct.App.2000). To determine legislative intent, we look to the plain language of the statute and attribute the common, ordinary meaning to terms found in everyday speech. Id. The "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC, entitled "Powers of department; reliance on rules," states, in relevant part: No liability is imposed under this article for an act done or omitted in conformity with a rule, written notice, written opinion, written interpretation, or written directive of the department notwithstanding that after the act or omission the rule, written notice, written opinion, written interpretation, or written directive may be amended or repealed, or be determined by judicial or other authority to be invalid for any reason. Ind.Code Ann. § 24-4.5-6-104(2) (West, PREMISE through 2003 1st Regular Sess.). Looking to the plain language of the statute it is clear that the legislature intended to protect persons or entities from liability that rely upon and act in conformity with a DFI written interpretation of the IUCCC. Common sense dictates that a written interpretation cannot be relied upon if it is not yet in existence. It is undisputed that the DFI written interpretation upon which the Defendants rely was written April 10, 2002—after the instant suits were instigated.[14] Defendants essentially argue that the timing of the DFI letter is of no consequence since their lending practices were allegedly in conformity with the letter's IUCCC interpretation.[15] We disagree. As noted, a plain reading of the statute informs that the legislature intended to protect those who previously relied, potentially to their detriment, on a DFI interpretation of the IUCCC. The heading of the statute, "reliance on rules," and its use of the past tense, "an act done or omitted in conformity with" supports this reading. I.C. § 24-4.5-6-104 (emphasis supplied). Here, neither Bann-Cor nor Independent Realty could have relied upon or acted in conformity with a letter written in 2002 for loans made in 1997 and 2000. Therefore, as a matter of law, the "safe harbor" provision of the IUCCC is inapplicable. Since the "safe harbor" provision is inapplicable to Bann-Cor and Independent Realty, and neither standing nor personal jurisdiction were raised as defenses, the trial court erroneously dismissed the Simms and Drake suits. We therefore reverse the grant of Independent Realty *996 and Bann-Cor's motions to dismiss and remand to the trial court for matters consistent with these proceedings. Judgment affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. RILEY, J., and SULLIVAN, J., concur. NOTES [1] The nine putative class actions were: (1) Alexander v. PSB Lending Corporation; (2) Davis v. Century Financial Group, Inc.; (3) Hayes v. IMPAC Funding Corporation; (4) Hertwick v. Dollar Mortgage Corporation; (5) Simms v. Independent Realty Capital Corporation; (6) Osterman v. Mortgage Lenders Acceptance Corporation; (7) Warner v. Empire Funding Home Loan Owner Trust 1997-1; (8) Drake v. Bann-Cor; and (9) Lytle v. Firstplus Home Loan Trust 1996-2. [2] In addition to standing, personal jurisdiction, and the merits of the IUCCC claim, arbitration agreements and bankruptcy were raised as unique defenses to the Davis, Hertwick, and Warner claims. After filing of the Dismissal Entry, the Davis, Hertwick, and Warner plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their suits and, as such, these issues were not appealed. The remaining Named Plaintiffs have also dismissed several of the entities from the appeal: Life Bank, F.S.B., Life Financial Home Loan Owner Trust 1997-3, and Wilmington Trust Company. This appeal relates only to the claims asserted in the six remaining putative actions—Alexander, Hayes, Simms, Drake, Osterman, and Lytle—against the sixty-six remaining Defendants. [3] The trial court's Dismissal Entry did not dismiss any of the Defendants based on the merits of the parties' substantive arguments regarding the IUCCC's origination fee provision; rather, the trial court found that the safe harbor provision of the IUCCC was applicable and dismissed some unidentified Defendants on that ground. [4] We heard oral argument in this matter on November 3, 2003, in Indianapolis. We commend counsel on the quality of their presentations, especially in light of the complicated procedural and factual nature of the case. Also, we note that at oral argument, Defendants cited to a recent Seventh Circuit decision, Purdue Research Found. v. Sanofi-Synthelabo, S.A., 338 F.3d 773 (7th Cir.2003), decided after briefing of the instant case was completed. Defendants' counsel cited Purdue in support of their personal jurisdiction arguments. We note receipt of Appellants' Motion to File a Brief Response to Appellee's [sic] Newly Cited Case filed November 11, 2003, and have reviewed the attached Appellant's [sic] Submission in Response to Newly Cited Case. Since our ruling does not reach the personal jurisdiction question, see infra p. 7, we do not address the question of Purdue's applicability to the facts of the instant case. [5] Because our determination of the standing issue affirms the dismissal of the Non-Holder Defendants, of which the IMPAC and Trust Defendants are a subset, we do not reach the issue of whether the trial court's dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction was proper. [6] Independent Realty filed a separate appellee brief adopting all the arguments raised in the Joint Brief but asserting its own unique defense based on Dean and Laura Simms' loan documentation. Independent Realty's brief, however, does not raise standing as a defense and the Joint Brief's standing argument relates only to the Non-Holder Defendants. [7] Defendants explicitly conceded this point at oral argument. [8] Interestingly, while Named Plaintiffs' complaints fail to identify the actual holders of their notes, Appellants' Appendix includes "Summary of Class Representative Loans," a narrative detailing current and former holders of the notes, as well as assignment documents. See Appellants' Appendix at 371-78. Such after-the-fact identification of the former or current holders of the notes was improper, not presented to the trial court, and will not be considered on appeal. We also note that Named Plaintiffs had the ability to amend their complaints post-dismissal to include this information but instead chose to pursue this appeal. See Ind. Trial Rule 12(B). [9] In their Joint Reply, the Non-Holder Defendants also raise and rebut an argument raised by Named Plaintiffs to the trial court that standing exists through application of the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1641(d) (West 2003), an amendment to the Truth in Lending Act. Named Plaintiffs address this argument in their Reply Brief. HOEPA eliminates the holder-in-due-course defense for assignees of certain mortgages when the assignee holds the loans. Named Plaintiffs' complaints, however, do not assert a violation of HOEPA nor do the Non-Holder Defendants ever assert a defense based on HOEPA. Additionally, the express terms of HOEPA make it only applicable to holders or assignees of mortgages: "Any person who purchases or is otherwise assigned a mortgage referred to in section 1602(aa) of this title shall be subject to all claims and defenses with respect to that mortgage that the consumer could assert against the creditor of the mortgage...." 15 U.S.C. § 1641(d)(1). As discussed previously, Named Plaintiffs' complaints do not assert that any of the Non-Holder Defendants ever held or were assigned any of the second mortgages at issue. Therefore, this tangential argument does not save Named Plaintiffs' claims against the Non-Holder Defendants. [10] This unique factual situation of Ortiz was also present in Amchem Products, Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 117 S.Ct. 2231, 138 L.Ed.2d 689 (1997), the case cited by the Ortiz court in the passage relied upon by Named Plaintiffs. Amchem also dealt with a global settlement of asbestos claims that had not yet manifested into injuries in fact. [11] Named Plaintiffs assert that Moore v. Comfed Savings Bank is identical to their case. We disagree. Moore never expressly resolved the standing issue presented in the instant case. Rather, Moore addressed whether the defendants were properly joined pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Pro. 20(a). Thus, Moore does not support Named Plaintiffs' position that defendants are juridically linked when Named Plaintiffs' loans are originated by a common lender and then assigned to an unrelated defendant. Further, as distinguished by Christiansen v. Beneficial Nat'l Bank, 972 F.Supp. 681, 683 n. 2 (S.D.Ga.1997): "[T]he Court in Moore never addressed the issue of standing because the holding was based on the application of a procedural rule, which is distinct from a grant of jurisdiction and which cannot be used to expand the jurisdiction of the federal courts." [12] The fact that some of Named Plaintiffs' loans may have been processed by the Non-Holder Defendants in an identical fashion to achieve maximum returns does not alter this fact. [13] Independent Realty asserted a unique defense based on the Simms' loan documentation. We do not reach the issues presented in Independent Realty's brief, as we find that its motion to dismiss was erroneously granted and remand the matter to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. [14] At oral argument, Defendants' counsel also stated that the DFI letter was in response to a letter from counsel's office regarding the instant litigation. [15] We do not determine if the April 10, 2002, letter qualified as a written interpretation as contemplated by the statute, or if the letter's substantive conclusions regarding the IUCCC were accurate.

Transformers: Heroes Not much is known except it will air on Cartoon Network in Fall 2007 and takes place in where earth is cohabitated by humans and robots. Also, veteran voice actors from Beast Wars will do the voices. Recently, information on which Transformers will be in the show was announced. Optimus Prime (who will be a fire truck), Megatron, Bumblebee, Ultra Magnus, Prowl, and Starscream are being auditioned. It also should be noted that Optimus Prime will be younger than the other Autobots. This is the first time since Generation 1 with Rodimus Prime that a younger Autobot has served as leader. Recently, David Kaye (best known for voicing the second Megatron) announced that he will provide the voice of Optimus Prime. This is a new experience for him as he has always voiced Megatron in the dubbed shows, while Gary Chalk has voiced Prime and Primal since Beast Wars. The show will be directed by Alex Soto, who directed the Teen Titans TV series, and the character designer, whom of which is unknown, worked on Teen Titans, Foster's, and Legion of Superheroes. Cartoon Network will also help with the production of the show, and this series will have a different look from the Armada/Energon/Cybertron trilogy (and it won't be anime). Instead, will have a brand new look like nothing seen before in Transformers. Recently, rumors are going around saying that Tom Kenny, the voice of Spongebob Squarepants, will be providing one of the voices in the show. From her own admission on her personal website, Tara Strong has informed the public that she will be voicing a character named "Sari" in the upcoming Transformers Cartoon currently referred to as "Heroes". A quote from her website reads as such:"Transformers is coming out shortly after the movie release and I predict will be a big hit. I play the only regular girl character, 'Sari.' She's not a Transformer ... just a little girl!" Now that guy who did that video should be in charge of the new cartoon LOL Kup: "Ah don't let it bother you kid, I'd love to be a Goldbug at my old age I feel like a piece of sh**" Optimus: "Ah haha...and that's exactly who you'll be from now on Kup, Sh**piece" Kup "Ah I don't know about that..." Optimus (Talking over him) "Sh**piece, Goldbug organize a strike force"..

By Katie Glaeser, CNN (CNN)–It's a battle of belief - and the right not to believe - in a country founded on freedom. "I'm a patriotic American. I served my country. I get out there and celebrate the Fourth, too," Blair Scott, who calls himself a proud atheist, proclaimed. "This America belongs to everyone." Blair, the communications director for the New Jersey-based American Atheists, said atheists in the United States often feel alienated and face accusations of being anti-American because of their lack of belief in God. To combat those notions, his group is using Independence Day to say atheists love their country, too. But the way they're spreading their message might have Americans looking to the sky this Fourth of July and finding something besides fireworks to stir emotion. Planes with banners that read "God-LESS America" or "Atheism is Patriotic" will be flying over 27 states on Monday. While people might be leery to see the messages overhead, the $23,000 campaign has had a struggle with those who are supposed to bring it to life. Justin Jaye of Fly Signs Aerial Advertising, who is orchestrating the flights for American Atheists, said out of the 85 people in the country who fly these sign-pulling planes only about 17 have agreed to fly the messages. "I've been in this business for 20 years and I've never run into so much resistance on people flying," Jaye said. "I've had pilots who are actual atheists who said, 'Justin, I am an atheist and I won't fly it because I can't wear a bulletproof vest.'" Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, says the reaction to the organization's campaign before it takes off shows how much work the group still needs to do. "This is a clear reminder of why we need to keep fighting because the bigotry against us is so thick that a lot of the pilots are afraid to fly our banners," he said. Jaye said while some feared for their lives, others feared for their marriages. He had one pilot say his wife would divorce him if he made the flight. Red Calvert, a pilot and president of Pro-Air Enterprises in Indianapolis, said his reasons to decline the flight were based on his personal beliefs. "I respect our country and I respect our churches and we've got enough problems in our country without stirring up some more," he said. "If those people want to do something they believe in, fine, just don't include me." The American Atheists hope to draw attention and spur public discussion through their campaign on Monday. "It's going to remind people that atheism is at that ballgame and at that beach and at that parade. We are patriotic people," Silverman said.

Maybe one of my best received OCs I've made. Looking through last year's uploads, seeing her, I just wanted to make another one. Now she also has an actual (cheesy) name, Nautila. Just playing some Bubblefish. To think she actually dates back to a sketch at least as early as mid 2017. Her first painting All for Nautilus only arriving in 2018. It was just one of those ideas floating around I just had to make, not having seen any other Nautilus crossover attempt like this. So a bit of chance to be the first eh? At least to my knowledge. Anyhow, I wanted to make her again but with a bit more motion in her image. It's different making a pose when most of the body is shell. At least there's plenty of tentacles to wiggle around. Tried painting this a bit in the recent Applejack's style, altho the subject change had me resorting to slight adjustments. But that's the challenge that needs to happen at some point when making stuff in any style consistently. Approx Time: 4,5 hours Photoshop CC

