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The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for leak testing a package.
European patent application 85.200.130.4 describes a method of leak testing vacuum packages. According to this method the vacuum package is placed in a sheet-like and air-tight wrapper, after which superatmospheric pressure is applied to the outside of the wrapper. This causes the wrapper to fit closely around the vacuum package. The small space remaining between the wrapper and the package is then sealed from the surrounding space, after which in this space the change of pressure is measured for a given period of time. A pressure variation is an indication of that the package leaks.
This prior art method is suitable for leak testing complete packages, e.g. vacuum-packed coffee, in which leaks may occur throughout the surface of the package.
In many packages such as jars or bottles made of glass or of a thermoplastic synthetic material, leak detection is only required where the jar or bottle is closed by a separately provided cover, screw cap or other closing element. For testing these types of packages, the prior art method of leak testing the complete package and therefore placing the package completely in a sheet-like wrapper is too laborious and time-consuming.
In another commercially sold testing apparatus, a bottle closed by a closing element can be leak tested by placing a bell over the closing element. With its lower edge, the bell rests on the shoulder of the bottle. Disposed along the lower edge of the bell is a specifically provided sealing ring, e.g. an inflatable O-ring. After inflating the O-ring, a seal of the bell against the shoulder of the bottle is obtained. An overpressure to a few bar or a vacuum is applied to the space between the bell and the bottle, which space is closed. When after some time the pressure in the closed space has changed, this may indicate that the closure of the bottle leaks.
This method is slow, owing to the relatively large volume in the bell to which, for each measurement, a pressure or a vacuum must be applied again. The repeated inflation of the O-ring is an additionally required step. Moreover, the seal between the bell and the bottle by means of an O-ring is less reliable, namely for two reasons. The first reason is that there is a rather great pressure differential over the O-ring (vacuum or overpressure at the inside and atmospheric pressure at the outside). The second reason is that the rather stiff O-ring is less able to adjust to the contours of the bottle, in particular when these contours are provided with a profile such as ribs, reliefs etc., or when the surface of the bottle shows roughnesses such as dents, grooves, etc. Consequently, this method is also unsuitable for rapidly and reliably testing closures of packages.
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Brière
Brière () is the marsh area to the north of the Loire estuary in France at its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean. The residents of Brière are called Brièrons. The Brière marsh area includes a vast area of humid zones stretching from the Gulf of Morbihan and the estuary of the Vilaine to the north, to the salt marshes of Guérande to the west to the estuary of the Loire River and the Lac de Grand-Lieu in the south. Peat used to be harvested here.
The Brière territory extends over , including of humid zone, at the heart of which lies the Grande Brière Mottière which encompasses and 21 communes.
It is rich in flora and fauna, and navigation is possible with boats called chalands.
Cottages are a common sight in the area, with around 3000 thatched roof cottages dotted throughout the area.
Alphonse de Chateaubriant's prize-winning novel La Brière (translated as Passion and Peat), 1923, is set in the area and describes its traditions and culture.
Communes of Brière
The following communes are found in Brière
La Chapelle-des-Marais
Crossac
Montoir-de-Bretagne
Saint-André-des-Eaux, Loire-Atlantique
Saint-Joachim (the commune covering most of la Grande Brière)
Saint-Lyphard
Saint-Malo-de-Guersac
Saint-Nazaire
Sainte-Reine-de-Bretagne
Trignac
Traditionally, 21 communes are considered part of Brière (source : , pdf file) :
La Baule-Escoublac
Besné
La Chapelle-des-Marais
La Chapelle-Launay
Crossac
Donges
Guérande
Herbignac
Missillac
Montoir-de-Bretagne
Prinquiau
Pontchâteau
Pornichet
Saint-André-des-Eaux
Saint-Joachim
Saint-Lyphard
Saint-Malo-de-Guersac
Saint-Nazaire
Sainte-Reine-de-Bretagne
Trignac
La Turballe
The Brière Regional Natural Park encompasses 17 communes (source: , pdf file)
Assérac
La Baule-Escoublac
La Chapelle-des-Marais
Crossac
Donges
Guérande
Herbignac
Missillac
Montoir-de-Bretagne
Saint-André-des-Eaux
Saint-Joachim
Saint-Lyphard
Saint-Malo-de-Guersac
Saint-Molf
Saint-Nazaire
Sainte-Reine-de-Bretagne
Trignac
See also
La Baule - Guérande Peninsula
External links
tourist information
Category:Marshes of France
Category:Ramsar sites in Metropolitan France
Category:Landforms of Brittany
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eBay
Soon, eBay will let you shop on its app by snapping pictures.
The e-commerce company on Wednesday said it's developing two new image recognition tools for its mobile app. They'll only be available in the US and are set for release this fall, with a desktop version arriving later.
The first feature, simply called Image Search, will let you take a photo of a pair of sneakers or a handbag (or an existing photo in your phone's library) and use it to search eBay to find similar listings. The other, called Find It On eBay, lets you tap images on any online site and "share" to eBay to get a list of similar-looking items.
"We want to make the entire internet shoppable by the image," Mohan Patt, eBay vice president of buyer experience, said.
How do Image Search and Find It On eBay work? By using machine learning and artificial intelligence to mine eBay's 1.1 billion live listings, as well as its troves of past sales.
The new features might be used on the street or in a store when an item of clothing or piece of furniture catches your eye and you want to see if something like it is available on eBay, hopefully for less. The features also show eBay is now one step closer to a concept offered by CEO Devin Wenig earlier this year, in which people can take pictures of stuff they want to sell and eBay automatically fills titles, descriptions, listing information and even prices.
The new tools could also help eBay catch up to Amazon, which has been offering image-recognition tech in its mobile app for several years. eBay last year bought up three AI-focused companies in hopes of rolling out features like these, so customers should expect more in the future.
Demoing the new features, Patt used a picture he snapped in a magazine of knee-high black boots, fed it to eBay and immediately retrieved more than 500 live listings of the same kind of boots. The intent wasn't to get the identical item, but provide a range of similar looks and prices for customers, he added.
eBay said it will store images shared with the company and corresponding search results to evaluate the relevance of the results and provide users with their past searches.
The tools will be available across categories on eBay, but the company will develop its AI models most on soft goods like clothes and furniture that often don't include a bar code. (You can already search by bar code using eBay, Amazon and Walmart's apps.)
When the new tools launch, Image Search will be available on both Android and iOS and Find It On eBay on Android, but an iOS version is expected later.
Tech Culture: From film and television to social media and games, here's your place for the lighter side of tech.
Batteries Not Included: The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool.
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Clinical meaning of the Keane PTSD Scale.
A correlational study that included 82 male inpatient alcoholics was conducted to determine the clinical meaning of the Keane PTSD Scale of the MMPI. The PTSD Scale was correlated with the variables of the Shipley Institute of Living Scale, the Life Purpose Questionnaire, the Existential Depression Test, and the standard MMPI measures, plus the A, R, Es and MacAndrew Scales. The pattern of correlations suggested that the PTSD scale measures general psychological maladjustment and dysphoric feelings rather than any specifiable syndrome. The strong correlation with the Welch A, which measures a general level of maladjustment, suggests that the PTSD and Welch A scales are measuring the same factor. The PTSD scale, therefore, appears to provide very little information about this population beyond that available from the overall clinical profile and the Welch A scale.
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Any reason you wouldn't consider a 1-wire setup with T238+?
Sounds like it has almost everything you need and be much simpler and cheaper to implement.
Rich
-----Original Message-----
>From: "Daron J. Wilson" <daron at wilson.org>
>Sent: Mar 1, 2007 2:55 PM
>To: 'TAPR Weather Station SIG Mailing List' <wxsig at lists.tapr.org>
>Subject: RE: [wxsig] Newbie question
>>> Our local sailing club would really like to know the wind
>> speed/direction at a spot offshore. NOAA doesn't have the budget to
>> install a real weather buoy, so it's up to me (us). We think the
>> USCG will allow us to place an instrument package on a navigation
>> buoy in the area of interest, although installing it will be a good trick!
>>>> Needs:
>> 1) Wind speed/direction required
>> 2) Able to communicate with base station about 1.8 miles away (good
>> line of sight).
>> 3) Solar panel operated. (Night time observations not important, so
>> maybe no or very small battery?).
>> 4) Marine environment (non freezing, but salt water and frequent gale
>> conditions)
>> 5) Low cost, since the USCG has a hard time just keeping the buoy in
>> place, and it will probably be lost more than once.
>>>> The Dallas Wind sensor seems like a reasonable input device, although
>> sufficient accuracy might be possible with a wand with strain
>> gauges. I'm a competent PIC programmer, so that wouldn't be too
>> challenging. The 1.8 miles is the gotcha for me. There are no
>> available locations for repeaters, so I'm thinking it will have to be
>> either a packet radio or possibly a cobbled-up FRS type personal walkie
>> talkie.
>>>> Any suggestions?
>>I think a fiberglass watertight enclosure (Hoffman or similar) would be
>where I would start. Inside there I'd try to fit a low power VHF radio,
>Kantronics KPC3+ TNC and possibly a Peet Bros Ultimeter 100 weather station.
>Our APRS weather stations http://www.ocrg.org/telemetry_feed/ocrgwx.html use
>commercial mobile radios for more power, the KPC3+ which has been modified
>for our telemetry needs, our custom made telemetry adapter which gets a
>digital input and a couple analog inputs, and a device we make called the
>WeatherDOG which takes the Peet data stream and 'massages' it with a PIC
>before sending it to the TNC. This is done primarily to make the weather
>data standards compliant so it will show up on the Kenwood APRS radio
>displays (mobile and portable), but secondly we have an option in the
>WeatherDOG that allows the data to be 'human readable' and spits out the
>weather data in a UI packet with it in clear test format so you could easily
>parse it or just read it on a computer screen.
>>Many ways to do this of course, power will certainly be your challenge. I'd
>use some photo sensor to shut the thing off at night if you want to
>conserver battery, using a couple of gel cells and a small solar panel for
>maintenance. If all you really want is wind speed and direction, I guess
>you could take the output of the anemometer and feed it into the PIC, write
>a bunch of code, and get what you want.
>>Another off the shelf option (more power required) would be the CAT200
>repeater controller with the computer interface, connects directly to the
>Peet weather station and a two way radio, simple DTMF query to the radio and
>the synthesized voice could read back the wind speed and direction for you.
>>Sounds fun, good luck on the installation!
>>73
>>N7HQR
>>>_______________________________________________
>wxsig mailing list
>wxsig at lists.tapr.org>https://lists.tapr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wxsig
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Crystal chemistry of the noncentrosymmetric eulytites: A(3)Bi(XO(4))(3) (X = V, A = Pb; X = P, A = Ca, Cd, Sr, Pb).
Eulytite compounds, A(3)Bi(XO(4))(3) (X = P, A = Ca, Cd, Sr, Pb), belong to the noncentrosymmetric space group I4̅3d (No. 220) as determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The crystals were grown from the melt-cool technique with considerable difficulty as the compounds melt incongruently at their melting temperature, except for the compound Pb(3)Bi(PO(4))(3). The unit cell parameter a is 9.984(5), 9.8611(3), 10.2035(3), and 10.3722(2) Å for Ca(3)Bi(PO(4))(3), Cd(3)Bi(PO(4))(3), Sr(3)Bi(PO(4))(3), and Pb(3)Bi(PO(4))(3) respectively, and there are four formula units in the unit cell. The structure of Pb(3)Bi(VO(4))(3), a unique eulytite with vanadium substitution, is compared with all these phosphorus substituted eulytites. The A(2+) and Bi(3+) cations occupy the special position (16c) while the O anions occupy the general Wyckoff position (48e) in the crystal structure. Only one O position has been identified for Pb(3)Bi(PO(4))(3) and Pb(3)Bi(VO(4))(3), whereas two O atom sites were identified for Ca(3)Bi(PO(4))(3), Cd(3)Bi(PO(4))(3), and Sr(3)Bi(PO(4))(3). The UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra indicate large band gaps for all the phosphate eulytites while a lower band gap is observed for the vanadate eulytite. The feasibility of the use of these compounds in optoelectronic devices has been tested by measuring the second-harmonic generation (SHG) values which have been found to be of a magnitude equivalent to the commercially used KDP (KH(2)PO(4)).
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Molecular mass estimation of derivatized compounds: a PFG NMR study.
Pulsed-field gradient (PFG) 1H and 31P NMR methods were developed to quantitatively estimate the molecular mass of compounds, derivatized with either trichloroacetyl isocyanate (TAI) or 2-chloro-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaphospholane (chlorophospholane). These agents provide selective analysis with high sensitivity for molecules containing alcohol, amine, carboxylic acid, or thiol functional groups. Tetramethylsilane (TMS) or bisphenol A was used as internal diffusion reference. The empirical relationship between relative diffusivity and molecular mass was established for a set of mono- and difunctional compounds with molecular masses in the range 32-330 g/mol. The utility of the method was demonstrated by analyzing alcohol, phenol, and carboxylic acid components in lubricating oil.
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September 13, 2014Persian perceptionsBy Tim SteelA closer look at the apparently close historical relationship between present day Iran and BangladeshThe importance of East India Company employees learning the Persian language in the 18th century, underlines both the extensive use of the language in Mughal times in Bangladesh, and also its continuing use in the early period of British administration. It is tempting to wonder whether it was Mughal influence, perpetuated, that, at least until recent times, lies behind the allegations of Arab orientation of the British foreign policy over recent centuries.The Persians have a long history of influence over the lands of the Ganges delta, that are now the lands of Bangladesh.These lands, which, under the Mughals became best known as Bengal, first came under Persian influence with the arrival of the Khilji in the early 13th century.When a soldier of Turkish origin led his men into Nadia, now just into West Bengal, in circa 1204, he drove from power the last of the Brahmanic Sena dynasty, and established Bengal as a province of the Delhi Sultanate.This, we learn from Persian sources, which may not always chime with perceptions in Bangladesh today, were the lands, in which it was the flourishing commerce of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers and their hinterlands which presented the main attraction to the invaders, quickly began to assimilate and learn, “the broad institutional features of mediaeval Iranian world that had evolved under the Abbasids.”The Abbasids represented, perhaps, the height of Islamic tradition, ruling or influencing much of the Islamic world from their Caliphate, of which Baghdad was the capital.Much has been written of the near half millennium of the rule that was brought to an abrupt end by the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols, in 1258.It is reasonable to speculate that the Khilji’s arrival in the lands of the rivers marked their flight from the earliest of the Mongol savaging of most of Central Asia.The “Abbasid influence” included, most importantly, “the pre Muslim Persian tradition of monarchy, and extensive reliance on imported slaves for military, domestic and political service, and a highly commercialised economy.”We know that, although coinage from that period is quite plentiful in Bangladesh, in fact, such means of marking transactions had originated in Bangladeshi lands nearly two thousand years earlier. Punch mark coins from a number of ancient sites, mostly on the banks of rivers are proof of that.These traditions continued, even after the administrators of Bengal, who probably included a number of imported slaves, established a Sultanate, independent of Delhi, in 1342.Although, by early in the 15th century, established Bengalis challenged the imported traditions, we have clear evidence from such as the 1415 visit to the Court at Sonargaon, where, by then, the capital of the lands was clearly well established, between the great trading routes of Ganges and Brahmaputra, effectively controlling much of the native commerce, that the rulers perpetuated some of the influences.Chinese Admiral Zheng He’s embassy vividly describes “characteristically mediaeval Iranian imperial paraphernalia as peacocks feathers, umbrellas, files of mounted and foot soldiers (including the local addition of war elephants), a throne (and regalia) inlaid with precious stones, and lavish displays of gold.”Another Iranian institution was also observed, slave armies, and slave aristocracies. “Domestic slaves were generally castrated Bengalis who were either sold to wealthy Muslim merchants of the capital or given to ruling houses in lieu of land revenue.”It is easy to wonder when the tradition of slavery finally died out in Bangladesh ... if, indeed, it has fully done so, even now. Certainly, the extensive women’s quarters in zaminder palaces suggests a continuing tradition right up, perhaps, until 1947.“For their armies, on the other hand, the Bengal sultans relied on foreign Muslims. In Bengal, as elsewhere in the mediaeval Iranian world, the ruling house failed to develop an imperial aristocracy, requiring the creation of an artificial aristocracy composed of uprooted, foreign elements.”“Initially, these were Turks, imported from upper India, many of whom were recruited ultimately from Central Asia; but by the middle of the 15th century, black Abyssinians were imported through the port of Chittagong.”Finally, we can explain the giraffe that was sent to China! And it seems that Iranian commentary on Bengali history may be just a little misdated!“However, these same palace guards and military slaves, again on the Abbasid and mediaeval Iranian pattern, grew in influence as they grew in numbers, until, in 1486 they managed to overthrow their master and rule in their own names for a period of seven years.”Although this brief spell ended with the establishment of a powerful new dynasty in 1494, the influence of foreign military slaves apparently continued until, finally, in 1576, Akbar secured a Mughal toe hold in Bengal.The, roughly, two centuries, in which Iranian historians identify significant “Persianised” influences in the lands that are now Bangladesh, also saw to advent of another such influence, not valued by the Mongol invaders of most Persian influenced lands, even the invaders who, subsequently converted to Islam. Sufi influences, of course, remain controversial, especially amongst extremists, who, it seems, are less intellectual or emotional.The internalisation of the Islamic spirit has given rise to a distinctive culture, the effects of which, having begun in Abbasid Baghdad, linger still, perhaps most significantly, in the lands of the Ganges delta. Baul tradition, it is believed, owes a great deal to that Abbasid tradition, more so, even, that such dance forms that identify, through such as the dervishes, other strands of Sufiism.Some of that Abbasid tradition, of course, informed much of the culture, too, of the Mughals, where, again, especially the cultural influences bloomed, it might be said, in both architecture, and in the obsession with gem stones; an obsession that reflects in Akbar persuading one of the English traveller, Ralph Fitch’s companions, a London Jeweller, to remain in the Mughal court as a court jeweller in the mid 1580s.This second period of Iranian influence, historians believe, is amply reflected in Bangladesh, and in their commentary, Iranian historians make mention, specifically, of Lalbagh Fort, with its palaces and gardens that owe so much to Persian tradition ... even wall tiles!The Mughal influence is said to have, “led to an influx of administrators, soldiers, literati and Sufis, who identified themselves as ‘men of high extraction.’ Forming a social elite whose descendants dominated Muslim politics in Bengal down to modern times, these men claimed an ancestry in north India, Afghanistan, and especially Iran. One account, written in the 1630s refers specifically to waves of up country migrants who settled in the Mughal provincial capital of Dacca following Akbar’s conquest, and states that most government officials and notables living in Dacca were foreigners whose ancestors, or they themselves, had come from Kashmir, Marshad, Tehran and other Persian centres of tradition.”Most significantly, perhaps, it is noted that many of these migrants were Shia, and that their power came to its height in the first quarter of the 18th century.Here, then, we may distinguish another cause of the defeat of the young Nawab at Plassey. Religious dissention added, since the traditional Sunni Muslim aristocrats had, by then, been driven out of Dacca. “Bengal’s old political elite, who were primarily Afghan,” had been driven, “from the cities into the more remote regions of east and south Bengal, where they established themselves as colonisers and local magnates. Many a village in Bangladesh claims to have been founded by Afghan adventurers rusticated by the Mughal conquest.”There is little doubt that Iran exercised considerable influence in the lands that are now Bangladesh, from the early 13th century up to the real Anglicisation of the early 18th century. And the perspective of Iranian historians offers some very new interpretations of the rich history of the nation of Bangladesh.It may well be reasonable to ask why the Iranians, like the Europeans later, took such an interest in lands, today, commonly regarded as of no particular social, commercial or historic interest. Clearly, they knew a thing or two about its historic riches!Viewed from many perspectives, it may prove easier to appreciate the real richness, its causes and its influences, as the nation of Bangladesh grows in wealth and stature, and influence in the world of the 21st century. The Persian perspective is just one more.