--- abstract: 'A Riemannian manifold is called *harmonic* if its volume density function expressed in polar coordinates centered at any point of the manifold is radial. Flat and rank-one symmetric spaces are harmonic. The converse (the *Lichnerowicz Conjecture*) is true for manifolds of nonnegative scalar curvature and for some other classes of manifolds, but is not true in general: there exists a family of homogeneous harmonic spaces, the Damek-Ricci spaces, containing noncompact rank-one symmetric spaces, as well as infinitely many nonsymmetric examples. We prove that a harmonic homogeneous manifold of nonpositive curvature is either flat, or is isometric to a Damek-Ricci space.' author: - 'Y.Nikolayevsky[^1]' title: 'Harmonic homogeneous manifolds of nonpositive curvature [^2]' --- Introduction {#s:intro} ============ Let $M^n$ be a Riemannian manifold, with $\nabla$ the Levi-Civita connection and $R$ the curvature tensor. Let $\gamma(t)$ be a unit speed geodesic of $M^n$, with $\gamma(0) = x \in M^n, \; \dot{\gamma}(0) = X \in T_xM^n$. Define a *Lagrange tensor* $A(t) \in \mathrm{End}(T_{\gamma(t)}M^n \cap \dot\gamma(t)^\perp)$ along $\gamma$ by $$\nabla_{\dot\gamma(t)}\nabla_{\dot\gamma(t)} A(t) + R_{\dot\gamma(t)} \circ A =0,\quad A(0) = 0, \quad \nabla_XA = {\mathrm{id}}_{X^\perp},$$ where $R_{\dot\gamma(t)} = R(\cdot, \dot\gamma(t))\dot\gamma(t)$ is the Jacobi operator. The function $V_{x, X}(t) = \det A(t)$ is the *volume density function*. A Riemannian manifold $M^n$ is called *harmonic* if its volume density functions $V_{x, X}(t)$ depends neither of $x$, nor of $X$. Equivalently, for any point $x \in M^n$, there exists a nonconstant harmonic function defined on a punctured neighborhood of $x$ and depending only on the distance to $x$; the mean (or the scalar) curvature of small geodesic spheres depends only on the radius (see [@BTV Ch.2.6], [@B Ch.6] for other equivalent definitions). Expanding the volume density functions in the Taylor series one gets an infinite sequence of conditions, the *Ledger formulas*, on the curvature tensor and its covariant derivatives, first two of which being $$\label{eq:ledger} {\mathrm{Ric}}(X,X) = {\mathrm{Tr}}R_X = C \, \|X\|^2, \qquad {\mathrm{Tr}}(R_X)^2 = H \, \|X\|^4,$$ with some constants $C,\, H$ (see, for instance, [@B Ch.6.C]). In particular, any harmonic manifold is Einstein. Flat and rank-one symmetric spaces are harmonic, as the isometry group of each of them acts transitively on its unit tangent bundle. In [@Li], Lichnerowicz conjectured that the converse is true: any harmonic space is two-point homogeneous. The Lichnerowicz Conjecture is known to be true for: (a) manifolds of positive scalar curvature (compact manifolds with finite fundamental group) and Ricci-flat manifolds [@S1; @S2]; (b) compact manifolds of negative curvature ([@BCG], using the result of [@FL] on asymptotic harmonicity); (c) manifolds of dimension $n \le 5$ ([@Li; @W] for $n \le 4$ and [@N] for $n=5$); (d) symmetric spaces [@L], and also for some other classes of manifolds. However, in 1992, Damek and Ricci [@DR] discovered an infinite series of harmonic homogeneous non-compact spaces, which are, in general, non-symmetric, thus disproving the Lichnerowicz Conjecture. A *Damek-Ricci* space is a solvmanifold (a solvable Lie group with a left invariant metric) whose Lie algebra is constructed as follows. Let ${\mathfrak{n}}= {\mathfrak{z}}\oplus \mathfrak{u}$ be an orthogonal decomposition of a nilpotent Lie algebra ${\mathfrak{n}}$ with the center ${\mathfrak{z}}$, and with $[\mathfrak{u}, \mathfrak{u}] \subset {\mathfrak{z}}$ (${\mathfrak{n}}$ is called two-step nilpotent). For $Z \in {\mathfrak{z}}$, define a skew-symmetric operator $J_Z: \mathfrak{u} \to \mathfrak{u}$ by ${\langle}J_Z X, Y{\rangle}= {\langle}Z, [X, Y]{\rangle}$, for $X, Y \in \mathfrak{u}$. A Lie algebra of a Damek-Ricci space is ${\mathfrak{g}}= {\mathfrak{n}}\oplus \mathfrak{a}$, with $\mathfrak{a}$ a one-dimensional space orthogonal to ${\mathfrak{n}}$, and with $${\mathrm{ad}}_{A|\mathfrak{u}} = \tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}\, {\mathrm{id}}_{\mathfrak{u}},\quad {\mathrm{ad}}_{A|{\mathfrak{z}}} = {\lambda}\, {\mathrm{id}}_{{\mathfrak{z}}}, \quad J_Z^2 = -{\lambda}\|Z\|^2 {\mathrm{id}}_{\mathfrak{u}},$$ for all $Z \in {\mathfrak{z}}$, where $A$ is a unit vector in $\mathfrak{a}$ and ${\lambda}$ a positive constant (the operators $J_Z$ are constructed using Clifford modules). Note that rank-one noncompact symmetric spaces (including the real hyperbolic space, if one allows $\mathfrak{u} =0$) are specific cases of Damek-Ricci spaces. Recently, in [@BPR] it was proved that a rank one three-step harmonic solvmanifold is a Damek-Ricci space (this strengthens the result of [@D]). In [@H1], it is proved that a homogeneous Hadamard manifold is harmonic if and only if $\dim \mathfrak a = 1$ and the geodesic symmetries are volume preserving: $V_{x, X}(t)=V_{x, -X}(t)$ for all $X \in T_xM^n$. For further results on harmonic spaces and Damek-Ricci spaces we refer to [@BTV; @S2]. All the known harmonic spaces are homogeneous. This raises two questions: 1\. Is a harmonic space necessarily homogeneous? 2\. What are homogeneous harmonic spaces? The first question was asked in [@BTV Ch.4.5], and to the best of our knowledge, is still open (for spaces of negative scalar curvature). In this paper, we deal with the second one. Replacing the assumption of negativity of the Ricci curvature by a stronger one, the nonpositivity of the sectional curvature, we prove the following: A harmonic homogeneous manifold of nonpositive curvature is either flat, or is locally isometric to a Damek-Ricci space. In Section \[s:plan\] we give the plan of the proof of the Theorem, the proof itself is contained in Section \[s:proof\]. Plan of the proof {#s:plan} ================= By the result of [@AK], a Ricci-flat homogeneous space is flat. In what follows we therefore assume that the scalar curvature is negative. As it follows from [@A; @He] (see also [@AW1; @AW2]), a homogeneous manifold of non-positive curvature is a solvmanifold, that is, a solvable Lie group $G$ with a left invariant metric (from this point on we denote the manifold $G$ instead of $M$). What is more, the orthogonal complement $\mathfrak a$ to the nilradical ${\mathfrak{n}}=[{\mathfrak{g}},{\mathfrak{g}}]$ is an abelian subalgebra of the Lie algebra ${\mathfrak{g}}$ of $G$. By the result of [@H1 Theorem 4.7], $G$ is harmonic, only if $\dim \mathfrak a = 1$. Furthermore, any harmonic manifold is Einstein, so by [@AW1] (see also [@H2]), $G$ is isometric to a solvmanifold of *Iwasawa type*, which, when $\dim \mathfrak a = 1$, means that a unit vector $A \in \mathfrak a$ can be chosen in such a way that the operator $D:={\mathrm{ad}}_{A|{\mathfrak{n}}}$ is symmetric and positive definite. So, what we really have to prove, is that a harmonic solvmanifold (i) of Iwasawa type, (ii) of rank $1$ (i.e., $\dim \mathfrak a = 1$), and (iii) of non-positive curvature is either flat, or is a Damek-Ricci space. Note that we already used the assumption of nonpositivity of the curvature, but it will still be needed once again further in the proof. We have an orthogonal decomposition of ${\mathfrak{n}}$ on the eigenspaces of $D$. Namely, for ${\alpha}>0$, let ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}= \{X \in {\mathfrak{n}}: DX = {\alpha}X\}$, so that $D_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}} = {\alpha}\; {\mathrm{id}}_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}}$, and let $\Delta =\{{\alpha}: \dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}>0\}$. As $D$ is a derivation of ${\mathfrak{n}}, \; [{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}, {\mathfrak{n}}_{\beta}] \subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\alpha}+{\beta}}$. In particular, if ${\lambda}= \max \Delta$, the biggest eigenvalue of $D$, then the eigenspace ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$ lies in the center ${\mathfrak{z}}$ of ${\mathfrak{n}}$. We start with choosing (and fixing) a unit vector $Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}\subset {\mathfrak{z}}$ and considering a geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi$ of $G$ passing through $e \in G$ in the direction $A \cos \phi + Z \sin \phi$. When $\phi=0$, the geodesic ${\Gamma}_0$ (*the abelian geodesic*) is a one-dimensional subgroup of $G:\; {\Gamma}_0(t) = \exp_e(tA)$. This is no longer true for an arbitrary $\phi$. However, the fact that the subalgebra ${\mathrm{Span}}(A, Z)$ is tangent to a hyperbolic plane, which is totally geodesic in $G$, makes it possible to find the equation of the geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi$ explicitly, for any $\phi$, and significantly simplifies the equation for Jacobi fields along ${\Gamma}_\phi$ (Lemmas \[l:geodesic\], \[l:Jacobi\], \[l:Taylor\]). As the solvmanifold $G$ is harmonic, the volume density function $V(t, \phi):=V_{e,A \cos \phi + Z \sin \phi}(t)$ along ${\Gamma}_\phi$ must not depend of $\phi$. Moreover, along the abelian geodesic ${\Gamma}_0, \; V(t, 0) = \prod_{{\alpha}\in \Delta} ({\alpha}^{-1} \sinh {\alpha}t)^{\dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}}$. Considering the Taylor expansion of $V(t, \phi)$ at $\phi = 0$ we find that $\tfrac {d}{d\phi} (V(t, \phi))_{\phi=0} \equiv 0$ (in fact, $V(t, \phi)$ is an even function of $\phi$), but the condition $\tfrac {d^2}{d\phi^2} (V(t, \phi))_{\phi=0} = 0$ gives nontrivial restrictions on the eigenvalue structure (Lemma \[l:rootspace\]): $${\alpha}\dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}= ({\lambda}-{\alpha}) \dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} \quad (= (2 {\lambda})^{-1} {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{} J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}}), \quad \text{for ${\alpha}\in \Delta \setminus \{{\lambda}\}$},$$ where $J_ZX = {\mathrm{ad}}^*_XZ$ for $X \in {\mathfrak{n}}$. It follows that the eigenvalues other than ${\lambda}$ and $\tfrac12 {\lambda}$ (if the latter is an eigenvalue) come in pairs: ${\alpha}, \; {\lambda}- {\alpha}$. What is more, the above equation, together with the fact that the curvature is nonpositive, implies that $\Delta \subset [\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}] \cup \{{\lambda}\}$. Using [@H2 Theorem 4.14] we further narrow the set $\Delta$ in Lemma \[l:rationality\]: $\Delta \subset \{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac12 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$. Next, in Lemma \[l:la/2\], we apply the second Ledger formula to prove that $J_Z^2X = -{\lambda}^2 \|Z\|^2 X$ for all $X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}, \; Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$, and that the cases $\tfrac12 {\lambda}\in \Delta$ and $\{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}\} \cap \Delta \ne \varnothing$ are mutually exclusive. Then either $\Delta \subset \{\tfrac12 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$, which leads to Damek-Ricci spaces, or $\Delta = \{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$. To finish the proof it remains to show that in the latter case, the volume density function $V(t, \phi)$ of such, quite a specific, solvmanifold depends on $\phi$. This is done in Lemma \[l:notla/3\]: the coefficient of $t^9$ in the Taylor expansion of $V(t, \phi)$ appears to be nonconstant. Proof {#s:proof} ===== Notations and basic facts {#ss:facts} ------------------------- Let $G$ be a solvmanifold of Iwasawa type, $\dim G = n$, and ${\mathfrak{g}}= \mathfrak a \oplus {\mathfrak{n}}$ be an orthogonal decomposition of its Lie algebra, with the nilradical ${\mathfrak{n}}= [{\mathfrak{g}}, {\mathfrak{g}}]$ and $\dim \mathfrak a =1$. The operator $D = {\mathrm{ad}}_{A|{\mathfrak{n}}}$ is symmetric and positive definite (for one of two possible choices of a unit vector $A \in \mathfrak a$). For ${\alpha}>0$, let ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}= \{X \in {\mathfrak{n}}: DX = {\alpha}X\}$. Denote $\Delta =\{{\alpha}: \dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}>0\}$, and let ${\lambda}= \max \Delta$. We have $[{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}, {\mathfrak{n}}_{\beta}] \subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\alpha}+{\beta}}$, so in particular, ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}\subset {\mathfrak{z}}$, the center of ${\mathfrak{n}}$. For ${\alpha}\in \Delta$, let $n_{\alpha}= \dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}$, the multiplicity of the eigenvalue ${\alpha}$ of $D$. We denote ${\lambda}_1, {\lambda}_2, \ldots, {\lambda}_{n-1}$ the eigenvalues of $D$ counting multiplicities, so that $({\lambda}_1, {\lambda}_2, \ldots, {\lambda}_{n-1})$ contains $n_{\alpha}$ copies of each ${\alpha}\in \Delta$. A particular labelling of the ${\lambda}_i$’s will be specified further in the proof. For $Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$, define a skew-symmetric operator $J_Z: {\mathfrak{g}}\to {\mathfrak{g}}$ by ${\langle}J_Z U, V{\rangle}= {\langle}Z, [U,V]{\rangle}$. For left invariant vector fields, the connection and the curvature are given by $$\nabla_VW= U(V,W)+ \tfrac12 [V, W], \quad \text{where} \quad {\langle}U(V,W),Y{\rangle}= \tfrac12({\langle}V, [Y, W]{\rangle}+ {\langle}W, [Y, V]{\rangle}), \label{eq:nabla}$$ $$\begin{gathered} \label{eq:R} R(X, Y, Y, X) = \|U(X, Y)\|^2 - {\langle}U(X, X), U(Y, Y){\rangle}-\tfrac34 \|[X, Y]\|^2 \\ -\tfrac12 {\langle}[X, [X, Y]], Y{\rangle}-\tfrac12 {\langle}[Y, [Y, X]], X{\rangle},\end{gathered}$$ respectively. As usual, we identify left invariant vector fields on $G$ with their values at $e$. In the following Lemma, we collect some simple facts to be used further in the proof. \[l:facts\] Let $Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}\subset {\mathfrak{z}}$ be a unit vector and ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}= {\mathfrak{n}}\cap Z^\perp$. Then *1.* $J_Z Z= -{\lambda}A, \; J_Z A = {\lambda}Z, \; J_Z {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}\subset {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}, \; J_Z {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}$. In particular, $J_Z {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}= 0$, when ${\lambda}-{\alpha}\notin \Delta$. *2.* The restrictions of the symmetric operators $J_Z^2$ and $D$ to their invariant subspace ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$ commute. For every ${\alpha}\in \Delta$, there is an orthogonal decomposition ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}= ({\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap {\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z) \oplus ({\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp)$. *3.* $\nabla_A U = 0$ for any left invariant vector field $U$ *(*in particular, $\exp (tA)$ is a geodesic*)*. *4.* The distribution $\mathcal{D}= {\mathrm{Span}}(A,Z)$ on $G$ is totally geodesic; its integral manifolds are isometric to the hyperbolic plane of curvature $-{\lambda}^2$. 1\. The first two equations follow from the definition of $J_Z$. As ${\mathrm{Span}}(A,Z)$ is an invariant subspace of $J_Z$, its orthogonal complement ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$ also is. Moreover, for $X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}, Y \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\beta},\; {\langle}J_Z X, Y{\rangle}= {\langle}Z, [X,Y]{\rangle}$, which can be nonzero only when $[X,Y] \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$, that is, when ${\alpha}+ {\beta}={\lambda}$. 2\. The first claim follows from the fact that $J_Z {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}$ and $D_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}} = {\mathrm{id}}_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}}$. To prove the second one, notice that $J_Z$ and $J_Z^2$ have the same kernel and cokernel. 3\. Follows from . 4\. The distribution $\mathcal{D}$ is integrable, as $[A, Z] = {\lambda}Z \in \mathcal{D}$. Its integral submanifolds are totally geodesic, since $\nabla_A A = \nabla_A Z = 0,\; \nabla_Z Z = {\lambda}A, \; \nabla_Z A = - {\lambda}Z$. By , $R(A, Z, Z, A) = - {\lambda}^2$. In the next Lemma we consider a geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ of $G$ lying in the hyperbolic plane introduced in assertion 4 of Lemma \[l:facts\] (dot stands for $\tfrac{d}{dt}$). \[l:geodesic\] Let ${\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ be a unit speed geodesic of the solvmanifold $G$, which passes through $e$ in the direction $A \cos \phi + Z \sin \phi$, where $Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$ is a unit vector. Then *1.* The velocity vector $\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ of ${\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ is given by $$\begin{gathered} \dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)= q A + \Phi Z, \quad \text{where} \notag \\ q = \frac{-\sinh {\lambda}t + \cos \phi \cosh {\lambda}t}{\cosh {\lambda}t - \cos \phi \sinh {\lambda}t}, \quad \Phi = \frac{\sin \phi}{\cosh {\lambda}t - \cos \phi \sinh {\lambda}t}, \quad q^2 + \Phi^2 = 1. \label{eq:qandPhi} \end{gathered}$$ *2.* The vector bundle ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$ along ${\Gamma}_{\phi}$ is orthogonal to $\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ and is invariant with respect to $\nabla_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$. For a left invariant vector field $X \in {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$, $$\label{eq:nablaX} \nabla_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}X = -\tfrac12 \Phi \, J_Z X,$$ *3.* The bundle $\tilde {\mathfrak{n}}$ is invariant with respect to the Jacobi operator $R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$, and $$\label{eq:RdotG} R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)| {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}} = (- q^2 D^2 -\tfrac14 \Phi^2J_Z^2 - {\lambda}\Phi^2 D + \tfrac12 q \Phi \, [D,J_Z])_{| {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}}.$$ 1\. As it follows from assertion 4 of Lemma \[l:facts\], the geodesic ${\Gamma}_{\phi}$ lies in a totally geodesic hyperbolic plane $\mathbb{H}(-{\lambda}^2) = \exp ({\mathrm{Span}}(A, Z)) \subset G$ passing through $e$. It follows that $\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)= q A + \Phi Z$, with some functions $q=q(\phi, t)$ and $\Phi = \Phi(\phi, t)$ satisfying $q^2 + \Phi^2 =1$. The fact that $\nabla_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)=0$ implies that $\dot \Phi = {\lambda}\Phi q,\; \dot q + {\lambda}\Phi^2 = 0$. Solving this, subject to the initial conditions $q(\phi, 0) = \cos \phi,\; \Phi (\phi, 0) = \sin \phi$, we get what required. It is not difficult to find the equation of the geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ explicitly, but we won’t need it. 2\. This follows immediately from assertion 1 and the fact that $\nabla_AX=0$ (assertion 3 of Lemma \[l:facts\]) and $\nabla_ZX = -\tfrac12J_ZX$ (equation ). 3\. The fact that ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$ is an invariant subspace of $R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$ follows from assertion 4 of Lemma \[l:facts\]. Equation is a direct consequence of . Jacobi fields and the volume density function {#ss:jacobi} --------------------------------------------- In this subsection, we find the equation of the Jacobi fields along the geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi(t)$, and then calculate $\tfrac{d^2}{d\phi^2} V(t, \phi)$ at $\phi = 0$. By assertion 2 of Lemma \[l:facts\], the symmetric operators $D_{| {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}}$ and $J^2_{Z| {\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}}$ commute, so we can choose an orthonormal basis $X_1, \ldots, X_k, Y_1, Y_2, \ldots, Y_{2p-1}, Y_{2p}, V_1, V_2, \ldots, V_{2m-1}, V_{2m} \; (k + 2p + 2m = n-2)$ in ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$ in such a way that $$\begin{aligned} \label{eq:basisX} D(X_j) &= {\lambda}_j X_j,& J_Z X_j &= 0, && j = 1, \ldots, k,\\ \label{eq:basisY} D(Y_{2i-1}) &= \tfrac12 {\lambda}Y_{2i-1}, \; D(Y_{2i}) = \tfrac12 {\lambda}Y_{2i}, & J_Z Y_{2i-1} &= a_i Y_{2i}, \; J_Z Y_{2i} = -a_i Y_{2i-1}, && i = 1, \ldots, p,\\ D(V_{2l-1}) &= {\lambda}_l V_{2l-1}, \; D(V_{2l}) = ({\lambda}-{\lambda}_l) V_{2l}, & J_Z V_{2l-1} &= b_l V_{2l}, \; J_Z V_{2l} = -b_l V_{2l-1}, && l = 1, \ldots, m, \label{eq:basisV}\end{aligned}$$ with $a_i, b_l \ne 0$ and ${\lambda}_l < \tfrac12 {\lambda}$ (note that the ${\lambda}$’s here need not to be distinct: for instance, some of the ${\lambda}_j$’s, with $j=1, \ldots, k$ can be equal to $\tfrac12 {\lambda}$, or to one of the ${\lambda}_l$ or ${\lambda}-{\lambda}_l, \; l = 1, \ldots, m$). The vector bundle ${\tilde{\mathfrak{n}}}$ along ${\Gamma}_\phi$ splits into orthogonal sum of one-dimensional subbundles ${\mathrm{Span}}(X_j)$ and two-dimensional subbundles ${\mathrm{Span}}(Y_{2i-1}, Y_{2i}),\; {\mathrm{Span}}(V_{2l-1}, V_{2l})$, each of which is invariant with respect to both $\nabla_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$ and the Jacobi operator $R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$ (assertions 2 and 3 of Lemma \[l:geodesic\]). So the Jacobi equation along ${\Gamma}_\phi$ splits into a set of single equations and pairs of equations. We have the following: \[l:Jacobi\] The volume density function $V(t,\phi)$ along the geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi$ has the form $$\label{eq:volume} V(t, \phi) = \frac{\sinh {\lambda}t}{{\lambda}} \prod_{j=1}^k x_j(t, \phi) \prod_{i=1}^p y^2_i(t, \phi) \prod_{l=1}^m \det v_l(t,\phi),$$ where the functions $x_j(t, \phi)$ and $y_i(t, \phi)$ are determined by $$\begin{aligned} \label{eq:x} \ddot x_j &= ({\lambda}_j^2 + ({\lambda}- {\lambda}_j) {\lambda}_j\Phi^2) x_j, & x_j (0, \phi) &= 0, & \dot x_j (0, \phi) &= 1,\\ \ddot y_i &= \bigl(\tfrac14 {\lambda}^2 + \tfrac{{\lambda}^2 - a_i^2}4 \Phi^2\bigr) y_i, & y_i (0, \phi) &= 0, & \dot y_i (0, \phi) &= 1, \label{eq:y}\end{aligned}$$ and the $2 \times 2$-matrix $v_l(t,\phi)$ satisfies $$\label{eq:v} \ddot v_l + b_l \Phi \left(\begin{array}{cc} 0 & 1 \\ -1 & 0 \\ \end{array}\right) \dot v_l + \left(\begin{array}{cc} -(q^2 {\lambda}_l^2 + {\lambda}{\lambda}_l \Phi^2) & q \Phi \; b_l {\lambda}_l' \\ - q \Phi \; b_l {\lambda}_l & -(q^2 {\lambda}_l'^2 + {\lambda}{\lambda}_l' \Phi^2) \\ \end{array}\right) v_l = 0, \quad \begin{array}{l} v_l (0, \phi) = 0, \\ \dot v_l (0, \phi) = I_2, \\ \end{array}$$ where ${\lambda}_l' = {\lambda}-{\lambda}_l$, and $I_2$ is the $2 \times 2$ identity matrix. If $\phi = 0$, then $\Phi \equiv 0,\; q \equiv 1$, and so $x_j (t, 0) = \tfrac 1{{\lambda}_j} \sinh {\lambda}_j t,\; y_i (t, 0) = \tfrac 2{{\lambda}} \sinh \tfrac{{\lambda}}{2} t,\; v_l (t, 0) = {\mathrm{diag}}(\tfrac{1}{{\lambda}_l} \sinh {\lambda}_l t, \tfrac 1{{\lambda}_l'} \sinh {\lambda}_l' t)$ and $$\label{eq:volume0} V(t, 0) = \frac{\sinh {\lambda}t}{{\lambda}} \prod_{j=1}^k \frac{\sinh {\lambda}_j t}{{\lambda}_j} \prod_{i=1}^p \Bigl(\frac {\sinh \tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}t}{\tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}} \Bigr)^2 \prod_{l=1}^m \frac {\sinh {\lambda}_l t \sinh {\lambda}_l' t}{{\lambda}_l {\lambda}_l'} = \prod_{{\alpha}\in \Delta} \left(\frac{\sinh {\alpha}t}{{\alpha}} \right)^{n_{\alpha}}.$$ Consider Jacobi fields along the geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi$, orthogonal to $\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ and vanishing at $t=0$. First of all, as the distribution $\mathcal{D}={\mathrm{Span}}(A, Z)$ is tangent to the totally geodesic hyperbolic plane of curvature $-{\lambda}^2$ (assertion 4 of Lemma \[l:facts\]), there is a Jacobi field along ${\Gamma}_\phi(t)$ lying in $\mathcal{D}$, whose contribution to the volume density function is $\frac{\sinh {\lambda}t}{{\lambda}}$. Moreover, all the Jacobi fields whose derivative at $t=0$ is orthogonal to $\mathcal{D}$, remain orthogonal to $\mathcal{D}$ for all $t$. From we have: $$\label{eq:RdotGX} R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)} X = \begin{cases} (-{\alpha}^2- {\alpha}\,({\lambda}-{\alpha}) \Phi^2)X, & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap {\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z, \, X \perp Z; \\ -\tfrac14 (1 + \Phi^2) {\lambda}^2 X - \tfrac14 \Phi^2 J_Z^2X, & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2} \cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp;\\ (-q^2{\alpha}^2 - {\lambda}{\alpha}\Phi^2) X - \tfrac14 \Phi^2 J_Z^2X + \tfrac12 q \Phi ({\lambda}-2{\alpha})J_ZX, & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp, \; {\alpha}\ne \tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}. \end{cases}$$ Let now $X_j$ be a unit left invariant vector field defined by . As ${\mathrm{Span}}(X_j)$ is invariant with respect to both $R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$ and $\nabla_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$, there is a Jacobi field scalar proportional to $X_j$. From and the first line of we find that the scale factor $x_j(t, \phi)$ satisfies . Similarly, the left invariant vector bundle ${\mathrm{Span}}(V_{2l-1}, V_{2l})$ defined by is invariant with respect to both $R_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$ and $\nabla_{\dot {\Gamma}_\phi(t)}$, hence it contains two linearly independent Jacobi fields vanishing at $t = 0$. From , the fact that $\dot \Phi = {\lambda}q \Phi$ (assertion 1 of Lemma \[l:geodesic\]) and the third line of it follows that the $2 \times 2$-matrix $v_l(t,\phi)$ of their components with respect to the orthonormal basis $V_{2l-1}, V_{2l}$ satisfies . The same arguments for the left invariant vector bundle ${\mathrm{Span}}(Y_{2i-1}, Y_{2i})$ defined by give two linearly independent Jacobi fields, whose coordinates in the orthonormal basis $Y_{2i-1}, Y_{2i}$ satisfy the equation $$\ddot w_i + a_i \Phi J \dot w_i + \tfrac12 a_i \dot \Phi J w_i - \tfrac14 {\lambda}^2 (1 + \Phi^2) w_i = 0, \quad \text{with $w_i (0, \phi) = 0, \quad \dot w_i (0, \phi) = I_2$},$$ where $J=\left(\begin{smallmatrix} 0 & 1 \\ -1 & 0 \\ \end{smallmatrix}\right)$. Substituting $w_i= \exp(-\tfrac12 a_i \int_0^t \Phi J dt) z_i$ we get $\ddot z_i =\tfrac14 ({\lambda}^2 + ({\lambda}^2 - a_i^2) \Phi^2) z_i$, with the initial conditions $z_i (0, \phi) = 0, \; \dot z_i (0, \phi) = I_2$. It follows that the $2 \times 2$-matrix $z_i$ is proportional to the identity matrix, and $\det z_i = y_i^2$, with the function $y_i$ given by . \[l:Taylor\] Let $x_j(t, \phi),\; y_i(t, \phi)$ and $v_l(t, \phi)$ satisfy , and , respectively. Then, in a neighborhood of $(t, \phi) = (0, 0)$, $$\begin{gathered} x_j(t, \phi) = \frac{\sinh {\lambda}_j t}{{\lambda}_j} \bigl(1 + \frac{\phi^2}2 e^{{\lambda}t} \sinh {\lambda}t \;\hat x_j(t) + o(\phi^2)\bigr), \; y_i(t, \phi) = \frac{\sinh \tfrac{{\lambda}}{2} t}{{\lambda}/2} \bigl(1 + \frac{\phi^2}2 e^{{\lambda}t} \sinh {\lambda}t \;\hat y_i(t) + o(\phi^2)\bigr)\\ \det v_l(t, \phi) = \frac {\sinh {\lambda}_l t}{{\lambda}_l} \; \frac {\sinh {\lambda}_l' t}{{\lambda}_l'} \bigl(1 + \frac{\phi^2}2 e^{{\lambda}t} \sinh {\lambda}t \; \hat v_l(t) + o(\phi^2)\bigr),\end{gathered}$$ where $$\begin{aligned} \label{eq:secondderx} \hat x_j(t) &= \frac{{\lambda}_j}{{\lambda}({\lambda}+{\lambda}_j)}({\lambda}\coth{\lambda}t -{\lambda}_j \coth {\lambda}_j t),\\ \label{eq:seconddery} \hat y_i(t) &= \frac{{\lambda}^2 - a_i^2}{6 {\lambda}^2}(2 \coth{\lambda}t - \coth \tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}t),\\ \label{eq:secondderv} \hat v_l(t) &= \frac{2({\lambda}^2 + 2{\lambda}_l{\lambda}_l')-3 b_l^2}{2 ({\lambda}+{\lambda}_l)({\lambda}+{\lambda}_l')} \coth{\lambda}t + \frac{{\lambda}_l(b_l^2 - 2{\lambda}{\lambda}_l)}{2 {\lambda}^2 ({\lambda}+{\lambda}_l)} \coth {\lambda}_l t + \frac{{\lambda}_l'(b_l^2 - 2{\lambda}{\lambda}_l')}{2 {\lambda}^2 ({\lambda}+{\lambda}_l')} \coth {\lambda}_l' t,\end{aligned}$$ and so $$\label{eq:volumeTaylor} V(t, \phi) = V(t, 0) \Bigl(1 + \frac{\phi^2}2 e^{{\lambda}t} \sinh {\lambda}t \; \Bigl(\sum_{j=1}^k \hat x_j(t) + 2 \sum_{i=1}^p \hat y_i(t) + \sum_{l=1}^m \hat v_l(t)\Bigr) +o(\phi^2)\Bigr).$$ Both the equation and have the form $$\ddot f= (c_1^2 + c_2 \Phi^2) f, \quad f(0, \phi) = 0, \quad \dot f (0, \phi) = 1,$$ with some constants $c_1 \in (0, {\lambda})$ and $c_2$. Expanding $f(t, \phi) = f_0(t) + \phi f_1(t) + \tfrac{\phi^2}{2} f_2(t) + o(\phi^2)$, using the fact that $\Phi^2(t,\phi)= \phi^2 e^{2{\lambda}t} + o(\phi^2)$ (from ), and substituting to the equation above, we find: $$f_0(t) = \frac{\sinh c_1 t}{c_1}, \quad f_1(t)=0, \quad f_2(t)= \frac{c_2 e^{{\lambda}t}}{{\lambda}c_1 ({\lambda}^2 - c_1^2)} ({\lambda}\sinh c_1 t \cosh {\lambda}t - c_1 \cosh c_1 t \sinh {\lambda}t),$$ which gives the required expansions for $x_j(t, \phi)$ and $y_i(t, \phi)$. Similarly, for the matrix $v_l(t, \phi)$, the solution to , we have: $$\begin{gathered} v_l(t, \phi) = \left(\begin{array}{cc} \!\!\tfrac{\sinh {\lambda}_l t}{{\lambda}_l} & 0 \\ 0 & \!\!\tfrac{\sinh {\lambda}_l' t}{{\lambda}_l'}\!\! \\ \end{array}\right) + \, \phi \, \frac{b_l}{2 {\lambda}{\lambda}_l^{} {\lambda}_l'} \left(\begin{array}{cc} 0 & \!\!({\lambda}_l' \sinh {\lambda}_l^{} t - e^{{\lambda}t} {\lambda}_l^{} \sinh {\lambda}_l' t)\\ \!\!({\lambda}_l^{} \sinh {\lambda}_l' t - e^{{\lambda}t} {\lambda}_l' \sinh {\lambda}_l^{} t)\!\! & 0 \\ \end{array}\right) \\ - \frac{\phi^2}{2} \frac{b_l^2 - {\lambda}_l^{}{\lambda}_l'}{{\lambda}{\lambda}_l^{}{\lambda}_l'} \, e^{{\lambda}t} \, \left(\begin{array}{cc} \frac{{\lambda}\cosh {\lambda}t \sinh {\lambda}_l t - {\lambda}_l \sinh {\lambda}t \cosh {\lambda}_l t}{{\lambda}+ {\lambda}_l^{}} & 0 \\ 0 & \frac{{\lambda}\cosh {\lambda}t \sinh {\lambda}_l' t - {\lambda}_l' \sinh {\lambda}t \cosh {\lambda}_l' t}{{\lambda}+ {\lambda}_l'} \\ \end{array}\right) + o(\phi^2),\end{gathered}$$ and the expansion for $\det v_l(t, \phi)$ follows. Note (although we won’t use this) that the equation can be solved in the closed form by the reduction of order: $x(t, \phi) = (\cosh {\lambda}t - \cos \phi \sinh {\lambda}t)^{{\lambda}_j/{\lambda}} \int_0^t (\cosh {\lambda}u - \cos \phi \sinh {\lambda}u)^{-2{\lambda}_j/{\lambda}}du$. The eigenvalue set {#ss:root} ------------------ In this subsection, we show that the expansion of the volume density function obtained in Lemma \[l:Taylor\], gives strong restrictions on the eigenvalue set $\Delta$. After few steps, this, together with the nonpositivity of the curvature, leaves only two possibilities: either $\Delta = \{{\lambda}\}$, or $\Delta = \{\tfrac12{\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$, with $J_Z^2X = -{\lambda}^2 \|Z\|^2 X$ for all $X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}, \; Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$. This completes the proof of the Theorem as the former one corresponds to a hyperbolic space and the latter one to a Damek-Ricci space. \[l:rootspace\] *1.* We have: $$\begin{gathered} \label{eq:ana} {\alpha}\, n_{\alpha}= ({\lambda}-{\alpha}) \, n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} = \frac{1}{2 {\lambda}} \sum_{l: {\lambda}_l = {\alpha}} b_l^2 = \frac{1}{2 {\lambda}} {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}}, \quad \text{for any ${\alpha}\in \Delta, \; {\alpha}\ne {\lambda}, {\lambda}/2$} \\ {\lambda}^2 n_{{\lambda}/2} = 2 \sum_{i=1}^p a_i^2 = {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}},\quad \text{if ${\lambda}/2 \in \Delta$.} \label{eq:la/2}\end{gathered}$$ In particular, for any ${\alpha}\in (0, {\lambda}), \quad {\alpha}\in \Delta \Leftrightarrow {\lambda}- {\alpha}\in \Delta$; for ${\alpha}\in \Delta \setminus \{{\lambda}\}, \quad {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp \ne 0$. *2.* $\Delta \subset [\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}] \cup \{{\lambda}\}$. *3.* $(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3}} = \tfrac43 {\lambda}^2 {\mathrm{id}}_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3}}$. 1\. The harmonicity of $G$ implies that $V(t, \phi) = V(t, 0)$, for all $\phi$, and so, by , $$\label{eq:sum0} \sum_{j=1}^k \hat x_j(t) + 2 \sum_{i=1}^p \hat y_i(t) + \sum_{l=1}^m \hat v_l(t)=0,$$ with $\hat x_j(t),\; \hat y_i(t)$ and $\hat v_l(t)$ given by , and , respectively. The expression on the left hand side is a linear combination of the $\coth$’s. Note that for any finite set of positive numbers $\mu_1 > \mu_2 > \ldots > \mu_N$, the functions $\coth (\mu_s t)$ are linearly independent. For if some linear combination $\sum_s c_s\coth (\mu_s t)$ vanishes for all $t \in \mathbb{R} \setminus \{ 0 \}$, it will still vanish for all $t \in \mathbb{C}$, outside the union of the poles of the meromorphic functions $\coth (\mu_s t)$. However, the function $\coth (\mu_1 t)$ goes to infinity when $t \to \pi i/\mu_1$, while all the others stay bounded. So $c_1=0$, and, inductively, all the $c_s$’s are zeros. Equating the coefficients of $\coth {\alpha}t$ in to zero, we find: For ${\alpha}\in \Delta, \; {\alpha}<\tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}: \; \sum_{j: {\lambda}_j = {\alpha}} \frac{-{\alpha}^2}{{\lambda}({\lambda}+{\alpha})} + \sum_{l: {\lambda}_l = {\alpha}} \frac{{\alpha}(b_l^2 - 2{\lambda}{\alpha})}{2 {\lambda}^2 ({\lambda}+{\alpha})}=0$, and so $2{\alpha}{\lambda}(\#\{j: {\lambda}_j = {\alpha}\} + \#\{l: {\lambda}_l = {\alpha}\}) = \sum_{l: {\lambda}_l = {\alpha}} b_l^2$. The expression in the brackets is $\dim ({\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap {\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z) + \dim ({\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp) = n_{\alpha}$ (by assertion 2 of Lemma \[l:facts\]). So $$2{\alpha}{\lambda}n_{\alpha}= \sum_{l: {\lambda}_l = {\alpha}} b_l^2 = {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}},$$ the latter equation follows from the definition of the $b_l$’s. The same formula remains true also for ${\alpha}\in \Delta \cap (\tfrac{{\lambda}}{2}, {\lambda})$ (replace ${\lambda}_l$ by ${\lambda}_l'$ in the above computation). Since $J_Z{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}},\; J_Z{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} \subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}$, and the operator $J_Z$ is skew symmetric, ${\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}} = {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}}$. We get $$2{\alpha}{\lambda}n_{\alpha}= 2({\lambda}-{\alpha}) {\lambda}n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} = {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}},$$ which proves . Next, for ${\alpha}= {\lambda}/2$, the coefficient of $\coth \tfrac{{\lambda}}2 t$ on the left hand side of is $-\tfrac16\#\{j: {\lambda}_j = {\lambda}/2\} - 2 \sum_{i=1}^p \frac{{\lambda}^2 - a_i^2}{6 {\lambda}^2}=0$, so $${\lambda}^2 n_{{\lambda}/2} = 2 \sum_{i=1}^p a_i^2 = {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}},$$ which is . It can be seen that the coefficient of $\coth {\lambda}t$ does not give anything new. The fact that ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp \ne 0$ for ${\alpha}\ne {\lambda}$ follows from (\[eq:ana\], \[eq:la/2\]), as $a_i, b_l \ne 0 $. 2\. For ${\alpha}\in \Delta,\; {\alpha}\ne {\lambda}$, let $i_{\alpha}= \dim ({\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp)$. As it follows from assertion 1, $i_{\alpha}> 0$, and obviously $i_{\alpha}\le n_{\alpha}$. Moreover, as $J_Z$ is skew-symmetric and as $J_Z {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\subset {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}$, we have $i_{\alpha}= i_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}$, so $$0 < i_{\alpha}= i_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} \le n_{\alpha}, n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}.$$ For a unit vector $V \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp, \quad R(Z, V, V, Z) = \tfrac14 \|J_ZV\|^2 - {\lambda}\, {\alpha}$ (from the third line of , with $q=0, \Phi =1$). As the curvature is nonpositive, $\|J_ZV\|^2 \le 4 {\lambda}\, {\alpha}$, and so, by , $${\alpha}\, n_{\alpha}= ({\lambda}-{\alpha}) \, n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} = (2 {\lambda})^{-1} {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}} = (2 {\lambda})^{-1} {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{\alpha}\cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp} \le 2 \, {\alpha}\, i_{\alpha}.$$ Hence $({\lambda}-{\alpha})\, i_{\alpha}\le ({\lambda}-{\alpha}) n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} \le 2 \, {\alpha}\, i_{\alpha}$, which shows that ${\alpha}\ge {\lambda}/3$. The fact that ${\alpha}\le 2 {\lambda}/3$ follows from assertion 1. 3\. For ${\alpha}= {\lambda}/3$, the above inequalities become equations, and we obtain: $$\label{eq:ila} \begin{split} n_{{\lambda}/3} &= 2 \, i_{{\lambda}/3}, \quad (J_Z^2)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/3} \cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp} = -\tfrac{4}{3} {\lambda}^2 \, {\mathrm{id}}_{{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/3} \cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp}, \\ n_{2{\lambda}/3} &= i_{{\lambda}/3},\hphantom{2 \,} \quad (J_Z^2)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3}} = -\tfrac{4}{3} {\lambda}^2 \, {\mathrm{id}}_{{\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3}} \end{split}$$ (the latter equation follows from the fact that $n_{2{\lambda}/3} = i_{{\lambda}/3}$, so ${\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3} \perp {\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z$). \[l:rationality\] $\Delta \subset \{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac12 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$. We use equation (4.1) from the proof of Theorem 4.14 of [@H2], in slightly different notations. Let $\Delta = \{{\alpha}_1, \ldots, {\alpha}_N\}$ and $c = {\mathrm{Tr}}D^2 /{\mathrm{Tr}}D$. In an orthonormal basis $\{e_1, \ldots, e_N\}$ for $\mathbb{R}^N$, let $F$ be a set of vectors $\{e_i + e_j - e_k : \, {\alpha}_i + {\alpha}_j = {\alpha}_k, \; i \le j\}$. Then $$(n_{{\alpha}_1}(c-{\alpha}_1), \ldots, n_{{\alpha}_N}(c-{\alpha}_N))^t \in {\mathrm{Span}}(F).$$ Now assume there exists ${\alpha}\in \Delta$ such that ${\alpha}\in ({\lambda}/3, {\lambda}/2)$. Choose the labelling in such a way that ${\alpha}_1 = {\alpha},\; {\alpha}_2 = {\lambda}-{\alpha}, \; {\alpha}_N = {\lambda}$. Then (by assertion 2 of Lemma \[l:rootspace\]) the only relation of the form ${\alpha}_i + {\alpha}_j = {\alpha}_k$ involving ${\alpha}$ is ${\alpha}_1 + {\alpha}_2 = {\alpha}_N$ (and the same is true for ${\lambda}-{\alpha}$). So $F$ contains a vector $(1,1, 0, \ldots, 0, -1)^t$, and the first two coordinates of all the other vectors from $F$ are zeros. Hence $n_{\alpha}(c-{\alpha}) = n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}} (c-({\lambda}-{\alpha}))$. This contradicts the fact that ${\alpha}\, n_{\alpha}= ({\lambda}-{\alpha}) \, n_{{\lambda}-{\alpha}}$, which follows from . \[l:la/2\] *1.* For any $X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}, \; Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$, we have $J_Z^2X = -{\lambda}^2 \|Z\|^2 X$. *2.* If ${\lambda}/2 \in \Delta$, then $\Delta = \{{\lambda}/2,\, {\lambda}\}$. 1\. Let $Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$ be a unit vector. From the second Ledger formula , ${\mathrm{Tr}}R_Z^2 = {\mathrm{Tr}}R_A^2$. As $R_A = - D^2$ (by , with $\Phi = 0, \, q=1$), $$\label{eq:TrR2} {\mathrm{Tr}}R_A^2 = {\lambda}^4 n_{\lambda}+ \tfrac{{\lambda}^4 }{16} n_{{\lambda}/2} + \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}{81} n_{{\lambda}/3} + \tfrac{16 {\lambda}^4}{81} n_{2 {\lambda}/3} = {\lambda}^4 n_{\lambda}+ \tfrac{{\lambda}^4 }{16} n_{{\lambda}/2} + \tfrac{2 {\lambda}^4}{9} n_{2 {\lambda}/3},$$ where we used the fact that $n_{{\lambda}/3} = 2 n_{2 {\lambda}/3}$. On the other hand, from , with $q = 0, \, \Phi = 1$ and , $$R_ZX= \begin{cases} - {\lambda}^2 A & X = A, \\ - {\lambda}^2 X & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}, X \perp Z,\\ -\tfrac12 {\lambda}^2 X - \tfrac14 J_Z^2 X & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2},\\ -\tfrac13 {\lambda}^2 X & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3},\\ -\tfrac13 {\lambda}^2 X & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/3} \cap {\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z,\\ 0 & X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/3} \cap ({\mathrm{Ker}}J_Z)^\perp, \end{cases}$$ and so ${\mathrm{Tr}}R_Z^2 = {\lambda}^4 + {\lambda}^4 (n_{\lambda}-1) + \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}4 n_{{\lambda}/2} - \tfrac{{\lambda}^2}4 {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} + \tfrac{1}{16} {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)^2_{{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} + \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}{9} n_{2 {\lambda}/3} + \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}{9} n_{2 {\lambda}/3}$, using the fact that $i_{{\lambda}/3} = n_{2{\lambda}/3}$ from . Equating ${\mathrm{Tr}}R_Z^2$ to the right hand side of and substituting ${\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} = {\lambda}^2 n_{{\lambda}/2}$ from we find ${\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)^2_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} = {\lambda}^4 n_{{\lambda}/2}$. As $\dim {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2} = n_{{\lambda}/2}$ by definition, and the operator $J_Z^{}J_Z^t$ is symmetric, the equations ${\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} = {\lambda}^2 n_{{\lambda}/2}, \; {\mathrm{Tr}}(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)^2_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} = {\lambda}^4 n_{{\lambda}/2}$ imply that $(J_Z^{}J_Z^t)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} = {\lambda}^2 \, {\mathrm{id}}_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}}$. 2\. We again use the second Ledger formula , ${\mathrm{Tr}}R_X^2 = {\mathrm{Tr}}R_A^2$, this time with a unit vector $X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}$. A direct computation based on and the fact that ${\langle}J_VX, J_ZX{\rangle}= {\lambda}^2\, {\langle}V, Z{\rangle}\|X\|^2$ for $V, Z \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}, \; X \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}$, which follows from assertion 1, gives $$R_XY= \begin{cases} -\tfrac14 {\lambda}^2 A & Y = A, \\ -\tfrac14 {\lambda}^2 Y & Y \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda},\\ -\tfrac14 {\lambda}^2 Y - \tfrac34 J_{[X, Y]} X & Y \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}, \; Y \perp X,\\ -\tfrac13 {\lambda}^2 Y & Y \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{2{\lambda}/3},\\ -\tfrac16 {\lambda}^2 Y & Y \in {\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/3}. \end{cases}$$ We first compute the trace of $R_X^2$ on ${\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}$. Let $Y_1, \ldots, Y_{n_{{\lambda}/2}-1}, Y_{n_{{\lambda}/2}}=X$ be an orthonormal basis for ${\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}$. Then $$\begin{aligned} {\mathrm{Tr}}(R_X^2)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} &= \frac{{\lambda}^4}{16} (n_{{\lambda}/2} - 1) + \frac{3 {\lambda}^2}{8} \sum_{s=1}^{n_{{\lambda}/2}-1} \|[X, Y_s]\|^2 + \frac{9}{16} \sum_{s=1}^{n_{{\lambda}/2}-1} \|J_{[X, Y_s]} X\|^2 \\ &= \frac{{\lambda}^4}{16} (n_{{\lambda}/2} - 1) + \frac{15 {\lambda}^2}{16} \sum_{s=1}^{n_{{\lambda}/2}-1} \|[X, Y_s]\|^2,\end{aligned}$$ as $\|J_{[X, Y_s]} X\|^2 = {\lambda}^2 \|[X, Y_s]\|^2$ by assertion 1. Now, with $Z_1, \ldots, Z_{n_{\lambda}}$ an orthonormal basis for ${\mathfrak{n}}_{\lambda}$, we have $$\sum_{s=1}^{n_{{\lambda}/2}-1} \|[X, Y_s]\|^2 = \sum_{s=1}^{n_{{\lambda}/2}-1} \sum_{i=1}^{n_{{\lambda}}} {\langle}J_{Z_i}X, Y_s {\rangle}^2 = \sum_{i=1}^{n_{{\lambda}}} \|J_{Z_i}X\|^2 = {\lambda}^2 n_{\lambda}.$$ So ${\mathrm{Tr}}(R_X^2)_{|{\mathfrak{n}}_{{\lambda}/2}} = \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}{16} (n_{{\lambda}/2} - 1) + \tfrac{15 {\lambda}^4}{16} n_{\lambda}$, hence $${\mathrm{Tr}}R_X^2 = \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}{16} n_{{\lambda}/2} + {\lambda}^4 n_{\lambda}+ \tfrac{{\lambda}^4}{6} n_{2{\lambda}/3}.$$ Comparing this to we get $n_{2{\lambda}/3}=0$, and then $n_{{\lambda}/3}=0$ by assertion 1 of Lemma \[l:rootspace\]. As it follows from Lemma \[l:la/2\], if ${\lambda}/2 \in \Delta$, the solvmanifold $G$ is a Damek-Ricci space. Also, if $\Delta = \{{\lambda}\}, \; G$ is the hyperbolic space. To finish the proof it remains to show that the case $\Delta = \{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$ is impossible. \[l:notla/3\] $\Delta \ne \{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$. Assume $\Delta = \{\tfrac13 {\lambda}, \tfrac23 {\lambda}, {\lambda}\}$. Combining the results of Lemma \[l:Jacobi\] and Lemma \[l:rootspace\], we obtain that the volume density function $V(t,\phi)$ along the geodesic ${\Gamma}_\phi$ is $$V(t, \phi) = {\lambda}^{-1} \sinh {\lambda}t \; (x_0(t, \phi))^{n_{\lambda}-1} \, (x(t, \phi))^{n_{2{\lambda}/3}} \, (\det v(t,\phi))^{n_{2{\lambda}/3}},$$ with the functions $x_0(t, \phi),\; x(t, \phi)$ and the $2 \times 2$-matrix $v(t,\phi)$ determined by $$\begin{aligned} &\ddot{x}_0 = {\lambda}^2 x_0, & &x_0 (0, \phi) = 0, & &\dot x_0 (0, \phi) = 1, \\ &\ddot x = \tfrac{{\lambda}^2}{9} (1 + 2 \Phi^2) x, & &x (0, \phi) = 0, & &\dot x (0, \phi) = 1, \\ &\ddot v - \frac{2 {\lambda}}{\sqrt 3} \, \Phi \, J \dot v - \frac {{\lambda}^2}{9} \left(\begin{array}{cc} 1+2 \Phi^2 & 4 \sqrt 3 \, q \Phi \\ -2 \sqrt3 \, q \Phi & 4+2 \Phi^2 \\ \end{array}\right) v = 0, & &v (0, \phi) = 0, & &\dot v (0, \phi) = I_2,\end{aligned}$$ where $J= (\begin{smallmatrix} 0 & 1 \\ -1 & 0 \end{smallmatrix})$. Clearly, $x_0 = {\lambda}^{-1} \sinh {\lambda}t$ and $$V(t, 0) = \Bigl(\tfrac{\sinh {\lambda}t}{{\lambda}}\Bigr)^{n_{\lambda}} \Bigl(\tfrac{\sinh ({\lambda}t/3)}{{\lambda}/3}\Bigr)^{2n_{2{\lambda}/3}} \Bigl(\tfrac{\sinh (2{\lambda}t/3)}{2 {\lambda}/3}\Bigr)^{n_{2{\lambda}/3}},$$ so to prove the Lemma it remains to show that $$x(t, \phi) \det v(t, \phi) \ne \tfrac{27}{2 {\lambda}^3} \, \sinh^2 \tfrac{{\lambda}}{3}t \; \sinh \tfrac{2 {\lambda}}{3} t.$$ This is indeed the case, as the Taylor expansion of $x(t, \phi) \det v(t, \phi)$ at $t = 0$ is $$x(t, \phi) \det v(t, \phi) = t^3 + \tfrac{{\lambda}^2}{9} t^5 + \tfrac {2 {\lambda}^4}{405} t^7 + \tfrac{{\lambda}^6}{4 \cdot 7 \cdot 3^9} \,(81 - 27 \cos^2(\phi) + 15 \cos^4(\phi) - \cos^6(\phi)) \, t^9 + o(t^9),$$ which explicitly depends on $\phi$ (the expansion was obtained using <span style="font-variant:small-caps;">Maple</span>). [BTV]{} Alekseevskii D.V. *Homogeneous Riemannian spaces of negative curvature*, Math. USSR. 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Szabo Z.I. *Lichnerowicz Conjecture on harmonic manifolds*, J.Diff.Geom., **31** (1990), 1 – 28. Szabo Z.I. *Spectral theory for operator families*, Proc. Symp. Pure Math., **54**(part 3) (1993), 615 – 665. Walker A.G. *On Lichnerowicz conjecture for harmonic $4$-spaces*, J. Lond. Math. Soc. **24** (1949), 21 – 28. [^1]: Work supported by the ARC Discovery grant DP0342758. [^2]: 2000 *Mathematics Subject Classification.* Primary: 53C30, 53C25.

Electrochemical DNAzyme sensor for lead based on amplification of DNA-Au bio-bar codes. An electrochemical DNAzyme sensor for sensitive and selective detection of lead ion (Pb(2+)) has been developed, taking advantage of catalytic reactions of a DNAzyme upon its binding to Pb(2+) and the use of DNA-Au bio-bar codes to achieve signal enhancement. A specific DNAzyme for Pb(2+) is immobilized onto an Au electrode surface via a thiol-Au interaction. The DNAzyme hybridizes to a specially designed complementary substrate strand that has an overhang, which in turn hybridizes to the DNA-Au bio-bar code (short oligonucleotides attached to 13 nm gold nanoparticles). A redox mediator, Ru(NH3)6(3+), which can bind to the anionic phosphate of DNA through electrostatic interactions, serves as the electrochemical signal transducer. Upon binding of Pb(2+) to the DNAzyme, the DNAzyme catalyzes the hydrolytic cleavage of the substrate, resulting in the removal of the substrate strand along with the DNA bio-bar code and the bound Ru(NH3)6(3+) from the Au electrode surface. The release of Ru(NH3)6(3+) results in lower electrochemical signal of Ru(NH3)6(3+) confined on the electrode surface. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) signals of Ru(NH3)6(3+) provides quantitative measures of the concentrations of Pb(2+), with a linear calibration ranging from 5 nM to 0.1 microM. Because each nanoparticle carries a large number of DNA strands that bind to the signal transducer molecule Ru(NH3)6(3+), the use of DNA-Au bio-bar codes enhances the detection sensitivity by five times, enabling the detection of Pb(2+) at a very low level (1 nM). The DPV signal response of the DNAzyme sensor is negligible for other divalent metal ions, indicating that the sensor is highly selective for Pb(2+). Although this DNAzyme sensor is demonstrated for the detection of Pb(2+), it has the potential to serve as a general platform for design sensors for other small molecules and heavy metal ions.

Hackers take a pizza de action Hackers have stolen data on more than 600,000 Dominos Pizza customers in Belgium and France and threatened to publish the data unless the company pays a cash ransom. At risk are customer names, delivery addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and passwords which were taken from a server used in an online ordering system that the company is in the process of replacing. Dominos spokesman Chris Brandon said at this point it was not clear if the stolen passwords had been encrypted. Using Twitter the hackers said that they would publish the customer data on the Internet unless the company pays $40,800. Dominos said that it was unaware of ransom demands, but that the company would not be making any such payment. Domino’s Vice President of Communications Tim McIntyre said the hacking was “isolated” to independent franchise markets of Belgium and France, where the company’s online ordering system did not collect credit card orders, so no financial data had been taken. Andy Heather, VP EMEA at Voltage Security said that holding companies to ransom was becoming a tool of choice by hackers who saw the value of personal data. “The theft of financial information has a limited lifespan, because the victim changes the account details etc. But the personal information that can be obtained has a much broader use and can be used to commit a much wider range of fraud and identity theft, and cannot be changed,” he said. Heather said that the Dominos breach highlights a need for companies to place tighter controls on how their customers’ sensitive information is stored and protected. “If Dominos had employed format-preserving encryption to protect the data itself, the attackers would have ended up with unusable encrypted data instead of the current outcome where an untold amount of their customers’ personal information is now in the hands of cyber criminals,” he said.