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Q:
Adding JScrollPane to a JTextArea in a JPanel
I am trying to add JScrollPane to my large JTextArea, but whenever I include the JScrollPane code, my whole JTextArea disappears.
public myGUI() {
setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setBounds(100, 100, 1174, 656);
contentPane = new JPanel();
contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));
setContentPane(contentPane);
contentPane.setLayout(null);
contentPane.setVisible(true);
JTextArea textArea_1 = new JTextArea();
textArea_1.setBounds(203, 5, 869, 440);
textArea_1.setEditable(true);
textArea_1.setVisible(true);
contentPane.add(textArea_1);
JScrollPane scroll = new JScrollPane (textArea_1);
scroll.setVerticalScrollBarPolicy(JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);
scroll.setHorizontalScrollBarPolicy(JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);
contentPane.add(scroll);
}
A:
Several problems with your code:
You're trying to add a component, here your JTextArea called textArea_1, to multiple containers, here the contentPane and the JScrollPane. You can't do this in Swing as a component can be added to only one component. Add it only to the JScrollPane and not to the contentPane, and then add the scroll pane to the GUI.
You're constraining the size of your JTextArea via setBounds which almost guarantees that the JScrollPane will not work since doing this prevents the JTextArea from expanding when it holds more text than is shown. Instead set the JScrollPane's rows and columns properties and not its bounds. This will be the number of rows and columns that it should display within the scrollpane
You're using null layouts but not specifying the size of the JScrollPane, and so it defaults to a size of [0, 0] -- and this is why your JTextArea disappears. Null layouts require complete specification of all component sizes and positions.
You're using null layouts to set up your GUI. While null layouts and setBounds() might seem to Swing newbies like the easiest and best way to create complex GUI's, the more Swing GUI'S you create the more serious difficulties you will run into when using them. They won't resize your components when the GUI resizes, they are a royal witch to enhance or maintain, they fail completely when placed in scrollpanes, they look gawd-awful when viewed on all platforms or screen resolutions that are different from the original one.
For example:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import javax.swing.*;
@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class MyGuiPanel extends JPanel {
// some row and column values for our JTextArea
private static final int TXT_AREA_ROWS = 25;
private static final int TXT_AREA_COLS = 80;
// create the JTextArea, passing in the rows and columns values
private JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea(TXT_AREA_ROWS, TXT_AREA_COLS);
public MyGuiPanel() {
// create the JScrollPane, adding our JTextArea
JScrollPane scroll = new JScrollPane(textArea);
scroll.setVerticalScrollBarPolicy(JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);
scroll.setHorizontalScrollBarPolicy(JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);
// lets add some buttons to the bottom of the GUI just for fun
JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel(new GridLayout(1, 0, 5, 0));
buttonPanel.add(new JButton("Save"));
buttonPanel.add(new JButton("Open"));
buttonPanel.add(new JButton("Delete"));
buttonPanel.add(new JButton("Exit"));
// let's add a title to the top:
JLabel title = new JLabel("This is my Applications's Title", SwingConstants.CENTER);
title.setFont(title.getFont().deriveFont(Font.BOLD, 24)); // and make
// the text
// *BIG*
// use a BorderLayout for our GUI
setLayout(new BorderLayout(5, 5));
setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));
add(scroll, BorderLayout.CENTER); // add the scrollpane to the center
add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_END); // the button panel to the
// bottom
add(title, BorderLayout.PAGE_START); // and the title JLabel to the top
}
private static void createAndShowGui() {
// create our GUI JPanel
MyGuiPanel mainPanel = new MyGuiPanel();
// create a JFrame to add it to
JFrame frame = new JFrame("My GUI");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.DISPOSE_ON_CLOSE);
frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel); // add the GUI to the JFrame
frame.pack(); // tell the layout managers to do their work
frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
frame.setVisible(true); // display the GUI
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(() -> createAndShowGui());
}
}
Also, if your program extends JFrame, understand that you are painting yourself in a corner by doing this, forcing you to create and display JFrames, when often more flexibility is called for. In fact, I would venture that most of the Swing GUI code that I've created and that I've seen does not extend JFrame, and in fact it is rare that you'll ever want to do this. More commonly your GUI classes will be geared towards creating JPanels, which can then be placed into JFrames or JDialogs, or JTabbedPanes, or swapped via CardLayouts, wherever needed. This will greatly increase the flexibility of your GUI coding.
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Bungie Weekly Update: 8/15/08
Bungie are hinting at their projects in this update and lukems has listed lots of quotes of what the Bungie employees are currently working with.
The Penny Arcade Expo
In regards to our booth at Penny-Arcade[Aug. 29-31 in Seattle] (we'll be sharing a mechaplex-sized booth with the eyes-wide-tight crew over Red vs. Blue), the schedule for events is slowly emerging from the mist. As previously mentioned there will be a handful of daily opportunities to play Bungie for a chance to win Recon. Once you've had a shot at glory, that's it. In addition to the already-announced team of Shishka and I, some new challengers stepped into the fold this week. Calling themselves Team T&T (Shishka and I are Team Free Recon), Joe Tung (a Producer by day) and Luke Timmins (network engineer) are teaming up to take part in the Recon Challenge.
Tung's first question: Can I talk trash to the fans?
Followed immediately by: Can I call them -blam!- dumpsters? The schedule is taking shape though and we can confirm that Jen Taylor AKA the voice of Cortana will be spending some time in the booth signing autographs. Again, once we have a firm schedule – we'll post it publicly so that PAX attendees can plan accordingly. Also, start saving those pennies, we will have some sweet exlusive limited quantity shirts for sale - in addition to upholding our promise of "making it rain with prizes."
From the Mouths of Babes
It's all so hush-hush right now. But a bunch of folks sent me some examples of what they are currently working on here at Bungie. What does it all mean?
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“It feels like someone came in and confiscated my brain,” Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster wrote in 2015. For four years, Foster says that she’s suffered from severely debilitating pain and an intense brain fog that’s forced her to “just watch and see life go by without me participating in it.” The symptoms, she claims, are the result of an ongoing struggle with chronic Lyme disease.
Foster is not the only celebrity to say they have been diagnosed with chronic Lyme. In the last few years Foster, as well as two of her children, Kathleen Hanna, Avril Lavigne, Daryl Hall, and most recently Playboy model Crystal Hefner, have all been treated for the symptoms of chronic Lyme disease. (Some of them say they’ve been diagnosed with chronic Lyme; others simply call it Lyme, but each use language and describe treatments associated with chronic Lyme). On social media, nearly all of them have assiduously documented a range of symptoms as well as series of unconventional treatments, from Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation to detox diets and cleanses to surgically inserted ports that constantly pump antibiotics into their blood stream.
Both symptoms and treatments chronicled by celebrity chronic Lyme sufferers are, to say the least, controversial. Official medical organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health do not recognize the chronic Lyme as a diagnosis; they argue that there is no evidence that such a disorder even exists.
The guidelines for diagnosing and treating Lyme are clear: diagnostic guidelines outlined by the CDC include two laboratory tests to determine whether or not the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi is present in the blood, combined with acknowledged exposure to the blacklegged tick, Lyme’s most common carrier. The standard treatment for Lyme disease is two to four weeks of antibiotics. About 10 to 20 percent of those diagnosed with Lyme will suffer from Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), lingering joint pain and exhaustion that persists after the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi have been neutralized in the body.
According to the CDC, PTLDS can last for up to six months, though some cases have persisted past the half-year mark. The persistence of pain post-treatment is medically inexplicable, but some researchers have suggested that the pain is the result of “residual damage to tissues and the immune system.” There is, for lack of better words, no known medical reason that the pain should endure, and yet it does.
Chronic Lyme is the disease du jour in a long, contentious debate over what exactly constitutes illness, and who holds the authority to determine whether or not pain is authentic.
But chronic Lyme—though often and incorrectly used to describe late-Lyme disease (Lyme left untreated for a long period of time) or PTLDS—is something else entirely. It’s unclear when the label itself was created, but it was first used by patients who had a range of seemingly inexplicable symptoms. Like all diseases invented outside of official medical organizations, there is an uncomfortable tug-of-war between an individual’s real pain and overburdened conspiracy theories; theories that often revel in accusations and fantasy.
Chronic Lyme covers a vast array of symptoms, ranging from typical Lyme symptoms like joint pain and swelling to “irregular menstruation” and “exaggerated symptoms or worse hangover from alcohol.” The symptom list for Chronic Lyme, developed by now retired “Lyme literate” doctor Joseph Burrascano, is two pages long, and covers nearly any and all malfunctions of the human body.
Chronic Lyme is the disease du jour in a long and contentious debate over what exactly constitutes illness, and who holds the authority to determine whether or not pain is authentic. The question of authority is a lingering one; from Morgellons to multiple chemical sensitivity, Adrenal fatigue and a host of thyroid disorders, the annals of medicine are filled with diseases and disorders that many claim they suffer from, yet are unrecognized by evidence-based medicine.
Though the debate over who has the power to write medical narratives—to author and authorize real pain—is old, it is particularly contentious within the corner of medicine dedicated to studying Lyme.
The conflict over what constitutes Lyme disease, particularly how it’s contracted and how long the disease can linger in the body, is an acrimonious and complex. The chronic Lyme community—composed of the self-diagnosed, as well as those diagnosed by “Lyme-literate” doctors who oversee alternative therapies, and advocacy groups like the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS)—argue that the medical establishment is engaged in a willful and reckless disregard of the truth about an epidemic that is silently getting worse. Since chronic Lyme is not reported to the CDC, it’s impossible to say how its sufferers have been diagnosed. ILADS has declined to say how many members they have, but the group has a little over 14,000 likes on Facebook. Activists at the LymeDiseaseNetwork.com estimate that over a million Americans have chronic Lyme.
In the middle of that debate are celebrities like Yolanda Foster and Avril Lavigne—people who represent and promote an alternative narrative of the disease, one that differs significantly from the narrative put forth by evidence-based medicine.
Some of the earliest accounts of colonial America contain descriptions of the deer ticks that most commonly carry Lyme. John Josselyn, a seventeenth-century British naturalist who visited New England, described ticks (“tikes”) so numerous that they filled the region’s bushes and trees. “[They] will cleave to a mans garments and creep into his Breeches eating themselves in a short time and into the very fle’sh of a many,” Josselyn wrote in his book, An Account of Two Voyages to New-England, Made During the Years 1638, 1663. Josselyn’s cringe-inducing description was echoed by later explorers, many of whom made note of forests thick with ticks.
Early physicians took note of the familiar bull’s eye pattern rash that normally appears after infection. There are also numerous accounts of the joint pain that follows a Lyme infection and, by the early twentieth century, descriptions of neurological problems and meningitis that are typical of the progression of untreated Lyme disease. Though the symptoms of Lyme were familiar, and doctors had long figured out that penicillin would alleviate them, the cause remained unknown until 1975.
There exists an official history of Lyme disease, but as with all Lyme narratives, what seems to be fact is constantly contested.
In 1975, a clustered case of what doctors believed was juvenile rheumatoid arthritis broke out in Connecticut, including two towns named Lyme and Old Lyme. By 1977, Yale rheumatologist Allen Steere produced the first detailed account of the infection, suggested that it was caused by ticks, and named it Lyme; the disease’s exact origin, however, was still unclear. That answer would come in 1982 when Willy Burgdorfer, a medical entomologist at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories, discovered the source: a previously unknown spirochete Borrelia that was definitely determined to be the source of Lyme. In honor of Burgdorfer, the spirochete was named Borrelia burgdorferi.
This is the official history of Lyme disease. Yet like all Lyme narratives, what seems to be simple facts are contested. Many believe that the appearance of Lyme in 1975 was by no means natural; instead, it was the result of an accidental release of purposefully infected ticks housed at Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a federal research facility opened during the Cold War, dedicated to studying animal-based diseases and designing vaccines against them. According to Michael Carroll’s book Lab 257, Plum Island, only eight miles from Old Lyme, Connecticut, was experimenting with ticks as “disease vectors” for the purpose of germ warfare.
Carroll asserts that Plum Island is also responsible for the spread of Dutch duck plague, a herpes virus that was first identified in ducks on Long Island in 1967, as well as the West Nile virus which first appeared in the United States in New York City in 1999. The crux of Lab 257's argument is that Lyme, Dutch duck and West Nile, were discovered within an 80-mile radius of Plum Island. Like all conspiracies, it is novelistic in its form: chemical warfare, the Cold War, an ex-Nazi scientist, and nefarious plots are the stuff of a Don DeLillo rough draft. Yet the themes seem to have touched the psyche of skeptics and conspiracy theorists alike (former governor Jesse Ventura is one of the most vocal advocates of the theory).
Whether or not Lyme disease was the result of germ warfare gone awry, the story seeded a certain distrust of the both disease and the government agencies tasked with establishing guidelines.
Lyme, particularly late-stage Lyme, can be an unsettling and terrifying disease. Left undetected, Borrelia burgdorferi can wreak havoc on the body: pain, arthritis, short-term memory loss, delusions, and a host of neurological symptoms can manifest in the body. It’s hard to believe, perhaps, that such ravages can be fixed with something as common as antibiotics. Indeed, proponents of chronic Lyme argue that, in fact, the spirochete isn’t neutralized or killed by the two to four weeks of antibiotics that’s commonly prescribed to Lyme patients. Rather, they say, patients are persistently infected with Borrelia burgdorferi and standard testing protocols are too narrow to detect the infection.
Chronic Lyme’s earliest appearance came not long after Lyme itself was discovered. Tracking the phrase shows that its usage first appeared in the early 1980s, spiked around 1997, and continues to show a steady and significant increase in usage. The spike in 1997 likely corresponds with a growing public demand to recognize chronic Lyme. “Lyme-literate” doctors and lose groups of patients finally organized in 1999, when they founded ILADS, the most prominent of the chronic Lyme advocacy groups.