INTRODUCTION {#sec1-1} ============ Gastroschisis is a right-sided, small, and full-thickness paraumbilical defect of the abdominal wall that occurs in 1 of 4000 births.\[[@ref1]\] Unlike an omphalocele, the herniated bowel is in direct contact with amniotic fluid. Theories concerning the etiology of gastroschisis are usually considered to be the result of a vascular insult.\[[@ref2]\] Cardiac and genitourinary abnormalities have been associated\[[@ref3][@ref4][@ref5][@ref6][@ref7][@ref8]\] with gastroschisis, but presence of extra-gastrointestinal anomalies warrants search for alternative diagnosis. In the presented case, gastroschisis associated with spinal and lower limb anomalies in early age group mother (primiparous) has been presented. CASE REPORT {#sec1-2} =========== A 22-years-old full-term primiparous patient underwent an ultrasound examination, we found large paraumbilical defect with herniation of stomach, small and large bowel loops, liver, gallbladder, and right kidney. Herniated stomach and bowel loops were rest over internal Os \[[Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}\]. Amount of liquor was very less and fetus looked flexed and twisted in breech presentation. Spinal anomalies were observed block cervical vertebrae with spina bifida of cervical and lumber spines. In lower limbs anomalies, mildly short, thin left femur and left tibia with very thin fiber-like left fibula were seen. Both feet were rudimentary, especially left foot, with no defined toe while right foot was with four abnormal toes. Left iliac bone was rudimentary. Umbilical cord was short and had two vessels \[[Figure 2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}\]. {#F1} {#F2} After delivery, we took photographs of dead abnormal newborn. We found that newborn has large anterior abdominal paraumbilical defect. Stomach, intestinal loops, liver, gallbladder, and right kidney were herniated through the large abdominal defect \[[Figure 3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}\]. Both lower limbs were mildly short; left leg being thinner with deformed feet and small three buds of toes while right foot presented with four abnormal toes \[[Figure 4](#F4){ref-type="fig"}\]. Left side hip was small with kypo-scoliotic curvature of vertebral column. Rudimentary male genital organs were seen. Umbilical cord was short and had two vessels. Head, face, neck, thorax, and both upper limbs were normal. {#F3} {#F4} CT scan and radiograph of newborn were also obtained \[Figures [5](#F5){ref-type="fig"}-[7](#F7){ref-type="fig"}\] and the above said findings were corroborated by the images. {#F5} {#F6} {#F7} DISCUSSION {#sec1-3} ========== Gastroschisis is a congenital anterior abdominal wall defect, adjacent and usually to the right of the umbilical cord insertion. Gastroschisis has no covering sac and no associated syndromes. This differentiates it from an omphalocele, which usually is covered by a membranous sac and more frequently is associated with other structural and chromosomal anomalies. In addition, however, gastroschisis may be associated with gastrointestinal anomalies such as intestinal atresia, stenosis, and malrotation.\[[@ref9]\] By the study of Stoll C *et al*. of Omphalocele and gastroschisis and associated malformations, they assessed these associated malformations ascertained between 1979 and 2003 in 334 262 consecutive births. Of the 86 patients with omphalocele, 64 (74.4%) had associated malformations. These included patients with chromosomal abnormalities (25, 29.0%) and non-chromosomal syndromes. Malformations of the musculoskeletal system (31, 23.5%), urogenital system (27, 20.4%), cardiovascular system (20, 15.1%), and central nervous system (12, 9.1%) were the most common, other congenital malformations in patients with omphalocele and non-syndromic multiple congenital anomalies (MCA). Of the 60 patients with gastroschisis, 10 (16.6%) had associated malformations.\[[@ref10]\] Mastroiacovo P *et al*. performed an international study to identify malformation patterns and to evaluate the role of maternal age in non-isolated cases of gastroschisis and associated defects. Case-by-case information from 24 registries, all members of the International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Surveillance and Research (ICBDSR) were evaluated. Their results showed that of 3 322 total cases, 469 non-isolated cases were registered (14.1%): 41 chromosomal syndromes, 24 other syndromes, and 404 MCA. Among MCA, four groups of anomalies were most frequent: CNS (4.5%), cardiovascular (2.5%), limb (2.2%), and kidney anomalies (1.9%). No similar patterns emerged except two patterns resembling limb-body wall complex and omphalocele-exstrophy-imperforate anus-spinal defects (OEIS). In both of them, the gastroschisis could be misclassified. Chromosomal trisomies and possibly non-syndromic MCA are associated with an older maternal age more than isolated cases. On consideration of their data and the most valid studies published in the literature, the best estimate of the proportion of gastroschisis associated with major unrelated defects is about 10%, with a few cases associated to recognizable syndromes. Recognized syndromes with gastroschisis seem to be so exceptional that the well documented and validated cases are worth being published as interesting case report. An appropriate case definition in etiological studies should include only isolated gastroschisis after an appropriate definition of isolated and non-isolated cases and a thorough case-by-case review.\[[@ref11]\] Singal R *et al*. reported a rare case of a newborn baby with an abdominal wall defect, together with multiple congenital abnormalities and diagnosed as gastroschisis. There were multiple defects seen as spinal deformity, imperforate anus, esophageal fistula, and lower limb deformity (congenital talipes equinovarus) along with the webbing of neck. There were also ischemic changes present over the left upper limb in the form of cyanosis. The diagnosis made was gastroschisis and Omphalocele along with spinal deformity.\[[@ref12]\] In the presented case, head, face, neck, thorax, and both upper limbs were normal. CONCLUSION {#sec1-4} ========== Although Gastroschisis has rare associated malformations, but if present, Pentalogy of Cantrell, Limb-body wall complex, etc., should be considered as an alternative diagnosis. Gastroschisis may be associated with gastrointestinal anomalies. Other birth defects are associated with gastroschisis, most commonly, abnormalities of the cardiac and genitourinary. The present case was not completely considered within any known alternative diagnosis of Gastroschisis-associated complex, non-syndromic and syndromic anomalies. The presented case of gastroschisis, therefore, highlight the associations of both spinal and lower limbs anomalies in primiparous, which was proven to be a rare case. **Source of Support:** Nil **Conflict of Interest:** None declared.

Share selection to: Glyn Davis G'day. I'm Glyn Davis, and this is The Policy Shop, a place where we talk about policy choices. Daniel Andrews Last year, 37 Victorians were murdered by the people they trusted the most, and we failed every single one of them. Family violence is a silent crime deployed by cowards behind closed doors. It's Australia's number one law and order issue, but it's taken us too long to admit it. The numbers are staggering, the human cost unacceptable. Rosie Batty No matter where you live, family violence exists in every pocket of every neighbourhood. It does not discriminate and it is across all sections of our society. Family violence may happen behind closed doors, but it needs to be brought out from these shadows and into broad daylight. David Morrison Get real, Australia. We run the risk at times of being a nation of bystanders comforted by a few statistics. Let me tell you, there are people dying and people whose lives are absolutely ruined as a result of domestic violence, and what's more, we are all, as a society, the victim. Glyn Davis In Australia, an average of one woman a week is killed by a partner or former partner, while one in three women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15. Globally, one in three women experience violence often at the hands of someone they know, love and trust. Worldwide in 2012, of all women who were victims of homicide, almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members. In this episode of The Policy Shop, we're examining the issue of domestic violence. Joining us on this episode to discuss this important topic is literary scholar, performer, journalist and author, Professor Germaine Greer, in Melbourne to meet the archivists who have been cataloguing and processing the Greer Archive, a world class collection here at the University of Melbourne. Germaine, welcome. Germaine Greer Thank you. Glyn Davis We are also joined by Joanna Fletcher, CEO of Women's Legal Service Victoria, who has been working on issues arising from relationship breakdown and violence against women for over 15 years. Joanna, welcome to the podcast. Joanna Fletcher Thank you very much. Glyn Davis Our final guest is Mary Polis, former chief executive officer of Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence. Mary, welcome. Mary Polis Thank you. Glyn Davis Germaine, if I may start with you. It was former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick who highlighted that there are more women living in an intimate relationship characterised by violence than malnourished people in the world. Did you ever image that 17 years into the 21st century, violence against women would still be so prevalent? Germaine Greer I don't think that I would have assumed that it was going to become less prevalent. It seems to be an innate feature of intimate relationships in which you've got, as it were, a hierarchical structure that you've got one person who owns another person. I can't understand why gay people want to get married because I think marriage - the track record of marriage is not a good one, and they should know that it doesn't do what it says on the tin. It doesn't guarantee the security and safety and support of children, and none of our official structures has been able to make sure that that comes to children as a right. I wouldn't have thought that it would ease as women became more assertive, and my bet would be that it would become worse. But there are things about domestic violence that are a bit special. Apart from the fact that it's not simply women who are beaten up and humiliated and knocked around in relationships, we have elder abuse, we have child abuse. Some environments are simply violent and some people think they have the right to lash out. But the other curious thing that breaks my heart really is that women will continue to interpret violence as evidence of affection rather than of hatred. The police get caught up in this nonsense too, because they don't admit that crimes against women are hate crimes. They sort of somehow seem to think they're kind of love crimes. Now, it may be that women think if a man is bashing me he's not going to leave me. There may be that there too, because I couldn't help thinking that it was really hard on women that if the police were called to an incident in some parts of the world, the woman has to agree to leave the relationship before they will take action. Which means everything she's invested in it, the years she's put up with who knows what, the effort she's gone to to keep her children within a family and to make sure they have a father, suddenly she's got to cancel them all and walk away. She takes nothing out of the relationship at all. That's not fair. What is clear to me is that we can't deal with it, and there is something as well about having families based on sexually-interacting couples that puts children at risk, especially if the relationship involves a man who is not in fact the father of the children. Lions kill other lions' cubs - I don't want to say the men in these cases are lions, but there is a pattern. Glyn Davis Joanna, if I may ask you, women's services are reporting that the actual rate of domestic violence appears to be increasing, even though at best 40 to 50 per cent of cases are reported to police. As someone working in this area, is that your experience? Joanna Fletcher I think we certainly know that the rate of reporting is increasing, so even though there is still underreporting, the actual rate of reporting has increased, and certainly the rate of police attendance at family violence incidents in just Victoria alone has gone through the roof in the last five years. There are some real positive things behind that, and that is they are largely around the police making some real gains in their approach to domestic violence and women feeling more confident to report. I don't know yet that we have evidence of an actual increase in the prevalence of violence. We'll have another personal safety survey - Mary might know when that is - but I think that's in the next couple of years and that might give us an indication of whether it is actually increased prevalence or just better reporting. Glyn Davis Mary, Germaine has raised the question of the family, the unit that's supposed to be full of love and trust and respect actually being the site of the violence. Presumably in the Royal Commission this was a central focus? Mary Polis Absolutely, and what we saw was that, as Germaine mentioned, the violence happens not only between intimate partners perpetrated generally by men against their female partners, but also against children, against elders, between siblings, by adolescent children against their parents. What we know I suppose is that the family is essentially a really private space and that's why for so long we've never really known the extent, the scale, the nature of the violence because it's been so hidden. One of the objectives behind making domestic violence and family violence more broadly a policy issue and an imperative for governments to tackle is to bring it out of those shadows and to make it something that's visible to everybody so we can all have a role in addressing it, challenging it and preventing it. Glyn Davis And I hope we will come to some of the recommendations a little later in the conversation. Germaine, in 1986 you wrote that women and children and old people will have to band together to resist the violence of younger males. Such bands used to be called families; we have nothing to replace them with. What are your thoughts to the changes to the family structure over time that have made this possible, and where to from here? Germaine Greer The $64 zillion question. Once you've got a family that is based on a sexually-interacting couple in privacy behind their closed door, you can't oversee what they're doing at all, especially when you've got shame. A woman who is being knocked around isn't going to tell you until it becomes obviously, and even then, she will feel that she's being disloyal to her family. I feel when I describe the way my mother abused my father that I'm really hurting my brother and sister who really wish I'd shut up. So I learnt the hard way that it's not just men against women. I think it is really that the nuclear family is an unhealthy unit. It's too small, and you've got too much confrontation. You've got one generation against another generation, you've got man against woman, you've got child against parent. They're in a perpetual state of conflict and there's no way of easing it. Now, we keep talking about communities when we don't have any, when we move people at will, where most people can't reach out and find a sibling or a cousin or anybody, and to go to anyone else, and especially to go to the police, is an act of extreme disloyalty, so they can't do it. I have never had any brief for the nuclear family; I've always thought of it as a non-viable stump of a possible system. Now we know we've have got another thing happening, which is that our nuclear bonds are falling apart. The families don't last, but creating the new family out of the bits of the old family so far hasn't given us any new, open structures. We tend to replicate the coupledom setup, and I think coupledom is toxic, I really do. It's bad for everybody. I did talk about in The Female Eunuch about imagining bringing up children in, as it were, an extended family in the sort of communal setup that would prevail in a peasant society and how much better that might be for any children I might have and have got screamed at and shut down in all directions because it was such a futile notion of what choices were open to us. Mind you, that was a time when people were making communes, they were looking for collective parenthood. If you think about it, there was a time when you could send a child on an errand right across a village to the other side and everybody would bring the child on its way because they would all think that the child was part of them, was part of their polity. Even in the most familial societies you can't do that anymore. We've now got to the point when we won't trust our children even to walk in public at all. We have to lift them and carry them in armoured vehicles from one venue to another. Glyn Davis You are describing a very Hobbesian world, and you've been thinking about this problem for a very long time, because one of the benefits of having your archives now here at the University of Melbourne is that we can play you this clip from 1971 of you speaking at the University of California, Berkeley. Germaine Greer The principal element in the subjection of women has been force and the threat of force. Our comparative physical weakness has never protected us from outrage and has only made sure that we could not defend ourselves from the obscenities of doing the most demeaning work. Glyn Davis Have we come any further in understanding what is it about our society, about men and masculinity that makes some men so violent? Germaine Greer There are so many answers to that question. One of them is misogyny, and English people get bitter with me when I say I think it's the most misogynistic society on earth. Men just don't like women. They fancy them, but in their neurotic setup they think that fancying demeans the thing they fancy. The worst thing you can be is on the receiving end. So you've got that kind of misogyny, which isn't always expressed in violence. It's more often expressed in bitter sarcasm, in humiliating women in public - shut up dear; you can hardly imagine a man saying that to a woman but it's par for the course. So there's straight misogyny, but that too is part of a social structure. One of the things men have to do to become masculine is they have to get rid of their mother's milk and they have to stop being emotionally vulnerable, they have to not cry anymore, they have to enter into the whole hierarchical system. So they become passionate Arsenal supporters as if that was a religion; it's the only thing remotely like a religion that they've got. But there's also as well as straight misogyny, there's something else going on. I can remember being utterly horrified the first time I ever saw statistics for the number of women who are first subjected to violence when they're pregnant. What is it about men and pregnancy? Is it revulsion, should pregnant women be kept away from men? Or is misogyny itself caused by the fact that we give birth between our legs, between faeces and urine? What is going on here? Is motherhood unforgivable? And to read some accounts of family life, you'd think that motherhood really is unforgivable, that mothers are best not seen and not heard. Your mother's voice is the last voice you want to hear on the phone; is that part of it? And, is what's going on, are we moving towards elimination of women, because in a way I think we are. Otherwise I can't explain the amount of research money that is being spent on experiments to produce an external uterus that will actually bring foetuses to term. And then I think if we weren't necessary to produce the next generation, would we be allowed to exist at all? Glyn Davis Mary, when the Royal Commission again dived into this fundamental question about what is the source of the violence, what drives it, how did you go? Mary Polis First of all, the Commission wasn't asked to look into the causes and make findings about what the causes of domestic violence are. However, we did have to look at it because you need to understand the dynamics and the drivers in order to formulate the best possible approaches. Now, there's obviously a huge amount of scholarship, research, learnings, discourse, debate, about the causes and drivers of domestic violence and family violence more generally. What emerges through all of that scholarship is the fundamental driver, cause if you like, of attitudes towards women that see them as weaker, something to be controlled, something to be at a man's beck and whim. Certainly, in the women who we spoke to and consulted throughout the Commission, that was their experience. They experienced control and coercion at the hands of their partners. It was expressed very directly in those terms by their partners towards those women. We were also asked to look at a whole range of other factors that may contribute or be associated with violence in the family, things that range from drug and alcohol misuse, financial pressure, socioeconomic status, exposure to violence as children, intergenerational trauma. Now, all of those things can be at play in individual cases, or not. It's a really, really complex constellation of factors and drivers. The Commission ultimately concluded that when we're looking at how to respond to family violence and how to prevent it in the first place, we really need a multifaceted response. We absolutely need to address the fundamental gendered nature of family violence, we need to deal with attitudes that men and boys have towards women, we need to deal with the attitudes that women have towards themselves and their expectations within their intimate relationships, but we also need to tackle the other drivers and the other causes when they become apparent. So if people are becoming violent and their violence is exacerbated by alcohol and drug use, we need to get in there and address those factors as well. There's no silver bullet and no one-size-fits-all solution or response. Glyn Davis Joanna, in the work that you do with women who have experienced or are experiencing domestic violence, multi-causal, difficult to pin a single explanation and therefore a single set of interventions? Joanna Fletcher I think the drivers of violence are quite clear from the research. We have really sound research from Our Watch and VicHealth that has informed their approach, their proposed approach to preventing violence against women, and obviously, that's reflected in the Royal Commission report. Certainly, in terms of responses, I think it's clear that you do need a multifaceted response and you need a response that is not just about one aspect of what a woman needs when she's experienced violence. For example, as a legal service we are very careful to make sure that our service is holistic in the sense of covering a number of different legal jurisdictions, so she doesn't have to find her own way around an incredibly complicated system, and also that the service includes both social work and financial counselling support. So that women don't come in neat little packages of ‘I have a family law problem’, ‘I have an intervention order problem’, they have challenges that have arisen from the violence and they span legal issues and social issues. Glyn Davis Mary, you mentioned as a significant factor, the way boys and men understand women and interact with them. One of the factors often raised in the literature is around pornography, widely accessible; now boys as young as nine apparently are regularly exposed to pornography. Is this a significant player in shaping how men's perception plays out? Mary Polis Certainly, in the consultations we held both with women directly and people working with them and people more broadly in the community, the availability of pornography to young boys and to men was raised quite consistently as an issue of serious concern, because it's where boys and young men develop their initial understanding of how it is that they should engage with a woman in an intimate way. I think our thinking has evolved through trying to ban or suppress pornography to really step into a zone where we actually need to understand that boys will access it. A lot of our strategies need to be directed at really talking to them at a young age about how to understand what pornography is and what it isn't, that it's actually something that doesn't represent what their intimate relationships can and should look like. Glyn Davis Germaine, does pornography matter? Germaine Greer I am fairly certain that pornography does matter, but there's the issue of whether you've got the right to suppress it. One of the things that I find on my desk lately is I'm being asked to explain male suicide, but the interesting thing about that is we think that suicide is something you do when you're sad. It's actually something you do when you're angry, it's actually a crime of violence itself. I think until we understand the self-destructiveness of men, we won't understand their propensity for destroying other people. There is a crisis in masculinity; it doesn't fit anymore. We've got workers who are expropriated, who have no prospects of jobs, who are becoming impoverished and are becoming a force for evil and reaction. I'm not one of the people who panics at the thought of Trump at the head of the United States, but it is part of the same phenomenon where a kind of masculine pride that has been totally emptied out has become itself toxic and self-destructive. So it's a bigger disease we have to look at here. A happy man does not beat up his sexual partner. Glyn Davis Many community attitudes around domestic violence are problematic in this space. For example, surveys show that half of Australians think that women should just leave the men as though that were easily open to them, and Germaine touched on that earlier. Or they believe it can be excused if the man was regretful afterwards. So what is your day-to-day experience in managing these issues? Joanna Fletcher Actually, the message that we get from women is very simple, and I know it is reflected in the Royal Commission's report as well. They just want the violence to stop, and that picks up on what Professor Greer was saying earlier about some countries and certainly in Australia sometimes the response has come from this place as well, that if women aren't ready to leave then the police or other services won't necessarily be as available or assist as well as they might. Fundamentally, there are often very many women who don't actually want the relationship to end because of children, because of financial commitments, because they know unfortunately that if they do leave they may actually have less control over the children's safety as they're fighting things out through the family law system. So being able to make sure that any service response also facilitates supporting women and protecting women who choose to remain in relationships. Glyn Davis Mary, the community attitudes that you heard as you travelled around Australia with the Royal Commission, what did they tell you about social understanding of domestic violence? Mary Polis What they told us was that the community is really ready to say enough is enough. I think we're at a really critical point at a community level where most people are saying, actually, we want to do something about this, particularly for our next generation. So people were very, very focused on making sure that children got the educational skills that would set them up for a future of non-violence and equality and respectful relationships. We felt that very keenly, that people were really ready to say it's time for a new way of living. One of the themes that the Commission adopted was the importance of the role of community in addressing family violence. Traditionally, the response has been around dealing with individuals and individual families. What that risks is keeping an issue at a very private level. If we accept that it's a problem that needs to be owned and dealt with by the entire community, then there's possibly a lot more that we can achieve. Some of the Commission's recommendations went to issues like the role that faith communities can play in responding to women who find themselves in a violent relationship and in responding to men who are using the violence. We also made recommendations around the role that workplaces can play. For many women, a workplace is their only contact outside the family unit where they can seek help, express what's happening to them, and that makes it very important for people within workplaces to understand and to know how to respond. Germaine Greer The problem with our communities is they're too volatile. People come and go. We keep thinking of them as fixed but they're not. If you actually look at people's life histories, they've lived in different towns, done different jobs, so it's going to be very hard to actually stabilise these points of call. Glyn Davis Let's just follow through this idea of the community attitude and how important it is, and inevitably that becomes a discussion about media and the role it plays, and the evidence suggests a fair degree of stereotyping in how domestic violence is reported and putting it into a very standard format that puts limits around it. I'm just curious about whether the media has a different role to play here. Germaine? Germaine Greer Well, the media obviously does have a role to play, first of all because part of it is pornography, probably the largest part of it. The amount of pornography now produced apparently hangs off the cyberspace like a huge blue whale; it's more than all our other cultural activities put together, which is kind of disheartening. I always figured that men must eventually get sick of it really, it's all the same. So they play a part in that way, that you see the reification of women, and that includes extreme pornography and sadistic pornography. There's also the phenomenon of Fifty Shades of Grey, the incorporation of sadism into ordinary domestic interaction, which I think is revolting and the fact that women apparently find it titillating and exciting just makes me faintly despair of them. If you want dignity, you'd better bloody claim it, and that's not a way of doing it. The media do have a part to play. We have endless gossip about celebrity interactions but we never have any very sophisticated analysis of what the interaction really signifies. Glyn Davis Mary, at the family violence summit last week in Canberra, a number of voices pointed out that the media have decided to reframe what were called king hits into coward punches, so you can actually have a different discourse that hopefully changes behaviour. And many voices asked why have we not seen that around domestic violence. Mary Polis Well, I think we have to some extent. I think our mainstream media outlets are getting much better at number one, reporting family violence, reporting it accurately, and reporting it responsibly. We also see quite often a media response to calling out negative attitudes, negative statements, damaging statements about women. So I think we are seeing some changes in the way that media reports domestic violence, which are really important. Going back to something that Germaine said is that our media these days is such a complex beast that there's only so much that mainstream media outlets can do when you have the massive industries that are advertising online pornography et cetera. Glyn Davis I'd like to focus now on children, because it's an important part of this story. Let's listen to Cathy Humphreys. She's the Professor of Social Work here at the University of Melbourne. She spoke to us recently about domestic violence and children. Cathy Humphreys I don't think we should underestimate the problems around children being inculcated by men who are domestically violent. They inculcate particularly their sons into very aggressive and violence-supportive attitudes towards women. Our family law doesn't help that where they're giving very high levels of contact to men who use violence. I've been part of a team interviewing 50 women who have separated; about 20 out of those 50 women could talk very directly about when children come back from child contact with someone they've separated from but who was domestically violent, they come back with all sorts of terrible attitudes towards them. They spit, they say I don't have to listen to you, they call them names and insult them. Some of the young men, once they become teenagers start attacking their single mothers. Glyn Davis Joanna, this is a story that resonates through the literature and no doubt in your experience, and compounded, as Cathy Humphreys just pointed out, by the impact of the legal system which sets rules about access and so on. How does this get addressed in a practical sense? Joanna Fletcher In a practical sense it gets addressed by very good legal representation, but in a policy sense I think we really have a long way to go still in the family law system, and obviously that was a limitation that our Victorian Royal Commission had because family law is Federal, and although the Commission did put in some recommendations to try to push the issue a little bit, we in Women's Legal Services have certainly been campaigning quite strongly for changes in the family law system, both legislative changes and also system changes. Quite often family law cases can run for as long as - in some court registries, in Sydney for example, for three years. It won't be until the final hearing that a finding will be made as to whether a mother's allegation of family violence is actually true or not. So the judicial officer will be making a decision based on assertions and denials with nothing proven and very often what happens, which is what Professor Humphreys has picked up on in that clip, is that decisions are made placing children in contact arrangements that are really not safe. Even if they're not physically unsafe for the child, they're terribly emotionally unsafe. Glyn Davis Mary, if I may ask, how did the Royal Commission deal with this question of children? Mary Polis Children were a very large focus of the Commission's report in a number of ways. Following on from what Joanna said, one of the areas that the Commission looked at was the suite of opportunities or interventions that are available to support young fathers or new fathers about how to be good fathers, and to understand that the behaviours that they display towards their partners to the extent that they're negative and abusive will impact on their children, and will impact on their children in ways that they probably won't be able to see for many, many years. There's a range of emerging programs that really try to engage men at the point where they're entering into fatherhood to give them the skills and behaviours and attitudes that will help build good relationships with their children and we hope determine the ways in which they might then behave in, for example, Family Court proceedings. The other thing about children that we know from the research is that whilst many, many children who are exposed to violence are resilient and become really productive, successful, healthy members of society, some go on to remain pretty damaged and bruised, emotionally if not physically, from the experience, leading either to future victimisation, that they go into - they see relationships as places where they are victims of abuse, or they go on to perpetrate violence and abuse themselves. So one of the really critical points of intervention is following incidents of family violence to make sure that children are getting the supports that they need to overcome those potential effects. Glyn Davis I'd like to just focus on some of the policy implications and choices that are open to us, and I'd like to start with a clip from Germaine, speaking in 1988 at the University of Western Australia. Germaine Greer I really do not believe that the state is the answer to patriarchal abuse of women within the family. The answer to that, in my view after studying the problem for many years, is that it is again the breaking down of that barrier between household and society and school which will have the most effect in blunting the abuse and brutalisation of women in the family. Let me put it very crudely: women will not be beaten if somebody is watching. They are beaten inside the sacred enclave of the home, which up until recently police did not dare to enter. It was enough to say domestic and the police stayed out. Glyn Davis Germaine, in that clip you argue very strongly that state interventions are unlikely to change the fundamentals that cause domestic violence, and much of the conversation that goes on about responses goes to preventive measures, changes in policing, education in schools, men's behaviour programs and so on. What sort of policy interventions are you looking for that you think could make a meaningful difference? Germaine Greer Well, I'm not sure that it's a matter of policy really. You can see why calling the police is going to make the situation immediately worse, especially if - either you are involved in litigation in a trial, in which case the man is found guilty and he's got another reason to hate you and pursue you, or he's not found guilty in which case he feels even more aggrieved than he was before. If the problem is lack of sympathy, lack of understanding, I can't - when I was listening to what Mary was saying, I couldn't help thinking about when I'd been to prisons where half the population are very, very young men who have somehow managed to come through school without being able to read and write, who will be in jail not being taught anything, again having huge amounts of time on their hands. The other thing is that they were all fathers and they became fathers very young. And how many of them find that they are becoming fathers, against their will, almost unconsciously, and there's no option. They either have to be good fathers, or what, and they haven't got anything that it would take to be a good father. They haven't had good fathers themselves; they don't have role models to follow. I think we've got to be not too starry-eyed about what powers we have been given, because we can't impose most of them without destroying civil rights, without agreeing to treat people as not adult and not self-regulating in some way. In so many ways it's a cultural issue; it's not even a legal issue. This is soul deep, this, it's not a wrinkle on the surface of society, it's something deeply wrong. Glyn Davis Mary, as you reflect on the outcomes of the Royal Commission and Germaine's view that public policy has limited applicability in this area because of the underlying social and cultural issues. What hope do you see for change that might reduce the incidence of domestic violence? Mary Polis Well, I think we have a moment in time to try everything that we have at our disposal, and that encompasses a range of state-based policy interventions that involve really good policing, quality and sensitive and accessible court services, really accessible social services. I think those things are really important for women in crisis; they help many, many women. It's true that at the moment there are serious shortcomings in many of those responses that we need to address, that we need to do a lot to address. But those interventions alone won't do anything to change future generations and the incidence of family violence. I think we need to have policy responses that deal with education, cultural attitudes, community involvement, et cetera. I think from a policy perspective there's no silver bullet, but we are actually - we can't not try everything that we have at our disposal. Glyn Davis There are 227 recommendations in the report; if all implemented, you're saying there are still limits to the difference they could make? Mary Polis Well, the recommendations go to cultural and attitudinal issues, so I would hope that if those recommendations - many of which I have to say were long term in nature, so there's an anticipation that this will take a long time to turn around, but as a global approach I think we have to be optimistic for our future generations. Glyn Davis Joanna, the Women's Legal Service provides important services for women in crisis at the crisis end of this, but you're also of course interested in the policy implications and opportunities. What's your view on the public policy opportunities here, and do you see in particular areas like integration of services as being an important part of how we address this? Joanna Fletcher Absolutely I think integration of services is important. I think there were very few people in the sector who were anything but excited and enthusiastic about the Royal Commission's recommendations and the fact that the Premier prior to the release of the report and since has confirmed that the Government intends to implement every single one of them. As Mary said, they do span from how do we change community attitudes that enable, that facilitate violence happening, to how do we respond effectively to it. So my view is that if the policy settings that the Royal Commission has proposed I think are about right, and if we actually follow through on all of those, especially the long-term ones, we really will see significant change in Victoria, and hopefully ultimately Australia. Glyn Davis And Mary? Mary Polis Another theme in the Commission's report was the need to continue to be reflective about what's being implemented and the success or failure of those interventions so that we're continuing to evolve our thinking as we learn more about how violence is experienced, what's effective in intervening to stop it or to ameliorate its effects. I think from a policy perspective the Commission's report is not intended to be a static set of recommendations or rules, prescriptive rules, but rather to be a set of guiding recommendations that need to live and breathe as we learn more about the dynamics and the nature of violence, how it's experienced and how it's addressed. Glyn Davis One of the points that Joanna raised earlier though was that much of the legal system was outside the scope of the Commission because so much of the law here is Federal. How do you address that and how significant is that in the sort of outcomes you're talking about? Mary Polis Well, many women talk about and spoke to us about the challenges of the Family Court and about the challenges of having to navigate multiple systems once they've experienced violence. For many women, it's really central to their experience of violence. The Commission made a series of recommendations about how Victoria as a state party could raise those issues and see them addressed, but they're issues that the nation is going to need to address at a Federal level as well. Glyn Davis Joanna, one of the common criticisms in fact of the operation of the legal system is that a woman who has been subjected to domestic violence may well have to face the perpetrator in court if they choose to self-represent. How significant is this in women making decisions about whether to use the legal processes? Joanna Fletcher We've seen it to be quite significant. I should clarify that that's not what happens at a state level. In Victoria, there are protections for women from being directly cross-examined by the perpetrator of violence against them. That has not happened - that has not changed in the Federal system at the moment so in the family law context women can be directly cross-examined by their perpetrator. We have found a number of clients who have chosen not to proceed with family law cases even where they've had quite significant concerns about the safety of their children because of that incredibly difficult and oppressive circumstance of facing him in court. It's a very real issue and it's not a difficult one for the Federal Government to fix. There are models in Victoria and there are models in other states around Australia. It's a relatively simple legislative step which the Government could take tomorrow. Glyn Davis Germaine, a final policy question, if I may. You've touched on several occasions about the particular dilemma faced by women in Indigenous communities and indeed, Indigenous women are 35 times more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous. Do you see a role for public policy in Indigenous communities and if so, how does one negotiate the cultural differences and the importance of respect for autonomy? Germaine Greer There are all kinds of issues in looking at the Indigenous situation vis-à-vis family violence. It's not only more likely that you will be a victim of family violence, it's also a chance that the violence will be really severe; you'll get your skull broken or your leg broken and weapons are involved. But women are also involved. This is - in some cases there's a violent tradition and a tradition of settling disputes with some sort of confrontation. The communities have to work their own way through that. I was sitting there thinking, okay, so you're going to the Family Court, you're up against someone who's been violent to you, what happens next? He goes to prison. Now, wait a minute. He is dangerous to his sexual partners and his family, he is not a loose cannon in the sense that he could be out there murdering just anybody. It's a special kind of crime, and how would going to prison fix it, especially as prisons themselves are run on sadistic lines where he will be under the cosh to some - one of the people who has power within the prison and so forth. Prisons are corrupt places, they're places where people learn further corruption, and despair, as we're very well aware. In my view, they simply don't work, and they certainly don't ease the rage and resentment of people involved in destructive conflict within the family. I just don't think it's the way to go. We have to have a better idea. Prison costs us an absolute fortune, it would be cheaper to keep people in Claridge's than actually keep them in prison. I'm expecting some new thinking about how to redeem people. If we're talking about restorative justice, we have to restore them to full humanity. Sending them to prison does exactly the opposite, but what other option do we have? But this to me means that sadism is, as it were, built into our social structure. We can only think in terms of punishment. Half the men who've belted a wife thought they were punishing her; they are people who really believe in punishment. This punishment is one of the ideas that has to be drained of its poison. Joanna Fletcher It's clear that prison is pretty ineffective at addressing violence. It might provide a little window of peace for someone who's on the receiving end of the violence. But in terms of interventions that actually change the course of a perpetrator's life, one of the strong themes that came out in the Royal Commission's report is this concept of perpetrator accountability, and in the past, we've often thought, well, that's what the police do and that's what prisons do. But if you think about accountability as being how do we move this perpetrator of violence to a position where he fully acknowledges and accepts responsibility for what he has done and the harm that he has caused, then interventions like restorative justice, and that the Commission recommended - I think the first in Australia pilot of restorative justice in family violence cases, which will be proceedings later this year or early next year. I think that does offer some real hope for truly holding perpetrators accountable for their behaviour in that they have to acknowledge and accept that responsibility, rather than being put away somewhere where their violence-supportive beliefs are going to be confirmed rather than changed. Glyn Davis Mary, can you tell us something about your research into restorative justice? Mary Polis Well, restorative justice is a model of justice that's founded on human relationships rather than looking at justice as an issue that is between a wrongdoer and the state. A restorative justice intervention or process generally - not always, but generally brings together the victim of the crime and the perpetrator of the crime in a safe environment, a structured environment, where the victim gets to tell the perpetrator what in her view has happened, what he did to her, the impact that it's had on her and others in her life. He then has the opportunity to express remorse, to explain perhaps some answers to questions that she might have. And then there can be a discussion about what steps might be taken in the future to meet her needs for accountability on his part that may range from an apology, it may be no more than an expression of remorse on his part, but it may be a range or set of circumstances that they negotiate or agree about what he will do in the future and the type of relationship they might have in the future, the type of relationship he may have with the children. It's important to say in relation to restorative justice interventions in family violence that they do need to be safe, they need to be victim-led, that is they need to be interventions where it's the victim who decides that's what she wants, and that she can expect something out of it. It can't be a substitute for other interventions through the courts and through the police system where those are really necessary to ensure individuals' safety. Restorative justice internationally has - interventions have most often been applied in cases of youth justice and generally low-level offending. It's only very recently that it's been considered to be an option in cases of sexual violence and domestic violence, because of the scepticism or the concerns that people have had about the potentially manipulative and re-traumatising impact that the interaction can have. I think though that what's emerged is that women who have gone through the court system very rarely get the outcomes that are right for them, that very rarely meet their needs to be heard, to have somebody understand the impact on them, and for some form of accountability that's meaningful to be put in place. I think we actually owe it to victims of violence to listen to what they want out of these processes and to do what we can to meet those needs in ways that are safe and appropriate for those individuals. Glyn Davis Joanna, in a society still marked by significant gender inequality, will we be able to make a difference to domestic violence? Joanna Fletcher: I think we will, but we're talking a difference over generations, not a difference tomorrow or even in the next year or two. It's something that we must have cross-party commitment to address this because of course government cycles, political cycles don't lend themselves to 10, 20, 30 years of work changing community attitudes. Glyn Davis Mary, is gender inequality an insuperable barrier to addressing domestic violence? Mary Polis I don't think that we have the luxury of thinking that and giving up. I think we have to make every effort that we can. Addressing gender inequality of course has benefits for everybody, not just for putting an end to violence so of course we need to keep addressing gender inequality in all ways that we can. I think we can't underestimate the value of talking very openly about the violence that occurs within families. Interestingly, when you do talk about it, a lot of people disclose what's happened to them, both recently and a long time in the past. During the course of the Commission we spoke to many people, many men, old men who had endured violence at the hands of their parents and had kept that hidden, really, for all of their lives. So I think the process of talking about it, exposing it, understanding it, working out ways to address it in ways that are meaningful to people in our contemporary lives will really make a difference. Glyn Davis Germaine, you have argued very strongly that the cultural underpinnings of domestic violence are much more fundamental than potential interventions around public policy. What would it take to change the sad story that we've been exploring today? Germaine Greer Well, I was just thinking, what would happen in a school where you wrote your essay about what we did in the holidays and a child stood up and said what happened to me in the holidays is that I got bashed up. What if children began to talk about it in school? We're talking about talking about it, but the people who are right in the firing line, who are observing it and who are undergoing it are keeping schtum at school because of shame. I can remember I used to go to school in black stockings. I was the only child with black stockings. Why was I wearing black stockings? Because my mother beat me on the legs with a stick and my legs were covered with black marks and so I wore the stockings. Another child came in stockings one day and I can remember that people said why are you wearing those stupid stockings and she didn't answer, and I said it's because her mother beats her. That's what it's like being a child. If our children did begin to exercise agency here, because they themselves were disgusted at what was happening at home, if they did turn up at school and say ‘everybody, help me, this happened this weekend, daddy came home drunk or mummy came home drunk and threw a bottle at daddy’ or whatever, we'd be disgusted, shocked, disconcerted. But it's going to take something like that. It's going to take something as revolutionary as that, as a child standing up to be a critic of the conditions in which she was growing - or she or he was growing up. And it will happen. Glyn Davis It's an important reminder that public policy is limited when it's dealing with something much more fundamental and social and that there are limits to the power of any policy to change the story, but it clearly has a role in addressing this. I've been very fortunate today to speak to three extraordinary people. My thanks to guests Joanna Fletcher, the CEO of the Women's Legal Service Victoria. Joanna Fletcher Thank you. Glyn Davis To Mary Polis, the former CEO of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. Mary Polis Thank you. Glyn Davis And thanks to Professor Germaine Greer, a pleasure to have you back on campus. Germaine Greer Thank you. Glyn Davis And thank you for listening to The Policy Shop. Voiceover If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, domestic or family violence call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au. The Policy Shop would like to thank Dr Rachel Buchanan and the team at the University of Melbourne Archives for all their assistance in making this episode. The Policy Shop is produced by Eoin Hahessy with audio engineering by Gavin Nebauer. Research on this episode was by Ruby Schwartz and Paul Gray. Copyright The University of Melbourne 2017.