Proponents of chronic Lyme argue that, in fact, the spirochete isn’t neutralized or killed by the two to four weeks of antibiotics commonly prescribed to Lyme patients.
ILADS has dedicated itself to creating a cohesive narrative of chronic Lyme. Like any good narrative, this one has a vocabulary of its own. Its literature requires a certain kind of literacy—one that indicates that the reader is truly part of the community. Lyme is usually called the “great imitator,” a ready warning that doctors often mistake chronic Lyme for something more familiar, something more banal, like fibromyalgia or a conversion disorder. Test results, ILADS warns, are not to be trusted. They encourage patients to work with ILADS-affiliated labs in order to obtain the proper diagnosis, as did Crystal Hefner, who promoted the affiliated lab IgeneX when she announced her chronic Lyme diagnosis on Instagram.
It’s a narrative that’s underpinned by a clear accusation that the medical community is ignoring the suffering of individuals and turning a blind eye to an epidemic. And so ILADS acts as a clearinghouse for chronic Lyme patients and doctors invested in this idea.
ILADS funds and publishes studies, provides medical guidelines for treating chronic Lyme, and watchdogs government agencies. There are other groups, too, like the Lyme Action Network, which produces literature raising awareness of chronic Lyme. Like ILADS, the Lyme Action Network encourages its community to pressure Congress into requiring the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) to revisit its Lyme-related diagnostic and treatment guidelines.
Persuading IDSA to change its diagnostic guidelines is a core focus of chronic Lyme advocacy groups. ILADS argues that the current diagnostic measures rely too heavily on questionable standards. According to ILADS, “there is no reliable test to determine if someone has contracted Lyme disease or is cured of it.” They argue that the Western blot, a standard blood test, is not sensitive enough to detect and thus finely render the intricacies of Lyme; they advise “Lyme-literate” doctors to read the results of the Western blot differently in order to help diagnosis Lyme. Further, ILADS suggests that Lyme isn’t necessarily the result of a tick bite; according to their research, fewer than 50 percent of patients recall either tick bite or subsequent bulls-eye rash.
Since these groups have found little traction in at either the IDSA or the CDC, they have turned to politicians, who seem to be more willing to listen. In November 2006, Richard Blumenthal, then attorney general of Connecticut, launched an anti-trust investigation of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, arguing that their establishment of guidelines wrongfully allowed insurance companies to deny claims of accepted practices (namely, procedures advocated by ILADS).
When Blumenthal made his announcement, he was accompanied by Debbie Siciliano and Diane Blanchard, founders of a Time for Lyme, a chronic Lyme advocacy group. Blumenthal believed that IDSA was conspiring with insurance companies to purposefully deny chronic Lyme patients coverage for the most common treatment: long-term intravenous antibiotics. In an interview with Spin conducted by now Jezebel editor Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Kathleen Hanna described wearing a PICC line for nine months for precisely this purpose.
To be clear, there is no evidence that long-term intravenous antibiotics are effective, either for chronic Lyme or PTLDS patients. A 2007 report in the New England Journal of Medicine collected data from three double-blind, placebo-controlled trials:
“[The studies] have shown that there is substantial risk, with little or no benefit, associated with additional antibiotic treatment for patients who have long-standing subjective symptoms after appropriate initial treatment for an episode of Lyme disease.”
The report also found that patients with long-term intravenous inserts were at far greater risk for infection and death. And yet Blumenthal, who has long styled himself a crusader of sorts, was swayed by the activists’ point of view. In order to settle the lawsuit, IDSA agreed to the appointment of an independent panel to assess its guidelines. The panel unanimously found no fault with IDSA’s diagnostic and treatment guidelines and quickly reaffirmed them.
Though Blumenthal’s lawsuit had no effect, it confirmed one of the chronic Lyme community’s core beliefs about itself: that they were the victims of a vast conspiracy between untrusted and disliked institutions (the government, insurance companies, and medical organizations). Internet forums dedicated to digitally nurturing that community compare IDSA’s “cover up” with the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, a deeply unethical clinical study undertaken by the U.S. Public Health Service between 1932 and 1972. The Tuskegee experiment tracked the progression of syphilis in some 600 black men in Alabama, denying its subjects access to penicillin, which was known to be the common cure for the infection as early as 1947.
Like Lyme, syphilis is a spirochete—a thin bacteria that coils like an old telephone cord, and uses those coils to propel itself through the body. Beyond that, they have little in common. But the Tuskegee experiment has become a kind of Carrollian looking glass for chronic Lyme: If the government can run horrific experiments in the light of day, then what’s to stop them from denying treatment to those who might suffer from a disease they might be responsible for?
The comparisons between Chronic Lyme, the Tuskegee experiment and HIV/AIDS denialism are potent and misguided.
Others see parallels in the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Truthout, a far-left website, is particularly fond of pushing that parallel. A 2014 blog post about the dangers of ignoring chronic Lyme:
“AIDS activists struggled through 10 years of fierce battles before the kind of impact they were fighting for was achieved. With the benefit of hindsight, we have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and avoid putting Lyme patients through the same unnecessary suffering experienced by those with AIDS.”
The comparisons between Chronic Lyme, the Tuskegee experiment and HIV/AIDS denialism are potent and misguided. They speak to an undeniable history of vile government malfeasance and play on a deep distrust of government that crosses political ideologies. Yet they conflate chronic Lyme patients, who are overwhelmingly white women who ostensibly can afford treatment not covered by insurance, with historically disenfranchised groups. There is, perhaps, great irony in demographic groups who’ve historically had the greatest access to health care claiming that a medical system designed for them is still impossibly broken.
Beyond that, the comparison glosses over the real consequence of both syphilis and AIDS: death. Lyme rarely results in death. From 1985 to 2013, the CDC reported seven deaths from Lyme carditis, which occurs when the bacteria enters the heart tissue. It’s a rare (but the most deadly) condition reported in one percent of Lyme patients. Yet many of those who suffer from chronic Lyme say that their day-to-day quality of life is so miserable that they’ve become passive to the thought of death. While accepting an award from the Global Lyme Alliance in 2015, Foster described “the deepest core of hopelessness inside of me.”
There is great irony in demographic groups who’ve historically had the greatest access to health care claiming that a medical system designed for them is still impossibly broken.
Though most chronic Lyme treatments remain uncovered by insurance, five states (California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island) have passed laws protecting the licenses of doctors who treat patients with long-term antibiotics and other standard chronic Lyme therapies. In 2015, Blumenthal, now a senator, introduced the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education, and Research Act which, if passed, would provide federal funding for research into chronic Lyme.
There is no doubt that Lyme disease is on the rise in the United States. The CDC received reports of over 30,000 cases in 2014 but estimates that the actual number might be ten times higher. ILADS president Daniel Cameron says the estimate is far too low. “In epidemiology, every time you have a surveillance system, you always at least a tenfold underreporting,” Cameron told National Geographic. “There have been studies that show it might be as much as 40 times that,” he added.
Those studies, largely produced by advocacy groups, include cases that have been rejected by the CDC because they “don’t fit the conservative surveillance definition of Lyme disease.” Where activists see a pandemic swept under the rug, medical organizations see a worrying rise of an easily treatable disease (recent studies published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggest a correlation between the rise of Lyme with increased population density and climate change).
Further fueling the fire is the recent discovery of a new species of Borrelia that can cause Lyme, the provisionally-named Borrelia mayonii. Though its discoverers point out that Borrelia mayonii is limited to the upper Midwest and, like Borrelia burgdorferi is neutralized by an antibiotic regimen, chronic Lyme groups emphasize the discovery points to a general lack of medical understanding that pervades mainstream Lyme studies.
Despite decades of activism and of pushing back on official scientific narratives, chronic Lyme remained beholden to conspiracy theories, making little inroads in public perception. But celebrity stories of the pain of chronic Lyme and their long journeys towards seeking a cure have brought the disease a kind of respectability that thousands of resolute activists could not.
In the hands of people like Yolanda Foster and Avril Lavigne, the shifting and complicated story of chronic Lyme is distilled into a series of images—of tweets, Instagram photos, and network interviews—that create a consumable and cohesive narrative. “Something becomes real,” Susan Sontag wrote in Regarding the Pain of Others, “when it is photographed.” Celebrities with chronic Lyme render the disease real; they make it visible.
Celebrity stories of the pain of chronic Lyme have brought the disease a kind of respectability that thousands of resolute activists could not.
In an interview with Good Morning America, Lavigne cried as she recounted her difficulty getting diagnosed. “I literally became bedridden,” she says breaking into tears. “I was seeing every specialist, like literally the top doctors... so stupid, they would pull up their computers and be like, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or, ‘Why don’t you try to get out of bed and play the piano, Avril?’ Or, ‘Are you depressed?’ This is what they do to a lot of people with Lyme disease.”
Lavigne never says “chronic Lyme,” instead calling it Lyme. But the signifiers of chronic Lyme are present throughout the interview: the medical establishment’s denial, the turn to doctors who understand Lyme, and lastly the emphasis on diagnosis by symptoms rather than tests. Here, in Lavigne’s interview, is the activists’ language spoken by celebrity. And Lavigne’s status as celebrity acts as a buffer from difficult questions. GMA’s Jesse Palmer nods in sympathy and presents a cultural narrative that’s more appealing and acceptable: the crusading celebrity who has overcome disaster to inspire fans. Lyme Times, a chronic Lyme magazine, tracks and celebrates the national attention brought by celebrities, framing it as an essential component of representation.
Lavigne, like Foster and her children, gives voice to the debilitating pain that chronic Lyme’s patients undoubtedly suffer. Pain is an abstraction, determined by the invisibility of feeling; its expression is fragmented and fractured. More so than words, images seem better suited to the task of rendering pain real. Elaine Scarry wrote in The Body in Pain, “To have great pain is to have certainty, to hear that another person is in pain is to have doubt.”
The chronic Lyme community works assiduously to bridge the gap between their own certainty and their sense of outside doubt. In message boards across social media, people ritualistically chronicle their pain, repeating their struggles to make it through the simple tasks of a day. Many feel that their pain is ignored, misunderstood, and mistreated. Doctors, many say, ignore them. And it’s true that—on sites like Science-Based Medicine, which advocates for a scientific evidence-based approach to understanding diseases—there is a tendency to conflate pain with the disease itself, dismissing both as unreal. This has been modeled even on the Real Housewives. As the realness of chronic Lyme and Foster’s pain has been a central plot point, co-star Lisa Rinna has propagated the theory that Foster is “faking it,” saying that someone suggested to her that Foster could have Munchausen Syndrome. “There’s such ignorance when it comes to invisible disease,” Foster shot back.
“Invisible disease” is one of many phrases chronic Lyme activists use to describe their pain. (Patients with other recognized chronic illnesses also use this phrase.) And this is why the celebrity is so necessary: she renders the invisible disease visible, turning it into images. To watch Lavigne cry or partake in Foster’s endless search for alleviation is a surrender to the immediacy of these images—to a narrative removed from the stale and clinical language of the CDC or IDSA, or the strident commitment of an activist, and reconstituted on a spectacularly real body. As celebrities, Lavigne and Foster exist in a world of visual legibility. To see them is to know them, and they lend that credibility to chronic Lyme.
Perhaps most telling in all of the celebrity Lyme stories is their resistance to being told that their symptoms were psychological manifestations. Lavigne resents being called “crazy,” Hefner reminds her followers that her pain doesn’t stem from her “head,” and Foster too rejected diagnoses of stress and depression. They have rejected the narrative of psychological disorders in favor of infection, something that can be cured with long-term antibiotics, healthy living, and organic foods. That’s a potent part of the chronic Lyme narrative that lives uncomfortably beneath the surface. It’s surely part of the reason women bristle at the suggestion they are crazy: they are so used to hearing it.
Disease still has a hierarchy. Chronic Lyme is a disease narrative that simultaneously provides a language for pain while fulfilling that hierarchy. Narratives, like pain, are not about separating fact and fiction. Rather, they make us understand both subject and object and their relationship between one another. Who controls those narratives is ultimately what remains at stake in the chronic Lyme debate.
Illustration by Sam Woolley
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NaturalLanguage
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mit
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Q:
how to handle multiple pins are going to dropped at a one longitude & latitude in iphone sdk?
I have one task to develop application with map-kit.
I am getting multiple pins from server and one pin i have to drop from user current location. This user current location pin should be green & other pins which are coming from server should be in another color.How can i do this??
and another question is i am getting some pins on one another because there latitude & longitude have some minor differences. so at that particular point where the pins are going to be dropped on one another that point i want to give one button (on pin pop up window) which handle the minor difference of lat & long pins means the button tells next pin & as soon as the button pressed the pop up window should go on another pin which is not already selected & open its pop up window which also tells next pin. how can i do this??
i am using code like this for creating pin
for getting user loacation pin
Place* current = [[[Place alloc] init] autorelease];
current.name = @"You are here.";
current.latitude = coordinate.latitude;
current.longitude = coordinate.longitude;
PlaceMark *from = [[[PlaceMark alloc] initWithPlace:current] autorelease];
[mapView addAnnotation:from];
for getting server location pin.
int s=1;
for (j=0 ; j < i - 1 ; j++)
{
//points = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"point%d",s];
reports = [NSArray arrayWithArray:lat];
NSString *titles = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"%@",[tit objectAtIndex:j]];
NSString *description = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"%@",[des objectAtIndex:j]];
float latitude=[[lat objectAtIndex:j] floatValue];
float longitude=[[lon objectAtIndex:j] floatValue];
Place* home = [[[Place alloc] init] autorelease];
home.name = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",titles];
home.description = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",description];
home.latitude = latitude;
home.longitude = longitude;
PlaceMark *from = [[[PlaceMark alloc] initWithPlace:home] autorelease]; [mapView addAnnotation:from];
s++;
[self centerMap];
}
this code for creating there popup window.
- (MKAnnotationView *)mapView:(MKMapView *)map viewForAnnotation:(id <MKAnnotation>)annotation{
if (annotation == mapView.userLocation)
return nil;
MKPinAnnotationView *pin = (MKPinAnnotationView *) [mapView dequeueReusableAnnotationViewWithIdentifier: @"asdf"];
if (pin == nil)
pin = [[[MKPinAnnotationView alloc] initWithAnnotation:annotation reuseIdentifier: @"asdf"] autorelease];
else
pin.annotation = annotation;
pin.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
UIButton *disclosureButton = [UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeDetailDisclosure];
[disclosureButton setFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 30, 30)];
pin.rightCalloutAccessoryView = disclosureButton;
pin.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorRed;
pin.animatesDrop = YES;
[pin setEnabled:YES];
[pin setCanShowCallout:YES];
return pin;}
this code for handle there events means pin is calling the button action.
- (void)mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView annotationView:(MKAnnotationView *)view calloutAccessoryControlTapped:(UIControl *)control
{ nslog (do something)
}
My all codes are working properly. i want just answer of above given questions..pls help me
A:
Answer For your first question:
First Find your current location refer THIS ANSWER with all comments But use Following code to do this.
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Location Manager functions
- (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateToLocation:(CLLocation *)newLocation fromLocation:(CLLocation *)oldLocation
{ NSLog(@"Inside Location Delegate");
/*NSString *val=[[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"Previous Location is:\n Lattitude : %f\n Longitude : %f \n\n Current location is :\n Lattitude : %f\n Longitude : %f",oldLocation.coordinate.latitude, oldLocation.coordinate.longitude,newLocation.coordinate.latitude, newLocation.coordinate.longitude];
NSLog(@"%@",val);*/
[self setMapCenter:newLocation.coordinate];
PlaceMark *addAnnotation = [[[PlaceMark alloc] initWithCoordinate:newLocation.coordinate] retain];
[addAnnotation setTitle:@"Your Location"];
[addAnnotation setSubTitle:@""];
[self._mapView addAnnotation:addAnnotation];
userAnnoFlag = TRUE;
[self._mapView selectAnnotation:[[self._mapView annotations] lastObject] animated:YES];
[self.locationManager stopUpdatingLocation];
}
Then Use following method to set the pins:
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Annotations Functions
- (MKAnnotationView *) mapView:(MKMapView *)mapView viewForAnnotation:(id <MKAnnotation>) annotation{
@try {
MKPinAnnotationView *annView=[[MKPinAnnotationView alloc] initWithAnnotation:annotation reuseIdentifier:@"MyPin"];
annView.animatesDrop=FALSE;
annView.canShowCallout = YES;
[annView setSelected:YES];
if (userAnnoFlag == TRUE){
annView.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorRed;
userAnnoFlag = FALSE;
}
if ([mapView userLocation]) {
annView.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorRed;
}
else{
annView.pinColor = MKPinAnnotationColorGreen;
}
annView.calloutOffset = CGPointMake(-5, 5);
return annView;
}
@catch (NSException * e) {
}
@finally {
}
return 0;
}
And in case of your second question, you better check the difference between latitude and longitude, manually, and pass it if it has a enough difference(according to your requirement).