Robert Roberts (Christadelphian) Robert Roberts (April 8, 1839 – September 23, 1898) is the man generally considered to have continued the work of organising and establishing the Christadelphian movement founded by Dr. John Thomas. He was a prolific author and the editor of The Christadelphian magazine from 1864–1898. Early life Robert Roberts, born in Link Street, Aberdeen, Scotland, was the son of a captain of a small coasting vessel. His grandmother on his father's side was of the Clan MacBeth. His mother was a strongly religious Calvinistic Baptist, schoolteacher, and daughter of a London merchant. Though his family were of lowly circumstances, he was raised in a well disciplined, and strictly religious environment. Leaving school at the age of 11, he worked a short while as clerk in a rope factory, then serving in a grocers shop, and thirdly as a sort of apprentice to a lithographer. At 13 he became an apprentice to a druggist, also taking lessons in Latin, and learning Pitman's Shorthand. His mother took him as a boy of 10 to hear John Thomas speak in Aberdeen, Scotland. He formally and briefly, became a member of his mother's church when aged 12. Shortly afterward he came across a copy of a magazine, belonging to his sister, entitled the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, by Thomas, who knew Roberts' mother. Robert Roberts then began his Bible studies in earnest. After reading Thomas’ book Elpis Israel, with Bible in hand, he became convinced of its soundness, and ceased attending chapel with his family. He was baptised in 1853 aged 14 as part of the "Baptised Believers" (this was 11 years before the name 'Christadelphian' was coined by John Thomas; he was re-baptized in 1863 "on attaining to an understanding of the things concerning the name of Jesus, of which he was ignorant at his first immersion"). He developed a reading plan to facilitate his daily systematic reading of the Scriptures. A form of this plan was later published as The Bible Companion and continues to be used by many Christadelphians. He married Jane Norrie in Edinburgh on April 8, 1859. They had six children, only three of whom survived into adulthood. Shorthand writer and reporter When Robert Roberts was 17 he became shorthand writer for a modest paper, the Aberdeen Daily Telegraph, after which he worked as a casual reporter, once being called on to assist in reporting the speeches delivered at an investigation into the merits of the Suez Canal scheme, conducted by Aberdeen Town Council on the occasion of a visit by Ferdinand de Lesseps. He left Aberdeen for Edinburgh to work as a reporter on The Caledonian Mercury. Leaving Edinburgh 1858, he worked for The Examiner in Huddersfield, then briefly for the same employer in Dewsbury. Then he accepted a travelling assignment as shorthand writer for the American phrenologists, Orson Squire Fowler and Samuel R. Wells, who were visiting Huddersfield as part of a lecturing tour (Roberts later described phrenology as of similarly high value to his religious beliefs). He returned to his job on the Huddersfield Examiner in July 1861. During his time at The Examiner he was also appointed as the Huddersfield correspondent for the Leeds Mercury, the Halifax Courier, and the Manchester Examiner. In the winter of 1863-64, Roberts moved to Birmingham, but failed in his attempt to set up a general reporting and advertising agency there. In 1864 he became a reporter for the Birmingham Daily Post, largely as a result of a testimonial from John Bright MP. In July 1865, he became a shorthand writer for the Birmingham Bankruptcy Court, working there until 1870, when a change in the Bankruptcy Act of 1869 brought an end to his appointment. Then, at the suggestion of Thomas, it was arranged that he should receive a salary for his editorship of The Christadelphian magazine, and so his career as a reporter came to an end. Association with John Thomas It was 1856 when Robert Roberts first wrote to John Thomas in America. In 1858 he tried, but failed, to raise funds for travelling expenses to invite Thomas to visit England again; receiving a reply concerning his efforts through the pages of The Herald of The Kingdom. During the American Civil War Thomas had to suspend publication of The Herald of The Kingdom magazine. Thus on October 8, 1861 Robert Roberts wrote to Thomas urging him to visit, which he did in 1862. Shorthand notes taken by Roberts during this visit formed the basis of Roberts' book Dr John Thomas: his life and work (published in 1873 - two years after Thomas' death). Some time after this visit, due in part to misunderstandings and misinformation, there was a short breach of friendly relations between the two men; this was resolved in October 1864. Subsequently, they enthusiastically supported each other's work. Roberts collected subscriptions and organised the distribution of John Thomas’ exposition of the Book of Revelation, Eureka (3 vols. 1861, 1866, 1868), in England, and (in time) many of his other works. Roberts raised the money to fund what would be the last trip of Thomas to England in May 1869. Toward the end of this trip, March 1870, Thomas made Roberts custodian of all his affairs in the event of his death, which occurred sooner than anticipated in 1871. Roberts died in 1898, and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, New York City, beside the grave of Thomas. Preaching Even in his early days Roberts endeavoured to organise preaching events wherever he went. His first serious attempt was in 1860, when he delivered a course of 8 public lectures in Senior's School Room, East Parade, Huddersfield. The Huddersfield meeting then took on Spring Street Academy, (a former Campbellite meeting place) for Sunday meetings including public lectures. Some Sunday afternoons he would also give out-of-door addresses, either in St. George's Square or the Market Place, Huddersfield. It was at Spring Street, in the winter of 1861, that Robert Roberts delivered a series of twelve Lectures on successive Sunday afternoons, systematically setting out Christadelphian beliefs. In 1864 after moving to Birmingham, he organised a lecture at Birmingham Town Hall, in reply to an Irvingite preacher who had spoken there previously. Between 1,500 and 1,800 people attended. Eventually in 1866 he leased the Athenaeum Chambers, 71 Temple Row, Birmingham, staying there until December 1871 when the meeting moved to the Temperance hall, 8 Temple Street, Birmingham. Although based in Birmingham, he travelled widely around the country, preaching and supporting the growing Christadelphian movement. Roberts used all the means at his disposal to preach what he believed to be the truth, and in 1877 he sent a copies of his pamphlet Prophecy and the Eastern Question to all the members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, receiving the following reply from Gladstone: “DUNSTER, January 24th, 1877. Sir, Allow me to thank you for your tract, which I shall read with great interest; for I have been struck with the apparent ground for belief that the state of the East may be treated of in that field where you have been labouring Your faithful servant, W.E.Gladstone.” In 1895 he embarked (through pressure of circumstances) upon a voyage to Australia. He travelled via the Suez canal, touching at Naples and Colombo to Adelaide. He visited many towns and cities, in Australia and New Zealand, preaching everywhere he went. He then travelled back via the Fiji Islands, the Honolulu (then still known as the Sandwich Islands), Canada and America arriving back in Birmingham in 1896. In 1897 he returned to Australia with his family, they settled in Coburg, a northern suburb of Melbourne, in “Orient House”. In 1897-1898 he went on a short preaching tour in Australia, before embarking on a yet another preaching tour to New Zealand with his wife. He was in the midst of yet more travelling and preaching when he died of heart failure in San Francisco in September 1898 aged 59. He was succeeded as editor of The Christadelphian Magazine by Charles Curwen Walker. Writer and editor Robert Roberts, as early as 1858, attempted to start a manuscript magazine - just a single copy sent from friend to friend through the post. It did not get beyond the 4th or 5th number. In 1862 John Thomas, having suspended publication of the Herald of the Kingdom, advised Roberts to start a magazine. It is at this point that Robert's re-baptism (mentioned above) occurred, midway between the first edition of 12 lectures (1861), and preceding in July 1864 commencement of the publication of The Ambassador of the Coming Age. Thomas, out of concern that someone else might start a publication and call it The Christadelphian, urged Robert Roberts to change the name of his magazine to The Christadelphian, which he did in 1869. His editorship of the magazine continued with some assistance until his death in 1898. Roberts collected for the Rosh Pinna settlement in Israel in 1886 and later, but lost significant funds in the failure of the American Electric Sugar Refining Company in 1888. Roberts wrote and published numerous articles, pamphlets and books. A series of 12 lectures, given in Huddersfield in 1861, formed the basis of his first book. Each lecture was published sequentially at fortnightly intervals, in penny numbers. The second edition (February 1862), entitled Twelve Lectures, was stitched together in one volume. Expanded to 18 lectures, the book was republished by Robert Roberts in 1884, as Christendom Astray From the Bible. From its first publication as 12 lectures, Christendom Astray was acknowledged by Christadelphians as a standard work putting forth their beliefs; it has now been in print for almost 146 years in several editions. In 1867, from the manuscript of R.C. Bingley of Chicago, he published The Declaration, a standard work used for many years. He was involved in many public religious debates (a feature of the age in which he lived) with those of differing opinions, often publishing the substance of the debate in book or pamphlet form; Was Jesus of Nazareth The Messiah? 1871. Transcript of debate with Louis Stern of the Anti-Jewish Conversionist Society, Birmingham. This debate marks the beginnings of mutually respectful relations with Birmingham's Jewish community, which continued in the 1880s when Roberts called on the Christadelphian community to support Laurence Oliphant's appeal for funds for the Rosh Pinna settlement at Al-Ja'una in Galilee. In 1872 Roberts published the book Man Mortal as a reply to the book “Life and Immortality” (1871) by Frederick William Grant of the Plymouth Brethren. The Bradlaugh Debate, a public debate held in 1876 with Charles Bradlaugh entitled “Is The Bible Divine?”. Anglo-Israelism Refuted, based on a three night debate with the advocate of British Israelism, Edward Hine, held on April 21–23, 1879 at Exeter Hall, London, with Lord William Lennox presiding. Roberts was also involved in debates within the Christadelphian movement, which in some cases resulted in divisions. For example, 1865 marked separation from George Dowie of Edinburgh who was teaching the doctrine of the existence of a supernatural devil. Roberts' brother-in-law, William Norrie, initially sided with Dowie, but Dowie's group did not long survive his death. As an "Arranging Brother" of Birmingham Temperance Hall Ecclesia he was directly involved in the compilation of the Birmingham Statement of Faith (1877), and by letter from overseas agreed with minor amendation to the BASF (Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith) in 1898. However also in 1898 was published an article True Principles and Uncertain Details; or, The Danger of Going Too Far in our Demands on Fellow-Believers. Voyage to Australia and New Zealand To quote his own words, "through stress of circumstances" Roberts undertook, at the expense of his friends there, a voyage to "visit the Colonies..., for the more complete restoration of health." Throughout his voyage in 1895-6, Roberts kept a (subsequently published) diary of his experiences and observations, in which he made sure to "put all in" and "resist the feeling that things are unimportant for record". Bibliography Books Christendom Astray From the Bible (1884) Dr Thomas: His Life and Works (1873) The Law of Moses My Days and My Ways Nazareth Revisited (1890) Seasons of Comfort (1879) Thirteen Lectures on the Apocalypse (1880) To the Elect of God in Times of Trouble The Truth about God and the Bible The Visible Hand of God The Ways of Providence (1881) The Trial (1882) Diary of a Voyage to Australia, New Zealand, and Other Lands (1896) Booklets The Blood of Christ (1895) The Christadelphian Instructor (1891) The Commandments of Christ The Ecclesial Guide (1883) The Good Confession (1869) The Parables of Christ The Sect Everywhere Spoken Against (reprint of a lecture) The Slain Lamb (1873) Was Jesus of Nazareth The Messiah? (The Stern debate; 1871) Everlasting Punishment not 'Eternal Torments''' (1871) Magazines The Christadelphian References Bibliography Roberts, Robert, My Days and My Ways An Autobiography (Birmingham: The Christadelphian, 1894) Walker, Charles C., Robert Roberts His Ways and His Days (Birmingham: The Christadelphian) Collyer, Islip, Robert Roberts A Study of Life and Character, (Birmingham: The Christadelphian, 1917, Hyderabad, India 2003 176 pages) Thomas, John ed. The Herald of the Kingdom (America:1858) The Christadelphian'' Magazines 1864-1940 External links Works by Robert Roberts and other Christadelphian writers PDF Downloads of Robert Roberts works Category:1839 births Category:1898 deaths Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery Category:British Christian theologians Category:British biblical scholars Category:Christadelphians Category:Scottish Christians

Q: JavaScript: How to simultaneously declare a var and let variables in a for loop Although a hypothetical, this case puzzled me. Do you think it's possible and if so - how function count() { for ( let i = 0, k = 0; // <<< can this become sth like 'var i = 0; let k = 0' ? i < 10; i++, k++ ) { ... } // ... so that these log as follows: console.log( i ); // 10 console.log( k ); // undefined or Error } count(); Note: It's ok to declare for (let i=0, k=0; ...) or for (var i=0, k=0; ...), but can the i and k be declared simultaneously via var and let respectively somehow ? A: No, this is not allowed by the grammar. You can only have one of the keywords var, let and const in a loop head (or none at all). The solution is to just put the var outside of the loop head, which is a good practice anyway if you want to use it after the loop: function count() { var i = 0; for ( let k = 0; i < 10; i++, k++ ) { … } console.log( i ); // 10 console.log( k ); // ReferenceError } count();

Main menu Post navigation 0.5 The parents set you up and it ended in pash-rape. Awkward. That’s right: “pash-rape” – forceful kiss usually with one party not up for or expecting it. My parents set me up with a family friend “Oohh they’ve got a son in Melbourne” And I thought why not? Me being morbidly un-married, miserable and sick of meeting meatheads in bars… Mazel tov! He was good looking, conversation O-K, similar work field and background, a variety of wanky cocktails later and it’s pash-rape time. Whoa, slow down, I hadn’t even given him a hint of touch-on-the-leg-interested. Sure I laughed at his bad jokes, flung my hair around and batted my Loreal lashes – that’s just what girls do. I pushed him away and said “Err no, I don’t want to do this”. Which clearly sounded like to him ‘More please! Insert tongue here’. More attempted tonsil hockey and I abruptly said it was time for me to go. He then suggested coming home with me because – oh wait for it, “It would be easier to get a cab from my house.” Seriously, who does this guy usually date… Blondes? I got myself on the tram quick smart, sans the pash-maker, found a seat and one stop later was an iPod out, headphones in, please-don’t-stare-at-me mess of tears. What’s a girl to think? Obviously I was dressed like a slut and asking for it. I sat on the couch streaming tears while my male housemate assured me over and over my dress was fine and so were those 100% black I-can’t-even-see if-you’ve-shaved-your-legs-stockings. Clearly the problem wasn’t what I was wearing. Side note: we can wear whatever the hell we want without ‘asking for it’. You know when you’re feeling fantastic you want to wear bright clothes and show off your pins – you’ve lunged enough in BodyPump for them, why not?! You’ll expect a few more looks and attention, but that’s why you’ve dressed like that. Give me a hormonal, fat day and it’s muted navy’s and black all the way hoping you’ll fade into the Melbourne-we-don’t-do-colour-here background. So what was the deal with this guy, has he never had a girl say no? Has he been reading too many self-help-dating-just-go-for-it-mate books? Does he really think it’s O-K to maul a family friends daughter? Last time I checked it’s 2013 not Pride and Prejudice, men don’t have a right to that no matter how friendly your folks are, so back off Mr Surprise Mouth Banger. The following Sunday was Skype call with the parentals – Uh oh. I told Dad the quick version and finished with not being too happy about it – Dad acknowledged it all with the calm of closing a business deal. I’d hate to think what was actually going through his head. I asked him to not tell Mum – worried she’d call the parents and abuse the beejubus out of them or worse, their son. But a little part of me also wanted her too. I haven’t been set up by the parents again. Thanks Mum and Dad. Don’t know if they’re too scared after the bad experience or the word’s out: the Doyle daughter doesn’t put out.

While most Albertans pray for a brief, mild winter, the 900 or so residents of Fort Chipewyan yearn for interminable stretches of arctic air. The province’s most isolated northern settlement is only accessible to vehicles via an ice road. The more frigid the temperatures, the easier it is to reach. Minus 40C? Just a few more weeks, please. “The ice road is our lifeline, so people hope for cold weather,” says Stan Wigmore, a projects manager for the Mikisew Cree Group of Companies, which offers accommodations to construction workers and government employees at a rustic camp in Fort Chipewyan. “To understand, all you have to do is envision how people in a northern community get all of their needs met. “Essentials like food and building materials and fuel have to get there somehow. That’s where the reliance on the ice road comes in. There is only a short window for people to replenish their supplies for the whole year, so they are happy the quicker that winter begins. “If the weather stays mild, you have issues. It is economics for them.” Fort Chipewyan can be reached only by air, barge and boat in summer, and a 200-kilometre drive through wilderness in the heart of winter to its location on the banks of Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta. The ice road is as hilly and slippery as a hockey rink as it winds through dense forests, across frozen creeks and lake beds, and over sand dunes and muskeg bogs impossible to navigate at any other time of year. In some places, the corners are sharp, the hills are blind, and ice cracks beneath the weight as 45,000-kilogram transport-trailers crawl across rivers. “Some of the truckers drive with the window open and one hand on the door handle in case they have to bail out,” says Kevin Ellingson, a security guard at the hamlet’s nursing station. When he moved to Fort Chipewyan from Manitoba eight years ago, it took weeks for him to be reunited with his belongings because the ice on the road was too thin to support a moving van. “Overall, I think our ice road is in very good shape, but it is still drive-at-your-own risk.” Set up and maintained by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo at $2.5 to $2.8 million per year, the road begins 84 km north of Fort McMurray. It is open to light vehicles by Dec. 15, weather permitting. Until it closes around the end of March, residents and truckers use it for everything from Christmas and grocery shopping to hauling nearly three million litres of fuel and heating oil, and a like amount of diesel to power Fort Chipewyan’s electricity-generating plant. “Without the ice road, the expense of everything here would be to a point where people in our community couldn’t afford it,” says Russell Kaskamin, general manager of Fort Petroleum, the community’s lone source of gasoline and furnace oil. “I use it for business, but also for groceries and just about anything else you can imagine. “It is a must-have for us.” --- The south gate to the winter road to Fort Chipewyan is nearly an hour past Fort McMurray at the end of Highway 63, past Syncrude’s colossal mine, Imperial’s Kearl Oil Sands site, and a short distance beyond Suncor’s sprawling Fort Hills encampment. The entrance to the road is preceded by a sign that foretells any number of perils: there are no services for 200 km, the use of cellphones is mostly fruitless, it is wise to carry an emergency kit, and, by all means, stay put if you break down. “You don’t want to walk away from your vehicle,” says Ed Sullivan, a truck driver from New Brunswick who travels to Alberta to haul logs for a mill in fall and uses the ice road to deliver diesel from Edmonton to Atco’s power station in Fort Chipewyan in winter. “Something you might not want to meet may come along and eat you.” The road was first built by volunteers from the community in the 1980s. It is one of only three such roads in the province and by far the busiest, used by nearly 7,000 vehicles each winter. Weather-permitting, trucks weighing up to 27,500 kilograms are allowed access beginning on Jan. 15, with the heaviest 18 wheelers welcome by the end of January. The speed limit is 80 in some areas, but 50 unless otherwise posted, and slower on hills, around sharp curves and on river crossings. In some stretches, snow swirls above the road, in others the sun glistens off of narrow corridors of glare ice. “I think it is no different than travelling on any other road in winter,” says Rob Billard, the manager of road maintenance for the Wood Buffalo region. “You have to drive the speed it allows you to and not necessarily the number on the sign. “And you have to be prepared in case you break down. You could have a problem at 7 p.m. and be stranded all night.” After traversing down steep hills and through towering sand dunes, the road meets the Athabasca River Delta about 45 km from Fort Chipewyan, cuts a path through the marsh and skirts the edge of Wood Buffalo National Park. Cattails coated with ice and reeds line the road, which is flat but tricky to manage. “I didn’t realize I was going into a corner until the last second, and I took it too fast,” Isaias Morgan says as he stands beside his 1984 Buick Regal waiting for a passing truck to yank him out of the snow. “I hit the brakes, but I couldn’t stop myself. “I spun out for at least 300 yards.” Born in British Columbia but raised in Miami, Fla., LaMorgan is en route to his job as a youth co-ordinator in Fort Smith, and is in fine humour despite the minor mishap. It is the first time he has driven on an ice road. “It is fun, but you have to keep your head on what you are doing,” he says. --- Josh Wells, foreman with Edmonton-based Fillmore Construction, has been overseeing building projects in Fort Chipewyan for two years. “There has been a steep learning curve in the time I have been up here,” Wells says, with a laugh. “Little things you take for granted, you can’t take for granted here. “Two summers ago, I had to fly in one piece of two-by-10. I couldn’t find one anywhere.” Now in the midst of a renovating the community hall, Wells says construction was on standby until only a few weeks ago when materials, including 364 bundles of shingles, made through. “We spend a couple of months putting together a list of everything we think we need,” Wells says, “We bring up twice as much lumber as the project calls for, and extra boxes of screws and nails. “It is quite the process.” Keith Kraaynbrink, an estimator for the Monteith Building Group in Edmonton, spent countless hours organizing the materials needed last summer to construct an aquatic centre with three swimming lanes in Fort Chipewyan. Starting at the beginning of February, the company sent three transport trailers to the hamlet each day, including 10 truckloads of structural steel and 250 1,800-kilogram bags of concrete. “It takes a lot more planning than a regular project,” Kraaynbrink says. “Basically, you have a month to get all of your critical supplies up there. “We do like working in the north, but it presents its challenges. Because of that, a lot of companies don’t want to do it.” The hamlet manager and a resident of Fort Chipewyan for 47 years, Bruce Inglis sits in his office and talks about the enormous volume of goods that is brought in on the ice road every year. He guesses it takes 400 to 500 truckloads, and that doesn’t include the supplies obtained by the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan bands. More than a kilometre of piping has to be brought in this winter for a new water-treatment plant, not to mention the structure itself. There is also sand and salt for the roads, chemicals for the water-treatment plant, furniture and non-perishable food. Commercial vehicles have to be driven to Fort McMurray to be inspected. “The road is extremely significant,” he says. “I am not sure what we would do without it.” Archie Waquan sits at a table at Chief’s Corner Gas Bar, strokes his white beard, and mulls the importance of the ice road. Before it existed in a rudimentary form in the mid-1980s, truckers had to take a circuitous route to get from Fort Chipewyan to Edmonton, a 22-hour trip that included passing through Fort Smith and Hay River in the Northwest Territories. “It is not only important to myself as a businessman, but to the whole community,” says Waquan, a former longtime Mikisew Cree chief. “I do all of my hauling and stock up for the whole year.” The night before, Jeff Hunter, a retiree who lends a hand at the gas bar, completed a run to Fort McMurray and back on the ice road. “It’s like a roller-coaster on steroids,” Hunter says. “Even at 50 kilometres an hour, it’s an adventure. But it’s the thing that makes the community go.”

Sophomore • 2011-12 Finished the season 3-8 in singles and 3-2 in doubles ... Was 2-5 in Ivy League singles and 1-0 in doubles ... Went 1-3 in singles and 2-1 in doubles during the non-conference portion of the dual season ... Won her first Ivy League match April 7 with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Crystal Leung of Columbia to get to 1-1 in Ancient Eight play ... Swept Penn's Daniela DePaoli, 6-0, 6-2, at No. 4 singles ... Paired with Kelly Whelan to beat Decker-Sadowski/Liu of Dartmouth, 8-3, at No. 2 doubles in the season finale. Freshman • 2010-11 Earned a 3-6 record in singles and doubles play over the course of three fall tournaments ... Beat Shannon Bates from Virginia Tech, 4-6, 7-6(3), 10-6, at the William and Mary Invitational ... Won her round of 16 match against Joanna Zwirbulis from St. John's at the USTA Billie Jean King Inivitational. 6-2, 1-6, 10-7 ... All three doubles victories came paired with Hannah Morrill including two at the USTA Billie Jean King Invitational ... Won her singles match in straight sets and paired with teammate Hideko Tachibana to win in doubles against Boston University ... Downed Katarina Gajic of Boston College, 6-2, 6-3 ... Defeated Ruxandra Dumitrescu from Cornell at the ECAC Indoor Championship Feb. 18 ... Picked up a three-set win in singles over Jessy Mekpoh from San Francisco March 17, while also pairing with Samantha Rosekrans to defeat Gratan and Akerbant, 8-1, in doubles ... Won first three Ivy singles and doubles matches over opponents from Cornell, Columbia and Penn ... Finished freshman season with a 10-15 singles record and 12-14 doubles mark. Before Harvard Captained tennis team at National Cathedral School for Girls ... Played No. 1 position all four seasons ... Three-time All-Met first-team selection in 2008, '09 and '10 ... Named All-District in 2007 ... Four-time team Most Valuable Player ... Recipient of the Coach's Award in 2010 ... Helped team win two Independent School League championships ... Earned a Top 25 USTA ranking in Under-16 ... Commended Merit Scholar. Personal Worked with A.B.L.E. (A Better Living Experience), helping underprivileged children each week ... Interested in photography, travel and writing ... Father, Allen, played football at Virginia.

(1) Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an internal combustion engine piston in which a piston cap constituted by a plurality of ceramic pieces is fixed to the top portion of a piston body made of a metal, and a method of producing the same. (2) Description of the Invention Since ceramic materials have excellent mechanical strength, heat resistance, oxidation resistance, and heat insulating properties, when a portion of a piston, a cylinder liner, a cylinder head and so on of an internal combustion engine, which portion is to be brought into contact with a high temperature combustion gas, is constituted by the ceramic material, an increase in combustion temperature and reduction in heat loss can be attained to result in improved engine efficiency and reduction in harmful components in the exhaust gas can be expected. Thus, here have been proposed internal combustion engine pistons in which a piston cap made of ceramics is fixed to the top portion of a metal piston body. The engine pistons in which the ceramic piston cap is fixed to the top portion of the metal piston body are disclosed in, for instance, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 74,853/1983, U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,935 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,611. Among them, Japanese Patent Appllication Laid-Open No. 74,853/1983 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,404,935 disclose pistons in which a ceramic piston cap having an integral structure is fixed to the top portion of a metal piston body by casting or engagement. In general, since the ceramic material has a lower heat conductivity, there occurs a large difference in temperature between the high temperature combustion gas-contacting surface and the metal piston body-contacting surface of the ceramic piston cap which is fixed to the top portion of the metal piston body. Therefore, the ceramic piston cap with such an integrated structure has the drawback that the piston cap tends to be broken due to thermal stress caused by the large temperature difference, and this tendency becomes conspicuous as the size of the piston increases. On the other hand, U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,611 discloses a piston in which a piston cap constituted by a plurality of ceramic pieces is fixed to the top portion of a metal piston body through casting. According to this piston, a cushioning layer composed of ceramic fibers is provided around the piston cap to mitigate the stress caused through the casting. However, this structure has the drawback that the fixing of the ceramic piston cap to the metal piston body becomes insufficient due to the presence of the cushioning layer so that the piston cap becomes loose when the piston is in use. Further, Japanese Patent Utility Model registration Publication No. 48,327/1983 and Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 60,306/1979 disclose pistons in which a molten metal is directly cast around a piston cap constituted by a plurality ceramic pieces. However, the method by which the piston cap, split into the plurality of ceramic pieces is insert cast and fixed to the top portion of the metal piston body has the drawback that the assembling of the piston cap into a mold is complicated, and therefore this method is unsuitable for mass production. Further, the piston in which the ceramic piston cap is fixed to the metal piston body through casting has the drawback that the ceramics fracture when thermal treatment such as quenching is effected.