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NaturalLanguage
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mit
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TBALink Opinion-Flash
September 29, 1997 -- Volume #3 -- Number #092
Here is today's issue of TBALink Opinion-Flash. What follows
is the document name, first paragraph and the names of the
attorneys for the parties (If you know one of them you
might want to give them a call, chances are they don't know
about the opinion yet) of each electronic opinion/rules released
TODAY from the three appellate courts.
This Issue (IN THIS ORDER):
04-New Opinons From TSC
01-New Opinons From TSC-Rules
00-New Opinons From TSC-Workers Comp Panel
03-New Opinons From TCA
08-New Opinons From TCCA
There are three ways to get the full opinion from the Web: (TBALink members only)
Do a key word search in the Search Link area of TBALink.This option will allow you to view and save a plain text
version of the opinion.
*NEW* Browse the Opinion List area of TBALink. This option will allow you
to download the original WP 6.0 document.
version of the opinion.
Click the URL Link at end of each Opinion paragraph below. This option will allow you
to download the original WP 6.0 document.
George Dean
TBALink Chief Editor
WILLIAM D. CARROLL
vs.
FRED RANEY, WARDEN
Court:TSC
Attorneys:
For Appellant: For Appellee:
Julie K. Pillow John Knox Walkup
Assistant Public Defender Attorney General & Reporter
Covington, Tennessee
Michael E. Moore
Gary F. Antrican Solicitor General
Pubic Defender
Covington, Tennessee Gordon W. Smith
Associate Solicitor General
Nashville, Tennessee
Judge: ANDERSON
First Paragraph:
The defendant filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking his freedom from
prison on the grounds his commuted sentence had expired prior to being
revoked by the Governor. The trial court found that the commuted
sentence from life to "22 years to life" had expired before the
Governor's revocation and granted the defendant's petition for the
writ of habeas corpus. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed,
holding that the Governor's commutation was conditional and that the
Governor had the authority to revoke the commutation at any time
throughout the defendant's life.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TSC/carrollw_opn.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
JAMES DUBOSE
with DISSENTING OPINION
Court:TSC
Attorneys:
For Plaintiff-Appellee: For Defendant-Appellant:
Charles W. Burson Robert H. Plummer, Jr.
Attorney General & Reporter Franklin
Nashville
Michael E. Moore
Solicitor General
Nashville
Michael W. Catalano
Associate Solicitor General
Nashville
Amy Tarkington
Assistant Attorney General
Nashville
Joseph D. Baugh
District Attorney General
Franklin
Judge: REID
First Paragraph:
This case presents for review the decision of the Court of Criminal
Appeals affirming the conviction of James DuBose of first degree
murder by aggravated child abuse. The defendant was sentenced to
imprisonment for life. Permission to appeal was granted in order to
review the trial court's ruling allowing the introduction of evidence
of prior injuries suffered by the victim.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TSC/dubosej_opn.WP6
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TSC/dubosej_dis.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
MAURICE GORDON
Court:TSC
Attorneys:
For Appellant: For Appellee:
Jeffrey A. DeVasher Charles Burson
Senior Assistant Public Defender Attorney General & Reporter
Joan A. Lawson Michael E. Moore
Senior Assistant Public Defender Solicitor General
Ross Alderman Elizabeth T. Ryan
Deputy Public Defender Assistant Attorney General
Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, Tennessee
Victor S. Johnson, III
District Attorney General
Renee Erb
Bill Reed
Asst District Attorneys General
Nashville, Tennessee
Judge: ANDERSON
First Paragraph:
We granted this appeal to review two familiar exceptions to the rule
which excludes hearsay statements from a trial: statements relating to
a startling event or condition made while under the stress of
excitement from the event or condition; and statements made for the
purpose of medical diagnosis and treatment.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TSC/gordonm_opn.WP6
KENNETH McDANIEL
vs.
CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC.
Court:TSC
Attorneys:
For Appellant: For Appellee:
Wayne L. Robbins, Jr. Van Kirk McCombs, II
Gareth S. Aden James H. Wettermark
GULLETT, SANFORD, BURGE & WETTERMARK, P.C.
ROBINSON & MARTIN, PLLC 2300 SouthTrust Tower
Nashville, Tennessee 37219 Birmingham, Alabama 35203-3204
Edward H. Stopher
BOEHL, STOPHER & GRAVES
Suite 2300, Providian Center
400 West Market Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202-3346
Judge: ANDERSON
First Paragraph:
We granted this interlocutory appeal to clarify the standards for the
admissibility of scientific evidence under Tennessee Rules of Evidence
702 and 703.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TSC/mcdanilk_opn.WP6
SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE
STATE LIST FOR PERMISSION TO APPEAL
September 29, 1997
Court:TSC - Rules
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TSC_Rules/statelst4_wpd.WP6
CHARLEY CLUNAN COMPANY, INC.
vs.
JOYCE JEANETTE MARTIN
Court:TCA
Attorneys:
Mark J. Grai, THE WINCHESTER LAW FIRM, Memphis, Tennessee
Attorney for Defendant/Appellant.
Cary R. Califf, Memphis, Tennessee
Linda J. Mathis, Memphis, Tennessee
Attorney for Plaintiff/Appellee.
Judge: FARMER
First Paragraph:
Defendant Joyce Jeanette Martin appeals the trial court's order which
awarded Plaintiff/Appellee Charley Clunan Company, Inc., a judgment of
$35,200 in its action to recover a real estate commission. We affirm
the judgment because we have determined that the record supports the
trial court's ruling that Martin breached the terms of the parties'
exclusive listing agreement when she sold the property to a third
party without paying the Company a commission.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCA/clunanco_opn.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES
vs.
REBECCA WALLACE RUSSELL
Court:TCA
Attorneys:
For Appellant For Appellee
MARK A. SKELTON JOHN KNOX WALKUP
Rogersville, Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter
Nashville, Tennessee
DOUGLAS EARL DIMOND
Assistant Attorney General
General Civil Division
Nashville, Tennessee
Judge: Susano
First Paragraph:
The trial court terminated the parental rights of Rebecca Wallace
Russell ("Mother") in and to her minor child, Kayla Michelle Wallace,
whose date of birth is February 10, 1993. Mother appealed, arguing
that the evidence preponderates against the trial court's
determination that there is clear and convincing evidence that
termination is in the child's best interest and that one or more of
the conditions set forth in T.C.A. S 37-1 147(d)(1)(A)-(C) (Supp.
1995) exist in this case. We affirm.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCA/russelrw_opn.WP6
IN THE MATTER OF:
MICHAEL LYNN SHIPLEY
BEVERLY ANN SHIPLEY
TIFFANY ALEITHA SHIPLEY
FRANK MICHAEL SHIPLEY,
Children under the age of eighteen years
STATE OF TENNESSEE
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES,
GREENE COUNTY JUVENILE COURT
vs.
RALPH MICHAEL SHIPLEY
Court:TCA
Attorneys:
For Appellant For Appellee
T. WOOD SMITH JOHN KNOX WALKUP
Greeneville, Tennessee Attorney General & Reporter
Nashville, Tennessee
DOUGLAS EARL DIMOND
Assistant Attorney General
General Civil Division
Nashville, Tennessee
Judge: Susano
First Paragraph:
This is a termination of parental rights case under the new Adoption
Code. Following a bench trial on July 17, 1996, the court terminated
the parental rights of Ralph Michael Shipley ("Father") with respect
to his minor children, Michael Lynn Shipley (DOB: 9/20/87), Beverly
Ann Shipley (DOB: 10/28/88), Tiffany Aleitha Shipley (DOB: 3/29/90),
and Frank Michael Shipley (DOB: 2/3/91). Father appealed. He argues
that the evidence preponderates against the trial court's
determination that multiple grounds existed for the termination of his
parental rights.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCA/shiplyrm_opn.WP6
ROBERT DALE CHRISTOPHER
vs.
STATE OF TENNESSEE
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
For the Appellant: For the Appellee:
Joseph S. Ozment Charles W. Burson
217 Exchange Avenue Attorney General of Tennessee
Memphis, TN 38105 and
Georgia Blythe Felner
Asst Attorney General of Tennessee
450 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, TN 37243-0493
Alfred C. Schmutzer, Sr.
District Attorney General
301 Sevier County Courthouse
Sevierville, TN 37862
and
Richard R. Vance
Asst District Attorney General
339A Main Street
Newport, TN 37821
Judge: Tipton
First Paragraph:
The petitioner, Robert Dale Christopher, appeals as of right from the
dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief by the Circuit
Court for Cocke County as being untimely filed. He contends that his
petition was timely under the 1995 Post-Conviction Procedure Act as
interpreted in Arnold Carter v. State, No. 03C01-9509-CC-00270, Monroe
County (Tenn. Crim. App. July 11, 1996). The trial court is affirmed.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/christrd_opn.WP6
MICHAEL D. DAVIS
vs.
STATE OF TENNESSEE
Court:TCCA
First Paragraph:
This matter is before the Court upon the state's motion to affirm the
judgment of the trial court in this case by order rather than formal
opinion. Rule 20, Rules of the Court of Criminal Appeals. The record
in this appeal was filed on June 25, 1997, and the petitioner has
already filed his brief.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/davis-mi_ord.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
MIKI EDWARD GOLDEN
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
For Appellant: For Appellee:
Michael W. Ritter Charles W. Burson
131 East Tyrone Road Attorney General & Reporter
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
Sandy R. Copous
Assistant Attorney General
Criminal Justice Division
450 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, TN 37243-0493
Jan Hicks
Asst District Attorney General
127 Anderson County Courthouse
Clinton, TN 37716
Judge: WADE
First Paragraph:
The defendant, Miki Edward Golden, appeals from the judgment of the
trial court suspending his driver's license for six months after
finding that he violated the implied consent law defined in Tenn. Code
Ann. S 55-10-406. The issue is whether the defendant had adequate
notice of the charge. Because he did not, we must reverse.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/goldenme_opn.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
FREDDIE HARRISON
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
FOR THE APPELLANT FOR THE APPELLEE
David F. Bautista John Knox Walkup
District Public Defender Attorney General & Reporter
Gerald L. Gulley, Jr. Michael J. Fahey, II
Contract Appellate Attorney Assistant Attorney General
P.O. Box 1708 450 James Robertson Parkway
Knoxville, TN 37901-1708 Nashville, TN 37243 0493
(on appeal)
David E. Crockett Robert Y. Oaks
District Attorney General
Assistant Public Defender
Main Courthouse Lisa Nidiffer Rice
Elizabethron, TN 37643-3328 Asst District Attorney General
(at trial) Rte. 19 Box 99
Johnson City, TN 37601
Judge: WADE
First Paragraph:
The defendant entered a plea of guilty to possession of marijuana in a
state penal institution and was sentenced to serve three years. The
defendant properly reserved questions of law, and these questions were
certified to this Court. They are: I. The "punitive segregation" and
other sanctions applied to the appellant for possessing contraband
narcotics within a penal institution, and which are described as
"punishments" by the Tennessee Department of Corrections, preclude
subsequent indictment and trial for the same offense on grounds of
double jeopardy. II. The process by which prisoners who violate prison
rules against possession of illegal contraband are selected for
prosecution in state court is a selective enforcement that is devoid
of any rational basis, and therefore a violation of the equal
protection and due process rights of the appellant. We affirm the
judgment of the trial court.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/harrison_opn.WP6
SAMMIE NETTERS
vs.
STATE OF TENNESSEE
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
HOWARD B. MANIS JOHN KNOX WALKUP
200 Jefferson, Suite 1313 Attorney General and Reporter
Memphis, TN 38103
ELIZABETH T. RYAN
Assistant Attorney General
450 James Robertson Parkway
Nashville, TN 37243-0493
WILLIAM L. GIBBONS
District Attorney General
REGINALD HENDERSON
Ass District Attorney General
201 Poplar Ave., Suite 301
Memphis, TN 38103
Judge: RILEY
First Paragraph:
This is an appeal from the dismissal of appellant's petition for post
conviction relief. The sole issue is whether appellant was deprived
of effective assistance of counsel at the time of entry of his prior
guilty plea. Based upon the factual findings of the trial court, we
conclude that appellant's counsel had a conflict of interest. Since
this conflict is presumptively prejudicial to appellant, we must set
aside the guilty plea and remand for further proceedings.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/netterss_opn.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
DAVID WILLIAM SMITH
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
LARRY WEDDINGTON JOHN KNOX WALKUP
Attorney at Law Attorney General & Reporter
200 Seventh Street
Bristol, TN 37620 MARVIN E. CLEMENTS, JR.
Assistant Attorney General
2nd Floor, Cordell Hull Building
425 Fifth Avenue North
Nashville, TN 37243-0943
H. GREELEY WELLS, JR.
District Attorney General
JOSEPH EUGENE PERRIN
Asst District Attorney General
P.O. Box 526
Blountville, TN 37617-0526
Judge: WOODALL
First Paragraph:
The Defendant, David William Smith, appeals as of right pursuant to
Rule 3 of the Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure. On August 30,
1994, Defendant entered pleas of guilty to three charges of aggravated
burglary and three charges of theft over $1,000. Defendant received
four years on each conviction to run concurrently, and a probation
order was entered that same day. Defendant's probation was revoked on
February 15, 1995, and he was ordered to serve his sentence on
Community Corrections. On July 14, 1995, an Order was entered
returning Defendant to probationary status subject to the Community
Corrections Supervision Order. On December 1, 1995, another arrest
warrant was issued for Defendant's violation of probation. Following
a probation hearing in the Circuit Court of Sullivan County,
Defendant's probation was revoked and he was ordered to serve the
sentence in confinement. In his sole issue on appeal, the Defendant
argues that the trial court abused its discretion in revoking
Defendant's probation and ordering him to serve his sentence. We
affirm the judgment of the trial court.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/smith-dw_opn.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
BOBBY TEASTER
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
EDWARD CANTRELL MILLER JOHN KNOX WALKUP
District Public Defender Attorney General & Reporter
SUSANNA LAWS THOMAS CLINTON J. MORGAN
Assistant Public Defender Assistant Attorney General
102 Mims Avenue 2nd Floor, Cordell Hull Building
Newport, TN 37821-3614 425 Fifth Avenue North
Nashville, TN 37243-0943
ALFRED C. SCHMUTZER, JR.
District Attorney General
G. SCOTT GREEN
Asst District Attorney General
125 Court Avenue, Room 301-E
Sevierville, TN 37862
Judge: WOODALL
First Paragraph:
The Defendant, Bobby Teaster, appeals as of right pursuant to Rule 3
of the Tennessee Rules of Appellate Procedure. Following a jury
trial in the Criminal Court of Sevier County, the Defendant was
convicted of driving under the influence, first offense. The trial
court sentenced Defendant to serve eleven (11) months, twenty-nine
(29) days, with fifty percent (50%) minimum service prior to release.
The sentence was ordered to run consecutive to a prior ten (10) year
penitentiary sentence for bribery and subornation of perjury in Case
No. 5675 in Sevier County. Defendant raises two issues on appeal: (1)
that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a verdict of guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt of first offense DUI, and; (2) that the
trial court erred by ordering consecutive sentencing. We affirm the
judgment of the trial court.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/teasterb_opn.WP6
STATE OF TENNESSEE
vs.
REGINALD O. WEBB
Court:TCCA
Attorneys:
FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
W. Mark Ward John Knox Walkup
Assistant Public Defender Attorney General & Reporter
147 Jefferson, Suite 900 500 Charlotte Avenue
Memphis, TN 38103 Nashville, TN 37243-0497
(Appeal Only)
Clinton J. Morgan
Loyce D. Lambert Assistant Attorney General
Assistant Public Defender 450 James Robertson Parkway
201 Poplar Avenue, Suite 201 Nashville, TN 37243-0493
Memphis, TN 38103-1947
(Trial Only) William L. Gibbons
District Attorney General
OF COUNSEL: 201 Poplar Avenue, Suite 301
A C Wharton, Jr. Memphis, TN 38103-1947
Public Defender
201 Poplar Avenue, Suite 201 James M. Lammey, Jr.
Memphis, TN 38103-1947 Asst District Attorney General
201 Poplar Avenue, Suite 301
Memphis, TN 38103-1947
Judge: Jones
First Paragraph:
The appellant, Reginald O. Webb (defendant), was convicted of murder
in the second degree, a Class A felony, by a jury of his peers. The
trial court found that the defendant was a standard offender and
imposed a Range I sentence consisting of confinement for twenty (20)
years in the Department of Correction. In this Court the defendant
contends (a) the evidence was insufficient, as a matter of law, to
support a finding by a rational trier of fact that he was guilty of
murder in the second degree, and (b) the trial court committed error
of prejudicial dimensions by instructing the jury on flight following
the commission of a criminal offense. After a thorough review of the
record and the briefs submitted by the parties, it is this Court's
opinion the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
URL:http://www.tba.org/tba_files/TCCA/webbro_opn.WP6
Feel free to forward this Opinion-Flash on to any attorney
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Liver Cancer Surgery Appeal, Guildford
Dedicated to raising funds for the treatments of patients with primary and secondary liver cancer
We hope you will find the website informative and interesting. It is intended to be helpful and give a better understanding of secondary liver cancer and the treatment options.
Clinical Research
Academic Research
Saving Lives
The Liver Cancer Surgery Appeal (LCSA) is dedicated to raising funds for the treatment of patients with liver cancer. The charity was set up in 1997 with the specific objective of raising funds to buy equipment for liver cancer surgery and, in addition, for research purposes to improve outcomes for patients with liver cancer. The charity bought the first set of equipment for complex, pioneering liver surgery in 1997. At that time the Royal Surrey County Hospital had a single-handed surgeon, Professor Nariman Karanjia, in post.
In 2004 the Regional Hepaticopancreatobiliary (liver pancreas, gallbladder) Unit for Surrey and Sussex was established at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford. This unit now has five HPB surgeons dedicated to carrying out surgery of the liver, pancreas and bile ducts. The equipment for liver surgery for all these surgeons has been provided by the Liver Cancer Surgery Appeal. Obviously, the long-term objective is to continue funding this expanding unit.
Our Appeal is a registered charity (RCN 1061703), independent of the NHS and we rely entirely on public support to fund our vital work.
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Infectious etiologies in acute exacerbation of COPD.
Acute exacerbation (AE) is a frequent episode during the prolonged chronic course of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which entails significant morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency distribution of infectious etiologies in these episodes. Two hundred forty hospitalizations for AECOPD were included in a prospective, purely serologically based study. Paired sera were obtained for each of the hospitalizations and were tested using immunofluorescence or EIA methods to identify 13 different pathogens. Only significant changes in antibody titers were considered diagnostic. The mean age ( +/- SD) of the patients was 66.8 +/- 9.0 years and 179 (84%) were males. In 175 (72.9%) hospitalizations at least one infectious etiology was identified. In 117 (48.8%) hospitalizations at least one of 7 viral etiologies was identified. In 72 (30.0%) hospitalizations at least one of the following atypical bacteria was identified: Legionella spp. in 40 (16.7%), Mycoplasma pneumoniae in 34 (14.2%), and Coxiella burnetii in a single hospitalization. In 58 (24.2%) hospitalizations at least one classic bacterial etiology was found: Streptococcus pneumoniae in 48 (20.0%), Hemophilus influenzae in 10 (4.2%) and Moraxella catarrhalis in 9 (3.8%). More than one etiology was found in 72 (30.0%) hospitalizations. There were no significant differences in the etiologic distribution when the patients were classified by severity of airway obstruction or the clinical type of the exacerbation. We conclude that in most cases of hospitalization due to AECOPD the infectious etiology is viral or atypical bacteria and is classic bacteria in only a minority of cases. More than one etiologic cause can be identified in a third of the cases. The frequency distribution of the etiologies is not associated with the severity of airway obstruction or the clinical type of the exacerbation. The results of our study suggest that atypical bacteria should be covered in antibiotic regimens recommended for AECOPD. This issue should be addressed in future studies.
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Q:
Javascript array reduce convert array to object with integer keys
I am trying to convert an array of objects to objects with reduce method. The problem is I want to have object keys in numeric.
let crops = [{
id: 1,
name: "wheat"
}, {
id: 2,
name: "rice"
}];
let cropsObj = crops.reduce((accumulator, currentValue) => {
accumulator[currentValue.id] = currentValue.name
return accumulator;
}, {});
console.log(cropsObj);
This works fine except the keys I am getting are strings. For example:
{"1":"wheat","2":"rice"}
What I want is {1:"wheat",2:"rice"}. How can I convert the keys to integers?
A:
For your purposes (using material-table), your current objects will work fine. {1:"wheat"} is effectively the same as {"1":"wheat"}.
Unquoted property names / object keys in JavaScript gives a very detailed explanation of why. In short, numeric property names can be used, but they will be coerced into strings.
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Q:
Asynchronus calls with analytics.js
I know how to use ga.js +async calls.
Does analytics.js defautly makes async calls?
What I want to know if it is possible to make calls with analytics.js + async ?
A:
Universal Analytics works asynchronously. The ga() method puts the arguments (i.e. which method to call and which parameters to pass to this method) on an array which is iterated and the item executed after analytics.js has loaded. The new code is just a little more oblique than ga.js because it uses a wrapper (ga()) instead of the native push method, but the way it works is not all that different.
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Parapharyngeal lipoma.
Lipomas of the parapharyngeal space provide both a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. They are extremely rare with only a few cases having been reported. We present the case of a right parapharyngeal space lipoma in a 69-year-old man that was excised via a transcervical approach.
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Prior to leaving for Washington Monday, Karzai met with a visiting U.S. Senate delegation in Kabul during the weekend to discuss issues, including the security pact between the two countries, the peace process in Afghanistan and the future relationship his country will have with the United States, the Voice of America reported. The Senate delegation was headed by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The United States currently has about 60,000 troops in Afghanistan, but it is yet to be decide how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan under the security pact after 2014.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the "full range of issues" are expected to come up during Karzai's Washington visit this week, including "the issues of security, issues of political transition -- as you know, there are elections scheduled in 2014 in Afghanistan -- U.S. ongoing economic support, our Silk-Road strategy, our regional-integration strategy."
The Taliban have said there would be a prolonged war in Afghanistan if any foreign troops remain in the country beyond 2014.
Khaama Press quoted a Taliban statement Saturday as saying: "If American wants to leave a small or large number of its troops for whatever length of time then it means war and destruction will continue in the region for that same length."
Cato Institute analyst Malou Innocent told the Voice of America Barack Obama, during his second term as U.S. president, should begin working "with the Taliban to sort of incorporate them within the government, accepting the realities on the ground and understanding that the Taliban with their local lay of the land, their understanding of the human terrain, their cross-border sanctuaries that they have in Pakistan, understanding and coming to reconcile our interests and our limited ability to change that situation."
Afghanistan already has secured the release of some Taliban prisoners from Pakistan, which is seen as key to any peace effort and to encourage other Taliban members to negotiate with the Karzai government.
The United States has said it is supportive of the dialogue between Afghanistan and Pakistan that will lead to reconciliation.
On New Year's Day while discussing Karzai's U.S. visit, spokesman Aimal Faizi praised the release of the Taliban prisoners and said the Afghan government hoped the remaining Taliban prisoners in Pakistan would also be released to promote the peace process.
In an editorial Monday, The New York Times said Obama's talks with Karzai would be an "important marker" in the critical choices to be made on Afghanistan.
The editorial said while the Afghan security forces have taken responsibility to secure more of their country, the Pentagon has said only 1-of-23 NATO-trained brigades can operate without American assistance.
"The recent alarming rise in fatal attacks by Afghan forces on their American military mentors has crushed whatever was left of America's appetite for the costly conflict," the editorial said, adding the United States has spent $39 billion to train and equip the Afghan security forces over a decade.
On Obama's plans to keep a residual military force for an indefinite period beyond 2014, the editorial said he needs to think carefully about what its mission would be and make his case to the public. It went on to say the United States cannot go forward if Afghanistan opposes a residual force or puts undue restrictions on those troops.
"Mr. Karzai, a deeply flawed leader who is expected to leave office next year, has his own agenda, which includes requests for updated American aircraft, surveillance equipment and longer-range artillery to modernize his army," the editorial said. "Those requests cannot be taken seriously when Afghan security forces are increasingly murdering Americans and the Afghan government remains so profoundly corrupt."
United Press International is a leading provider of news, photos and information to millions of readers around the globe via UPI.com and its licensing services.
With a history of reliable reporting dating back to 1907, today's UPI is a credible source for the most important stories of the day, continually updated - a one-stop site for U.S. and world news, as well as entertainment, trends, science, health and stunning photography. UPI also provides insightful reports on key topics of geopolitical importance, including energy and security.
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4:20 Podcast Intro
Subscribe to Podcast
A31 on THC
Girl Who Doesn’t Exist In US Government
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/radiolab_podcast/radiolab_podcast16doesntexist.mp3RadioLab Story About Alecia Faith Pennington, who was born on a farm, homeschooled, and never visited a dentist or a hospital. By both chance and design she is completely invisible in the eyes of the state.
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Help Corey get the Diversity of Citizenship heard in an Article III Federal Court. Help Corey have the rights secured by the 2nd Amendment finally adjudicated by an Article IV State Citizen with STANDING!
Click here to see what your membership gets you.
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Q:
How do mathematicians reconcile that an infinite set does not have to be larger than its proper subset?
If we imagine an infinite number of fractions and, within them, an infinite number of integers, doesn't the former constitute a "larger" infinite set of numbers?
This has always been paradoxical for me. I would like to know how (or if) mathematicians reconciled this.
A:
There is a long controversy as to what should count as the "size" of an infinite set, and there provably does not exist a notion that satisfies both the bijectivity principle, a.k.a. Hume's principle (bijective sets have equal size), and the part-whole principle (whole is greater than its part). So any notion of size for infinities will be counterintuitive in one way or the other. The history of philosophical debates surrounding this clash of intuitions is described by Mancosu in Measuring the size of infinite collections of natural numbers: was Cantor's theory of infinite number inevitable? (his answer is no).
Modern mathematics adopted the notion of cardinality that satisfies the bijectivity principle, but its downside are the "paradoxes of infinity" like the Hilbert's hotel that can accomodate any 10 (or 100, or 100000) additional guests at any time. It has rooms numbered by positive integers and to free up rooms 1 to 10 (or 100, or 100000) the manager needs only to move all existing guests from room n to room n+10 (n+100, n+100000).
The part-whole principle can be accomodated, but only if one gives up the bijectivity principle. One version was introduced by Katz, who shared the OP sentiment, in Sets and their Sizes:
"Cantor’s theory of cardinality violates common sense. It says, for example,
that all infinite sets of integers are the same size. This thesis criticizes the arguments for Cantor’s theory and presents an alternative. The alternative is based on a general theory, CS (for Class Size)... Because the language of CS is restricted... the notion of one-one correspondence cannot be expressed in this language, so Cantor’s definition of similarity will not be in CS, even though it is true for all finite sets."
Another alternative was introduced by Benci in 1995, and is called numerosity, "an Aristotelian notion of size", as he put it. Numerosity is always smaller for proper subsets, but... it depends on how a subset is given, it "counts" labeled subsets, not just subsets. So as long as a bijection changes the labeling too much it does not count. Bijective sets can, and do, have different numerosities. Mancosu uses numerosities to give an interesting counter to Gödel's argument that adoption of Cantor's cardinality was "inevitable":
"Gödel’s reflection aims at showing that in generalizing the notion of number from the finite to the infinite one inevitable ends up with the Cantorian notion of cardinal number. The key step in the argument is the premise and the theory of numerosities can help us see that the premise already contains in itself the Cantorian solution. In fact, the premise takes as evident the request that “the number of objects belonging to some class does not change if, leaving the objects the same, one changes in any way whatsoever their properties or mutual relations (e.g., their colors or their distribution in space).” While the premise constitutes no problem when dealing with finite sets, one might question its acceptability in the realm of the infinite.
Indeed, in the theory of numerosities we cannot grant the premise when it comes to infinite sets. For, while it is possible to abstract from the nature of the objects themselves there is one type of relation that affects the counting, namely the way in which the elements are grouped. Such grouping makes no difference in the realm of finite sets of integers. But when we move to infinite sets a rearrangement of the grouping will in general affect the approximating functions and thus the numerosity of the set. Someone committed to the counting embodied in the theory of numerosities might thus reasonably resist accepting the premise on which Gödel bases his argument and thus also resist the claim that the generalization of number from the finite to the infinite must perforce end up with the notion of cardinal number."
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Network Rail probe over Northern and TransPennine routes Published duration 21 January
image copyright PA Media image caption Northern passengers faced rail chaos when new timetables were introduced in May 2018
Network Rail is being investigated over its poor service on routes used by troubled train operators Northern and TransPennine Express.
The government-owned firm has been put "on a warning" for routes in the North West and central region of England, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said.
The regulator said it was "not good enough" in those areas and was probing Network Rail's contribution to delays.
Network Rail apologised for "very poor service" in the Midlands and the North.
ORR said its performance deteriorated in 2018 and "failed to substantially recover during 2019".
Figures supplied by ORR show the proportion of scheduled train stops made on time in the last 12 months up to 4 January by Northern was 55% and 41% by TransPennine Express.
This compares to the national average of 65%.
Northern passengers have faced rail chaos since new timetables were introduced in May 2018, prompting the government to warn the firm it could lose its franchise over " unacceptable delays ".
In December, commuters using TransPennine Express and Northern trains faced more delays as the new winter timetables were launched
TransPennine Express announced a number of cancellations on routes until the end of January - including cuts to services between Liverpool and Edinburgh that stop at cities including Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool.
image copyright PA Media image caption Recent poor performance by TransPennine Express was "largely the result of train operations", says ORR
ORR chief executive John Larkinson, said: "The top priority for passengers is that their train arrives on time and that isn't happening consistently enough across the country.
"ORR is responsible for looking at how Network Rail contributes to train delays, and while there are areas of very good performance such as in Wales and Western region, Network Rail's performance in North West and Central region is not good enough.
"That is why we are putting the company on a warning to make sure its improvement plans deliver for passengers."
The ORR is to investigate Network Rail's recovery plan and whether the organisation is doing "all it reasonably can to improve service for passengers".
The regulator added it had also analysed the recent poor performance by TransPennine Express and found it was "largely the result of train operations".
Analysis
BBC Transport correspondent, Tom Burridge
Performance on Northern, TransPennine Express and West Midlands Railways has been repeatedly poor.
The government has threatened to strip Northern of its franchise. But more than half of delays on the entire UK rail network are down to problems with the infrastructure - like signalling.
Now the Office of Rail and Road says it will investigate the work done by Network Rail to try to improve performance in the north of England last year, work which ultimately did not yield positive results.
Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines told passengers: "We have let you down."
He said: "For too many months, passengers - particularly in the Midlands and the North - have been coping with very poor train services.
"It simply isn't good enough and, on behalf of the rail industry, I'd like to apologise."
He said a cross-industry task force "has been pulled together to tackle the problems head-on" although he said there was "no quick fix".
"It will need more reliable assets, a much more reliable train plan and more robust operator resource plans."
Network Rail - which owns and operates rail infrastructure in England, Wales and Scotland - said about a third of the delays attributed to it were caused by external factors such as vandalism, cable theft, trespass and weather.
Railfuture - a campaign group for better rail services - said Northern, Transpennine Express and Network Rail were "not solely to blame for the poor performance".
It said "they had been dealt a rotten hand of cards to play" citing reasons such as underestimating the increase in passenger numbers resulting in overcrowding and the scaling back of the Ordsall Chord project meaning the Castlefield corridor "has not been increased to accommodate extra services".
The group said it welcomes the ORR investigation, though, if it results in Northern, Transpennine Express and Network Rail being given the freedom "to define an operational solution which will work across the north".
Anthony Smith, from independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: "While both Northern and TransPennine have rightly been in the dock over their part in delivering unreliable services across large parts of the north of England, it is only right the spotlight is now shone on Network Rail.
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Impact of Biotin
================
Biotin, also known as vitamin B~7~ (or vitamin B~8~ according to French nomenclature, or vitamin H based on the German term "Haut" for "skin") was identified as an essential nutritional component in the first half of the 20th century. It was first isolated in 1936 from egg yolk and later synthesized chemically as a racemic mixture in a multi-step process.[@R1]^,^[@R2] Chemical synthesis was optimized later to yield the biologically active D(+)-biotin enantioselectively.[@R3] Biotin is a cofactor of carboxylases in all kingdoms of life. Those enzymes include acetyl-CoA carboxylase (involved in fatty acid synthesis) and the mitochondrial enzymes propionyl-CoA carboxylase (involved in the degradation of odd-chain fatty acids, isoleucine, and valine), pyruvate carboxylase (involved in gluconeogenesis), and 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase (involved in leucine degradation).[@R4] The vitamin is also attached to histone proteins in animals and thought to be involved in epigenetic processes and prevention of DNA damage.[@R5] Biotin is produced by plants and many microorganisms including fungi, bacteria, and archaea. Animals lack the biosynthetic route and depend on uptake of biotin in their diet. The latter fact makes biotin commercially important since it serves as a dietary supplement and a feed additive in livestock production. Moreover, biotin is contained in cosmetics for skin, nails, and hair. The annual worldwide production of biotin ranges in the hundreds of tons in feed, food and pharmaceutical purity with prices in the range of US\$ 1000 per kg for the latter.