In 1939 cavalry was still one of the main weapons of the Polish Army; Indeed, it was considered as the elite of it, especially the units of Mounted Artillery. The cavalry regiments were the destination chosen by the majority of the best officers of each promotion. The fact that cavalry survived as a substantial part of the army seemed so anachronistic in the 20th century, but it was due more to the conclusions drawn from experience in the last battles that took place on Polish territory than to questions related to the long equestrian tradition of the nation (that too). World War I in the East had been fought mainly on Polish soil and had been a war of movements, contrary to what happened in the war of trenches of the front of the West. The cavalry could act effectively. In the 1919-1920 war between Poland and Soviet Russia, cavalry had played a key role. In the broad plains of eastern Poland, the two Bolshevik armies of cavalry, the Konarmia of Ghay Khan (in the north) and Budionny (in the south), had advanced unstoppably flanking the Polish defensive positions. In the decisive Polish victory at the Battle of Warsaw, Polish cavalry had been determinant, and it would be again defeating the Konarmia of Budionny in Komarów, the last great battle of history exclusively fought by cavalry troops in which 1,500 Polish riders defeated 6,000 Soviets, causing them 4,000 casualties in exchange for 300 dead and wounded on the Polish side. Battle of Komarów (Author: Jerzy Kossak) In addition, during the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s the Soviet Union was considered the greatest threat to Poland, and the land of eastern Poland, mainly flat, but plagued by marshes and with scarce and primitive ways and roads, was much more suited to the movement of mounted troops than to the primitive and fragile vehicles of the time. These considerations led Polish military planners to conclude that cavalry still had an important role to play in the defense of Poland. Germany did not pose a threat until after the equator of the 1930s, when the process of mechanization of the Polish Army began. Battle of Mokra The cavalry in September 1939 At the beginning of World War II the Polish Army had 11 brigades of cavalry, in addition to two others in process of mechanization quite advanced. Each cavalry brigade ranged from about 6000-7000 men and consisted of 3 or 4 cavalry regiments, mostly Uhlans (lancers), a “Dywizjon” division of mounted artillery (the term Dywizjon in Polish actually refers to a company, because each one consisted of 3 batteries of 4 guns), a small armored unit formed by a squadron of tanks and one of armored cars, a bicycle squadron and another of engineers, and finally a battalion of fiflemen. Each cavalry regiment had about 800-900 men, and had a squadron of heavy machine guns, an antitank platoon and another cyclist. At the end of the article there is an explanatory table of the organization of Polish cavalry brigades and regiments. Battle of Mokra Tactics in combat during the September Campaign The Polish military manuals in 1939 no longer considered charges as a main resource of cavalry. In fact, the spear had been withdrawn in 1936 and was only used in parades and marches. The armament of the Uhlan was very similar the one of the Polish infantry of the time and the saber was conserved only like a weapon of last resort. The function of the Polish cavalry was to fight like mounted infantry, acting like a mobile reserve, able to move and deploy quickly to go in support of the infantry, covering holes in the defense when necessary or clearing the way in the attack. For this, each regiment had 37 mm anti-tank guns (insufficient number), anti-tank rifles Wz35, light and heavy machine guns, etc. Although the final outcome of the September 1939 Campaign is known to all, it must be said that cavalry performed very well generally, even in cases where it was faced against German tanks, without being exhaustive we will give some examples: On 1 September the Battle of Mokra was fought, in which the 4th Panzer Division was detained for a full day by the Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade. During the attack on the positions defended by the 12º Uhlan Regiment “Podolski”, 4th Panzer Division lost about 40 cars and armored vehicles. When finally the Polish Cavalry had to retire, the following day, had suffered about 500 casualties against the 1,200 dead and wounded and 40 destroyed tanks of the Germans. Also the same of September 1st, during the Battle of the Woods of Tuchola, in the Pomerania corridor, the 20th German Motorized Division was stopped by the Cavalry Brigade “Pomorska”, the head of the division arriving to request permission to retire before an “intense pressure of the cavalry”. Charge of the 19º of Uhlans in Mokra (Author: Edward Mesjasza) Charge! Once this point has been clarified, it must be said that there were charges of cavalry with the saber, during the brief September Campaign just over a dozen of them were recorded. They were punctual actions in which they had a clear advantageous position for the cavalry, or else the situation was already totally desperate. Usually these charges were against infantry units, never directly against armored units, and in most cases these charges culminated successfully for the attacking cavalry. During the aforementioned Battle of Mokra, on 1 September, a charge of the 19th Uhlan Regiment of Wolynia (Wołyński) rejected the infantry units of the 4th Panzer Division as they attempted to flank the defensive positions of the Wołyńska Brigade. In Janow, on 1 September, a squadron of the 11th Uhlan Regiment of the Legions, belonging to the “Mazowiecka” Cavalry Brigade, charged on a German cavalry unit and fled it after a brief collision in which Poles suffered about 30 casualties and Germans 40. On 2 September in the Borowa aldéa, a squadron of the 19th Uhlan Regiment of Wolynia (Wołyński) charged against a German cavalry squadron, which escaped without accepting the clash … When on September 11 the 20th Uhlan Regiment “King Jan III Sobieski” of the “Kressowa” Cavalry Brigade was surrounded and destroyed in the Psary Forest, near Szymanów, Lieutenant Jan Burtow’s squadron charged to breaking the siege, managing to escape to join the 22nd Uranian Regiment. On the night of 11 to 12 September, the 11th Uhlan Regiment of the Legions and the 6th Infantry Regiment of the Legions were ordered to attack the city of Kałuszyn, which was occupied by German troops of the 1st Panzer Division, specifically By the 44th Regiment and the SS Regiment “Deutschland”. The order to advance was misinterpreted and the squadron of Lieutenant Andrzej Żyliński launched the charge getting into the city despite losing 33 of its 85 men. The Polish infantry took advantage of the breach in the German defenses to enter the city and liberate it. The next day the city was in Polish hands and the 1st Panzer Division in retreat. Polish casualties are unknown, apart from the 33 Uhlans fallen during loading. The German casualties were 120 dead, 200 injured and 84 missing. Major Krawutschke, who commanded the 44th Infantry Regiment, committed suicide. On 13 September a squadron of the 27th Uhlan Regiment “King Stefan Batory”, under the command of Captain Boris Gierasiuk, after fleeing the Germans, charged them in their pursuit, reconquering the city of Maliszew in the process and doing numerous prisoners. On September 15, during the Battle of Bzura, the 17th Uhlan Regiment “Wielkopolski” was ordered to occupy a cross of the Bzura river in the area of ​​Brochow to establish a bridgehead on the east bank of the river. For it, several squadrons charged against the positions of the German infantry and after reaching them they dismounted and fought on foot. Charge of the 14th Uhlan Regiment in Wólka Węglowa (Museum of the Army, Warsaw) On September 19, about 1000 riders from the 14th Uhlan Regiment of Jazłowiec and the 9th Uhlan Regiment of Malopolska (Podolska Brigade), retreating to Warsaw with the Poznan and Pomerania armies, successfully charged into Wólka Węglowa, near the forest Of Kampinos, against the German troops that interposed between them and Warsaw. It is estimated that the German forces consisted of about 2,300 men and some 40 tanks of the 1st Panzer Division, as well as artillery and cavalry. The Germans were surprised by the night charge and the Polish cavalry managed to break the lines, being the first units of the Poznan Army that managed to arrive at the capital to contribute to its defense. Polish casualties were very high, as 105 lancers died and another 100 were wounded, or 20% of the participants. For its part the Germans lost about 120 men between dead and wounded. During the battle of Kamionka Strumiłowa, on September 21, the third squadron of the 1st Cavalry Division (an improvised unit) charged the German infantry when it was preparing to attack positions of the Polish infantry, the Germans abandoned their positions and withdrew. Between 21 and 22 September the remains of the 5th, 20th and 28th infantry divisions, as well as the cavalry group of Major Josef Juniewicz, composed of remnants of the 12th Uhlan Regiment “Podolski” and 21st Uhlan Regiument “Nadwiślański” of the “Wolynska” Cavalry Brigade, the 6th Mounted Rifle Regiment of the “Kressowa” Brigade and the 6th “Dywizjon” Mounted Artillery of the Podolska Brigade, attempted to retreat from the Kampinos forest to the fortress Of Modlin. Between them and their destination were two German regiments of the 18th Infantry Division supported by artillery, tanks and the Luftwaffe. Polish forces totaled about 5,000 men, of which 1,500 were cavalry and had only 6 guns. The Polish soldiers attacked with great fierceness and managed to break the first of the three defensive lines that had prepared the Germans, but the attack stopped before the second. Major Juniewicz’s riders charged against the German lines, Major Juniewicz dying, as well as 90% of the officers and 60% of the soldiers who took part in the charge. The riders of the 6th “Dywizjon” mounted Artillery headed the charge that opened the way to Warsaw to the rest of the unit. In the Battle of Łomianki 800 Polish soldiers died and more than 4,000 were wounded. German casualties are not known. Still on the 23rd, when all was lost, the 25th and 27th Uhlan Regiments, belonging to the Cavalry Brigade “Nowogrodzska”, which was heading south to reach the Romanian border, took part in the Battle of Krasnobrod. During the same the first squadron of the 25th Uhlan Regiment made a charge that, in addition to allowing the brigade to reconquer the city of Krasnobrod and to capture to the staff of the 8ª German Infantry Division, rejected a counterattack of the German cavalry. However, during the charge, the squadron entered a zone beaten by German machine guns and was practically annihilated, suffering 35 wounded and 26 dead, among them its chief Lieutenant Tadeusz Gerlecki. The German casualties were 47 dead, 30 wounded and about 100 prisoners. Charge of Husynne (Author: Stanislaw Bodes) On the same day, a Polish cavalry unit, consisting of the reserve squadron of the 14th Uhlan Regiment of Jazłowiec and a mounted squadron of the Warsaw Police, along with a battalion of mortars, was surrounded by the 81st Infantry Division of the Red Army in the village of Husynne, in the valley of the river Bug. Supported by mortar fire, 400 Polish riders charged the Soviets to try to break the siege. The Soviet infantry undertook the flight suffering heavy losses, but behind the hills were Soviet armored units that surrounded the Poles and after a fierce battle forced them to surrender. Of the 500 Polish soldiers who took part in the battle, 143 died and 139 were wounded, the rest was captured. According to the testimony of Corporal Włodzimierz Rzeczyck, of the 14th Uhlan Regiment, the Soviets killed 25 Polish prisoners of war after the battle. Soviet casualties totaled 200 men. The last charge of the September Campaign was led by the 27th Uhlan Regiment “King Stefan Batory”, which charged twice against a German infantry battalion defending the town of Morańce. Both charges were rejected and 20 Uhlans died, but the Germans were forced to send messengers under a white flag to negotiate the terms on which they would abandon the village. The myth is born Frontpage of La Domenica del Corriere, with an imaginative illustration of the charge of Krojanty The legend is born on September 1, when in the village of Krojanty, on the edge of the forest of Tuchola, the 18th Uhlan Regiment discovered the 20th German Division bivouac. Seeing a favorable situation, Colonel Martarlerz, commander of the Regiment, launched a charge with 2 squadrons of the same (about 200 men). The Germans, surprised, left literally running in disarray and the Poles fell on them with sabers. Fortunately for the Germans, a reconnaissance unit equipped with auto-machine guns and armored vehicles appeared on the scene during the fray, and with their machine guns and cannons they rejected the Poles, who had to retire to the forest with many wounded and leaving 40 dead in hhe terrain, including the commander of the Regiment. Although armored vehicles took part in the action, this can hardly be considered a deliberate charge against the tanks, since they entered the scene once the charge began. The next day several journalists came to the scene and the Germans showed them the corpses of the horsemen and their saddles, explained to them that they had been killed by the armored vehicles, and they wrote for their media that the Polish lancers charged insanely against the tanks. One of those journalists, Indro Montanelli, in his chronicle for “Il Corriere della Sera” described the events as a sublime act of heroism of the Poles. The truth is that, although General Heinz Guderian also speaks of these charges against the tanks in his memoirs, these never happened. The myth is consolidated But the myth flourished in historiography. Somehow, because everyone was convenient and attractive, depending on each point of view … On the one hand, to the German propaganda it served to show the world how the Poles had underestimated the power of German arms while, on the other hand, yo the Western allies it served to justify their inaction and lack of assistance to Poland in September 1939 shielding himself in the poor performance of an army so old and badly commanded that it was able to charge with spears against tanks. The Soviets and the postwar communist Polish government exploited the myth to discredit the institutions and leaders of the 2nd Polish Republic, arguing that they had not prepared the defense of the country and they had not even scrupled to send their soldiers to death without sense … This was of vital importance for an unpopular regime which, even in a war-torn country, could not have been sustained without the backing of the Soviet Army, and which attempted at all costs to denigrate the pre-war regime, which was the one the majority of Poles considered legitimate. The paradox is that, for quite different reasons, this myth came to appeal to non-communist Poles, loyal to the Polish Government in London and even today’s Polish, and many still believe it true. Since if one looks from a romantic and patriotic perspective (and the Poles are both), they are acts of sublime heroism … Charge of Boruszko Epilogue It is the afternoon of March 1, 1945; 1st, 2nd and 6th Polish Infantry Divisions, supported by the T-34/85 of the Polish Armored Brigade “Heroes of Westerplatte”, dislodge the 163rd German Infantry Division, heavily fortified in the village of Schoenfeld in Pomerania (today it is part of Poland and is called Żeńsko, then Borujsko in Polish). The attack is bogged down by the difficulty of the terrain, and the fields of mines and ditches and the infantry and tanks fail to break the German defenses. At the edge of the forest there are two squadrons of the 3rd Ulhan Regiment of the 1st Polish Cavalry Brigade “Warszawska” and two mounted artillery batteries of the 4th Polish Cavalry Brigade, in total about 220 horsemen, form in line, draw sabers and are thrown to the charge. Five and a half years have passed since the last charge of Polish cavalry and World War II is nearing its end. Like shadows of the past, galloping riders, who wear uniforms almost identical to those of their ancestors in 1939, pass between the infantry and the T34 tanks, cross the no man’s land and take advantage of the confusion and surprise, enter the village followed by the infantry. After a fierce hand-to-hand combat Schoenfeld is conquered. In Borujsko’s charge 7 Uhlans were killed and 10 wounded, total Polish casualties in the battle were 147 dead and 294 wounded, the Germans had more than 500 dead and 50 prisoners. Order of Battle of a Polish Cavalry Brigade in 1939(6000 – 7000 men depending on the number of regiments) Cavalry Regiments 3 or 4 per brigade. The usual were brigades of 3 regiments, each of about 900 men. The mail subscription service to Contando Estrelas will allow you to receive in your mailbox a daily email with the new entries published in this blog. 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University of Lagos The University of Lagos, popularly known as UNILAG, is a public research university in Lagos, Nigeria. It is one of five first generation universities in Nigeria and was founded in 1962. The university has three campuses in Lagos, including the main campus in Akoka, the School of Radiography at Yaba, and the College of Medicine at Idi Araba. The University of Lagos enrolls over 40,000 students. History UNILAG was founded in 1962, two years after Nigerian independence from Britain. It was one of the first five universities created in the country, now known as a "first generation university". In 2019, the BBC reported that "Female reporters were sexually harassed, propositioned and put under pressure by senior lecturers at the institutions – all the while wearing secret cameras". The current vice-chancellor is Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe. He has been the vice-chancellor since 2017. Academics and research The university has remained one of the most competitive in the country in terms of admissions. With approximately 57,000 students as of 2013, the University of Lagos has one of the largest student populations of any university in the country. The University of Lagos is one of the twenty-five federal universities which are overseen and accredited by the National Universities Commission. The university has been called "the University of First Choice and the Nation's Pride." The university's research activity was one of the major criteria used by the National Universities Commission (NUC) in adjudging the university as the best university in Nigeria at the Nigerian University System Annual Merit Award (NUSAMA) in 2008. The University of Lagos College of Medicine is associated with Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Notable alumni, faculty and staff Notable faculty Wole Soyinka Grace Alele-Williams J. P. Clark Olufemi Majekodunmi Marita Golden Oyeleye Oyediran Lazarus Ekwueme Ken Saro Wiwa Solomon Babalola Akinsola Olusegun Faluyi Uju Uzo Ojinnaka Notable alumni Amongst the alumni of the University of Lagos, Akoka and other institutions that fall under that banner are: Daniel Olukoya, a researcher, scientist, clergyman and founder of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM). Ousainou Darboe, current Gambian Minister of Foreign Affairs Yemi Osinbajo, current Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria Rilwan Akiolu, current Oba of Lagos Ogbonnaya Onu, first Executive Governor of Abia State Bolanle Austen-Peters, lawyer and businesswoman Omowunmi Sadik, scientist and professor Titilola Obilade, Medical Doctor, PhD Learning Sciences and Technologies, Writer, Senior Education Specialist Wande Abimbola, Yoruba professor Wale Adenuga, publisher and film producer Wole Olanipekun, Senior Advocate of Nigeria Ibrahim Dankwambo, former Governor of Gombe State Omoyele Sowore, Founder, Sahara Reporters Gbenga Daniel, Former Governor of Ogun State Gabriel Suswam, former Governor of Benue State. Babatunde Ogunnaike, engineering professor Wale Babalakin, lawyer and businessman Renaming proposal On 29 May 2012, the then President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, proposed to rename the University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University in honor of Moshood Abiola, who died in jail as a political prisoner in 1998. The proposed name change became a subject of protests from students and alumni. The proposal was consequently jettisoned as the Nigerian Federal Government gave in to the protests incited by the proposed name change. See also List of universities in Nigeria References External links University of Lagos official website University of Lagos Alumni Association official website Category:Educational institutions established in 1962 Category:1962 establishments in Nigeria Category:Public universities in Nigeria Category:Business schools in Lagos Category:Medical schools in Nigeria

of premium cigars has increased in the United States. With diameters ranging from 12 to 23 mm and lengths between 12.7 and 21.4 cm, these cigars carry bands ... countries (O’Hara, 1996). In 1996, the two most popular types of premium cigars ... india, united states Millions HY12 HY11 UK Germany Spain Rest of European Union Total EU Americas Rest of the World Total Non-EU Total Group USACigar Net Revenues (£m) Excludes eco-cigarillos ... europe, germany, spain, united kingdom, united states Chronic Respiratory Disease in the Industrial Era that post-1910 consumption was dramatically higher than pre-1910 levels. Second, there is a notable downswing that occurs in cigarette production between 1895 and 1905, although an upswing in cigar production ...united states Kentucky's Black Patch Cigar :: An American Surprise ... True Cigars Blog - Cigar Information From Costa Rica ... Although I have a small blog, a good number of people send me cigars. I will be honest- if I can not write something good, I choose not to write. SIDE NOTE: I do have a couple more reviews pending.

William Zeitlin William Zeitlin (c. 1850 – 1921, in Leipzig) was a Russian scholar and bibliographer born at Homel, government (guberniya) of Moghilef, about the middle of the 19th century. He is known especially as the author of Kiryat Sefer, or Bibliotheca Hebraica Post-Mendelssohniana (Leipzig, 1891–95), a bibliographical dictionary of modern Hebrew literature from the beginning of Moses Mendelssohn's epoch until 1890. The compilation of this work occupied Zeitlin for twenty years. He made extensive use of Benjacob's Otzar ha-Sefarim and of Fürst's Bibliotheca Judaica, and visited Vilna and Warsaw, the centers of the Hebrew book market, as well as many university cities—as Königsberg, Berlin, Geneva, and Paris—from the libraries of which he gathered additional material for his work. The Qiryat Sefer indexes not only works in book form, but also important periodical articles, biographical sketches, and scientific essays, in addition to giving biographical notes on several authors. Zeitlin had previously prepared an index of works written on the Hebrew calendar, in which he enumerates seventy-seven Hebrew works; this index was published by Chayyim Jonah Gurland in Yevreiski Kalendar (St. Petersburg, 1882). In the Zeit. für Hebr. Bibl. (ix.3-4) Zeitlin has published an alphabetical list of anagrams and pseudonyms of modern Hebrew writers; he was also a contributor to several Hebrew periodicals, writing mostly biographical articles. References :de:Wilhelm Zeitlin Category:1850s births Category:1921 deaths Category:People from Gomel Category:People from Mogilev Governorate Category:Belarusian Jews Category:Imperial Russian emigrants to France Category:Russian bibliographers Category:Hebraists Category:Textual scholarship

ARKaholics, welcome the Spider! This is the first of two dino dossiers planned for today, we will be covering the next dino dossier right when it drops. Common Name: Spider Species: Araneomorphus Amalgotantibus Time: No equivalent, trails begin as far back as Mesozoic Era. Diet: Carnivore Temperament: Aggressive Wild: I don’t know where to start with araneomorphus amalgotantibus. It has so many of the nightmare inducing traits of spiders from among many family and genus. Its fires webbing like a bola spider, it spits venom like a lynx spider. It has a poisonous bite like a myriad of spiders, and can see you in the dark by sensing vibrations. And to top it off, araneomorphus is larger than an adult human. If that wasn’t enough, I’m convinced that some of the caves on the island have actually been dug by araneomorphus, but this worries me. Either araneomorphus is a colony-spider (like ants), or there is a much larger araneomorphus somewhere on the island. Domesticated: As long as it is kept far from arachnophobics, domesticated araneomorphus makes an excellent guardian creature for anyone wanting to avoid killing. Their strange web-spraying behavior is also quite helpful while hunting fast, fleeing prey. They are too small to be used as mounts, however…

Q: How many digits in $2^{738}-1$ How many digits in $2^{738}-1$. I don't exactly know how to approach this problem. Could the expression somehow be rewritten in the form $a*10^{n-1}$, where $n$ would be the number of digits? A: $a$ has $n $ digits $\iff 10^{n-1}\le a<10^n\iff n-1\le \log_{10} a\lt n\iff n-1=\lfloor \log_{10}a\rfloor$ $\iff n=\lfloor \log_{10}a\rfloor+1.$ Therefore, the number of digits of $2^{738}$ is $\lfloor 738\log_{10}2\rfloor+1$, which can be calculated to be $223$. $a$ has the same number of digits as $a-1$, unless $a$ is a power of $10$, which $2^{738}$ clearly is not.

Q: Convolution of L^p and L^q function is uniformly continuous or not? This is a homework question (the due date has passed) and I have been thinking of it for a while. We are asked to prove or disprove the following statement: $f \in L^p(\mathbb{R}), g \in L^p(\mathbb{R}), 1 < p, q < \infty, \frac{1}{p} + \frac{1}{q} = 1$. $f*g(x) = \int f(x-y)g(y)dy$ is uniformly continuous or not? I know the convolution of a $L^1$ and a $L^{\infty}$ function is uniformly continuous. Below is my attempt, yet I feel I probably did not use Holder's inequality correctly: Consider a fixed $x \in \mathbb{R}$ and any $a \in \mathbb{R}$, then $$|f*g(x-a) - f*g(x)| = | \int f(x-a-y)g(y)dy - \int f(x-y)g(y)dy| \\ = | \int f(x-y)g(y-a)dy - \int f(x-y)g(y)dy| \\ = | \int f(x-y)[g(y-a) - g(y)]dy| \\ \leq \int | f(x-y)[g(y-a) - g(y)] | dy \\ \leq ||f||_p ||h||_q $$ where $h(y) = g(y-a) - g(y), 1 < p, q < \infty, \frac{1}{p} + \frac{1}{q} = 1$. Since the difference between $f*g(x-a)$ and $f*g(x)$ for any fixed $x$ and any $a$ is bounded, I can choose $a$ such that $||h||_q < \frac{\varepsilon}{|| f ||_p}$, so $|f*g(u) - f*g(x)| < \varepsilon$ for any arbitrary $\varepsilon > 0$ and any $u \in (x-a, x+a)$. I thought I used Holder's inequality correctly, since I was considering some fixed $x$, meaning that I can consider $f(x-y)$ as a function in $y$. Could anyone check my solution? I am really unsure about my use of Holder's inequality. A: The use of Hölder's inequality is fine since $\|f(x-y)\|_p = \|f(y)\|_p$ by translation invariance of the integral. The only thing you need more is that $\|f-f_h\|_q\to 0$ as $h\to 0$ where $f_h(x) = f(x-h)$. This is clear for indicator functions of measurable sets of finite measure, hence for simple functions by linearity and thus for general $L^q$ functions with the usual approximation argument.

NOTICE: If you have trouble beyond this, consult the FAQs below! Requires Luma3DS 8.1+ and Boot9strap - v10 and V11 are not working correctly at the time of writting this (11.28.2017)​ Layered FS (v1.0.2) - https://bit.ly/2Spuxqp xDelta (v1.0.1) - http://bit.ly/2zijQw1 ​ c) Our latest patch files i) Place the Hourglass9.firm onto your SD card, in the ".\luma\payloads" folder​ i) Place the Decrypt9WIP.firm onto your SD card, in the ".\luma\payloads" folder​ a) If you have a Digital Installed version (by any means), use Hourglass9 to extract your CIA.​ i) Hold start, turn on your 3DS, and whe prompted, launch Hourglass9 ii)Open Hourglass9 -> Miscellaneous Options -> SysNAND title to CIA. iii) Use the arrow keys to find the title ID listed above (/title/00040000/0016AD00) iv) the CIA should get dumped to your SD card as "000400000016ad00.cia" in the "files9" folder.​ b) If you have an official cartridge, use either Hourglass9 or Decrypt9WIP to dump to a .3DS format.​ i) Insert the cartridge into your 3ds. ii) Hold start, power on the 3DS, and select either Hourglass9 or Decrypt9WIP when prompted. iii) Look for the option "Gamecart Dumper Options", and selected to "Dump & Decrypt Cart (trim)".​ c) If you obtained your copy by other means, you need to make sure it is decrypted. Use Decrypt9WIP to do this.​ a) Run the HackingToolkit9DS.exe (from step 1.a) and enter either "D" for your .3ds file, or "CE" for you .cia file. It will then ask for the game file (you put in that directory) without the file extension. ie. if the game was "game.cia", you type the word "game" and press enter.​ i) when asked about decompressing the code.bin, choose "n" for No.​ *** If your extraction fails, make sure you are using v9 of HackingToolkit3DS, and your game dump was decrypted. ***​ a) Once the extraction is complete, open the tool downloaded in step [1.b], called xDelta UI.​ b) Select the "Apply Patch" tab.​ c) For the "Patch", select the "dqmj3.romfs.xdelta" file that we provided you in step [1.c]​ d) For the Source File, select the "DecryptedRomFS.bin" that you just extracted in step [3.a]​ e) For the Output File, select the folder you extracted everything too, and name it "PatchedRomFS.bin"​ f) Click the "Patch" button to finish patching your RomFS.bin file​ *** If it says your have a checksum MD5 mismatch, then your DecryptedRomFS.bin is not valid *** *** Hackingtoolkit3ds has an option "RFSE", that lets you extract a RomFS. Try running this to see if it says the RomFS is valid ***​ a) Re-run HackingToolkit, and select "RFSE" to open the Rom Extractor.​ b) Choose to extract the "PatchedRomFS.bin" you created in Step [4.d & 4.e], and click "Go".​ c) When this operation complets, it should have extracte to a folder called "PatchedRomFS_". You will now delete the "ExtractedRomFS" folder. Afterwards, rename the "PatchedRomFS_" folder to "ExtractedRomFS". Close the RomFS extractor after this and delete the "PatchedRomFS.bin".​ d) Now choose "CR" to rebuild a .cia, or "R" to rebuild a .3ds. When prompted, name it "DQMJ3-english",​ a) Transfer the newly constructed game file from Step [5.d] to whatever SD card you need it on.​ b) Copy the Luma folder we provided to your SD Card as well.​ Find the following 4 files and move them all to these specific locations on your SD card: * .\luma\titles\000400000016ad00\romfs\data\Script\Field\Event\A01_02\A01_02.mes * .\luma\titles\000400000016ad00\romfs\data\Script\Field\Demo\demo851\demo851.mes * .\luma\titles\000400000016ad00\romfs\data\Message\ItemHelpMessage.mes * .\luma\titles\000400000016ad00\romfs\data\Message\MenuMessage.mes​ c) Next go, into (now named) "ExtractedRomFS" folder, which contains your extracted, patched files.Find the following 4 files and move them all to these specific locations on your SD card: a) Press and Hold the "Select" button on your 3ds, and power it on.​ b) When the Luma 3DS Configuration screen appears, you need the following option turned on.​ * Enable Game Patching​ c) Press "Start" to save these configurations, and the 3ds will load as usual.​ a) Launch FBI on your 3DS, and the load the 3ds title keys site on your PC/Phone​ b) Search for 0004000e0016ad00, and then click the "QR Code" Icon for the "Patch". The name should be "更新データ Ver. 1.1 DQM ジョーカー3" and it is serial "CTR-U-BJ3J"​ c) Within FBI, launch the "Remote Install > Scan QR Code" feature, and scan the QR Code. It will prompt you to install titles from the CDN (answer yes to all).​ d) You should now be able to launch version 1.1 of DQM Joker 3 in english, enjoy!​ ***to be running on your 3ds **** If you don't have custom firmware: https://3ds.hacks.guide/ * If you're on A9LH, upgrade to B9S: https://3ds.guide/a9lh-to-b9s If you're on a lower version of Luma1) Download the following tools:2) Dumping the Game to a CIA/3DS format3) Extracting the RomFS and other game contents4) Applying the XDelta Patch to the RomFS5) Rebuild the game with patch appliedand if prompted for major/minor versions, select 0 and 0.6) Setting up your SD card7) Setting up Luma 3DS patching (if you haven't already)8) Installing Official Update v1.1