Biosynthesis
============
Biotin biosynthesis can be divided in an upper pathway resulting in a pimeloyl thioester and a universally conserved lower pathway that converts this intermediate in a four-step sequence into biotin.[@R6] At least three routes exist for synthesis of the pimeloyl thioester. *Bacillus subtilis* (and other bacteria) converts free pimelic acid into pimeloyl-CoA by means of a pimeloyl-CoA synthetase (BioW). Alternatively, *B. subtilis* BioI, an enzyme of the cytochrome P450 family, produces pimeloyl-acyl carrier protein (pimeloyl-ACP) from long-chain acyl-ACPs through oxidative cleavage. A third pathway was analyzed in detail in *E. coli*. A portion of malonyl-ACP is channeled into biotin synthesis by BioC-catalyzed methylation. The resulting compound is elongated by addition of two C~2~ units via the fatty acid synthesis machinery. Demethylation by BioH results in pimeloyl-ACP. Notably and curiously, fatty acid synthesis is instrumental in production of the vitamin that is essential for fatty acid synthesis. The upper-pathway reactions in eukaryotes have not been elucidated.[@R7] In all biotin-producing organisms the pimeloyl moiety is converted by BioF, BioA, BioD, and BioB (bacterial nomenclature) or their homologs into biotin via KAPA (7-keto-8-aminopelargonic acid), DAPA (7,8-diaminopelargonic acid), and dethiobiotin. The biotin synthase (BioB) is a member of the radical/S-adenosylmethionine enzyme family and donates a sulfur atom originating from an internal \[2Fe-2S\] cluster for incorporation into dethiobiotin to give biotin. The reaction leads to inactivation of the catalyst which must be repaired by iron-sulfur cluster synthesis proteins. In eukaryotes, the sulfur-incorporation step catalyzed by biotin synthase---and perhaps some other steps---occur in mitochondria.
Transport of Biotin Across Biological Membranes
===============================================
Biotin uptake is required by non-producers, but in the presence of environmental biotin, even prototrophic prokaryotes shut down cost-intensive biotin synthesis and import the compound. Biotin transporters involved in uptake of the vitamin into cells were identified in mammals, fungi, and prokaryotes. In the intestine and several other tissues of mammals, dietary biotin and that produced from the intestinal microbiota is adsorbed by a sodium-dependent multivitamin transporter (SMVT).[@R4]^,^[@R8] This transporter is a membrane protein with 12 transmembrane segments and is responsible for uptake of the water-soluble vitamins biotin, pantothenate, and lipoate. The SMVT is also considered a potential target for delivery of drugs in cancer chemotherapy that are functionalized with a biotin moiety.[@R9] Monocarboxylate transporter 1 is considered to be another biotin-uptake system that may mediate biotin uptake into lymphoid cells and keratinocytes.[@R4] Proton-dependent biotin symporters act as uptake systems in the plasma membrane of the ascomycetous fungi *Saccharomyces cerevisiae* and *Schizosaccharomyces* *pombe*.[@R10]^,^[@R11] Although the two proteins are unrelated on the sequence level, they share a 12-transmembrane helix architecture.
In prokaryotes, the molecular basis behind biotin uptake has long been unknown. A combined bioinformatic and biochemical approach led to the identification of energy-coupling factor (ECF) transporters as a widespread type of biotin uptake system.[@R12] ECF transporters constitute a special group of ATP-binding cassette-containing importers. They consist of a substrate-specific transmembrane protein (S unit, named BioY for biotin transporters), a moderately conserved but ubiquitous transmembrane protein (T unit, BioN), and pairs of ATP-binding cassette-containing ATPases (A units, two copies of BioM).[@R13] BioN plays a central role in stabilizing the BioMNY complexes, and the interaction sites between BioM and BioN have been unraveled on the molecular level.[@R14]^,^[@R15] Biotin transport activity was assigned to a lone BioY protein in the absence of its cognate BioMN module, but this conclusion was challenged by biochemical and structural studies of the purified component.[@R12]^,^[@R16] Recent in vitro and in vivo studies confirm the hypothesis, however, that (1) solitary BioY proteins indeed can transport biotin molecules across the cytoplasmic membrane in living bacteria, and (2) this activity may depend on oligomerization of these membrane proteins.[@R17]^-^[@R20]
A completely different type of biotin transporter (YigM) was identified in *E. coli*, and homologs thereof are present in other bacteria. YigM is a membrane protein with ten transmembrane helices and belongs to the carboxylate/amino acid/amine family of secondary active transporters.[@R21] Transport of biotin across organellar membranes in eukaryotes remains elusive. In animals, the vitamin must be exported from mitochondria into the cytosol for incorporation into cytosolic acetyl-CoA carboxylase. In plants, biotin protein ligase (also called holocarboxylase synthetase) activity that covalently attaches the vitamin to a lysine residue of the target apoenzymes, is found in the cytosol, but to a lesser extent also in mitochondria and chloroplasts.[@R22] This suggests that biotinylated enzymes located in mitochondria may receive their prosthetic group in that compartment. Biotin export from mitochondria into the cytosol and subsequent import into chloroplasts is a requirement for the biotin protein ligase reaction in the plastids. Plastids contain biotin-dependent acetyl-CoA carboxylase.[@R23]
Applications of a Biotin-Deficient *Escherichia coli* Strain
============================================================
Recently, we constructed a biotin-auxotrophic and biotin transport-deficient *E. coli* reference strain to characterize activity of recombinant biotin transporters.[@R19] The Δ*bioH* deletion mutant contained in the Keio collection was used as the starting material.[@R24] This strain is unable to produce biotin since the last reaction of the upper biosynthetic pathway, the conversion of pimeloyl-ACP methyl ester to pimeloyl-ACP, is interrupted. It grows on trace levels of biotin due to uptake of the vitamin mediated by its endogenous high-affinity biotin transporter YigM. Prior to deletion of *yigM* in the Δ*bioH* background, we introduced a cloned pimeloyl:coenzyme A ligase gene (*pimA*) from a purple bacterium and introduced the corresponding plasmid into the strain. The PimA-containing Δ*bioH* cells grew in the absence of biotin on minerals salts medium supplemented with pimelate. This indicates that (1) the recombinants utilized exogenous pimelate as a biotin precursor and (2) pimeloyl-CoA can replace the natural intermediate pimeloyl-ACP. Then, we used a recombineering protocol to delete *yigM* in the Δ*bioH* (PimA^+^) strain yielding the Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM*::Km double mutant in which *yigM* is deleted and replaced by a kanamycin resistance cassette.[@R19]^,^[@R25] For this purpose, the Δ*yigM*::Km genomic region of the corresponding strain from the Keio collection was amplified and the amplificate was electroporated into a variant of the Δ*bioH* strain that expressed the bacteriophage λ *exo bet gam* recombination genes. The Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM*::Km double mutants were selected on kanamycin-containing agar plates. The mutant cells were unable to grow on trace levels of biotin. They grew on media containing biotin at concentrations above 100 nM suggesting that nonspecific uptake at high external biotin concentrations is sufficient for growth.[@R19] We used the Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM* double mutant as the host for recombinant BioY proteins in order to the above-mentioned controversy whether or not the solitary S units represent functional biotin transporters. The analyses provided clear results. Eight out of 8 solitary BioYs allowed the recombinants to grow in mineral salts medium on traces of biotin (1 nM) confirming the hypothesis that BioY proteins can transport the vitamin across the membrane in the absence of a BioMN module.[@R19] This finding correlates with the fact that a number of BioY-containing prokaryotes lack recognizable BioMN modules or T- and A units in general.[@R12]^,^[@R13] Recent structural analyses of two ECF holotransporters uncovered that the S unit has a very unusual topology. Whereas the transmembrane helices of lone S units are oriented perpendicular to the membrane, they lie almost parallel to it when the S units are complexed with a cognate T-A module.[@R16]^,^[@R26]^,^[@R27] The reorientation within the membrane has been correlated with substrate translocation through the lipid bilayer. Whether or not solitary BioY proteins undergo a similar topological change even in the absence of T- and A units remains to be discovered.
Our recent work has demonstrated that the *E. coli* K-12-derived Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM* double mutant is a suitable tool to detect biotin uptake activity of recombinant transporters. For future screens for novel biotin transporters, the deletion mutations may be introduced into *E. coli* BL21 strains that are frequently used for recombinant protein production.
Bacterial and fungal strains have been used in the past as indicators in biotin quantification. Quantitative determination of biotin levels in food and food supplements, in pharmaceuticals as well as in fluids of humans suffering from biotin deficiency is crucial.[@R28] Bioassays represent a sensitive technique for biotin quantification.[@R29] Due to the limited requirements of the vitamin by microorganisms and the existence of high-affinity uptake systems, however, the upper detection limit is approximately 1 mg/ml. Biotin concentrations above this level cannot be discriminated. Recently, the actinobacterium *Corynebacterium glutamicum* was engineered to yield an indicator strain for the determination of biotin levels up to 100 mg/l or slightly above.[@R30] *C. glutamicum* is a natural biotin auxotroph. Deletion of its *bioY* gene rendered the organism hyperauxotrophic resulting in an indicator strain with an increased biotin requirement. In a similar approach we used the *E. coli* Δ*bioH*/*E. coli* Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM* pair of strains in bioassays. As illustrated in [Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, the *E. coli* system is suitable for quantification of biotin levels ranging from 0.1 μg/l to approximately 200 mg/l. This range is very similar to that covered by the *C. glutamicum*-based bioassay. Our system may be expanded to allow discrimination of biotin from biotin precursors in sample fluids. In its current state, the system would respond to KAPA, DAPA, and dethiobiotin in addition to biotin which prevents selective determinations. Deletion of additional *bio* genes allows to differentiate between these compounds in the bioassay. Deletion of *bioB* (encoding biotin synthase) for instance, would result in a strain that responds to biotin selectively, because it cannot convert any precursor into the vitamin. Deletion of *bioD* (encoding dethiobiotin synthase) leads to a strain responding to both dethiobiotin and biotin and so on. In conclusion, the *E. coli* Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM* strain and variants thereof are versatile tools for biotin bioassays and searches for novel biotin transporters.
![**Figure 1.** Bioassay for biotin quantification. (**A**) The *E. coli* Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM* strain and its parent (*E. coli* Δ*bioH*) were grown in mineral salts medium supplemented with biotin, harvested, washed and starved for biotin as described.[@R19] The starved cells (200 μl at OD~600~ = 1) were mixed with 5 ml of melted mineral salts soft agar (0.7% w/v agar), and the mixtures were poured onto mineral salts agar plates. Biotin solutions with the indicated concentrations were loaded on paper disks (10 μl for the Δ*bioH* Δ*yigM* strain, 5 μl for the Δ*bioH* strain), the disks were placed on the agar plates, and the plates were incubated for approx. twenty-four h at 37 °C. Diffusion of biotin into the agar allows growth of the biotin-deficient reporter strains around the disks resulting in a halo. (**B**) Correlation of halo sizes with biotin concentrations. Halo sizes of three independent assays were measured. The values represent the means of triplicate determinations ± the standard deviation. Sensitivity and detectable concentration are in a similar range as recently reported for a bioassay based on *Corynebacterium glutamicum* strains.[@R30]](bbug-5-129-g1){#F1}
We thank Edward Schwartz (Institut für Biologie/Molekulare Zellbiologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany) for critical reading of the manuscript. Our work on ECF transporters and biotin uptake is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within Paketantrag PAK 459 by grants EI 374/4-1 and EI 374/4-2 to Eitinger T.
[10.4161/bioe.26887](10.4161/bioe.26887)
FinkenwirthFKirschFEitingerT Solitary BioY proteins mediate biotin transport into recombinant Escherichia coli J Bacteriol 2013 195 4105 11 10.1128/JB.00350-13
No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
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Plumbing
August 26, 2009 | Timothy F. Brick, Timothy F. Brick is chairman of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, representing the city of Pasadena.
Ageneration ago, Southern California water managers thought they had the solution for dealing with the hub of the state's water system -- the magnificent Northern California estuary known as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. They wanted to build a canal from the delta to the existing aqueduct system that sustains San Joaquin Valley agriculture and Southern California. They were wrong. And now we finally have the chance to do it right. Five draft bills as part of an overall plan have been introduced in the Legislature that could lead to better governance in the delta and wise water management statewide.
Like Goldilocks searching for the perfect perch, Dong Yu tested one seat after another in the glitzy showroom. Some were too pricey, others too fussy. Then he found one that was just right. "You've got to try this," he shouted to his wife, to the delight of a fawning saleswoman. "This one's really comfortable. " The seat in question was a $400 toilet made by Japan-based Toto Ltd. Dong and his wife had just bought a 2,200-square-foot apartment in a tony section of China's capital and were prepared to splurge on a pair of eye-catching commodes.
A lawsuit seeking to prohibit faucet manufacturers from selling products that leach too much lead into water, filed by the state in December, is likely to be painful and costly for Pacoima-based Price Pfister Inc. The California attorney general's suit against Price, a major plumbing-supplies maker, and more than 20 other leading faucet manufacturers is intended to force the companies to stop selling the faucets or substantially reduce their lead content.
Regarding "LAUSD sees a future in career ed," Rick Wartzman, California & Co., April 27: I think John W. Gardner, former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, said it best: "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." Our society should reward excellence, not labels.
The Mesa Consolidated Water District is warning customers that information mailed to them recently by a plumbing equipment company might be misleading. Postcards sent to water district customers from Amtrol Inc. stated: "The water company has modified your plumbing. It might cause you some easily prevented problems." Mary Urashima, spokeswoman for the agency, said the water district was alerted to the situation when several customers called to find out what had been done to the system.
A panel that is helping revise the Uniform Plumbing Code announced Wednesday that it would continue banning the use of water-saving, flush-free urinals in public restrooms. The decision by the International Assn. of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials follows a hearing last week in Ontario at which plumbers' unions condemned the fixtures as unsanitary. Conservationists had sought the urinals as a way of saving up to 24,000 gallons of water per urinal each year.
City workers doing routine maintenance on fire hydrants on Balboa Peninsula earlier this week flushed out an old water pipe, inadvertently sending rust-tainted water into the plumbing of some homes. Pete Antista, public utilities superintendent, said he became aware of the problem workers were creating Tuesday afternoon when a handful of residents called to complain of orange and red water emanating from their taps. "It is not pleasing at all," Antista said.
Shell Oil Co. and Hoechst Celanese Corp. have agreed to commit $850 million to pay for the replacement of plastic plumbing systems that have leaked, according to a settlement announced Tuesday, representing the biggest property damage settlement in U.S. history. The plumbing involved in the settlement is polybutylene pipe with metal or acetal insert fittings. The pipe is a flexible, plastic pipe that is usually gray, black or silver when used indoors and blue when used in a yard service line.
Boeing Makes Design Changes: Boeing Commercial Airplanes has made design changes to prevent wiring and plumbing mistakes such as those found on 94 Boeing jets in a recent government-ordered inspection, company officials said. Boeing said it was using different-sized fittings, putting the connections in different locations and using labels and color-coding to prevent the problems found in jetliner engine and cargo hold fire detection and extinguishing systems.
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Q:
Hedge against Oil industry?
Since I work for an oil and gas producer in Canada, I receive company shares as a performance bonus, resulting in a disproportionate amount of oil investments in my current portfolio. Is there a good hedge to the oil industry that will help to diversify my portfolio?
A:
If the company shares are not restricted, you could simply hedge yourself by selling them.
Otherwise, an easy (but maybe not optimal) approach could be purchasing Proshares DDG or DUG ETFs, assuming that the US and Canadian industries are correlated. HED may work as a Canada-focused hedge, but not sure it is liquid enough.
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Q:
What are "cheese Parmentiers"?
From Clarissa Dickson Wright's A History of English Food (2012):
[In the 1920s, British] hostesses also started to serve canapés: little cheese Parmentiers, asparagus rolled in thin brown bread and butter, delicate crab patties, and, of course, the ubiquitous vol-au-vents [...] (source)
Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737–1813) was a French proponent of the potato.
Googling "cheese Parmentier" just wants to tell me about hachis Parmentier, basically a French version of shepherd's pie, dating back to at least 1898. ("Hachis" here I think is French for "a chopped-up thing," and has no relation to the Spanish word for "hashish," but I'd appreciate some authoritative enlightenment on that point too.)
Hachis Parmentier does contain both cheese and potatoes, and also phonetically sounds like "(ha-) cheese Parmentier"; the only reasons I'm doubting this identification are (1) that I can't find any evidence at all that anyone's ever actually referred to hachis Parmentier as "cheese Parmentier," and (2) little shepherd's pies sound like they'd make terribly messy canapés.
So, what did Clarissa Dickson Wright mean by "little cheese Parmentiers"?
A:
Some quick Googling leads me to believe these are "Bouchées Parmentier au Fromage" (literally 'mouthfuls'), which seem to be some sort of potato-and-cheese croquette.
To find this, I did a Google image search for "Parmentier au fromage". This shows many different dishes (lots of which are indeed shepherd's pie-like, but it also gives a few hits on the Bouchées. These seem to be perfect as a canapé, so fit the description in OP's question. Searching for "Bouchées Parmentier au Fromage" yields only these. It's admittedly not a water-tight argument, but it's the best I could find.