No. 2--02--1408 _________________________________________________________________________________ IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS SECOND DISTRICT _________________________________________________________________________________ THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE ) Appeal from the Circuit Court OF ILLINOIS, ) of Du Page County. ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ) v. ) No. 98--CF--1856 ) DAVID TERAN, ) Honorable ) George J. Bakalis, Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge, Presiding. _________________________________________________________________________________ JUSTICE HUTCHINSON delivered the opinion of the court: Following a jury trial, defendant, David Teran, was convicted of committing the first-degree murder (720 ILCS 5/9--1(a)(1) (West 1998)) of Roderick Floyd.  In finding defendant guilty of this offense, the jury rejected defendant's claim that he was insane under section 6--2(a) of the Criminal Code of 1961 (the Criminal Code) (720 ILCS 5/6--2(a) (West 1998)).  After denying defendant's motion for new trial, the trial court sentenced him to 45 years' imprisonment.  Defendant appeals, contending that section 6--2(a) of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional in that it violates equal protection, due process, and the proportionate penalties clause of our Illinois Constitution (U.S. Const., amend. XIV, §1; Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, §§2, 11).  We affirm. At trial, the State presented evidence reflecting that on August 28, 1998, the victim was working for a moving company in Addison.  Terry Frazier testified that on August 28, 1998, he and Bill Patterson and the victim returned from a job in Grayslake and in Addison at approximately 10 p.m.  The victim paid them, and then Frazier and Patterson left.  Frazier testified that, before he left, the victim told him that he was going to drive a smaller van home, and the victim checked a load in that van. Przemysklaw Krynski testified that on August 28, 1998, at approximately 11 p.m., he was driving east on Fay Avenue in Addison, when he observed the victim lying in the street.  Krynski telephoned 911 and reported this to the operator.  Richard Imbordino, a firefighter, testified that he arrived at the scene at 11:42 p.m., and the victim had no vital signs.  Imbordino further testified that the Addison police arrived right after he did. Shaku Teas, a forensic pathologist, testified regarding his autopsy on the victim.  Teas testified that he found six gunshot wounds and that the victim died of multiple gunshot wounds.  Other witnesses testified regarding their collection of the evidence, including the bullet fragments and gun shell casings found in and around the victim, and testified that the recovered shell casings were fired from the same firearm. Teresa Burke testified that she was defendant's former spouse.  She testified that she and defendant married in 1985 and had three children.  She first separated from defendant in 1987 because of his "temper mostly" and because he was "threatening" toward her.  Burke described an incident on Father's Day where defendant wanted to get cash from their credit card "so he could buy marijuana."  At the time, she was seven months pregnant.  Burke thought that defendant was going to hit her, but he did not.  Burke further testified that, after they reconciled, they would go out occasionally.  When they went out, Burke was concerned that defendant "might make a scene" because he was "very impatient" and she feared that he might "start yelling and yelling at people."  Burke and defendant again separated for five months in 1991.  When he returned, he became employed at Cumbee Freight as an over-the-road truck driver. Burke testified that she told defendant in 1997 that she wanted a divorce.  Burke agreed that there were arguments and incidents of threats and violence, but she had not known defendant to be delusional or to have hallucinations.  She testified regarding specific incidents where defendant was verbally and physically threatening toward her and her mother.  According to Burke, defendant relocated to Florida but returned in June 1997. Burke testified that, although defendant resided in Florida, when he was in Illinois he would occasionally stay in his truck at Louis' Diner in West Chicago.  He would arrange to visit the children.  Burke and the children visited defendant in Florida in April 1998.  While there, defendant told her that he had learned that Louis Teran was not really his father.  Burke testified that she believed defendant was happy about this information because Louis Teran had abused defendant as a child.  Defendant made attempts to locate his natural father, Richard Klein. Burke testified that on the morning of August 29, 1998, she picked up defendant from Louis' Diner and took him to a bar in West Chicago at 11 a.m.  When she picked up defendant from the bar approximately three hours later, he was "pretty intoxicated."  While she drove defendant back to his truck, defendant mentioned that he had been "abducted."  Burke told him to stop talking because the children were in the car. Burke further testified that on September 3, 1998, defendant told her that he needed to take some time off from work and that he did not believe his employer would allow this.  Defendant explained that he might quit his job, and he asked Burke to help him clean out his truck.  She agreed to do so, and then Burke followed defendant to Cumbee Freight in Chicago Ridge to give him a ride after dropping off the truck.  Burke testified that, while they were driving away from Cumbee Freight, defendant spoke of having "alien enzymes" that he needed to "release."  Defendant informed Burke that the world was going to end on September 26 with a meteor striking the earth.  Defendant said that his natural father was the head of the "mob" and that "he was given a choice" to either kill Burke or kill someone else.  Defendant told Burke that he chose to kill someone else because he did not want to kill her. Burke further testified that, when she asked defendant whom he had killed, defendant replied that he killed "some Nigger" with his 9-millimeter pistol at an "[i]ndustrial park in Addison."  Defendant described to Burke that he knocked on the victim's truck, and the victim asked what he had ever done to him.  Defendant said the victim's wife and child saw him commit the shooting.  Defendant told Burke that he had a license to kill and that the police could do nothing. Burke testified that on September 7, 1998, she reported to the police what defendant had told her.  Burke testified that, other than the prior conversation, defendant never spoke of being an alien, having alien DNA, being a hit man, or being an undercover agent.  Other than when defendant used "hard drugs" as a teenager, Burke did not know defendant to have any hallucinations or delusions.  On cross-examination, Burke admitted that she "tried to get him committed" before she contacted the police. Michael Simo testified that in September 1998, he was a detective with the Addison police department and investigating the victim's murder.  On September 8, 1998, he spoke with Burke and with James Chambers, defendant's stepbrother, regarding defendant's alleged participation in the shooting.  Simo testified that on September 9 he went with other officers to Aurora to speak with defendant about the shooting; defendant agreed to accompany the officers to the police station.  Detective Van Stedum was also present during the interview.  Simo read Miranda warnings to defendant, and defendant initialed the form. Simo testified that defendant initially denied having any knowledge of the shooting and claimed that he had sold his 9-millimeter gun in 1997 in Florida.  The officers told defendant that his brother had told them that defendant had picked up his gun on the night of the shooting and that someone informed them that he was involved in the shooting.  Defendant then asked the officers whether they had run his name through their computer, as it would reveal that he was not to be apprehended if he was wanted for murder.  Defendant claimed that he worked at the Treasury Department and had special assignments that he could not discuss.  When Van Stedum asked defendant whether his brother was involved, defendant became angry and said, "I shot the goddamn coon, no one else was involved, no one else was in the truck with me."  Until this point, the officers never disclosed to defendant that the victim was black. Simo further testified that defendant said that the shooting occurred near VFN Fiberglass, where his brother worked.  Defendant described a box van in the area, parked on Fay Street.  Defendant approached the victim and started shooting.  Before the shooting, the victim asked defendant what he ever did to defendant.  Defendant said that the last shot was to the back of the victim's head.  After the shooting, defendant went to Louis' Diner.  Simo testified that defendant assisted him in drawing a depiction of the scene of the shooting. Simo testified that defendant stated that he had disposed of the weapon in pieces in various locations.  Defendant noted that he had thrown the barrel of the gun into the Cal-Sag Canal a few days after the shooting.  Defendant said he used "regular" 9-millimeter ammunition.  At approximately 10 p.m. on September 9, 1998, the officers transferred defendant from Aurora to the Addison police station. Simo further testified that, at the Addison police department, defendant told the officers that "he had been given his directions and been told what to do."  When he asked defendant whether he would put that in writing, defendant appeared to become angry and told him to call the Treasury Department to verify his version of the events.  Simo and Van Stedum then brought defendant to the crime scene, and defendant directed them to the area of the shooting.  According to Simo's testimony, defendant accurately reenacted the shooting but would not allow the officers to photograph him. Simo testified that defendant said that he had picked up his gun from his brother's house before the shooting and he and his brother drank beer and shot pool at a bar.  His brother then drove him to Louis' Diner.  Defendant went back to Addison, where the shooting occurred. On September 10, 1998, Simo and Van Stedum went to the residence of James Chambers.  Chambers gave them various items, including a 9-millimeter Luger hollow-point cartridge, 24 other 9-millimeter cartridges, a Smith & Wesson manual, and checks and money orders in defendant's name. Simo further testified that on September 10, 1998, defendant wrote a statement in the presence of Van Stedum.  In the statement, which was presented to the jury, defendant asserted that he owned the guns and ammunition recovered from Chambers.  Defendant wrote that he went to Addison, did his "business," and shot at the victim seven or eight times.  The last shot was directed toward the victim's head.  He also noted that he had disposed of the weapon across the country and in the Cal-Sag Canal. Simo testified that on September 11, 1998, he asked defendant, if the shooting had not been a government hit and if defendant shot the victim because he was angry, would shooting the man have been right or wrong; defendant replied in such a case it would be wrong to kill.  Later that day, Simo told defendant that he did not believe that the shooting was a government hit.  Defendant then asked Simo whether he believed in Nostradamus and said that by midnight he had to kill a person who was alone.  If he did so, he would get his family back.  Defendant then said his natural father was the head of the "Mafia" and had authorized defendant to kill.  Defendant also stated that his mother was impregnated by an alien and that he had been "hidden in the belly of an English pig."  Simo further testified that defendant offered to show him on a map where he had thrown the frame for the gun.  Simo and Van Stedum went to that location on September 25, 1998, and they recovered the gun frame.  The frame was for a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter, serial No. TET2847.  Simo testified that, during all of the time he spoke with defendant, he had no problems communicating with defendant, and defendant's answers were responsive. Raymond Perreault, defendant's former neighbor, identified defendant's firearm as a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, serial number TET2847.  Perreault further testified that he sold defendant one-half of a box of ammunition, keeping one bullet for his collection.  Perreault testified that he gave the police a bill of sale and the bullet. The State rested, and defendant called Michael Chiappetta, his retained licensed clinical psychologist, to testify regarding his evaluation of defendant's sanity.  Chiappetta met with defendant on five occasions between May 2001 and August 2001.  Chiappetta testified that he reviewed various materials, including police reports, hospital records, and evaluations by Dr. Corcoran, Dr. Kelly, Dr. Wasyliw, and Dr. Zoot.  He noted that in 1979 defendant was diagnosed as having latent schizophrenia during his hospitalization at River's Edge Hospital, when defendant was approximately 15 years of age.  Chiappetta noted that, although latent schizophrenia was no longer a recognized diagnosis, it was similar to a diagnosis of indeferentia schizophrenia. Chiappetta further testified that in May 2001 he spoke with corrections officers, who told him that defendant had disorganized behavior and was threatening them and other inmates.  Chiappetta noted that, when defendant arrived at the jail, he was placed on Haldol, an antipsychotic medication, Trazodone to help him sleep, and Cogentin to treat the side effects of Haldol.  After Dr. Corcoran, who had diagnosed defendant with a psychosis, not otherwise specified, changed defendant's medication to Risperdal, a number of defendant's delusions disappeared.  Defendant stopped taking the medications in the summer of 2000. Chiappetta testified that in June 2001 defendant made "racial epithets" to jail guards, though "the people he spoke to were not of the same race that he was making epithets about."  Defendant told Chiappetta that the word "nigger" was not necessarily a racial term but was a demeaning term he used to refer to anyone he felt was "under him."  Defendant's varied speech volume on that date indicated a disordered behavior, one of the qualities of schizophrenia and psychosis. Chiappetta testified that, at various times, defendant had differing delusional themes about the shooting, which included the government, mafia, or aliens directing him.  According to Chiappetta, these delusions were directly related to the shooting, and the shooting was committed "with his delusional ideations."  Chiappetta added that defendant had no motive to kill the victim or take his property, and did not make any attempt to conceal the shooting.  Defendant "did what he had to do, according to the delusional themes and he left." Chiappetta testified that defendant told him that he had written "refused" on two copies of his confession and that, before giving the confession, a gun was held to his head, he was starved, and he was drugged.  Defendant told him that Alberto Louis Teran held a gun to his head to get him to confess.  Defendant also said that his birth certificate was a forgery, and he denied that he had ever served in the Marines.  Chiappetta testified that all of these beliefs were false, and the delusions were an attempt to distance himself from his delusion about the aliens. Chiappetta noted that Drs. Wasyliw, Kelly, and Corcoran all diagnosed defendant as suffering from psychosis, not otherwise specified.  Chiappetta concluded, though, that on the day of the shooting, defendant was suffering from a cognitive disorder and had disorganized thinking.  Chiappetta opined that the combination of the stress of the breakup of his marriage and the search for his natural father culminated in the development of the delusional ideations. Chiappetta concluded "to a reasonable degree of psychological certainty" that defendant was not sane at the time of the shooting.  Chiappetta testified that defendant was delusional and had "impaired appreciation of the criminality of his behavior," and this impairment was a result of a mental disease or defect.  Chiappetta continued that, at the time of the shooting, defendant "lacked a substantial appreciation of the criminality of his conduct."  Chiappetta testified that defendant's condition was caused by a combination of a personality disorder, such as antisocial personality disorder, and a psychosis or apparent schizophrenia. Chiappetta acknowledged that antisocial personality disorder alone was not a mental disease or defect.  Chiappetta agreed that defendant was angry and hostile but did not agree that he "necessarily has antisocial behaviors."  Chiappetta also agreed that his report indicated that defendant had antisocial behaviors. On rebuttal, the State called Thomas Cumbee, one of defendant's former employers at Cumbee Freight.  Cumbee testified that defendant did a good job, kept to himself, and did not get into trouble.  On September 4, 1998, defendant quit his job, purportedly because he was an "agent for the Treasury" and had been called to duty.  Cumbee testified that, prior to this date, defendant had not demonstrated any delusional beliefs.  Cumbee believed that defendant knew the difference between right and wrong in August and September 1998.  John Cumbee, another former employer, testified that defendant was a good driver and a good worker.  He did not notice defendant exhibit any delusional beliefs. James Chambers testified that defendant had a "pretty normal" temper.  Chambers testified that in 1998 defendant would occasionally stop by his workplace, which was approximately three blocks from the scene of the shooting.  Chambers testified that on August 28, 1998, at approximately 3:30 p.m., defendant came by his workplace and asked him for his 9-millimeter firearm, which Chambers had been holding for defendant.  Defendant said he wanted to take target practice.  Later that evening, they went to a tavern in Glendale Heights and played pool. Chambers further testified that, at the tavern, defendant asked Chambers if he believed in aliens.  They left the tavern at approximately 10 p.m., and Chambers last saw defendant at approximately 10:15 p.m.  Chambers never observed defendant having any kind of delusions. Chambers testified that he again saw defendant on September 3 or 4, 1998, after defendant had quit his job.  Defendant told Chambers that he had "activated" genes in his body and was going to become an alien.  Defendant said nothing to Chambers about shooting the victim.  On cross-examination, Chambers acknowledged that defendant was hospitalized in 1979 for psychiatric reasons following an altercation between defendant and his stepfather. Lisa Chambers, defendant's stepsister, testified that she saw defendant at her brother James's apartment on August 28, 1998.  She did not observe defendant being delusional at that time, and he made no statements about being an alien.  Mary Miller, defendant's stepmother, also testified that she saw defendant on August 28, 1998, at James's apartment, and he did not appear delusional.  Kathleen Steder, who had dated defendant from March 1998 to August 1998, testified that she saw defendant on August 28, 1998, and he did not mention aliens or seem out of touch with reality. Jonathan Kelly, a psychiatrist, testified regarding his evaluation of defendant's sanity.  Kelly met with defendant in 1999 for defendant's fitness evaluation, and in October 2001 and in January 2002 regarding defendant's sanity.  Kelly opined that, although defendant was suffering from a mental disease or defect on the date of the shooting, defendant had the "substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct" on the date of the shooting. Kelly further testified that the reasons he believed that defendant could appreciate the criminality of his conduct were that defendant sought out someone to shoot, sought an isolated area in which to approach a victim, waited until dark and no witnesses were present, and approached the victim while holding the gun behind his back.  Kelly continued that, after the shooting, defendant left the scene, went back to where his truck was usually parked, had a couple of beers, and then went to bed.  Kelly also noted that defendant failed to turn himself in or initially admit involvement, disassembled the weapon, and disposed of the pieces while driving cross-country for his job.  Kelly opined that defendant's conduct reflected an effort to avoid apprehension, to dispose of evidence linking him to the crime, and to avoid detection of his criminal behavior. Kelly also testified regarding defendant's plan for the shooting.  Kelly discussed defendant's familiarity with firearms and stated that defendant had gone to his stepbrother's apartment to retrieve a firearm a few hours before the shooting occurred.  Kelly testified that defendant had told him that, for approximately two weeks prior to the shooting, he had sat in his truck observing people and trying to decide whom he was going to choose to shoot.  Kelly opined that defendant's conduct reflected a premeditated plan to commit the crime. Kelly further opined that defendant was malingering, reasoning that there was no evidence of delusions prior to August 28, 1998, and when defendant discussed his delusions, he was inconsistent in that the nature of the delusions changed from one interview to the next.  Kelly testified that, based on his review of defendant's records from his 1979 hospitalization, there was evidence that defendant suffered from a "severe character disorder with antisocial features."  Kelly also noted other evidence supporting that diagnosis, including that defendant had been involved in "hundreds of fights during his life," he had "several arrest charges related to battery and criminal damage to property," he had on one occasion "threatened to blow the head of his landlady off," and on another occasion he had thrown his mother-in-law "to the ground and then kicked her and slapped his wife."  Kelly testified that antisocial personality disorder would not qualify as a mental disease or defect. On cross-examination, Kelly acknowledged that, on August 28, 1998, defendant suffered from a mental illness and a "substantial disorder and thought behavior which impaired his judgment."  He acknowledged that one of his diagnoses, psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, was also a diagnosis that Dr. Orest Wasyliw had made of defendant's condition. Orest Wasyliw, a clinical psychologist specializing in clinical forensic and neuropsychology, testified that he interviewed defendant three times in 1999 and twice in October 2001.  Wasyliw also performed psychological tests on defendant, reviewed defendant's file, and spoke with Kelly, Detective Simo, and Detective Van Stedum.  Wasyliw concluded that defendant suffered from antisocial personality disorder his entire adult life.  In discussing defendant's 1979 hospitalization, Wasyliw testified that what precipitated the hospitalization was defendant "getting into fights and trouble, including fights with his family and his parents, and using drugs."  Wasyliw diagnosed defendant as suffering from "psychotic disorder, not otherwise specified, with paranoid features." Wasyliw opined that on August 28, 1998, defendant appreciated the criminality of killing the victim.  Wasyliw opined that defendant was sane at the time of the shooting.  On cross-examination, Wasyliw acknowledged that all of the evaluators agreed that defendant had been experiencing a psychotic disorder for many years before the shooting. At the close of evidence, the parties presented their closing arguments and the trial court instructed the jury.  The jury received verdict forms by which it could find defendant not guilty; not guilty by reason of insanity; guilty but mentally ill; or guilty of the offense of first-degree murder.  Following deliberations, the jury found defendant guilty of first-degree murder.  The trial court entered judgment on the verdict and ordered a presentence investigation report.  Defendant moved for a new trial, which, after a hearing, the trial court denied.  The trial court sentenced defendant to 45 years' imprisonment.  Defendant timely appeals following the trial court's denial of defendant's postsentencing motion. Defendant presents the following issue for our review:  whether section 6--2(a) of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional in that it violates equal protection, due process, and the proportionate penalties clause of our Illinois Constitution (U.S. Const., amend. XIV, §1; Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, §§2, 11). Before addressing defendant's contention, we will address the historical context under which it arises.  In Illinois, all defendants are presumed to be sane.   People v. McDonald , 329 Ill. App. 3d 938, 946 (2002), citing People v. Williams , 265 Ill. App. 3d 283, 289 (1994).  However, a defendant may assert the affirmative defense of insanity and, if proved, escape criminal responsibility.  See 720 ILCS 5/6--2 (West 2002).  At least as far back as 1827, our legislature has considered and reconsidered the extent of a criminal defendant's responsibility as it was affected by a mental disorder.  See Rev. Stat. 1827, §§5, 6 (section 5 provides that a "lunatic or insane person, without lucid intervals, shall not be found guilty of any crime *** with which he may be charged").  In its Laws of 1961, the General Assembly revised and enacted the insanity statute, providing in pertinent part: "A person is not criminally responsible for conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or mental defect, he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law."  1961 Ill. Laws 1998 (§6--2(a)) (effective January 1, 1962). In Public Act 82--553, the legislature amended the statute to add a provision allowing for a person to be found guilty but mentally ill and a provision defining the phrases "mental illness" and "mentally ill."  See Pub. Act. 82--553, §1, eff. September 17, 1981.  In Public Act 83--288, the legislature amended the statute to add a provision describing the burden of proof as to the State and to the defendant.  See Pub. Act. 83--288, §1, eff. January 1, 1984.  That provision states, in pertinent part: "When the defense of insanity has been presented during the trial, the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity."  Pub. Act. 83--288, §1, eff. January 1, 1984. In 1995 the statute was again amended.  See Pub. Act 89--404, §15, eff. August 20, 1995 (codified at 720 ILCS 5/6--2 (West 1996)).  This amended version of the statute altered the definition of insanity.  Under the amendment, a defendant could no longer raise an insanity defense based on her or his inability "to conform his conduct to the requirements of law."  The amendment also increased a defendant's burden of proof for an insanity defense from "a preponderance of the evidence" to "clear and convincing evidence."  Pub. Act 89--404, §15, eff. August 20, 1995 (codified at 720 ILCS 5/6--2(a), (e) (West 1996)). In 1999 our supreme court declared Public Act 89--404 unconstitutional because it was enacted in contravention of the single subject clause of the Illinois Constitution.  See People v. Reedy , 186 Ill. 2d 1, 12 (1999).  As a result, the law was void ab initio , and section 6--2 of the Criminal Code remained as it was before the adoption of Public Act 89--404's amendments.  However, during the pendency of the Reedy decision, the General Assembly enacted new legislation containing the same revisions to section 6--2 of the Criminal Code originally included in Public Act 89--404.  See Pub. Act 90--593, §15, eff. June 19, 1998.  Public Act 90--593 cured the defects of Public Act 89--404 as determined by Reedy and has been held not to violate the single subject clause.  See People v. Terry , 329 Ill. App. 3d 1104, 1110 (2002). Therefore, effective June 19, 1998, section 6--2 of the Criminal Code provided in relevant part: "(a) A person is not criminally responsible for conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or mental defect, he lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct. * * * (e) When the defense of insanity has been presented during the trial, the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity."  720 ILCS 5/6--2(a), (e) (West 1998). In the present case, because the crime was allegedly committed on August 28, 1998, the insanity defense statute in effect at the time was the amended version which became effective June 19, 1998.  As stated, the version changed the definition of insanity and increased a defendant's burden of proof.  Defendant on appeal here contends that his equal protection and due process rights were violated when the jury applied the amended insanity statute to his case.  Defendant argues there was no rational basis for removing the prong that would have allowed him to argue at trial that he was unable "to conform his conduct to the requirements of law."  720 ILCS 5/6--2(a) (West 1994).  As part of his argument, defendant notes that the statute providing for the defense of intoxication has retained the prong allowing for a defense based on a defendant's inability "to conform his conduct to the requirements of law."  See 720 ILCS 5/6--3 (West 2002).  Section 6--3 provides in pertinent part: "A person who is in an intoxicated or drugged  condition is criminally responsible for conduct unless such condition is involuntarily produced and deprives him of substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law."  720 ILCS 5/6--3 (West 2002). Defendant argues that, in amending the insanity statute but not the intoxication statute, the legislature created a situation where a defendant who cannot conform his conduct to the requirements of law and commits an offense and thereafter seeks an insanity defense to escape criminal responsibility is treated differently from another defendant who, with the same type of mental inability, commits an offense and thereafter seeks an intoxication defense to escape criminal responsibility.  Defendant argues that, under the first scenario, the defendant is criminally responsible, but under the second scenario, the defendant is not criminally responsible.  Defendant concludes that, because of this disparate treatment, the insanity statute is unconstitutional. The constitutionality of a statute is subject to de novo review ( People v. Malchow , 193 Ill. 2d 413, 418 (2000)) and may be raised for the first time on appeal ( People v. Wooters , 188 Ill. 2d 500, 510 (1999)).  Statutes carry a strong presumption of constitutionality, and the challenging party bears the burden of rebutting that presumption.   People v. Maness , 191 Ill. 2d 478, 483 (2000). This court has a duty to interpret a statute in a manner that upholds its validity and constitutionality if it can be reasonably done.   People v. Fisher , 184 Ill. 2d 441, 448 (1998).  Our supreme court has previously held that requiring a defendant to prove insanity does not violate due process.   People v. Scott , 148 Ill. 2d 479, 541-43 (1992).  Therefore, we will focus our analysis as it pertains to defendant's equal protection claim. The standards used to determine the constitutionality of a statute under the due process and equal protection clauses are identical.   People v. Pursley , 341 Ill. App. 3d 230, 236 (2003), citing People v. Kimbrough , 163 Ill. 2d 231, 242 (1994).  The analysis employed to assess equal protection claims is the same under both the United States and Illinois Constitutions (U.S. Const., amend. XIV, §1; Ill. Const.1970, art. I, §2).   Fisher , 184 Ill. 2d at 450; People v. Smith , 345 Ill. App. 3d 742, 748 (2004).  The guarantee of equal protection of the law requires the government to treat similarly situated individuals in a similar manner.   Fisher , 184 Ill. 2d at 450; Smith , 345 Ill. App. 3d at 748.  The government may not accord different treatment to individuals who have been placed by statute into different classes based on criteria wholly unrelated to the purpose of the legislation.  The government, however, is not forbidden from drawing proper legislative distinctions among different categories of people.   Smith , 345 Ill. App. 3d at 748-49. The level of scrutiny applicable in reviewing legislative classifications depends on the nature of the classification.  Where the statute creates a "suspect" classification, such as one based on race or national origin, or impinges on fundamental rights, the statute is subject to strict scrutiny.  Statutes that do not implicate these concerns are subject to rational basis review.   People v. Reed , 148 Ill. 2d 1, 7 (1992); Smith , 345 Ill. App. 3d at 749.  Here, defendant argues that the insanity statute impermissibly denies him an opportunity to escape criminal responsibility based on his inability to conform his conduct to the requirements of law, while the intoxication statute permits the defense.  The availability of an affirmative defense is not a suspect classification under the equal protection clause; therefore, the amendment to the insanity statute needs only to satisfy the rational basis test.  See Reed , 148 Ill. 2d at 8. Under the rational basis test our review is limited and deferential; a statutory classification will be upheld if it bears a rational relationship to a legitimate state interest.   Pursley , 341 Ill. App. 3d at 236.  If we can reasonably conceive of any set of facts to justify the statutory classification, we will uphold the statute.   Reed , 148 Ill. 2d at 8.  Thus, we must determine whether a rational basis exists for denying defendants wishing to raise an insanity defense the opportunity to argue that they should escape criminal liability because they are unable to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law. It is well established that the legislature, under its police power, has broad discretion to define offenses and prescribe penalties and aggravating factors for the offenses.   People v. Torres , 327 Ill. App. 3d 1106, 1113 (2002).  Further, the legislature may amend a statute that it has enacted.  See People v. Allen , 153 Ill. 2d 145, 153 (1992).  As stated earlier, the insanity statute has been periodically amended since 1827.  With respect to the change in the definition of insanity and a defendant's burden of proof, a review of the legislative history reflects that the General Assembly was concerned that the insanity defense had become too easy to raise and too difficult to disprove.  See People v. Vernon , 276 Ill. App. 3d 386, 390 (1995).  The General Assembly may have also been concerned that those committed to psychiatric care after successfully raising an insanity defense could be released into society to again commit criminal acts.   Vernon , 276 Ill. App. 3d at 390.  The General Assembly also feared that defendants could fabricate an insanity claim.   Vernon , 276 Ill. App. 3d at 390, quoting 83d Ill. Gen. Assem., House Proceedings, June 21, 1983, at 136 (Comments of Representative Johnson) (noting that the legislature stated that the changes now at issue were " 'a modest and reasonable step towards *** putting an out of control defense in some sort of meaningful control' ").  Based on our review of the statute, its history, its legislative history, and other court decisions interpreting the statute, we conclude the General Assembly had a rational basis for amending the definition of insanity. With respect to the legislature's decision not to change the definition of the intoxication statute when it amended the insanity statute, we believe defendant's argument fails here for a number of reasons.  First, the legislature has no duty to amend its compilation of statutes when it decides to strike language in one statute simply because the same language is contained in another enactment.  Second, we believe that the classes of individuals are not similarly situated.  A person seeking a determination of insanity presents evidence that is primarily subjective (see, e.g. , McDonald , 329 Ill. App. 3d at 946), while a person seeking to establish a defense of an intoxicated or drugged condition may present evidence that includes objective or scientific methods, such as a blood test (see, e.g. , People v. Johnson , 32 Ill. App. 3d 36 (1975)).  Finally, we note that Public Act 90--593 did not change the other prong of the definition of insanity, which permits a defendant to argue that he is not guilty because he "lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct."  720 ILCS 5/6--2(a) (West 1996).  Defendant was still free to argue and be found insane under this prong. Although defendant focuses his brief on the legislature's decision to strike the phrase "conform his conduct to the requirements of law," the legislature's decision to change the burden of proof in section 6--2(e) and its rationale for so changing it are part and parcel of the amendment.  Given the legislature's concerns, we believe that the amendment to section 6--2 of the Criminal Code embodies a rational approach to a perceived problem.  See Vernon , 276 Ill. App. 3d at 390.  Accordingly, we conclude defendant's equal protection and due process rights were not violated. We also reject defendant's claim that the insanity statute violates the proportionate penalties clause, because defendant lacks standing to make such a claim.  Generally, courts will not consider the validity of a statutory provision unless the person challenging the provision is directly affected by it or the unconstitutional feature is so pervasive as to render the entire statute invalid.   People v. Morgan , 203 Ill. 2d 470, 482 (2003), citing People v. Palkes , 52 Ill. 2d 472, 480-81 (1972).  In either case, defendant has standing to bring his constitutional challenge only if he is able to show himself to be within the class aggrieved by the alleged unconstitutionality.  See Morgan , 203 Ill. 2d at 482, citing People v. Mayberry , 63 Ill. 2d 1, 6 (1976). In the present case, defendant essentially presents a hypothetical situation in which he argues that he would have faced vastly different penalties had he been able to use as his affirmative defense the prior version of the insanity statute.  Of course, this situation also implies that a jury would have found in his favor by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffered from a mental disease or mental defect and that he lacked the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.  In reality, defendant was charged with committing the offense of first-degree murder, and a jury found him guilty of committing first-degree murder.  Implicit in the jury's finding of guilt is a refusal to find that defendant suffered from a "mental disease or mental defect" or that he lacked the "substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct," or both.  See 720 ILCS 5/6--2(a) (West 1998); People v. Foley , 318 Ill. App. 3d 38, 44 (2000).  A defendant does not ordinarily have standing to challenge a statute as it might have been applied in different circumstances.  See People v. Falbe , 189 Ill. 2d 635, 644 (2000).  Because defendant is unable to show that he was actually an aggrieved party (see Morgan , 203 Ill. 2d at 482), we conclude defendant has no standing to challenge the penalties he could have faced had the legislature not amended the insanity statute, and had the jury found by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffered from a mental disease or mental defect and was unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of law. [Nonpublishable material under Supreme Court Rule 23 removed here.] For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court of Du Page County. Affirmed. GROMETER and CALLUM, JJ., concur.

Rassan joyriding sprees“a fatality waiting to happen” November 3, 2014 Residents in the border area of Rassan claim the antics of boy racers who are converging on the area to carry out dangerous stunts and driving manoeuvres are a “fatality waiting to happen” and are appealing for Gardai to do more to help bring the activities to an end. One resident whose gable end property was damaged during a spree of reckless driving last Sunday (26th October) claims he rang Gardai to attend the scene but was advised that the patrol car was in Carlingford and was unable to attend. He maintains that the “joyriding scourge” is an ongoing pastime for the youths which occurs almost every Sunday and Thursday nights and involves the same two vehicles performing reckless manoeuvres and doughnuts with a total disregard for their own safety or that of others. According to the angry resident, such is the fearless audacity of the perpetrators that traffic on the road is often forced to come to a standstill to allow the joyriders to carry out their perilous stunts. “It’s just matter of time before someone gets killed or seriously injured here,” said the frustrated local. “These are not just one-off events. This is a continuous scourge which happens every Thursday night from 10pm onwards. It’s causing untold misery for people living here and nothing is being done about it, despite the Garda being called on numerous occasions. These youths are getting away with this scot free, even to the extent that they are stopping traffic so they can continue their antics! “Last week eight of the bollards embedded in the ground along the side of my house were broken by one of these dangerous drivers and one of these days a car is going to end up in my garden. It needs to be stopped before someone gets killed.” The resident says the situation is becoming unbearable and believes Gardai could do much more to stop the ongoing joyriding, especially when it is so well known that the same two vehicles are carrying out the life threatening stunts on a weekly basis. The Examiner contacted Gardai regarding the issue but had not received a response at the time of going to press.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies Here’s another easy 7-ingredient paleo recipe for you! These Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies are a classic dessert that’s better than the real thing. Fans tell me it’s their go-to cookie recipe, and I can’t argue with that because we love them too! In addition to being a wonderful paleo cookie, these are a great low-carb dessert with only one-quarter cup of sweetener in the entire recipe! To truly make these a paleo treat, use sunbutter rather than peanut butter. Since peanuts are legume, they are not part of the paleo diet. These Vegan Peanut Butter cookies are gluten-free, grain-free, and egg-free. I based them on the Peanut Butter Cookie recipe on 101 Cookbooks. I made a number of changes to that recipe. Of course I eliminated the wheat flour. Then I cut the amount of sweetener and switched up the oil. I haven’t ever met a recipe that I didn’t want to completely rewrite. Comments This is my go to recipe for PB cookies. I did swap in room temp butter instead of shortening, and added an egg to keep it together. Being type 2 diabetic, most cookies are not worth the trouble as you get MAYBE 2 cookies from all the sugar. I get about 12 cookies per recipe with my scoop and I did the math, they average 5 grams of carbs per cookie so I can have 3 or even 4 as a splurge. Thanks for sharing. I made these with sun butter and they turned out great! I could only find the crunchy sun butter so I threw it in my blendec twister jar to make it creamy. The dough was very oily, but after the cookies baked they were perfect!!! Thanks for another great recipe. I just made these and the same thing happened. All peanut butter is not created equal… mine did not have very much oil so I added a few tablespoons of coconut oil to the batter and that did the trick. I hope this helps. Hi Mary, I am able to eat all nuts and am so thankful, because so many other foods are off limits for me since I’m on a strict grain-free diet! For more information on why I use almond flour read this: My boyfriend has Crohn’s disease and can’t eat any sort of flour other than nut flours. Coconut flour and almond flour are a lot healthier than corn flour or all-purpose. They also don’t cause inflammation. I’ve recently been on a peanut butter kick too after reintroducing it. I made these cookies today and they were absolutely AMAZING. Once cooled I topped with the tiniest smidge of crunchy peanut butter too and they were SO good. I halved the recipe, however was wandering how is best to store these for a couple of days – should I refrigerate? These were fabulous! I followed the recipe and used local raw honey as I dont like other imitation sugars and they were so great. Halved the recipe and it made 6 perfect cookies, slightly more then 1 tbsp a piece. I cooked them for the full 12 min. Thank you elana for being in the world! :) Hi Kitty, thanks for your comment! I’m sorry to hear the cookies did not turn out correctly for you. The consistency can be different depending on the brands used when baking. Best results come from using the brands that are shown when clicking on the green text in the ingredient portion of the recipe. This is especially true when it comes to brands of almond flour! Hopefully you enjoy the cookies in the future! For more information on almond flour and how it affects the results of my recipes, please see this post: I used coconut oil too and mine fell apart. (I was dumb and softened it first to help with measuring with honey, so maybe that was the problem.) I used regular table salt and would definitely only put in half next time. (My peanut butter probably had salt in it too. I’ll have to check.) I did like the dough better, so I froze some to eat instead of baking. Hello – I am wondering why the use of Palm oil shortening – given that deforestation of the Palm is really really awful. Why not coconut oil or something else instead? Any help with a substitution for someone who doesn’t want to use palm for ethical reasons? Thanks for your comment Dt! I use sustainably harvested palm oil. I haven’t tried making these cookies with something in place of this ingredient so not sure how that would go. Here’s a link to one of my cookie recipes that I think you’ll love! I haven’t used your recipe yet, but from experience sunflower seed butter (though delicious in traditional peanut butter cookie recipes) will turn your cookies bright green. It is the combination of the sunflower seeds with the baking powder. 3) Time: needed to bake a good 15+ minutes to smell “done” and didn’t really brown too much Review: The sweetness was perfect. The cookie texture was perfect, a little darker/wetter in the center but baked on the outside. I did not like the flavor of coconut in this cookie. It distracted me from the pleasure of peanut butter. Maybe ghee next time. So Elana, as usual, had it right in the first place with shortening instead of coconut oil. On a side note, I actually baked paleo peanut butter cookies from another blog immediately prior to making these. The other blog’s cookie are indeed “The Worst Cookies Ever”. Maybe I could salvage them by breaking them up and pouring coconut milk over them, Dog biscuits. The other blog’s recipe used 1/2 cup coconut flour, but not enough wet ingredients, only 1 egg. It’s as if that blogger never made one of Elana’s coconut flour recipes with plenty of egg and experienced that “expansiveness” of a good coconut flour recipe. Moral of the story: a) 3 Cheers for you, fellow bakers, for sharing your experiences here. Your comments say so much to confirm if readers should invest time/ingredients in that recipe, or keep seeking. Brandon and Elana…can you specify what you mean by ‘not feeling great’ with a lot of peanut butter? I’m wondering whether any if my symptons correlate…I’ve kinda noticed it but didn’t want to acknowledge it because I LOVE peanut butter…any advice/clarity would be much appreciated! I am not Elana but I know what you are experiencing. You probably get a stomach ache because peanuts can get moldy and sometimes a moldy peanut can get mixed in with the regular peanuts which can cause you to experience a stomach ache. I don’t know what she is referring to…..but Peanuts are actually legumes, not nuts, which are grown underground as part of a root system. It is primarily due to the peanuts’ direct contact with the soil that they have become harmful, and even dangerous, to your health. Peanuts have a soft and porous skin and they grown in the ground. When the environment surrounding the peanut becomes warm, humid and wet — as it does in most regions of the U.S. where peanuts are commonly grown — a fungal growth/mold occurs. The fungus itself is not dangerous, but the poison it releases, known as “aflatoxin,” is. This cancer-causing toxin damages the liver, is one of the more deadly food-borne toxins in existence, it feeds candida and more Choose ORGANIC varieties grown in a dry regions where aflatoxin have not been reported as a problem, such as New Mexico. Just made these for the dozenth time. We’re not a GF or SF family yet everyone LOVES these cookies anyway. I used chunky peanut butter. This time. It worked really well. Watch your salt, though, I probably could’ve cut the recipe amount in half… or next time pick up a low sodium pb. I just took my first batch out of the oven. I used brown rice syrup and xylitol as the sweeters. I added a homemade chocolate chip on top of each cookie.They tuned out great! I just got a thumbs up from my taste tester. Just made these and they were yummy! I used butter instead of shortening, and I flattened them with a fork for the classic PB cookie look. I used a small disher to portion them out and cooked them for 7 mins. Perfect! Made these tonight and they are delicious! I used Earth Balance instead of shortening and they turned out great. The first batch was a little overdone on the bottom at 9 min, the second batch were perfect at 7.5 min. I was able to use a fork to flatten them before baking. made these last night with trader joe’s almond meal, butter & maple syrup. they were fantastic! definitely had to wait for them to cool all the way or they’d fall apart. once cooled, they were perfect! Just made these today and they turned out delicious! It was my first attempt at baking with the honeyville almond flour. Substituted maple syrup for the agave and used butter in place of the shortening. Very easy to make and a great healthy snack! Thanks for the recipe! I’m going grain free and dairy free for a little while, and these were a great treat tonight. I didn’t pat them down and they cooked into rounded shapes like those Enjoy Life cookies at the store. These were delicious. I loved the texture and flavor. They weren’t overly sweet either. Yum! They made my outlook on a grain free, dairy free bit of time not so gloomy. These are fabulous. I made a few substitutions. Replaced the agave syrup with 1/4 cup maple syrup and about 3 tbl of organic coconut palm sugar. Also replaced the palm shortening (didn’t have any) with 1 tbl of coconut oil. Used Trader Joe’s chunky unsalted organic peanut butter. I’m not a vegan, so I think I’ll try swapping the oil out for an egg. I eat grain/sugar/gluten free and am so happy to have this recipe. Will definately make again….and again. This is a fabulous recipe. Calories per cookie-118, fat-7.3 grams, protein-3 grams. I made half a batch and yielded 7 perfect cookies. I will add stevia next time in addition to the agave to make it sweeter. If you yield a different number of cookies and would like to calculate these nutritional values, here are are the values for the entire full recipe: calories-1650, fat-110, protein-42. Just divide by the number of cookies in your batch for per-serving values. I run the numbers because I am into fitness. I need to know what’s going in me so I know what I need to burn. During my weight-loss years I would never have tried to work almond flour recipies into my regime, due to (baseless) fear of the fat almonds deliver. Now I run the numbers and welcome almond flour-based foods. So long as my total calorie count for the day is around or less than what I burn. So go ahead, have a cookie ;-) I made these cookies last night, substituting sun butter for the peanut butter. They were amazing! I’m using the past tense because the cookies are GONE already! My significant other loved them as did two of my co-workers. I love them and will make another batch tonight as I have guests visiting this weekend. What can I use instead of the almond flour? I have the following on hand. Tapioca flour, flaxseed, potato flour, brown rice flour, super fine brown rice flour, and sweet sorgum flour. I am new at GF baking and these are the only flours I have been able to buy in my area, and had to travel 50+ miles to get them. Thanks, Hi Heather and Moe! Thanks for your comments. I’ve been grain-free since 2001, and I haven’t baked with typical GF flours in over 15 years so I’m probably not the best person to give you advice on how to make these using ingredients such as rice flour. If you do experiment I hope you’ll leave a comment to let us know how it turns out! I looove peanut butter and have my own collection of pb recipes on my healthy vegan blog. I used to love making flourless peanut butter cookies but stopped making them due to the unhealthy and unvegan ingredients. But with your recipe, I want to try again! Yummm, I am a huge fan of peanut butter. I eat it more than the average normal person should .. And these cookies look amazing. I like the denseness that almond flour gives to baked goods, so I can only imagine how good these are. These are delicious! I subbed coconut oil but mine didn’t turn out properly…they’re like earthquake cookies…turned into fractured pieces and a pile of crumbs. Tasty, but this didn’t work for me. I’m in Houston, so could it be an altitude difference?? Mine did these too when I over baked them. They really only need the 6 or so minutes and then will cool to perfection. (Though I did really enjoy just pouring a bit of Almond Milk over the crumbs and eating them with a spoon–almost like a dessert cereal.) I cant eat peanut butter at all. So I decided to give it a whirl with the sunbutter as a substitute. I also added some unsweetened carob chips and they were TERRIF!!!! Cookies dont normally hang around my house for long, but these cookies stay was much shorter than normal! I used your recipe w/ a few modifications. I used almond butter instead of peanut butter and xylitol as a sweetener. But since your sweetener is liquid, I added a splash of unsweetened almond milk to the batter, until it got the consistency of cookie dough. Looooooved the result. Yay for a low carb, sugar free cookie. Thank you so much for your recipes! I loooooove your blog! I made these subbing sunflower seed butter for the peanut and grapeseed oil for the shortning (just ‘cuz the shortning is so darn expensive and the grapeseen oil was on sale at my local co-op), and they just turned out lovely. I didn’t quite trust the short cooking time on the first batch and overcooked them a bit, but the second batch…oh boy! Thank you Elana–these were lovely! Has anyone tried this with almond butter? I’m still off peanuts, but good to know that that can change. Just tried chocolate banana cake from he Gluten-free Almond Flour cookbook. It was very satisfying on so many levels–tasted great and actually felt like I was doing something good for my body. Made a batch of these this afternoon with a little twist. Used almond butter rather and peanut butter, substituted coconut oil for the shortening and topped each one with one chocolate chip! They are no long Vegan because we use Dagoba which contains milk. They are a really good quick snack. Not too sweet with a bit of chocolate surprise. Very nice! Thanks Elana for the inspiration. That’s funny because I was just thinking since I didn’t have enough peanut butter if I could use almond butter. I just made half the batch with the peanut butter I had. I may try the almond butter next time. Thanks for sharing the twist. I’m not good at twisting and experimenting in the kitchen. :) Thank you Elana. I’m a in-bed-by-nine-pm kind of girl, but when I saw your post I had to make these. I did substitute Crunchy Sunbutter for the peanut butter and used coconut oil for the Spectrum and they were wonderful. Your recipes are so yummy! These sound wonderful! I will, however, be subbing with Sunbutter since my son is allergic to peanuts. And I haven’t been able to find the Spectrum shortening lately, so I think I’ll try Earth Balance. Is your son allergic to tree nuts as well? I am allergic to peanuts and I am going to try this recipe with Barney Butter- my new peanut butter substitute of choice. It is sweet and creamy, and the closest thing to “Jif” creamy peanut butter as I can remember. It is a gluten free and peanut free facility. Just put them in the oven! I love that I can read one of Elanas recipes, jump up, have all the ingredient and just make something new! BTW, I didn’t have any shortening so I used vegan butter. Pretty sure they will be delish! However I am wondering if the vanilla is vegan. It is organic alcohol but they don’t mention whether or not the alcohol is filtered with fish bladders (like many grain or fruit based alcohols are). I’ve contacted them for clarification but since it’s the weekend… Maybe you’ve already got the heads up on how they filter their alcohol for the vanilla? Oh my goodness. Instead of fretting about the vanilla in the recipe being filtered through fish bladders (geez almighty) Just buy yourself some organic vanilla, or pick up some organic vanilla beans, a jar, some good brandy, or vodka, or everclear, and make your own organic vanilla extract. With all due respect (which you clearly aren’t affording me), I wasn’t fretting about it being organic. Simple lesson: Organic does not equal vegan. I myself am not vegan but I have friends who are. They will not eat anything that contains an ingredient that isn’t vegan. If the alcohol used in the vanilla isn’t vegan (fish bladders) then then vanilla isn’t either. If the vanilla isn’t then the cookies aren’t. It is wrong to label cookies as being vegan if they contain an ingredient that isn’t. And yes, I do actually make my own vanilla. The alcohol I use isn’t vegan so my vanilla isn’t either. I’d hoped the link to the vanilla she used would not only be gluten free but vegan certified as well since I was hoping to find a vegan vanilla for friends. I fail to see how my comment seeking clarification should merit such a derogatory and dismissive remark. I know the difference between organic and vegan thank you. No lesson needed. You are making a mountain out of a mole hill here. This was a simple cookie recipe post, courtesy of Elana, that readers could choose to make or not choose to make. Your question about the vanilla used in the recipe was unnecessary. If a person reading this recipe happens to be a vegan, they will use the vanilla they always use for baked goods, or a vanilla bean or their own homemade vanilla. Why you felt the need to overemphasize isinglass used in some filtering, (that incidently is becoming rarer and rarer) is beyond me, and probably a good many others. Good lord, check out the dozens & dozens of vegan cookbooks, or website that offer vegan recipes that call for vanilla. You’d be hard pressed to find one that says, be sure you use vegan vanilla. You won’t find it as 99% of vegans know what vanilla to use. I too have quite a few vegan friends. and believe it or not, they know what baking supplies are vegan or not vegan, without me having to tell them. They also know where to buy thier vegan baking supplies, how to make their own vanilla, and, what beer, wine, or spirits, are vegan or not vegan also. Isn’t that amazing? As for your homemade vanilla being non vegan when you have vegan friends. How odd.. I’ll admit my first response was not my best, I was a tad shell shocked by the extent of your response to a simple question. And as to pointing out that vegan does not equal organic, well the amount of time spent informing me how to just go get organic vanilla when that wasn’t the point of my question at all suggested that it might not be a fact you were fully aware of. At this stage I’m firmly of the belief that you are the one turning this into a contentious issue. All I asked was if Mrs Elana knew how the vanilla alcohol was filtered. I’ve been looking for a commercial source of vegan vanilla, it was an innocent question. Your response, when it wasn’t a question aimed at you, was dismissive and had no point other than to ridicule. How is that helpful? Furthermore your comment that I have vegan friends but I’m not in possession of vegan vanilla (and that is ‘odd..’) is insinuating at best and at worst insulting. Your experience with your vegan friends does not equal how it is for everyone else, nor does everyone else have the same amount of experience as you in different topics of diet. Please be considerate. So if you don’t have anything further that is helpful on this subject I will consider it closed with you. I apologize if I found this back-and-forth entertaining. I just wanted to add that I made these without vanilla (as I was out) and they were delightfull–you would never have noticed. I think if you were unable to find an appropriate vanilla you could just leave it out or sub Orange Flower water or Rose water as the flavor profiles matched. Love your recipes Elana! I always look forward to them arriving in my in box;) One question for you in relation to almond flour I was hoping you could answer- are you an advocate of soaking nuts to remove the phytic acid, among other things? Have you ever tried soaking pre ground almonds for your recipes, and if so what kind if results did you find? Have any of your readers tried soaking almond flour for the health benefits them dehyrating to make it easier to use in recipes? I soak my almonds before I make almond milk. Then I sometimes dehydrated the pulp and grind it in my grain mill or blender for almond flour and it works great. I also use the pulp damp in pancakes and in Elana’s recipes she has for crackers using the damp pulp. I still haven’t perfected using the damp pulp in bread recipes. The damp pulp also freezes well. We like soaking our almonds. We use 1 Tbsp. salt to 4 cups water, then let the almonds soak 12 hours. We drain them and spread them a layer thick on cookie sheets and place them in the oven. We bake them all day at a very low temperature, till they are dry and snap easily. They taste SO good- way better then the roasted nuts at the store. Get free recipes by email! Categories Categories Archives Archives Like my recipe and health tips? Get free updates sent to your inbox! Get free recipes by email! Email Address All content on elanaspantry.com is licensed and the original creation and property of elana's pantry (unless otherwise noted). 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Imortilized in film, Tony Montana comes to the video-game world. And he brought his little friend. The Good: Great story idea with a mix of serious and funny plotlines. Uses elements that haven't been used in GTA games. Voice acting is excellent. Missions and gameplay are easy to understand. Customization of personal items is a nice touch. The Bad: "Felix Leads" missions become too repetitive sometimes. Not the best looking game out there, visually speaking. Over-the-top antics and incessant profanity are overdone here and there. There are few films with as many ego-driven one-liners and such unadulterated violence as the cult classic Scarface. Cuban gangster Tony Montana, already immortalized in film, hits the small screen in digital form and does more than an adequate job maintaining his reputation. Product Rating Photogallery The premise with Scarface: The World is Yours is simple: Tony survives the relentless assault from kingpin Alejandro Sosa's death squad, but now must claw his way back to the top. He must take Miami back and eventually face down Sosa in South America. Taking back "what's comin' to me (mother f*****)." Putting aside the short tutorial in which we see Tony looking goofy in a Cuban military uniform, the real test comes fast and furious right from the start. The game picks up from where the movie ended, but instead of Tony lying dead in the fountain, you fight off your would-be assassins and make your way out of the mansion and into your getaway car. During the sequence, you learn how to use the "blind rage" mode, which is a Max Payne-like bullet time where gameplay slows right down to a crawl, you become temporarily invulnerable and can plug your enemies full of holes with great accuracy. Blind rage mode can only be triggered when your "balls meter" — which accumulates as you successfully take down your foes — is full. Scarface is arguably bloodier and filled with more gore than any of the Grand Theft Auto games. And you're rewarded for taunting the corpses of your dead enemies as well. Without question, the bloodiest moments are saved for times where you use the chainsaw because you gain more reputation points and balls by hacking limbs off your enemies. And all of this is done in a cocaine-free rage. At various times throughout the game, Tony mentions that his snorting days are over, though his henchmen sometimes indulge in a little nose candy. Build an empire and "bury those cock-a-roaches!" The map is split into four different zones of Miami. Little Havana is controlled by the Diaz Brothers, Downtown by the "Haza" Nacho Contreras and both South Beach and North Beach are Gaspar Gomez's territory. There is another territory called "The Islands" which seems to be based on a Caribbean locale. Though the Bahamas are the closest to Florida, the accents on the characters are overly Jamaican, so it's hard to say what the intention was. The focus here is very much like that of the GTA games, with the notable exception that side missions aren't as plentiful and the main story tends to move along at a faster clip. This is especially evident in how quickly you can buy storefronts to start selling your llello (sounds like ye-yo), and even more so with the storage facility that will distribute the stuff in large quantities. How things progress in that regard largely depends on what you want to do. Cleaning out all hostile gangs from a territory is a time-consuming process, and a tough one at that, but it becomes essential in securing your product. When rival gangs have little to no presence in your territory, coupled with low Gang Heat, you can distribute the llello to your fronts with relative ease and bring in bigger profits. Taking out the gangs also reaps significant financial rewards, since you're basically stealing the money they made. You just have to be careful that you don't generate too much Cop Heat in doing this — or too much Gang Heat because that will mean certain attacks on your storefronts. "All I got in this world…" Like the Tony Montana in film, the video game iteration lives in excess in much the same way. You have the opportunity to buy tons of exotic items to be placed in your mansion at your leisure. These include the remains of his sister Gina and best friend Manny in urns. But then there are all the cars, the boats and investments that you can make. Plus, you get to renovate and update the look of your mansion. The general persona of Tony is handled very well in the game, and the excellent voice acting has a lot to do with that. A big budget was allocated for the voices and it shows, as a who's-who of Hollywood talent takes part. When you buy the Jukebox as one of your exotic items, you unlock the different music albums available to you. Everything from 80s pop to today's reggaeton has a place in the game, and you can customize what songs you want to play, rather than picking and choosing every time. "This country was built on washing money" Laundering your money and saving your progress at the same time was a good idea, and is a small feature that differs from GTA games. In Scarface, there's always a risk of losing your dirty cash. In one instance, I had taken out a big Contreras gang with a payload over $400,000, but I ended up losing it all after the cops took me down on my way to the bank. And the idea of "paying down" Cop Heat or Gang Heat is another inventive feature that really illustrates the cost of doing that kind of business. Although there are other ways in which you can lower those meters (i.e. intimidation), paying them down can help you out in the long run. Keep in mind that when those two meters are low, you gain access to bigger drug deals with a higher yield. Not to mention that the bank's take on your dirty cash is lowered significantly. "I know the game, man" The best thing about Scarface is that its subject matter is so closely tied to events and characters from the film. Names that were mentioned in the movie now become actual faces and characters who play big roles in Tony's new lease on life. To do this, it undoubtedly takes all the key elements of the GTA games, but it also has a different take on some things that help give it a bit of a different gameplay identity. Washing money or playing in missions as your various henchmen are neat ideas that can save you time and keep the story moving along. Share this article What are tags? A tag is a keyword or descriptive term supplied by our editorial staff used to associate related articles with one another. Tags make it easier for you to find other stories that share the same theme or topic with the article you’re currently reading.

Reactions of children to maxillary infiltration and mandibular block injections. The purpose of this study was to assess children's reactions to the administration of local anesthetic injection in the mandible and in the maxilla, and to study their sensation of pain after each type of injection. Twenty-six children between the ages of 4 to 6 (mean age 5.3+/-0.7 years), and 34 children aged between 7 to 10 (mean age 8.1+/-1.1 years,) who were undergoing dental treatment in a pediatric dental clinic, were selected for this study. A random crossover design was used. Each patient was randomly assigned to receive either maxillary infiltration or mandibular block on the first visit, and the remaining local anesthesia on the second visit. During the injection, the modified Behavioral Pain Scale, was used. It comprised the following parameters: a) facial display, b) arm/leg movements, c) torso movements, and d) crying. Immediately after administering the local anesthesia, children were asked to rate their feeling according to the Facial Affective Scale. The children in each group responded positively to both techniques revealing that there was no difference in either one. Subjective and objective evaluation disclosed no difference when mandibular block was administered during the first or second visit. Regarding the objective evaluation, in all parameters, more children reacted positively during administration of mandibular block than during maxillary infiltration. a) mandibular block and maxillary infiltration are similarly accepted by children when first administered, and b) children may feel inconvenience or pain and react by crying, yet may report a positive feeling in general.

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 03-7378 In Re: MICHAEL BURNS, Petitioner. On Petition for Writ of Mandamus. (CR-03-30) Submitted: February 23, 2004 Decided: March 12, 2004 Before WILKINSON, LUTTIG, and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges. Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion. Michael Burns, Petitioner Pro Se. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). PER CURIAM: Michael Burns petitions this court for a writ of mandamus directing the district court to act on three pro se motions Burns filed in a criminal case. After Burns filed the mandamus petition, he received a 126-month sentence in that case, and criminal judgment was entered on the district court’s docket. To the extent that Burns claims the district court did not rule on the motions, we note that the denial of a pending motion may be implied by the entry of final judgment. See Norman v. Apache Corp., 19 F.3d 1017, 1021 (5th Cir. 1994). The mandamus petition is therefore moot. Further, mandamus may not be used as a substitute for appeal. In re United Steelworkers, 595 F.2d 958, 960 (4th Cir. 1979). Accordingly, while we grant Burns’ motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, we deny his mandamus petition. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. PETITION DENIED - 2 - 

AUSTIN — State officials are dismissing concerns that larger driver’s license centers in Dallas and elsewhere will fall short in handling the number of Texans needing a photo ID to vote. The Department of Public Safety says the new law requiring voters to present a photo ID gives Texans enough ID options without having to go through the agency. DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said the law requires the DPS to create an election identification certificate for registered voters who don’t have another acceptable form of photo ID, but he emphasized that Texans can still vote with a variety of other types of ID. “These forms of identification include a driver license, personal identification certificate, military identification, a United States citizenship certificate, passport, or concealed handgun license,” Vinger said. The ACLU of Texas had raised concerns that the DPS plan to open six megacenters and refresh old centers wouldn’t alleviate chronic wait times that have plagued driver’s license centers or help Texans who need help complying with the new voter ID law. With a $63 million allocation from the Legislature, the department hopes to reduce long lines and improve efficiency at locations throughout the state. The department will open four megacenters in San Antonio, Houston and Austin, along with the two centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Each center will have at least 25 employees, and officials hope the larger facilities will increase serving capacity in the most heavily populated areas of the state. “The centers will be designed for optimal efficiency based on today’s needs and demands,” Vinger said.

Visa Tests Credit Card With Random Number Generator Built-in second factor of authentication could slow online card fraud Visa is testing a new credit card that can generate a random-number passcode to help ensure it won't be used by unauthorized individuals. In trials starting this week at four banks -- Bank of America UK, Corner Bank in Switzerland, Cal in Israel, and IW Bank in Italy -- Visa and EMUE Technologies are testing a Visa PIN card, an alternative to the "CCV" code currently printed on the back of most cards to help ensure that the individual is actually in possession of the card. The technology was first introduced in June. An alphanumeric display and keypad is built directly into the card. When making a transaction online, customers type their PIN into the card, which creates a one-time security code. That code can be entered into a Website or given to a phone operator to help reduce "card-not-present" (CNP) fraud, the companies said. The card features a battery that lasts three years. A number of banks have expressed interest in the card since its introduction this past summer, according to Visa. "The interest in this solution in the industry has been overwhelming," said Sandra Alzetta, head of innovation and new products at Visa Europe. "We look forward to working with the banks involved in the pilots to gain greater insights into how effective this solution can be in the longer term." Visa has experimented with other CCV replacement schemes, including Verified by Visa, an ill-fated process that was found to be flawed -- hackers were sometimes able to reset the password by stealing the card's details and the user's birth date. Security experts pointed out that the new card is still vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, in which the attacker sets up a false site and fools the user into giving away a valid PIN. But officials at EMUE say that the cards could be loaded with digital signature technology, which would make attacks much more difficult. The trials will go for six to 12 months, raising the possibility that the technology might be more widely available late next year. Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message Tim Wilson is Editor in Chief and co-founder of Dark Reading.com, UBM Tech's online community for information security professionals. He is responsible for managing the site, assigning and editing content, and writing breaking news stories. Wilson has been recognized as one ... View Full Bio

Many years ago I ended up on the go-to list for a locally-based, national public opinion research firm. I attended a few focus groups. One was conducted for the benefit of a large hotel operator. Apparently it was in the customer experience business. We focus groupies looked at various room concepts and features and commented on them. Company representatives watched the discussion from behind a one-way mirror. It seemed worth a turkey club for dinner and 150 bucks. I was a frequent business traveler then. Lo and behold, a few months later I stayed at one of the company’s hotels and found some of the very conveniences — like a useful desk with power outlets — I’d commented on in the focus group. My customer experience improved tangibly. Now even crummy hotels usually have good desks with power outlets built in. The idea of customer experience research goes back to the dawn of marketing. It’s gained urgency in the information age because of the multiple ways people interact with organizations: in person, on the phone and online. Mail too, for that matter. Because of the Paperwork Reduction Act — which is not about what it sounds like — other laws, and a bit of cultural taboo, federal agencies have been generally reluctant to directly involve just plain citizens into their planning. There is, in fact, the possibility of bias coming into such research or the setting of false expectations. The online movement and the relentless improvement in commercial digital services, though, has provided powerful incentives for agencies to get more commercial-like in their research. Two examples: Veterans Affairs is using flesh-and-blood veterans to design its digital services. According to Denise Kitts, director of the Veterans Experience Office Multi Channel Technology Directorate, veterans themselves contribute directly to the research. Her office is small but has a big charter. Namely, to design digital services that use artificial intelligence and human centered design to work effectively and reliably. It wants to unite the various contact channels such that if a veteran starts an engagement in person, they’ll experience continuity if it continues online, and vice versa. Listen to my interview with Kitts here. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has initiated rulemaking to extend its authority to do focus groups. It seeks “qualitative feedback through focus groups.” It’s been doing this already but needs to go through rulemaking to continue. It plans on recruiting 3,000 people who would participate in an unspecified number of focus groups lasting 90 minutes. Sounds like a lot of focus groups, because most of them use no more than a dozen people. USCIS wants “information that provides useful insights on perceptions and opinions” of its services “in accordance with our commitment to improving services delivery.” The request for comments notes that focus groups don’t substitute for statistical surveys or, for that matter, metrics gathered from online services themselves. But when gauging customer experience, focus groups can be highly useful. As a young magazine editor many years ago, my publisher organized focus groups. I was in the team watching and listening from behind the one-way mirror. I had high-falutin’ images in my mind of my vaunted readers. In trudged a group of, let’s say, less than impressive-looking people. They dug into the sandwiches we’d provided. The publisher elbowed me with a smug grin, saying, “there’s your readers, heh heh heh!” But the readers said things that helped me shape the editorial content, proven in subsequent reader preference surveys. Anyhow, good for VA and USCIS for using this seemingly old-fashioned way to garner insight into 5G-era services. Keep in mind, people do watch and see if the organization has listened. One focus group I attended was for Amtrak. It was testing various branding approaches. One prototype poster for its Northeast corridor service was handsome in a neo-Deco way. But it showed a stylized Washington Monument and Capitol out of order, oriented wrong for the point of view depicted in the poster. People like me and Henry Kissinger were Acela first class regulars then. We notice that sort of thing. Several focus group members pointed this out. Nevertheless, some weeks later, there in Union Station, I spotted the very poster, still with the landmarks still mixed up.

As President Barack Obama witnessed the dramatic effects of climate chaos in Alaska today, a distinguished group of scientists and environmental, faith, civic and cultural leaders challenged him to champion a courageous U.S. goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 at the upcoming climate talks in Paris. The challenge, issued in the form of an open letter, describes the current U.S. target of 26-28% emissions reductions by 2025 as a “weak” goal “that cannot be described as honest, courageous, or responsible in the face of a crisis that threatens the continued existence of humanity.” The letter also calls on the Obama administration to abandon its “all-of-the-above” energy policy. Notable signers include authors Lester Brown and Terry Tempest Williams; actors Mark Ruffalo and Ed Begley, Jr.; environmentalists David Suzuki, Winona LaDuke, Tim DeChristopher, and Yeb Saño; filmmaker Josh Fox; musician Moby; and scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report. The open letter references a 2011 letter sent to President Obama – and signed by some of the same leaders – that called for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2020: “Because that urgent call was not heeded, we have lost precious time in the race to save civilization and must now set our sights even higher.” Urging an “all-hands-on-deck societal mobilization at wartime speed,” the letter states, “It is with a deepening sense of dread over the fate of humanity that we call on you today to use the powers of your presidency to champion a U.S. goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.” The letter reflects the views of growing numbers of scientists and climate leaders who are advocating dramatic, near-term carbon cuts over the carbon gradualism that has dominated the policy discourse to date. They say the world community has squandered the time available for a leisurely transition, and that an emergency mobilization is now needed to stave off climate catastrophe. In his groundbreaking 2015 report, Recount, signer David Spratt stated policymakers must recognize that “climate change is already dangerous, and we have no carbon budget left to divide up. Big tipping-point events irreversible on human time scales and large-scale positive feedbacks are already occurring at less than 1°C of warming.” Signer Yeb Saño, former climate change commissioner of the Philippines, said, "Climate change presents a clear and present danger for us and is already profoundly affecting many vulnerable communities around the world. The only path to climate justice is for the US to embrace the zero emissions paradigm." “The Obama administration calls climate change a global threat on the scale of World War II, so why are they not responding with a World War II-scale emergency mobilization?” asked signer Margaret Klein Salamon, founder of The Climate Mobilization. “It is time to treat climate change like the existential threat it is and mobilize off of fossil fuels." “Seventy years later, it is hard to comprehend the astonishing achievement of America's World War II mobilization, the sheer level of commitment, innovation and productivity that transformed society and led to the longest period of sustained economic growth in world history,” said signer Marshall Herskovitz, former president of the Producers Guild of America. “In the face of a crisis that now threatens our very existence, we can and must do it again.” “If we don't get to zero emissions within 10 years, we are looking at massive destruction and millions of lives lost,” said signer Laura Dawn, former MoveOn.org creative & cultural director. “Finally leaders are telling the truth about the severity of this crisis and the need for a heroic response.” “After seven years of half-measures and half-truths, the Paris climate talks will finally determine whether Obama’s legacy will be that of a climate champion who rose to the challenge of the climate crisis or a failure who was too scared to offer more than rhetoric and insufficient reforms,” said fossil fuel abolition activist Tim DeChristopher with the Climate Disobedience Center. The initiator of the letter, Tom Weis, president of Climate Crisis Solutions, concluded, “Photo ops in Alaska will not salvage President Obama’s climate legacy. Climate leaders fight for all that we love, not for all-of-the-above.”

Q: How to handle an exectution time error in AS3 (Error #1502) I'd like to know whether there is a way to add an error handler for a #1502 execution time error in AS3. A couple of notes: I am aware that the max script execution time can be set on the publish options. It takes values as high as 16 bit (0-65535). So there is a max of 18 hours. The script does not get terminated after 60 seconds in the context I use it. I use it in an application built with mProjector. There is an event listener on a button that opens a file browser dialogue. As long as the browser is open the event handler does not continue. If the maximum script execution time is exceeded I get the #1502. If there is no way I'll just set that limit very high. Nevertheless building something that will break if you leave a dialogue open for like a day is not neat. It's never gonna happen but still I wondered if there is a proper way to avoid things like this. Thanks. Additional info: Shortened code: bttn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, browse); function browse(e:Event) { var selectedFilesString:String = mSystem.chooseFiles(chooseFileTitle, initFileName, initFolderName, fileFilter, defaultFileType); ... } So this involves the mSystem.chooseFiles() method detailed here: http://www.screentime.com/software/flash-projector/docs/AS3-mSys-chooseFiles.htm But like I said I'm interested in wether there is an error handler for this error. Not in what might cause it and what does not or wether mProjector is well implemented or not etc. A: EDIT You can catch ScriptTimeoutError, but only once. See this blog post.

Q: When to use internal tables? So, I have read that using internal tables increases the performance of the program and that we should make operations on DB tables as less as possible. But I have started working on a project that does not use internal tables at all. Some details: It is a scanner that adds or removes products in/from a store. First the primary key is checked (to see if that type of product exists) and then the product is added or removed. We use ‘Insert Into’ and ‘Delete From’ to add/remove the products directly from the DB table. I have not asked why they do not use internal tables because I do not have a better solution so far. Here’s what I have so far: Insert all products in an internal table, place the deleted products in another internal table. Form update. Modify zop_db_table from table gt_table." – to add all new products LOOP AT gt_deleted INTO gs_deleted. DELETE FROM zop_db_table WHERE index_nr = gs_deleted-index_nr. ENDLOOP. " – to delete products Endform. But when can I perform this update? I could set a ‘Save button’ to perform the update, but then there will be the risk that the user forgets to save large amounts of data, or drops the scanner, shutting it down or similar situations. So this is clearly not a good solution. My final question is: Is there a (good) way to implement internal tables in a project like this? A: internal tables should be used for data processing, like lists or arrays in other languages (c#, java...). From a performance and system load perspective it is preferred to first load all data you need into an internal table, then process that internal table instead of loading individual records from the database. But that is mostly true for reporting, which is probably the most common type of custom abap program. You often see developers use select...endselect-statements, that in effect loop over a database table, transferring row after row to the report, one at a time. That is extremely slow compared to reading all records at once into an itab, then looping over the itab. More than once i've cut the execution time of a report down to a fraction by just eliminating roundtrips to the database. If you have a good reason to read from the database or update records immediately, you should do so. If you can safely delay updates and deletes to a point in time where you can process all of them together, without risking inconsistencies, I'd consider than an improvement. But if there is a good reason (like consistency or data loss) to update immediately, do it. Update: as @vwegert mentioned regarding the select-endselect statement, the statement doesn't actually create individual database queries for each row. The database interface of the application server optimizes the query, transferring rows in bulk to the application server. From there the records are transported to the abap report one by one (because in the report there is only the work area to store a single row), which has a significant performance impact especially for queries with large result sets. A select into an internal table can transport all rows directly to the abap report (as long as there is enough memory to hold them), as now there is the internal table to hold those records in the report.

José Viegas Filho José Viegas Filho (born 14 October 1942 in Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian diplomat. José Viegas served as Brazilian Ambassador to Denmark (1995–1998), to Peru (1998–2001) and to Russia (2001–2002). He was Minister of Defence in the Presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2003 and 2004. He tendered in his resignation to the President of the Republic due to a crisis generated by a note released by the Social Communication Service of the Brazilian Army which defended the Military Régime. In his note of resignation to the Ministerial office, José Viegas mentioned the incompatibility between the authoritarian philosophy based on the Doctrine of National Security and the full validity of the democratic institutions: "The note released on Sunday 17 represents the persistency of an authoritarian philosophy, linked to the remains of the old and anachronistic doctrine of national security, incompatible with the full validity of democracy and with the development of Brazil in the 21st century. It is high time for the representatives of this dated philosophy to walk out of the scene." In 2005, José Viegas Filho resumed his diplomatic career as Brazilian Ambassador to Spain and in 2009 became Brazilian Ambassador in Italy, which office he continues to hold at present. He is married to Ericka Stockholm, a Peruvian writer of children tales. She was a famous actress in Peru in the decade of 80's and 90's. References The information on this page is based on its counterpart on Portuguese Wikipedia, accessed 1 December 2010. Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:Ambassadors of Brazil to Denmark Category:Ambassadors of Brazil to Spain Category:Ambassadors of Brazil to Italy Category:Ambassadors of Brazil to Peru Category:Ambassadors of Brazil to Russia Category:Defence ministers of Brazil Category:People from Rio de Janeiro (city)

Evolution of the spectrin-based membrane skeleton. A group of four proteins - spectrin, ankyrin, 4.1 and adducin - evolved with the metazoa. These membrane-cytoskeletal proteins cross-link actin on the cytoplasmic face of plasma membranes and link a variety of transmembrane proteins to the cytoskeleton. In this paper, the evolution of these proteins is analysed. Genomics indicate that spectrin was the first to appear, since the genome of the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicolis contains genes for alpha, beta and betaH spectrin. This organism represents a lineage of free-living and colonial protists from which the metazoa are considered to have diverged. This indicates that spectrin emerged in evolution before the animals. Simple animals such as the placozoan Trichoplax adherens also contain recognizable precursors of 4.1, ankyrin and adducin, but these could probably not bind spectrin. Ankyrin and adducin seem to have acquired spectrin-binding activity with the appearance of tissues since they appear to have largely the same domain structure in all eumetazoa. 4.1 was adapted more recently, with the emergence of the vertebrates, to bind spectrin and promote its interaction with actin. A simple hypothesis is that spectrin was prerequisite (but not sufficient) for animal life; that spectrin interaction with ankyrin and adducin was required for evolution of major tissues; and that 4.1 acquired a spectrin-actin binding activity as animal size increased with the appearance of vertebrates. The spectrin/ankyrin/adducin/4.1 complex represents a remarkable system that underpins animal life; it has been adapted to many different functions at different times during animal evolution.

Fiber-lasers are gradually replacing conventional solid-state lasers in several laser applications. Fiber-lasers have advantages over solid-state lasers in ruggedness and optical efficiency. CW fiber-lasers are capable of delivering a very high-powered beam, for example, a beam having a power in excess of 1 kilowatt (kW). Pulsed fiber-lasers can deliver peak-power as high as 10 kW or greater. Fiber-lasers can have a high optical efficiency, for example between about 60% and 90%. High-power CW fiber-lasers with multimode output are extremely useful in material processing applications, such as cutting of complex 3D shapes found in hydro-formed automotive parts and long-offset welding of complex-shaped parts. High peak-power pulsed fiber-lasers with single mode output can be used for scribing of solar-cell panels. Advantageously, high peak-power enables efficient frequency-conversion into visible and UV wavelength ranges. In theory at least, the output power of a fiber-laser is limited only by how much optical pumping power can be delivered into an optical gain-fiber for energizing a doped-core of the gain-fiber. In practice, there are limits due, inter alia, to non-linear effects which can broaden the spectrum of pump radiation resulting in reduction of absorption efficiency, and photo-darkening of the fiber material which can lead to reduction of efficiency, excessive heating, and even catastrophic failure. The non-linear effects become increasingly problematical as the gain-fiber is longer. Long gain-fibers are necessary with low brightness diode-laser pump sources currently available. FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a prior-art fiber-laser arrangement 10. Laser 10 includes a gain-fiber 12 having a doped core (not shown). Pump radiation from a plurality of diode-laser modules 18 is coupled into the cladding of the gain fiber via N-to-1 couplers 20 spliced to the gain fiber. Only two diode-laser modules per coupler are depicted in FIG. 1 for simplicity of illustration. In practice there be as many as 6 diode-lasers inputting to a 6-to-1 coupler. Pump radiation is coupled into both ends of the gain-fiber. A resonant cavity extending through the gain-fiber is formed by fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) 14 and 16 written in passive fibers 15 spliced to the central fiber of the coupler. FBG 14 is maximally reflecting at a lasing wavelength of the gain-fiber and FBG 16 is partially transmissive at that wavelength to allow laser output. The output may be delivered for use in an application or passed on to one or more stages of amplification. This arrangement would require fiber splices (depicted by a bold “X” in FIG. 1) between the diode-laser modules and the couplers, between the couplers and the gain fiber, and between the couplers and the FBG fibers. Fiber-splices and FBGs can be a source of instability due to transverse mode-coupling. Other issues include grating walk-off and modal instability. The latter issue arises because the fibre laser community, for the most part, is focussed on single-transverse-mode operation of the fiber-lasers in spite of the fibres themselves being multimode to avoid nonlinear impairments. Any fiber-splice is potentially a source of loss, due to less-than-perfect core-alignment, and potentially a source of mechanical failure. Clearly, the more splices the greater will be the potential for problems resulting from the aforementioned issues. A method of pumping a gain-fiber which does not require fiber splices is to directly focus radiation from an array of diode-laser emitters into the gain-fiber. A one-dimensional array of diode-laser emitters is typically referred to as a diode-laser bar. The emitters have an emitting aperture about 1 micrometer (μm) high (in what is referred to as the fast-axis of the emitter) and a width from about 10 μm to over 100 μm (in what is referred to as the slow-axis of the emitter). The bars are usually about 1 centimeter (cm) long and between about 1 and 4 millimeters (mm) wide, with the emitters having a length in the width-direction of the bar and emitting apertures aligned in the slow-axis direction. Typical diode-laser bars include about 20 emitters with a fill factor of about 20%. If more radiation is required than can be provided by a one-dimensional array, a two-dimensional array of emitters can be formed by stacking a plurality of diode-laser arrays, one above the other in the fast-axis direction, but the separation between bars in the stacking direction is usually greater than about 1.5 millimeters (mm) to allow for each bar to be mounted on a thermally conductive sub-mount for cooling. This provides an aggregate beam which has a radially asymmetric cross-section, being much longer in the fast-axis direction than in the slow-axis direction. Two-dimensional arrays of this kind can have as many as twenty diode-laser bars vertically stacked providing a total output of a few kilowatts. Such arrays are typically used for heat-treatment of metals and the like where accurate focusing is not required and radial asymmetry is not a problem. This radial asymmetry, however, makes focusing into a gain-fiber difficult and inefficient at best. In U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2010/0260210 gain-fiber pumping method is described wherein a plurality of diode-laser bars is used to optically pump a corresponding plurality of external-cavity vertically-emitting optically-pumped semiconductor (OPS) lasers with radiation from the OPS-lasers being used to directly pump a gain-fiber. FIG. 2 schematically illustrates a simplified arrangement 22 for carrying out this method. Here, gain-fiber 12 includes FBGs 14 and 16 forming a resonator as described above. Gain-fiber 12 has a doped core 17 surrounded by an inner cladding 19 which is surrounded by an outer cladding 21. Optical pump radiation is provided by a pump module 23 including plurality of OPS-lasers 24. Each laser delivers a beam of radiation 25 preferably in a single lateral mode or at least a “low-M2” (for example M2<2) mode. The beams are collimated, and are directed parallel to each other, here, by an arrangement of turning minors 27, to a positive lens 28. Radiation from all of the beams is focused by lens 28, as indicated by converging rays 29, into inner cladding 19 of gain-fiber 16, with a small portion, of course, directed into core 17. It is taught that in practice, as many as two-hundred fifty beams having M2<2 may be directed onto lens 28 and focused into a gain-fiber having an inner cladding diameter of about 100 μm and a numerical aperture (NA) of about 0.22. Assuming a relatively modest output power of about 30 W for a single-chip OPS laser, it is possible to couple as much as 7.5 kW of radiation into such a gain-fiber. This pumping method uses the OPS-lasers essentially as “brightness converters” to convert poor-quality low-brightness diode-laser beams into high quality, high brightness laser beams. It remains to be seen, however, whether the advantage of efficient focusing of the OPS-laser beams is sufficient to offset the less-than-100% efficiency of conversion, the cost of the OPS-lasers, and the cost of a beam-combining arrangement for as many as two-hundred fifty OPS laser-beams. There remains a need to develop an effective method of direct pumping using two-dimensional diode-laser arrays.

Functional consequences of IGFBP excess-lessons from transgenic mice. The functions of insulin-like growth factor-binding proteins (IGFBPs) have been studied extensively in vitro, revealing IGF-dependent and also IGF-independent effects on cell growth, differentiation, and survival. In contrast, the biological relevance of IGFBPs in vivo is only partially understood. In the past decade, mouse models lacking or overexpressing specific IGFBPs have been generated by transgenic technology. Phenotypic analysis revealed features that are common for most IGFBPs (growth inhibition), but also effects that appear to be specific for some but not all IGFBPs, such as disturbed glucose homeostasis (IGFBP-1 and -3) or impaired fertility (IGFBP-1, -5, and -6). Future systematic comparison of IGFBP functions in transgenic mice will be facilitated by targeted insertion of IGFBP expression vectors and by standardized phenotype assessment. Furthermore, analysis of IGFBP expression in growth-selected mouse lines or pedigrees segregating for growth phenotypes will be important to understand the roles of IGFBPs in multigenic growth regulation.

Protective efficacy of a single immunization with capripoxvirus-vectored recombinant peste des petits ruminants vaccines in presence of pre-existing immunity. Sheeppox, goatpox and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) are highly contagious ruminant diseases widely distributed in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Capripoxvirus (CPV)-vectored recombinant PPR vaccines (rCPV-PPR vaccines), which have been developed and shown to protect against both Capripox (CP) and PPR, would be critical tools in the control of these important diseases. In most parts of the world, these disease distributions overlap each other leaving concerns about the potential impact that pre-existing immunity against either disease may have on the protective efficacy of these bivalent rCPV-PPR vaccines. Currently, this question has not been indisputably addressed. Therefore, we undertook this study, under experimental conditions designed for the context of mass vaccination campaigns of small ruminants, using the two CPV recombinants (Kenya sheep-1 (KS-1) strain-based constructs) developed previously in our laboratory. Pre-existing immunity was first induced by immunization either with an attenuated CPV vaccine strain (KS-1) or the attenuated PPRV vaccine strain (Nigeria 75/1) and animals were thereafter inoculated once subcutaneously with a mixture of CPV recombinants expressing either the hemagglutinin (H) or the fusion (F) protein gene of PPRV (10(3) TCID50/animal of each). Finally, these animals were challenged with a virulent CPV strain followed by a virulent PPRV strain 3 weeks later. Our study demonstrated full protection against CP for vaccinated animals with prior exposure to PPRV and a partial protection against PPR for vaccinated animals with prior exposure to CPV. The latter animals exhibited a mild clinical form of PPR and did not show any post-challenge anamnestic neutralizing antibody response against PPRV. The implications of these results are discussed herein and suggestions made for future research regarding the development of CPV-vectored vaccines.

Plastic Bottle Recycling Plan Pits Coca-Cola Against Waste Giant Suez An effort to increase plastic bottle recycling in Europe is pitting packaging and beverage companies including Coca-Cola against waste management giant Suez, which supports the planned deposit and refund scheme. UK lawmakers are considering a deposit and refund scheme (DRS) where shoppers are charged a small deposit at point of sale, and they receive the money back when they return their plastic bottles for recycling. Other European countries that operate similar programs such as Germany and Sweden have seen their plastic bottle recovery rates increase to more than 85 percent, compared with less than 60 percent in the UK, the Daily Mail reports. While beverage makers and the packaging industry have lobbied against bottle deposit and refund in the UK, arguing that a DRS would hurt profits and that it doesn’t really increase recycling rates, Suez, one of Britain’s biggest waste collection firms, has come out in support of the plan. “Investing in a UK-wide deposit scheme for plastic bottles makes not just environmental sense but, importantly, economic sense too,” David Palmer-Jones, the British head of Suez, told the Daily Mail. “It puts pounds in the pockets of both households and business through reduced waste disposal costs and reduced need to buy virgin raw materials.” Palmer-Jones said a bottle deposit scheme would save UK councils millions of pounds in waste collection fees while also diverting for recycling and reuse tons of plastic that would otherwise go into landfills. Suez has contracts with 60 UK councils, providing waste collections for 12 million Britons as well as street cleaning. Last month leaked internal documents showed Coca-Cola planned to “fight back” against deposit return systems in the UK and other European states. Coke executives also held meetings with ministers in Westminster and Scotland to stress their opposition, the Daily Mail reports. Meanwhile, a deposit return system page on the company’s public website says “Coca-Cola Company supports the collection and recycling of post-consumer packaging” but adds “we believe deposit systems are only one potential solution to increase collection and recycling, and they may not work in every societal and economic context.” Coca-Cola has advocated for using closed loop approaches to increase recycling rates while achieving cost savings. For example, Coca-Cola European Partners, the world’s largest independent Coca-Cola bottler, partnered with labeling and packaging company Avery Dennison, waste management company Viridor and plastics processor PET UK to recycle waste PET liners from its Smartwater bottles and make new items. The companies expect the circular economy initiative will save CCEP about £25,000 ($30,658) annually and say it reduced CO2 emissions last year by 180 to 200 metric tons. This is more critical than ever now that glass is rarely seen anymore. It was a cut hazard once broken but at least it eventually breaks back down to dust eventually. Not the same for plastic.Its just gets smaller and smaller, floating in the water column and being ingested by fish not before attracting heavy metals and toxins to its surface. Its critical that we get as much of it back into the production stream before it reaches waterways

Federalism or a two-state solution: Exploring the options for a lasting solution to the crisis in Cameroon Photograph — AFP The recent developments in the crisis that has engulfed Cameroon, particularly the English speaking region of the country, have shown that the crux of the battle goes beyond language. It is a battle for survival where a largely marginalised people are challenging a western import that has abused them and seen them pushed to the periphery since the unceremonious solemnisation of the union in 1962. It is a battle for recognition, for equality, and for survival. Hence, a fix of just the language, if it does happen, might just not be the ultimate solution. It all started in November when the people of Bamenda, which if southern Cameroon were to be a country, will be the capital of the English-speaking region, took to the street to protest the continuous marginalisation by the government. Days before the protest, policemen went into a school where students were protesting the use of French in English regions to harass the students and teachers, hit them with police batons while dragging career lawyers by their clothes. In the aftermath of the physical assault, the people fearing for their lives at the hand of the police, who had now become instruments of oppression, announced a stay at home to protest the continuous oppression. The strike which has seen schools and courts closed has now entered its third month. The English-speaking Cameroonians are protesting what they describe as political and economic marginalisation, in which language is being used as the ultimate weapon. The Paul Biya-led government in June 2016 started posting French-speaking teachers and lecturers to schools and tertiary institutions in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. The act was not limited to schools, as French-speaking judges who had no knowledge of English common laws, which operates in the English-speaking region, were posted to adjudicate and preside over court sessions. This was done, I believe, to force the people, who would not want to remain incommunicado, to pick up French if they would want to remain relevant in their own country. The plan, however, failed to score its goal as the people took to the street in November 2016 to protest it, while also calling for the implementation of de facto and de jure bilingualism and federalism in the country. If the intentions of the government are true, implementation of a federal state should not be hard. However, the continual denial of the existence of a people marginalised in two of the ten regions of the country shows that the government is only interested in achieving a ‘One Cameroon’ of their own vision, and they are prepared to do that by any means possible. For one, the government does not see the use of French-speaking judges in English-speaking regions as an anomaly, let alone an imposition. Speaking in November 2016, the Cameroonian Minister in charge of special duties in the presidency, Atanja Nji reportedly said there was no Anglophone problem in Cameroon. This view was also corroborated by the Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary while speaking on Aljazeera’s AJstream. Apparently, the imposition is only normal, while in contrast, an English-speaking judge cannot preside over a court in any of the French-speaking regions. How normal is that? While the importance of achieving a country of one people cannot be overemphasised, there is also the place of respecting a people’s right to self-determination. As a matter of fact, monolingualism is not the way, the only way to unify a country. Canada is officially a bilingual country which is excelling and the people are living as Canadians – not English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians. English speaking Cameroonians are not demanding an imposition on the French-speaking regions of Cameroon, they are only demanding that they be treated as a people with yearnings and aspirations. That they be given jobs that belong to them not discriminated on the basis of their language, and not be made slaves in their own community. In reply to their demands, the government for the past two months has shut down internet connections over the English speaking regions, while assaults continued on the frontiers of the resistance, and every other English-speaking Cameroonian the lawless policemen fall upon. Untold carnage and crime against humanity have being perpetrated by Paul Biya while the world watches on. The UN being widely regarded as the watchdog of world politics sits by as well while a people’s right to self-determination is violently violated. In spite of all this, the government of Paul Biya has continued to maintain and deny the existence of a problem –not even a language problem – in the region. They are, by that way, lending credence to the atrocities of the police, showing that their actions are backed by the government. What is happening in Cameroon is basically a recolonisation of the English-speaking people by the France-backed French speaking regime of the country. Even though the constitution of the land clearly spells out French and English as the official languages of the country, official documents continue to be rendered in French, with no English translation. This already shows that the government does not recognise a people different from the majority. For all they care, there is only one Cameroon, there should be only one Cameroon, and there must be only one Cameroon. Cameroon today is a product of a union between the French-speaking Republique de Cameroon and the English-speaking Southern Cameroon who opted to join the republic in a federal union while the northern English-speaking Cameroon opted to join Nigeria. The plan to unify Cameroon cannot be realised with the use of force. A people cannot be kept in a union against their wishes. And their wish here is simple. The government should either recognise them as a people and a part of a Cameroon that houses two different people that can be made one or allow the people have their own state. Self-determination is a fundamental human right. The Cameroonian government has two options: federalism or a two-state solution. However, Paul Biya is having none of that. The reactions of his government so far have shown that they are far from accepting anything that tends towards independence for southern Cameroon. For one, they would have to acknowledge the existence of a problem between the two regions which until now they have failed to do. Nothing can be done in that regard. And with a pact signed with France to invade in the wake of any perceived break or crack in the unholy union, a defiant push for a two-state solution might turn out into a full-blown civil war. However, given that the idea of a two-state solution appears expensive, not necessarily in terms of money, and too farfetched as it remains foreign to Africa, the closest and efficient solution would an establishment of true federalism in Cameroon. A federalism which allows both regions to develop at their own pace, able to control the majority of resources in their region. This solution will allow for the propagation of preferred language in every setting within both regions without any problem. It would also mean that the Cameroon constitution would not only recognise English as an official language, as it presently does, it will also enforce the use of both languages of English and French in any and all official settings. This would enforce the teaching of both languages at schools, which means every Cameroonian child will grow up to be competent in both English and French. And since this proposition is also contained in the very agreement that brought these once separate peoples together in 1962, the best thing for the government to resolve the lingering crisis in to honour the agreement, or allow the English speaking region to form a country of their own.