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Beauty has been a driving force on the planet since Groggrog was chasing mammoths in a loincloth. It makes people go out of their way to accommodate it, especially dudes, who I can confidently say do most of what we do to impress a pretty girl. Some today might call that sexism, but I call it nature, and the key to the propagation of our species. If appreciating a beautiful girl as a man is supposed to makes me sexist, then I’m guilty without the feeling of guilt.
And beauty, hotness, and prettiness are potent. When beauty gets excited, we get excited. So when they figured out that pretty girls cheering a crowd into cheering the team works really well, it became something schools and institutions began to take very seriously.
Seriously enough that it became a competitive sport in its own right, and thus looked to put their best, most hot foot forward. So it was that schools and Universities put out helpful illustrations that show girls what they’re looking for, like this latest one from the University of Washington.
As far as guides go for helping girls know what to do for tryouts, this one is pretty standard. It simply points out what kind of physique and style they’ll go for when selecting a candidate. Other colleges do this as well, such as LSU and WSU.
Requirements vary from school to school, but you get the idea. They’re looking for fit girls who care about their image, and don’t look like they’re fresh out of a meeting about patriarchal oppression at the Dunkin’ Donuts. The school, or institution is looking for a girl whose image exudes a fierce beauty, because she’ll be front and center in an official capacity with their logo plastered on her chest or back.
But in today’s world, being pretty and confident is a sin. Upkeep and exuberance of feminine beauty, from what I understand, is something witches do now. So any blasphemous materials that encourages being fit and hot must be ridiculed, complained about to no end, and hopefully burned. So sayeth the church of feminism.
This college cheerleader “how-to” guide is complete bullshit. Be thinner! And whiter! https://t.co/MP7oHAAGtlpic.twitter.com/373l2VPRbG — HuffPostWomen (@HuffPostWomen) April 28, 2016
This college has some infuriating ideas about what the “perfect” cheerleader looks like: https://t.co/y33pbt4JYfpic.twitter.com/gyctfmMEXh — Women’s Health (@WomensHealthMag) April 28, 2016
Did anyone else see the poster depicting UW’s required “look” to be considered for their cheer squad? That crap makes me mad #Ummmmm — Michelle Bodkin (@MBodkinRivals) April 27, 2016
Shoutout to the foot stampers who aren’t – and likely have never been – cheerleaders, getting angry about a poster they’ll never utilize, and probably will forget about in a couple of weeks.
We’ve seen this kind of outrage before from cry-bullies not long ago when protein world released their “Are you beach body ready” ad. To sum it up, according to SJWs and feminists, this add was sexist because she’s hot.
So this is kind of a part 2. Protein World didn’t back down, because they have nothing to back down from. They displayed a beautiful, fit girl in an effort to inspire people to buy their products to look like her. This kind of thing works too, because what girl doesn’t want to look and feel good, and what guy doesn’t want to attract a girl like that? It’s not sexism, it’s nature. Beauty, and sexual appeal work to inspire and encourage people to do better. We need it as a species.
However, unlike Protein World’s ad, colleges who release these guides are essentially interviewing for a job that has standard requirements for looks and physicality. Strictly speaking, these guides are pretty professional.
But also unlike Protein World, UW actually backed down and pulled their guide after all the pout-rage washed over them. Their statement reads, “Some of the details and descriptions provided were inconsistent with the values of the UW spirit program and department of athletics.”
First off, what would be consistent? I see you asking nothing that hasn’t been asked from cheerleaders in the past. No visible tattoos? Makes perfect sense. They look tacky in this setting. No heavy makeup or neon colored hair? Absolutely. This is a sport, not a rave.
You require them to be physically fit? To have tone to their muscles, and a thin physique with a tan color so it looks like they do something other than hammer out grievances on their Tumblr pages all day? Say it ain’t so! I mean, it’s not like these girls are going to be utilizing their bodies to contort, run, jump, flip, and fly through the air. Expecting a girl whose primary task is performing in front of people to look good is just LUNACY, I SAY!
Then there are the ridiculous complaints about her being white. First off, racist. Secondly, the vast majority of complaints I see about the girl in the poster being white, are coming from white students, but what else is new? Did they stop to think that this tip, which was definitely aimed at white girls, is there because skin pale enough to ward off ships doesn’t look at all good for this setting? Again, this is a performance job where looks and physical ability count.
But let’s cut the crap, and get down to the real issue surrounding this non-traversy. This is a bunch of girls who don’t like the way this image makes them feel. Unable, or unwilling to take the steps necessary to look like that pretty girl in the picture, they lash out with accusations of sexism, racism, or whatever -ism they can use for the narrative.
Some of them get creative, and put their insecurities on others. They claim they’re just standing up for those who see these ads and feel like they could never look so pretty, but these miserable busy-in all the wrong ways-bodies aren’t fooling anyone.
Let me make it very simple. If you don’t want to be a cheerleader, don’t concern yourself with this guide, and leave it for the girls who actually want to be cheerleaders, and need this information that you so righteously had removed. If you want to be a cheerleader, but are unwilling meet the standards for the job, then don’t tryout because you’re not going to make it.
If looking at this girl makes you feel insecure, then how about working to elevate your self-esteem and achieve a fit and tone body style with proper diet and exercise? If your diet is currently fried foods, sugars, and sadness, you’re going about it the wrong way. Put down the candy bar, pick up a gym membership, and leave everyone else the hell alone.
My advice to colleges is to keep cheerleaders hot. It’s what we, the vast majority of the planet, both men and women, want. We don’t want you to engage in feel-goodery. Don’t march out someone like TrigglyPuff, whose version of a high-kick is walking. Keep your girls looking like they could equal parts be thrown nimbly into the air, and equal parts able to Ghallager a watermelon with a roundhouse. Keep the beauty standards high, and out of reach from children who don’t want to put the effort other girls are willing to put into it.
And for God’s sake, stop caving to fearleaders making mountains out of molehills that everyone else has to climb. Their numbers aren’t as large as their level of volume implies, and their goal is to make everyone else as miserable as they are. Don’t help them.
There’s nothing wrong with being hot, and there’s nothing wrong with appreciating it both sexually and/or professionally, no matter what the feminists say. Beauty is important to us as a species. Let them rail and rave, and let the rest of us enjoy the show.
#KeepCheerleadersHot
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The Midfield Terminal Airport Complex Features a Futuristic Design
The Midfield Terminal Airport complex brings a futuristic design inspiration to life thanks to its space-age aesthetic and complex organic form. The airport concept by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates is set to be built in the heart of Abu Dhabi.
When built, the terminal will act as a gateway into the prosperous city, allowing people to gain knowledge about Arabic culture and its people's growing wealth. The Midfield Terminal Airport complex by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates also features a spacious interior hallway that boasts impressive views to the structure's waved roof elements.
Moreover, the dynamically designed pavilion also features glazed windows that highlight the structure's impressive glowing facade, bold structural elements and immaculate overall length.
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Q:
pandas: replace string with another string
I have the following data frame
prod_type
0 responsive
1 responsive
2 respon
3 r
4 respon
5 r
6 responsive
I would like to replace respon and r with responsive, so the final data frame is
prod_type
0 responsive
1 responsive
2 responsive
3 responsive
4 responsive
5 responsive
6 responsive
I tried the following but it did not work:
df['prod_type'] = df['prod_type'].replace({'respon' : 'responsvie'}, regex=True)
df['prod_type'] = df['prod_type'].replace({'r' : 'responsive'}, regex=True)
A:
Solution with replace by dictionary:
df['prod_type'] = df['prod_type'].replace({'respon':'responsive', 'r':'responsive'})
print (df)
prod_type
0 responsive
1 responsive
2 responsive
3 responsive
4 responsive
5 responsive
6 responsive
If need set all values in column to some string:
df['prod_type'] = 'responsive'
A:
You don't need to pass regex=True here, as this will look for partial matches, as you''re after exact matches just pass the params as separate args:
In [7]:
df['prod_type'] = df['prod_type'].replace('respon' ,'responsvie')
df['prod_type'] = df['prod_type'].replace('r', 'responsive')
df
Out[7]:
prod_type
0 responsive
1 responsive
2 responsvie
3 responsive
4 responsvie
5 responsive
6 responsive
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Susceptibility of methicillin-resistant staphylococci to oregano essential oil, carvacrol and thymol.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the susceptibility of methicillin-susceptible and methicillin-resistant staphylococci (MSS, MRS) to oregano essential oil, carvacrol and thymol. The commercial aerial parts of Origanum vulgare L. were hydrodistilled and the essential oil analysed by gas- chromatography/electron impact mass spectrometry. The inhibition efficacy of this essence and its major components was assayed against 26 MSS and 21 MRS, using an agar dilution method. The methicillin resistance was thoroughly typed by Epsilometer test (E-test), polymerase chain reaction for mecA gene detection and PBP2' latex agglutination test. The results clearly demonstrated that the comparison between the susceptibility of MSS and MRS to oregano oil, carvacrol and thymol showed no significant differences (Fisher's exact test, P > 0.05). The best minimum inhibitory concentration values were reported for carvacrol (0.015-0.03%, v/v) followed by thymol (0.03-0.06%, v/v) and oregano oil (0.06-0.125%, v/v).
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UN Launches Trust Fund For Slavery Memorial
The United Nations (UN) has established a trust fund for a permanent memorial to honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.
A ceremony was held recently at the UN headquarters in New York to launch the Permanent Memorial Trust Fund and to announce the appointment of hip-hop pioneer and philanthropist Russell Simmons as Goodwill Ambassador for the project.
Jamaica’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Raymond O. Wolfe, in his remarks at the launch, said that as Jamaican and a Caribbean national, he was proud of this important initiative, which is being led by member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) with strong support from the African Union.
“It is with a sense of duty and deep humility that we seek to honour the memories of our ancestors, who were brought to the Caribbean and other regions as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. (This) ceremony takes us one step forward in realising our objective,” said Ambassador Wolfe, who is also chair of the Permanent Memorial Committee.
He urged the world community to view the project as a “tangible source of hope and a means of remembrance of the struggles to break free of the hardships faced under the pernicious system of slavery and colonial rule”.
Mr. Simmons, for his part, told the gathering that it was a great honour to be appointed the face and voice of such an iconic initiative that will remind generations of their shared history and legacy. He said that the story of slavery was not being told enough.
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Coflex interspinous implant placement leading to synovial cyst development: case report.
Interspinous process devices (IPDs) have been developed as less-invasive alternatives to spinal fusion with the goal of decompressing the spinal canal and preserving segmental motion. IPD implantation is proposed to treat symptoms of lumbar spinal stenosis that improve during flexion. Recent indications of IPD include lumbar facet joint syndrome, which is seen in patients with mainly low-back pain. Long-term outcomes in this subset of patients are largely unknown. The authors present a previously unreported complication of coflex (IPD) placement: the development of a large compressive lumbar synovial cyst. A 64-year-old woman underwent IPD implantation (coflex) at L4-5 at an outside hospital for low-back pain that occasionally radiates to the right leg. Postoperatively, her back and right leg pain persisted and worsened. MRI was repeated and showed a new, large synovial cyst at the previously treated level, severely compressing the patient's cauda equina. Four months later, she underwent removal of the interspinous process implant, bilateral laminectomy, facetectomy, synovial cyst resection, interbody fusion, and stabilization. At the 3-month follow-up, she reported significant back pain improvement with some residual leg pain. This case suggests that facet arthrosis may not be an appropriate indication for placement of coflex.
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Ecto-5'-nucleotidase is associated with cholinergic nerve terminals in the hippocampus but not in the cerebral cortex of the rat.
The extracellular catabolism of exogenously added AMP was studied in immunopurified cholinergic nerve terminals and in slices of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex of the rat. AMP (10 microM) was catabolized into adenosine and inosine in hippocampal cholinergic nerve terminals and in hippocampal slices, as well as in cortical slices. IMP formation from extracellular AMP was not detected. alpha, beta-Methylene ADP (100 microM) inhibited almost completely the extracellular catabolism of AMP in these preparations. The relative rate of catabolism of AMP was greater in hippocampal slices than in cortical slices. AMP was virtually not catabolized when added to immunopurified cortical cholinergic nerve terminals, although ATP could be catabolized extracellularly under identical conditions. The comparison of the relative rates of catabolism of exogenously added AMP, calculated from the amount of AMP catabolized after 5 min, in hippocampal cholinergic nerve terminals and in hippocampal slices revealed a nearly 50-fold enrichment in the specific activity of ecto-5'-nucleotidase upon immunopurification of the cholinergic nerve terminals from the hippocampus. The results suggest that there is a regional variation in the subcellular distribution of ecto-5'-nucleotidase activity in the rat brain, the ecto-5'-nucleotidase in the hippocampus being closely associated with the cholinergic nerve terminals, whereas in the cerebral cortex ecto-5'-nucleotidase activity seems to be located preferentially outside the cholinergic nerve terminals.
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Mapping of transcription start sites using CAGE^[@R8]^ identified two major promoter classes with respect to the TSS precision^[@R10],[@R11]^: "sharp" promoters with one predominant TSS often associated with a TATA-box that determines the TSS selection, and "broad" promoters with a wider distribution of TSSs often overlapping a CpG island. Even with recent reports of prevalence of known core promoter elements in human promoters^[@R12]^, the actual mechanism for choosing TSSs within vertebrate promoters in various cell types and conditions remains unknown.
To address the developmental stage-specific promoter usage throughout early embryonic development, we analysed a nucleotide-resolution map of transcription initiation events in the zebrafish genome, generated by CAGE across 12 stages from unfertilised egg to organogenesis^[@R13]^ ([Fig. 1a](#F1){ref-type="fig"}). The data revealed numerous cases of promoter dynamics, where maternal mRNAs were initiated from different positions than zygotic transcripts, often with shifting of TSS positions within a single promoter ([Fig. 1a](#F1){ref-type="fig"}).
Clustering of individual TSSs by expression profile revealed several major classes of TSS dynamics ([Fig. 1b](#F1){ref-type="fig"}): TSSs present preferentially in maternal (pre-MBT) stages (blue) reflecting maternally inherited transcripts, as opposed to those activated in early (orange) or later (red) zygotic stage (post-MBT). Additional clusters included constitutively present TSSs (green) and TSSs with peak activity at the transitional stages (yellow), confirming major changes in the zebrafish transcriptome initiated at MBT^[@R3],[@R14]^. An equivalent clustering of entire promoters revealed a similar pattern (Extended Data Fig. 1a). However, promoters with no change in the overall expression level often contained population of TSSs with very heterogeneous relative usage during development ([Fig. 1a](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 1b-d).
The observed differential TSS utilisation between inherited (maternal) and *de novo* transcribed (zygotic) mRNAs suggested distinct rules for TSS selection acting within the same promoter in the oocyte and the embryo. To reveal underlying signatures guiding differential promoter interpretation by the maternal and zygotic transcription machinery, we further dissected the maternal- and zygotic-specific promoter usage. We first identified a subset of promoters similar to the example in [Figure 1a](#F1){ref-type="fig"}, showing a significant degree of shifting between maternally and zygotically utilized TSSs (Extended Data Fig. 2a,b). Our set contained 911 "shifting" promoters whose CAGE signal in pre- and post-MBT stages overlapped by less than 40% ([Supplementary Table 1](#SD2){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). The TSS shift happened in either direction but mainly within a narrow window of up to 100 bp (Extended Data Fig. 2c). Their preferred maternal and zygotic TSS displayed antagonistic developmental dynamics, with degradation of inherited maternal transcripts and gradual activation of zygotic ones (Extended Data Fig. 2d).
Aligning sequences of shifting promoters by their maternal dominant TSS revealed a clear enrichment of T and/or A containing (WW) dinucleotides \~30 bp upstream of maternal TSS, hinting at the presence of a functional TATA-like element^[@R15]^ ([Fig. 2a](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 2e). In contrast, zygotic TSS did not show TATA-like signal in the expected position, but a sharp SS∣WW boundary in local C/G and A/T dinucleotide enrichment precisely aligned \~50 bp downstream of zygotic TSS ([Fig. 2a](#F2){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 2e). This suggests two fundamentally different sequence signals guiding transcription initiation in the oocyte and the embryo.
Only a small fraction of maternal TSSs (\< 10%) had a canonical TATA-box motif ([Fig. 2b](#F2){ref-type="fig"}), whereas the majority contained other A/T-rich pentamers (Extended Data Fig. 2f). Motif discovery revealed the presence of an A/T-rich motif (*W-box*) with lower information content than canonical TATA-box, but equally positioned 30 bp upstream of the maternal TSS ([Fig. 2c](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). In contrast, zygotic TSS did not show presence of TATA-box or W-box in the expected upstream region ([Fig 2b](#F2){ref-type="fig"}). This reveals a shift from W-box motif-dependent TSS selection in the maternal transcriptome to zygotic W-box-independent TSS selection, *i.e.* the existence of two major, independent mechanisms for defining transcription initiation acting on the same core promoter.