Local council unaware of PM’s trip but hopes residents will be able to access medical services contracted for refugees This article is more than 1 year old This article is more than 1 year old Scott Morrison is due to visit Christmas Island on Wednesday, ahead of the reopening of the immigration detention centre he says is needed to deal with the result of medical evacuations from Manus Island and Nauru. Late on Tuesday the visit was in some doubt because of a monsoon warning for the island. The chief executive of the island’s council also said he had not been told of any visit plans, but hoped that residents would be able to access the extra health services contracted to treat refugees and asylum seekers. New laws came into effect last week which set up a process for sick asylum seekers and refugees in offshore processing to get treatment in Australia. But federal MPs accused the government of defying the intention of the bill when it was revealed the transfer policy would send people to Christmas Island first, and only on to the mainland if they needed more extensive treatment. Tampa 2.0? Scott Morrison cannot run the 2001 election campaign John Howard did | Phillipa McGuinness Read more Christmas Island has limited medical facilities, and residents routinely fly to mainland Australia for a range of care, from eye tests to childbirth, to serious concussions. A week ago the government’s health contractor for its offshore immigration system, IHMS, began advertising for positions on Christmas Island, including mental health workers, social workers and administration staff. Some advertised an immediate start and rotations of six to 12 weeks, and one advertisement for a senior medical officer called for an “ASAP start til December 2019”. The chief executive of the Christmas Island council, David Price, told Guardian Australia the council hoped to meet Morrison on Wednesday, but they had not had any confirmation of the visit. “We’d also be hopeful that should they … facilitate the transition of people from Manus and Nauru that the additional services are available to the islanders and remain here once the demand ceases,” Price said. “We don’t accept that there should be an increase in medical facilities which are not available to the islanders in the immediate and [long-term] future.” Asked what mental health services were available for residents on the island, Price said: “None. If people need specialist treatment for mental reasons they go to mainland Australia. “On the two weekly flights [to the mainland] there’d be anywhere between four and six people going to medical treatment every week. That’s outside of the emergency airvacs out of here. “I’m not saying the service here isn’t good, but it’s a small regional service.” Price said the detention centre was in operation again, but had no one inside it. He accused the government of reopening it for political purposes. Sick refugees on Manus and Nauru to be sent to Christmas Island not mainland Read more On Tuesday Morrison denied the trip was a photo opportunity, and said it was “incredibly regrettable” the detention centre was being reopened. “We will be making sure that the arrangements are in place – as indeed they are, as I understand it this week – to stand up that facility to deal with any transfers that may arise,” he told reporters in Canberra. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre has estimated a handful of transfer applications, from the 70 or so expected to lodge them, would come through in the next week or so. No applications through non-government avenues have been lodged yet. In widely criticised comments, backed by Morrison, the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said the medical transfers would “displace” Australians from their own treatment. Dr Kerryn Phelps, the recently elected independent MP for Wentworth, who was a key architect of the bill, rubbished the claims as a scare campaign, saying the more than 1,300 hospitals in Australia with about 94,000 beds “can easily cope with 70 extra patients”.

Se identificaron 7.500 usuarios que llevan adelante 1 millón de interacciones diarias. Por Crónica | 09-07-2018 23:11 Una investigación periodística llamada "Los trolls de Cambiemos" reveló detalles de la estructura montada por el gobierno nacional de Mauricio Macri para intervenir en las redes sociales con personajes ficticios con el fin de alterar la conversación normal en un tema de discusión. El periodista Mauro Federico aseguró en la pantalla de Crónica HD que el hombre a cargo de la iniciativa es el jefe de Gabinete, Marcos Peña. "Hay personajes falsos o ficticios en las redes sociales que intervienen de forma fraudulenta y trabajan para desprestigiar a aquellos que se oponen o tienen miradas críticas al gobierno de Mauricio Macri", explicó Federico al presentar el tema. Desde el programa se buscó el respaldo de diversas fuentes del oficialismo y la oposición que corroboraron los datos que se presentaron al aire. Concretamente, se identificaron unos 7.500 usuarios que llevan adelante 1 millón de interacciones diarias. A nivel presupuestario, el gobierno destinaría más de 205 millones de pesos al año en intentar controlar la conversación en las redes sociales. Allí se anotan algunas cuentas conocidas para la mayoría de los usuarios y periodistas que navegan por dichos canales de comunicación, apuntadas como difusoras de las diversas campañas de difamación y ataques contra la oposición. Se destaca en el informe que "se coordina el horario exacto para buscar que los algoritmos de la red social noten el impacto del movimiento. Desde ahí se levanta en algún medio oficialista, que lo avala y sirve como nueva plataforma de difusión". "El troll - center de Cambiemos lo comanda el jefe de Gabinete nacional, Marcos Peña - puntualizó-. Encabeza cuatro de las estructuras creadas cuando se encontraban en plena campaña electoral, en ese momento financiadas con dinero de la campaña, pero que hoy se financian con dinero del Estado". Informe crítico Desde la oficina local de Amnistía Internacional pusieron también el foco sobre los ciber ataques a la oposición. En un reporte difundido en marzo sobre la persecución a quienes piensan distinto del gobierno nacional, relevaron el accionar de las "patotas" virtuales dedicada a difundir información falsa de las personas públicas que emitieran cualquier tipo de opinión o acción contra Cambiemos. Así, se repasan como ante cada denuncia de periodistas sobre casos de corrupción en el Ejecutivo nacional, o incluso durante medidas de fuerza gremiales, desde las redes se apuntó a comunicadores y dirigentes para lanzar acusaciones y difundir información generalmente falsa. Hugo Alconada Mon, de La Nación, Edi Zunino (Noticias), María O´Donnell (radio con Vos), Reynaldo Sietecase, Romina Manguel, Marcelo Longobardi (radio Mitre), entre muchos otros fueron víctimas de este tipo de operaciones, destinadas a disciplinarlos y evitar que se difundan sus cuestionamientos. Amnistía destacó que los ataques "son coordinados y buscan inhibir la expresión de perspectivas plurales y limitar la circulación de opiniones diversas sobre temas cardinales del espacio público". Pese al crítico reporte, la organización reconoció, tras mantener diversos contactos con el gobierno nacional, que el accionar de las cuentas inventadas en las redes sociales "no tiene necesariamente una coordinación ni ligazón directa con el gobierno argentino".

--- author: - Héctor Aceves title: A Numerical Experiment of a Triple Merger of Spirals --- Introduction ============ Several studies have addressed the topic of spiral interactions in pairs or in a small group (Barnes 1998). However there is no specific study, to our knowledge, of interacting triplets of spirals. Here we present a preliminary report of an ongoing research on the dynamics of triplets that includes galaxies of different morphology. In particular we follow a triplet of equal-mass spirals up to a merger remnant that resembles an elliptical-like galaxy has been formed. It is known that the HI component of spirals is a good tracer of interactions. Indeed, several triplets (e.g. in M81 group) that do not appear to be perturbed in optical images do so in HI maps. Although a self-consistent treatment of gas requires the inclusion of e.g. pressure forces, we use here a test-particle approach to study it during a triple interaction of spirals; this can yield information about the large-scale kinematical features of gaseous tails. The Numerical Experiment ======================== We use Galaxy-like spirals with total mass $M\approx 5.8\times 10^{11}$M$_\odot$, $R_{\rm halo}\approx 135$ kpc, and disc mass $M_d \approx 4.4\times 10^{10}$ M$_\odot$ (Kuijken & Dubinski 1995, Model B). For computational economy, the number of particles used for each spiral were: $N_{\rm bulge}=1000$, $N_{\rm disc}=5000$ and $N_{\rm halo}=12000$. In isolation the spiral was relatively stable for a few orbital periods. Discs’ orientations were obtained from three random sets of Euler angles (some animated gifs of the simulations are at [http://www.iaa.es/ae/triplets.html]{}). The initial positions and bulk velocities of galaxies were obtained from one cold-collapse simulation of spherical galaxy triplets, in which a relatively rapid triple merger was found (Aceves 1999). We started the simulation at $t_0 \approx 2$ Gyr from turn-around, when two of the galaxies G1 & G2 had their halos just overlapping. These galaxies were approaching at a relative velocity of $\sim 140$ km/s; the third galaxy’s (G3) halo had not yet ‘touch’ the binary’s common halo and was infalling at $\sim 40$ km/s. In the following, times quoted will be the elapsed time since this $t_0$. The simulation lasted for another $\approx 12$ Gyr. The ‘gas’ particles were distributed uniformly in the plane of the discs extending twice the stellar component. Forces on them were calculated using the mass interior to their position, with respect to each galaxy centre. The distribution of mass in galaxies was assumed to remain the same throughout the simulation and that it had a radial dependence. We consider this a somewhat better approximation than assuming that all the mass of a galaxy resides at its centre; no important extra computational effort was required in this approach. Results ======= In Fig. \[fig:t300\] we show a projection of galaxies G1 & G2 discs interacting at $\approx 4$ Gyr; galaxy G3 has not yet come close enough for its halo to be perturbed. The discs show large damages and a long stellar tidal tail has developed in G2 ($\sim 150$ kpc, in projection). The gaseous tails generated reach $\sim 200$ kpc in projection. Some stars and gas particles are [*returning*]{} to the ‘binary’ galaxy due to conservation of angular momentum and because they do not have enough kinetic energy to leave the local potential well of the binary. At $\approx 10$ Gyr galaxies G1 & G2 have already merged with G3; see Fig. \[fig:t600\]. Galaxy G3 shows a very large projected stellar tidal tail of $\sim 350$ kpc, which is about the same size as its gaseous one. At this time the tidal tail of G2 has almost disappear, although important traces of it exist as a more diffuse component. The configuration at the end of the simulation is shown in Fig. \[fig:merger\]. Enormous gaseous tails $\sim 1$ Mpc are present and the stellar tidal tail of G3 seen in Fig. \[fig:t600\] is still present. Since the gas thermodynamics has not been considered, it is probable that some ‘HI gas’ has been ionized by shocks developed during the interaction and, hence, this extension can be an upper limit; also, the initial size of the gaseous discs and the spiral matter profile determine this extent. After removing all unbound particles the shape of the merger was found to be prolate. No disc or bulge particles were formally found to be unbound, but galaxies G1 & G2 had lost $\approx 3$% of their halo mass and G3 $\approx 10$%. The merger remnant shows a luminous profile that resembles that of an elliptical, although with a rather isothermal core, its phase-space has retained more information about its spiral past; see Fig. \[fig:fase\]. The physical size of the stellar tails reach $\sim 500$ kpc! Figure \[fig:gas\] shows velocity profiles for the gas, which would mimic the result of placing a narrow slit along the $X$-axis, both at $\approx 4$ Gyr ([*top*]{}) and 12 Gyr ([*bottom*]{}). Velocities along the [*l.o.s.*]{} of $\sim 100$ km/s in the outer parts with a width of $\sim (50,100)$ km/s are obtained, respectively, from G1 & G2 at $\approx 4$ Gyr. At the end of the simulation G1 shows a broad dispersion in the velocities, while galaxies G2 & G3 show a more well defined width of $\sim 50$ km/s in the $XV_z$-plane. Tidal tails in G3 developed very late in the merging process. Final Comments ============== Some particular results suggested by the present simulation, with its specific cold-collapse initial conditions, tend to show that: - Encounters of spirals can effectively destroy stellar discs in $\la t_{\rm Hubble}$. Large projected stellar tidal tails $\sim 200$ kpc can develop during a binary formation, and up to $\sim 350$ kpc in the 3rd. when this joins in. However tidal tails are not eternal, they can fall-back to the remnant of their ‘parent’ galaxies in $\la t_{\rm Hubble}$, although important traces of them remain for $\ga t_{\rm Hubble}$. - Diffuse light, due to stars stripped from the discs, is to be expected in deep imaging of spiral interactions and mergers. However if this stripping occurred more than a stellar evolution time-scale ago one may not detected it, but stellar remnants may be in the [*field*]{}. - Gaseous tidal tails may extend to $\sim 1$ Mpc in radius, similar to the extent of the common dark halo formed, in a triple interaction in $\sim t_{\rm Hubble}$. This result suggests that gaseous halos may trace the size of a common dark halo developed during galaxy interactions. - Although the stellar merger remnant shows an elliptical-like profile, it is more physically justifiable to look for merger signatures in velocity-space; albeit the observational difficulties. [The author thanks the Spanish Government (MUTIS Program) and J. Perea (DGICYT Project PB96-0921) for financial support.]{} Aceves, H. 1999, [*these proceedings*]{} ([astro-ph/9907226]{}) Barnes, J.E. 1998, in [*Interactions and Induced Star Formation: Saas-Fee Advanced Course 26*]{}, eds. D. Friedli, et al. (Berlin: Springer-Verlag) Kuijken, K. & Dubinski, J. [*MNRAS*]{}, [**277**]{}, 1341

World Cup Rugby – Ireland Vs Canada Preview As the world braces for the 2015 Rugby World Cup, online sports books are preparing for the influx of sporting enthusiasts. The action gets underway on September 18 when England faces off against Fiji in a key match up from the powerful Pool A group. All three of the September 19 games feature teams with something to prove if they have any designs on getting out of their perspective pools. Ireland Vs Canada Preview This figures to be an interesting matchup between two teams that come into the World Cup with markedly different recent form. Canada: – For Canada, it has been a long time between drinks of water. The last time the Canucks were able to make it into the knockout rounds was back in 1991. Since then, it has been a combination of bad form and even worse luck that has kept the Canucks at Bay. Coming into this year’s competition, Canada’s form has been horrible with seven straight test losses dating back to November 2014. If they are going to right the ship against a tough Irish team, they are going to have to depend on a trio of dynamic players who will need to play at the highest level of their careers. Those three players are Tyler Ardron (team Captain), Jamie Cudmore and Brett Beukeboom. At 24-years-old, Ardon is the most interesting of the lot. In three years since he joined the national squad, he has established himself as one of the country’s best back-row forwards in recent memory. As a superior athlete with deceptive skills, he has the versatility to play several positions. That said, it is his knowledge of the game and leadership skills that has made him the youngest captain coming into this year’s cup. The Canucks are expected to keep their game plan simple, hoping strong wing play will lead to a few scores while the veteran back row players protect the in-goal areas. Ireland – While the Canucks enter the game in poor form, Ireland enters playing at their best form in years. The team’s most recent success came at the 2015 Six Nations tournament where they walked off with the title for the second consecutive year. They ended the tournament with a 4-1 record, out-pointing England and Wales. Back in November, they showed they were coming into form after exciting test victories over International powerhouses Australia and South Africa. New national team coach Joe Schmidt will be looking for a strong showing in this, his first world cup. Key players include Cian Healy, Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip and Jonathan Sexton, one of the best tactical kickers in the game. Considering the team’s recent play, it is clear the team has not been adversely affected by the retirement of key national players like Ronan O’Gara and Brian O’Driscoll. The one man Ireland can ill-afford to lose is Captain Paul O’Connell. As a 13 year national team veteran, O’Connell has a stellar reputation throughout the world for his intensity in the second row and his overall leadership qualities. Prediction: Ireland will be looking to make a statement in this game and that spells trouble for the Canucks. It shouldn’t be close with the favourites winning by at least two tries.

Q: Symfony 4 - Setting up Braintree Payments integration I am trying to set up Braintree integration in my Symfony 4 PHP app. I have used composer to require and install the latest version of Braintree SDK, and have added testing credentials to env file. Set Up Client https://developers.braintreepayments.com/start/hello-client/javascript/v3 I then added the client code to my twig template for Drop-in UI. <div id="dropin-container"></div> <button id="submit-button">Request payment method</button> <script> var button = document.querySelector('#submit-button'); braintree.dropin.create({ authorization: 'CLIENT_TOKEN_FROM_SERVER', container: '#dropin-container' }, function (createErr, instance) { button.addEventListener('click', function () { instance.requestPaymentMethod(function (err, payload) { // Submit payload.nonce to your server }); }); }); </script> And included this script in the js block <script src="https://js.braintreegateway.com/web/dropin/1.14.1/js/dropin.min.js"></script> Set Up Server https://developers.braintreepayments.com/start/hello-server/php Next step is to generate a client token $clientToken = $gateway->clientToken()->generate([ "customerId" => $aCustomerId ]); and then send token to client etc. Question My question is where do I put the server side code in my Symfony 4 app? Do you create a Braintree.php service in src/Services and put all the Braintree PHP code in there or in the controller, or some in both? A: Best practice is to keep Controllers as thin as possible. Controller method should: accept the request call the appropriate service handle response This is all a controller should be responsible of. In your case, the appropriate service would be your BraintreeService, a class responsible for whatever you need to do with Braintree SDK or anything related to Braintree. Symfony follows the philosophy of "thin controllers and fat models". This means that controllers should hold just the thin layer of glue-code needed to coordinate the different parts of the application. https://symfony.com/doc/current/best_practices/controllers.html

PT - Non-CDL Driver Job Details Full Job Description What You Will Do All Lowe’s associates deliver quality customer service while maintaining a store that is clean, safe, and stocked with the products customers need. As a Non-CDL Driver, this means: Being friendly and professional, and responding quickly to customer and associate needs. Verifying that merchandise is in good condition, accurately accounted for, and delivered to customers on-time. Inspecting delivery vehicles and ensuring the safety and security of the loading and unloading process. The Non-CDL Driver plays a critical role in ensuring on-time, accurate, and safe deliveries, while providing exceptional service to our customers in their homes. This associate has the opportunity many times each day to leave a final positive impression with our customers and the purchasing experience. This associate builds positive relationships with customers every day and ensures their needs are met. Most of this associate’s day is spent driving, inspecting, loading and unloading merchandise, and assisting with installation. The Non-CDL Driver contacts customers to confirm delivery details, determines placement of merchandise, follows safety and lifting protocols during deliveries, and conducts safety reviews. Additionally, this associate must follow DOT regulations, including DOT physicals, to keep themselves and others safe while driving. Travel Requirements: This role requires frequent traveling between stores and customer sites with the district; at times may need to travel outside of district. What We're Looking For Hourly Full Time or Part Time: Generally scheduled 39 to 40 or up to 25 hours per week, respectively; more hours may be required based on the needs of the store. Requires morning, afternoon and evening availability any day of the week. Requires travel between stores and customer sites within the district to deliver merchandise; at times may need to travel outside of district. Physical ability to perform tasks that may require prolonged standing, sitting, and other activities necessary to perform job duties. Minimally must be able to lift 25 pounds without assistance; may lift over 25 pounds with or without assistance. If the state or local municipality requires a salesperson license for this position, you must either be licensed or pass the requisite licensing exam within sixty (60) days of starting employment in this position.

Women's Experiences of Food Insecurity and Coping Strategies in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. Despite advances in food production and distribution technologies, global food insecurity continues throughout parts of South Asia. Using ethnographic data collected from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh, this article reports on gendered and ethnocultural variations in experiences of food insecurity. Three key findings are that (1) regardless of ethnicity, the majority of the households in this study suffered moderate food insecurity; (2) food insecurity was higher among female-headed households; and (3) women's means of coping strategies varied depending on household structure and ethnic identity. It is argued that indigenous women's coping strategies were protective in comparison with Bengali women's experiences.

The story behind the photograph taken at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital last Thursday – and disseminated across the world – was revealed by a junior doctor Belal Dabour in a piece for the pro-Palestinian masthead The Electronic Intifada. The Palestinian boy, who was caught in artillery fire from Israel, screams at the paramedic: “I want my father, bring me my father!” “At around 3am, about eight or nine casualties arrived at the emergency room all at once. The last to come in were four siblings - two of them little children, both about three years old, with relatively superficial wounds,” he wrote. “Then came the older of the four siblings, a boy in his early teens. His head and face were covered in blood and he was pressing a rag to his head to staunch the flow. But his focus was on something else: ‘Save my little brother!’ he kept screaming.” The unnamed boy pictured in the photograph was thrashing about and screaming for his father as the paramedic carried him straight from the emergency unit to intensive care. “Upon carefully examining the wounds, it appeared that the explosion from the artillery round sent flying small pieces of stone from the walls of his house, and that some of his wounds were caused by these high-velocity projectiles,” Dr Dabour wrote. The shrapnel in the boy’s neck just missed a major artery, the piece in his chest nearly punctured a lung, and the one in his stomach nearly hit his bowel. But the child was a “lucky” one, Dr Dabour said, because he had seen too many killed. Just a day earlier, four boys aged between nine and 11 were playing on the beach in Gaza City when Israeli military strikes slaughtered them. They were cousins. As the Islamic militant group Hamas and Israeli troops prepare to enter day 14 of their latest conflict, the death toll sits at 417 Palestinians and 18 Israelis. A third of Palestine's dead were children, the United Nations children’s agency declared on Saturday. About 50 boys and 20 girls between three months and 18 years of age had been slain. “From July 8, until 4am on July 19, at least 73 Palestinian children have been reported killed as a result of air strikes and shelling by Israel aerial, naval and ground forces,” UNICEF's Catherine Weibel said. Israel accused Hamas of using the Gaza population as a human shield, firing rockets from civilian areas and infrastructure. Loading Dr Dabour ended his account by saying he did not find out the youngster's name as too many people - "some arrived torn to pieces, some beheaded, some disfigured beyond recognition" - arrived to be saved. "I do not know whether he was reunited with his father, or even what became of the rest of his family," he wrote. "But there’s one thing that I know for sure, which is that hundreds of children just like him suffered similar or worse injuries, and up to the moment of this writing, nearly 80 children just like him have been killed as Israel’s merciless attack goes on."

Q: Using a view bounds with scalaz I'm taking my first foray into scalaz by converting an existing class to use the Monoid trait. What I am trying to achieve is to set a view bound on my class type parameter to ensure that it can only be used with types that can be implicitly converted to a Monoid. My (simplified) class definition is thus: import scalaz._ import Scalaz._ case class Foo[T <% Monoid[T]](v: T) new Foo(42) Compiling this simple example gives the compiler error: error: No implicit view available from Int => scalaz.Monoid[Int]. Previously this view bound was defined against my own custom trait with an implicit conversion from T to the trait and this worked fine. What am I missing now that I have converted this to scalaz? Thanks, Chris A: You are supposed to be using a context bound, and not a view bound there. import scalaz._ import Scalaz._ case class Foo[T : Monoid](v: T) new Foo(42) The T : Monoid notation means that there is an implicit of type Monoid[T] in scope. In fact, it desugars to the following: case class Foo[T](v: T)(implicit ev: Monoid[T]) This is known as type class pattern and you can read more about it here.

package starter import ( "bufio" "errors" "os" "path/filepath" "strings" ) var errNoEnv = errors.New("no ENVDIR specified, or ENVDIR does not exist") func reloadEnv() (map[string]string, error) { dn := os.Getenv("ENVDIR") if dn == "" { return nil, errNoEnv } fi, err := os.Stat(dn) if err != nil { return nil, err } if !fi.IsDir() { return nil, err } var m map[string]string filepath.Walk(dn, func(path string, fi os.FileInfo, err error) error { // Ignore errors if err != nil { return nil } // Don't go into directories if fi.IsDir() && dn != path { return filepath.SkipDir } f, err := os.Open(path) if err != nil { return nil } defer f.Close() envName := filepath.Base(path) scanner := bufio.NewScanner(f) if scanner.Scan() { if m == nil { m = make(map[string]string) } l := scanner.Text() m[envName] = strings.TrimSpace(l) } return nil }) if m == nil { return nil, errNoEnv } return m, nil }

Q: How to set up ATG development environment for use with JBoss Can somebody please explain all the steps involved in setting up ATG development environment for use with JBoss AS. My requirement is simple, I need to develop and deploy a simple J2EE applicaiton containing a few forms and backend logic to save the data entered in the forms. A: The answer is also in ATG documentation that comes with the product Installation and Configuration guide: http://www.atg.com/repositories/ContentCatalogRepository_en/manuals/ATG9.1/atginstall/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm and Programming Guide, chapter 3. At minimum you need: ATG installed (e.g. in c:\ATG\ATG9.1) JBoss installed (e.g. in c:\opt\jboss) - make sure you use supported version of JBOss for the ATG version you use - e.g. 4.2.0 for ATG 9.1, 4.0.5 for ATG2007.1 installed JDK - again, version matters, Java 5 is what you want Eclipse + Eclipse plugin from www.atg.com/eclipse Ant installed database installed (for development, MySQL is good choice) Set the environment variables to ATG_HOME, ATG_ROOT Verify that the setup works with MotorpriseJSP - start Solid, deploy EAR file and try it out Now you are ready to start development. At high level, you want: define database schemas and create ATG tables load initial data to database define new module under ATG_ROOT, with proper structure and MANIFEST (this is what Eclipse will help you with) code custom functionality (this may include extending user profile, product catalog or define custom repositories) define datasource file for your database and place it into JBOss/server/atg/deploy using startDynamoOnJBoss try out if your module loads using Ant task, build the EAR file for standalone deployment I honestly do not see any way how to avoid following the docs. The real answer would be tens/hundreds of pages long. You should dedicate enough time reading few thousands pages of ATG documentation and trying it out. There are two way how to speed things up: working along with somebody who did it before and knows ATG or attending the ATG training (Boston or SF). Ideally training first and having mentor / working on real project right after that.

Absolver – Mastering New Styles Using Schools 4 September 2017, Monday, 20:25:48 if ($wt_ad4) { ?> echo $wt_ad4; ?> } else { ?> } ?> Mastering New Styles Using Schools You begin the game with only 1 style, but it is possible to master all 4 on a single character using schools. This guide will touch on finding and joining schools, and using them to permanantly unlock combat styles. At the beginning of the game, you are given the opportunity to choose one of 3 fighting styles. Congratulations! You’re a quarter of the way to having all 4 styles and a fancy new achievement. Finding and Joining Schools Currently, the only way to learn new styles is to join a school. An easy way to join a school without having a friend with the style you want just go to your encounters. The triangles next to some players’ names is used to show that the player is in a school, and if you highlight their name, you can see what style their school uses. To join the school, select their name, then select “view/join school”, and finally “join school” will be on the left side. Once you are part of the school, you can use its combat deck, or even just the style with your own deck. On the style selection, your new style will have a blue icon. The blue is to show that using it in combat trials will earn you more school exp. Now that you have the style, you can use it freely as long as you are in the school. However, if you leave the school you will no longer have access to it. This isn’t very helpful if you want all 4 styles, so you need to unlock it permanantly. Permanently Unlocking Styles To keep a style after leaving the school, you need to master it, although the process of doing so is quite a grind. Mastering a style requires you to use the style’s unique defensive technique (avoid for windfall, parry for forsaken, absorb for khalt, and defensive attacks for stagger) to protect against oncoming attacks. successfully using the defense will fill up a meter similarly to learning new moves. The easiest way to do this solo is to find an enemy with a consistant and predictable attack pattern, and focusing on landing the defense. With windfall and forsaken style it is posible to fully master the style with only one enemy, because they do not require you to hurt the enemy or take damage. Alternatively, you can have a friend use predictable moves that you can consistantly defend against. The experience you earn works like learning a new move; you will only keep it if you kill the enemy. Once you have mastered the style, you can change schools without any worry of losing access to it.

What makes the perfect World Cup penalty? Who has the best record from the spot? And does luck really come into it? As the tournament enters the knockout phase we have a look at the history of World Cup shootouts, 26 of which have taken place since they were introduced in 1978 - though none were needed in Argentina that year. Taking the perfect penalty Of the 240 kicks at World Cup penalty shootouts before the 2018 tournament in Russia, 170 were scored - a conversion rate of just over seven out of 10. Of the successful penalties, the most popular location is low and to the keeper's left, according to data from football experts Opta. The worst penalty to take is low and in the middle area of the goal, with a success rate of only 58%. Aiming high If a player does decide to hit his penalty straight down the middle, aiming high is the answer. No goalkeeper has saved any of the 15 World Cup shootout penalties struck high and centrally. In fact going for the top part of the goal is generally a good strategy, as Harry Kane demonstrated in England's group game against Panama, blasting both his kicks into the top left corner of the net. Opta's data shows that over 90% of penalties struck high and either side of the centre of the goal have been scored. But that approach carries with it the risk of missing the target altogether, as Italian forward Roberto Baggio discovered in the 1994 final, blazing his kick over the bar to hand Brazil victory. Only about one in five penalties have actually been saved - 49 out of 240 attempts - with 28 goalkeepers responsible for those saves. The penalties saved have been shared almost equally to either side of the keeper, with 24 saves made diving to the left and 25 to the right. Twelve strikes have hit a post or the crossbar. Can anyone beat Germany's record? With defending champions Germany eliminated in the opening stage for the first time since 1938, Russia 2018 is without the most successful penalty shootout team. Only one German, Uli Stielike in the competition's first shootout between West Germany and France in a 1982 semi-final, has ever missed in a penalty competition at a World Cup. Since then, Germany have scored 15 in a row and won all four shootouts they've been involved in. But given Germany's early exit, Argentina could overtake them as the nation with the most shootout victories. Lionel Messi may have missed from the spot against Iceland in the group stages, but his countrymen have a good record in shootouts, notching up four wins from five attempts. Their only loss came in 2006 to - surprise, surprise - Germany. At the opposite end of the scale, England have the worst record, something that will hardly come as a shock to anyone who has followed the national side. The Three Lions have lost all three of the shootouts they've been involved in, converting just seven of their 12 spot-kicks at World Cups. England's penalty defeat at the hands of Portugal in 2006 was one of the worst in terms of the percentage of penalties scored. The two sides managed to score only four spot-kicks between them out of a total of nine attempted. In that game, Portugal's keeper Ricardo saved three kicks, the most in a single shootout. Argentina's Sergio Goycochea and Germany's Harald Schumacher hold the record overall, having stopped four each. Mexico are another side with a poor record from 12 yards, having lost both their shootouts. Switzerland have arguably an even more ignominious record. They are the only team to have taken part in a World Cup penalty shootout and failed to score a single kick. Of the sides that have made it to the last 16 this time round, hosts Russia, Denmark, Croatia and Colombia have never been involved in a World Cup penalty shootout... yet. Feeling the pressure The penalty shootout is often referred to as a lottery, and luck actually comes into play even before the first player has struck the ball. As the current system stands, teams take turns in a shootout, with the choice of who goes first decided by a coin toss. Team A goes first, then team B, then team A again and so on. The side that wins the coin toss and decides to go first has an important advantage, with teams going first having triumphed 60% of the time. Researchers from the London School of Economics blamed the psychological pressure of 'lagging behind' for affecting performance. Teams going second in World Cup penalty shootouts have a 69% conversion rate, whereas the team going first have a 73% record. The English Football League has experimented with a new ABBA format to try to address this. With this format, after an initial spot-kick, teams each take pairs of kicks in an attempt to reduce the pressure on the side taking the second kick in a shootout - but it will not be used at this World Cup. Unlucky number eight? Penalties taken in a shootout are less likely to find the back of the net than those taken in regular play, according to research by Ben Lyttleton, football writer and author of a book on penalties. Lyttleton found that the conversion rate for penalties in open play in international tournaments and national cup competitions in England, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands over a 10-year period was 78%, compared with 74% in shootouts in the same competitions. Other than the additional pressure a shootout brings, this is potentially explained by the fact that players who may not be regular penalty-takers have to step up. And the pressure seems only to ramp up once the sequence gets under way. Historically the eighth penalty - of the scheduled first 10 - is the one that is missed most often in a World Cup shootout, with two out of every five attempts ending in a save or a miss. And if there is no winner after each side have taken five penalties, the shootout goes to sudden death, with pairs of penalties taken until one of the teams scores and the other doesn't. But that has happened only twice in a World Cup - in that first ever shootout in 1982 and in Sweden's quarter-final victory over Romania in the USA in 1994.

We propose a Biostatistics Core (BC) for BGSM's Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC). The aims of the BC are to provide personnel and other resources to: a) collaborate with investigators throughout all phases of the planning and conduct of OAIC pilot, intervention development and intervention studies, b) collaborate with the Research Development Core to provide training in the areas of research design, conduct and analysis of geriatric research to junior faculty, c) collaborate with the Dissemination Core on presentation of research results for dissemination and design of evaluation studies to measure the effectiveness of dissemination projects, and d) collaborate with the Quality of Life and Costs. The BC will provide assistance with methodologic, statistical, and computer related issues, including study design, data collection, computer networking, database management, data analysis, and presentation of results for publication. The BC will work closely with the Steering Committee, Advisory Board, Research Development Core, Quality of Life/Cost Assessment Core, Recruitment Core and Demonstration and Information Dissemination Core to complete the following tasks.