We hypothesized that the uncovered rules for maternal and zygotic TSS selection may apply generally for all constitutively expressed genes, even in the absence of clear TSS shifting. The dinucleotide analysis on all 8369 constitutively expressed promoters showed the same precise positioning of the W-box signal upstream of the maternal dominant TSS, and the alignment of zygotic TSS with downstream SS∣WW boundary, as seen in the "shifting" promoters ([Fig. 3a](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 3a-c). This confirmed a promoterome-wide distinction between determinants that govern TSS selection in the oocyte and the embryo, and demonstrated that complex TSS patterns in constitutively expressed promoters represent readouts of two independent grammars intertwined in the same core promoter regions.
Finally, we showed that exclusively maternal and exclusively zygotic promoters also utilise the corresponding stage-specific TSS selection signals (Extended Data Fig. 3f-h). These results confirm a global change in promoter interpretation that constitutes a central part of maternal to zygotic transition, with fundamental difference in the TSS selection mechanism used by the transcription machinery in the oocyte and the embryo.
Fixed spacing between the motif and the TSS imposed by the W-box-dependent initiation in the oocyte predicts "sharp" TSS configuration^[@R10]^. The set of maternal broad promoters, which seemingly contradicted the imposed constraints, revealed a novel promoter architecture composed of multiple individual relatively sharp CAGE tag clusters (TCs), each with its associated W-box at fixed \~-30 bp position (Extended Data Fig. 4). On the other hand, the exclusively zygotic promoters showed a less constrained distribution of TSSs, revealing the familiar shape of a broad promoter^[@R10]^, with majority (\>70%) containing only one broad TC (Extended Data Fig. 5a-c). Constitutively used promoters changed their shape accordingly, from single or multiple "sharp" TSS configuration in the maternal stages, to "broad" in zygotic stages (Extended Data Fig. 5d,e). Thus, the switch between maternal and zygotic TSS is accompanied by a global change in the promoter architecture within the same region.
To functionally validate the observed TSS selection grammars, we identified the W-boxes and dinucleotide frequency patterns in a constitutively active promoter (*sf3a2*) and mutated all W-boxes associated with maternal TSSs ([Fig. 3b](#F3){ref-type="fig"}) for analysis in transgenic zebrafish. Fluorescence reporter activity and 5′ RACE assays demonstrated that removal of all W-boxes did not influence zygotic transgene activity or zygotic TSS selection (Extended Data Fig. 6), confirming W-box independent promoter usage in the embryo. To validate the W-box dependent TSS selection in the oocyte, we analysed maternal TSS selection in early F1 embryos from stable transgenic lines with wild type or mutated variant of the *sf3a2* promoter. We developed a novel method (single locus CAGE; SL-CAGE; [Supplementary Table 2](#SD3){ref-type="supplementary-material"}) for detection and relative quantification of TSS usage at 1 bp resolution within targeted promoter. TSS usage patterns of the wild type *sf3a2* transgene promoter in early embryos of several transgenic lines were highly reproducible and perfectly correlated with the maternal TSS usage of the endogenous *sf3a2* gene as well as with that seen by CAGE ([Fig. 3b](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 7). The removal of W-boxes severely reduced the use of associated downstream positions as TSSs in the mutant transgenic lines compared to the wild type and led to an aberrant TSS usage pattern ([Fig. 3b](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 7d; P \< 0.01), confirming that the selection of these TSSs depends on W-box signal in the oocyte. These results strongly support two independent TSS selection mechanisms used by the oocyte and the embryo within a single promoter.
To address the relationship between stage-specific TSS selection and chromatin configuration, we analysed the positioning of H3K4me3 and H2A.Z containing nucleosomes at core promoters by ChIP-seq. It was shown that H3K4me3 marking on promoter associated nucleosomes precedes gene transcription during zebrafish genome activation^[@R5],[@R6]^. The data revealed precise positioning of the first downstream (+1) nucleosome \~50 bp from the preferred zygotic TSS, but no fixed spacing to the maternal TSS for all constitutively active promoters in the zygotic (prim 6) stage ([Fig. 3c](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 3d). We observed a less sharp nucleosome alignment to the zygotic TSS in earlier stages, including the 512 cells stage, which precedes the onset of zygotic transcription. In contrast, no alignment of H3K4me3-marked nucleosomes to the maternal TSS was detected in any stage ([Fig. 3c](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). These results revealed a positional interdependency between zygotic TSS and the +1 nucleosome in the embryo as a feature of zygotic TSS selection grammar, independent of the W-box motif-guided TSS selection in the oocyte. Promoter-associated nucleosome alignment corresponded with alternating WW∣SS patterns downstream of zygotic TSS (asterisks in [Fig. 3a,c](#F3){ref-type="fig"}), providing internucleosomal position signal. At a higher resolution the nucleosome-occupied DNA downstream of zygotic TSS displayed a 10 bp periodicity in AA and TT dinucleotide enrichment ([Fig. 3d](#F3){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 3e), previously identified as intranuclesomal positioning signal^[@R16]^. The strong association of zygotic, but not maternal TSS, with these nucleosome positioning signals argues that TSS selection in a vertebrate oocyte is independent of inter- and intra-nucleosomal DNA signals.
Recent efforts to identify sequence-based signals for nucleosome positioning^[@R17],[@R18]^ and dynamic nucleosome organisation at promoters^[@R19],[@R20]^ highlight the epigenetic and chromatin mechanisms^[@R21],[@R22]^ that, together with DNA sequence, direct transcription initiation. The association of nucleosome positioning signals with zygotic promoter activity described here raises the question whether promoter-associated nucleosome positioning contributes to regulation of positioning of transcription initiation, or is merely a consequence of transcription at the predefined position. To investigate this relationship we analysed the DNA sequence underlying +1 nucleosome positioning in the transcriptionally silent pre- (512 cells) and active post-MBT (prim 6) stage ([Fig. 4a](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 8). In pre-MBT stage, H3K4me3-marked nucleosomes occupied CG/GC enriched region and centred at the peak of highest CG/GC enrichment, often directly overlapping the TSSs of the maternal transcripts, supporting the idea that H3K4me3 initially appears at CpG islands prior to transcription^[@R23]^. In the post-MBT stage the +1 nucleosome was positioned just downstream of the SS∣WW enrichment boundary at \~50bp from the zygotic TSS, occupying a WW-enriched region, with a small local GC/CG peak at the nucleosome midpoint ([Fig. 4a](#F4){ref-type="fig"}, Extended Data Fig. 8b). Additional downstream nucleosomes followed a similar pattern of WW-enriched bound DNA alternating with internucleosomal SS enrichment. The local GC/CG enrichment at the nucleosome midpoints is in accordance with previously described nucleosome positioning preferences^[@R16]^; however, the additional sequence preference complexity and its relation to TSS in different developmental stages were not reported so far. The results show that initial positioning of promoter-associated nucleosomes, which correlates with a broad internucleosomal phasing pattern, changes in later stages to final precise positioning, which correlates tightly with zygotic transcription initiation site and intranucleosomal phasing patterns, suggesting interdependence of final nucleosome positioning and transcription. To test this, we ranked throughout-active genes by the timing of onset of their zygotic transcription and analysed their H3K4me3-marked nucleosome positioning patterns ([Fig. 4b](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). No association between the timing of transcription activation and precision of nucleosome positioning was found, arguing against transcriptionally aided nucleosome readjustment and instead suggesting a pre-transcriptional process in repositioning of nucleosomes to their final position, in agreement with transcription-independent positioning of nucleosomes at promoters in human cells^[@R24]^. Consistently, H3K4me3 ChIPseq in TBP knock-down embryos (Extended Data Fig. 9) showed no change in the overall H3K4me3 recruitment and nucleosome positioning at TBP-dependent genes ([Fig 4c](#F4){ref-type="fig"}), demonstrating that H3K4me3-marked nucleosome positioning at these genes does not require TBP-dependent recruitment of transcription initiation machinery or active transcription.
The absence of nucleosome-positioning sequence signature, as well as of precise nucleosome positioning at promoters with canonical TATA-box in other systems^[@R20],[@R25]^, together with narrow TSS peaks, argues in favour of the W-box as the overriding determinant of maternal TSS selection. The similarity of the W-box to TATA-box suggests that transcription initiation in the oocyte may be mediated by the oocyte-enriched transcription nucleating factor TBP2^[@R26],[@R27]^. Conversely, early zygotic grammar prefers TSS position at a fixed range from the precisely positioned +1 nucleosome, suggesting a mechanism in which the initiation complex chooses initiator-like sequences within a "catchment area" determined by the nucleosome position ([Fig. 4d](#F4){ref-type="fig"}). This model is compatible with motif-independent TFIID recruitment by H3K4me3-TAF3 interactions^[@R28]^ and emphasizes the interdependence of nucleosome configuration at promoters with promoter type and physiological state in vertebrates^[@R20],[@R25]^ and yeast^[@R19],[@R29]^.
Different TSS selection grammars deployed at separate promoters have been associated with different types of genes^[@R19],[@R20]^ and a handful of promoters were shown to switch between TATA-dependent and independent initiation^[@R30]^. Here we show for the first time that the two grammars co-exist in close proximity or in physical overlap genome-wide and are differentially utilised at thousands of promoters active in both the oocyte and the embryo. The multiple layers of information embedded in the same short sequence, each representing a different aspect of a complex regulation, are part of the reason why promoter codes have been so difficult to detect. Our findings on overlapping promoter grammars have implications for future analyses of promoter content and function.
Methods {#S2}
=======
CAGE tags mapping and CTSS calling {#S3}
----------------------------------
Sequenced CAGE tags (27 bp) from Nepal *et al*.^[@R13]^ were mapped to a reference zebrafish genome (Zv9/danRer7 assembly) using Bowtie^[@R31]^ with default parameters allowing up to 2 mismatches and keeping only uniquely mapped reads. An additional G nucleotide, which is often attached to the 5′ end of the tag by the template-free activity of the reverse transcriptase in the cDNA preparation step of CAGE protocol^[@R32]^, was removed in cases where it did not map to the genome. All unique 5′ ends of tags were considered as CAGE tag-defined transcriptional start sites (CTSSs) and the number of tags supporting each CTSS was counted. Raw tag count was normalized to a referent power-law distribution based on total 10^6^ tags and α=−1.25 as described in Balwierz *et al*.^[@R33]^ resulting in normalized tags per million (tpm). All analyses were done in R statistical computing environment^[@R34]^ (<http://www.R-project.org/>) using Bioconductor^[@R35]^ (<http://www.bioconductor.org/>) software packages and custom scripts.
CTSS clustering into TCs and promoter regions {#S4}
---------------------------------------------
CTSSs supported by at least 1 tpm in at least one of the 12 developmental stages were clustered at two levels. First, tag clusters (TCs) were created for each stage individually using simple distance-based approach with a maximum allowed distance of 20bp between two neighbouring CTSSs. Next, for each TC we calculated a cumulative distribution of CAGE signal and determined the positions of 10^th^ and 90^th^ percentile to obtain more robust boundaries of a TC. TCs across all developmental stages within 100bp of each other were aggregated into a single promoter region. Only promoter regions supported by at least 5 tpm in at least one developmental stage were used in further analyses.
Expression profiling {#S5}
--------------------
Expression profiling was done at two levels: individual CTSSs and entire promoter regions. To minimize the noise from weakly supported CTSSs, we selected only CTSSs with at least 5tpm in at least one developmental stage. Normalized tpm values across 12 developmental stages for each CTSS (or promoter region) were divided by their standard deviation to obtain scaled expression measures. Self-organizing map^[@R36]^ (SOM) unsupervised learning algorithm was applied to distribute CTSSs (or promoter regions) across 5 × 5 = 25 expression profiles.
Dinucleotide patterns analysis {#S6}
------------------------------
To visualize dinucleotide composition patterns of sequences flanking TSS we first created an occurrence matrix (n × m; where n = number of sequences and m = length of sequences) for each individual dinucleotide, by placing 1 if the given dinucleotide is present at given position or 0 if it is not. Values in the matrix were then smoothened: at each position in the matrix the weighted average dinucleotide occurrence was calculated by taking into account surrounding positions. Weights of the surrounding positions were assigned by centring a 2D Gaussian kernel with bandwidth = 3 (in both dimensions) at the central position. Matrix of smoothened values (densities) was visualized using different shades of blue in a map-like representation. Extended Data Figure 10 illustrates how the calculation and visualization was done.
TATA-box motif analysis {#S7}
-----------------------
TATA-box position weight matrix (PWM) was obtained from JASPAR database^[@R37]^ (<http://jaspar.genereg.net/>) and used to scan the region −35 bp to −22 bp upstream of TSS (expected position for a TATA-box according to Ponjavic *et al*.^[@R15]^). For each promoter sequence a maximal detected match (%) to TATA-box PWM was reported for maternal and zygotic dominant TSS separately. Distribution of obtained values across all promoters was visualized by histograms. In addition, the frequency of the top 10 most abundant pentamers found in the scanned sequences was shown. *De novo* motif discovery was performed on a set of 14 bp long sequences spanning the region from −35 bp to −22 bp upstream of TSS using MEME^[@R38]^ (<http://meme.sdsc.edu/>) with default parameters. Only motifs with E-value ≤ 0.01 were selected as significant.
*sf3a2* promoter reporter constructs {#S8}
------------------------------------
Region spanning 500 bp upstream and 200 bp downstream of the dominant zygotic TSS in the *sf3a2* promoter was chosen for validation of TSS selection grammar. *sf3a2* promoter carries both maternal and zygotic promoter determinants and exhibits TSS shifting. The selected sequence, which ends within the first intron of *sf3a2*, was fused to a sequence containing 3′ end of the zebrafish *txnipa* first intron and splice acceptor fused to a mCherry reporter (Extended Data Fig. 6a). Genomic DNA of AB\* zebrafish strain was used for PCR amplification using Advantage HD DNA Polymerase Mix (Clontech). The amplified fragments were cloned into pDB896 vector (kindly provided by D. Balciunas, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA and subsequently modified by replacing the *γ-crystallin:gfp* with mCherry) using In-Fusion® PCR Cloning System (Clontech) following the manufacturer's instructions. The expression cassette is flanked by Tol2 transposon arms for Tol2 transgenesis^[@R39]^. A polymorphic nucleotide (G-\>T) was identified in the promoter sequence at chr2:58,656,711 (Ensembl, Zebrafish Assembly Zv9/danRer7). The wild-type promoter reporter vector was used as a template for in site-directed mutagenesis PCR to introduce the mutation in the W-boxes as indicated in [Fig. 3d](#F3){ref-type="fig"}. The resulting mutated PCR fragment was cloned in the same reporter vector using the In-Fusion® PCR Cloning System. Sequences of all primers are provided in Extended Data Figure 6b.
Microinjection and transgene expression analysis {#S9}
------------------------------------------------
1.5-2 nl of injection solution containing 20 ng/μl reporter plasmid DNA and 15 ng/μl Tol2 transposase mRNA, supplemented with 0.1% Phenol red (injection marker), was injected into zebrafish eggs within 10-15 min after fertilization. In the automated imaging and expression analysis experiments *ecfp* mRNA was added (30 ng/μl). The mCherry reporter activity was measured at prim 20 stage, in both wild-type and mutated *sf3a2* promoter construct injected embryos by automated imaging as described^[@R40]^. Embryo images were analyzed with Zebrafish Miner software^[@R40]^. The level of reporter expression was measured as pixel intensity value and normalized to the intensity of the ECFP signal (injection control) and averaged for all embryos in the experiment. In addition a percentage of expressing embryos was calculated from the total number of ECFP positive embryos with ECFP signal equal or above the detection threshold of the Zebrafish Miner software. Embryo images were wrapped onto reference embryo shape and overlaid by summing pixel intensity values.
5′ RACE {#S10}
-------
The 5′ RACE was performed with FirstChoice® RLM-RACE Kit (Life Technologies) following the manufacturer's protocol. Total RNA was isolated at prim6 stage from \~100 phenotypically normal looking and reporter gene expressing zebrafish embryos injected with either wild type or mutated *sf3a2* promoter reporter construct, using TRIZOL (Life Technologies) following the manufacturer's instructions. The PCR products of the expected size from the nested (inner) PCR reaction were purified from agarose gel and sequenced to identify the TSS. To demonstrate that the generated 5′ RACE products are specific to the 5′ ends of de-capped RNA, a "minus TAP" (Tobacco Acid Pyrophosphatase) treated sample was carried through adapter ligation, reverse transcription and PCR. Sequences of primers used in 5′ RACE are provided in Extended Data Figure 6f.
Transgenic zebrafish lines {#S11}
--------------------------
Transgenic zebrafish lines with the *sf3a2* promoter (wild type and mutated) reporter constructs were generated by microinjection of the corresponding construct into zebrafish zygotes as described above. The reporter positive (*mCherry*) embryos were grown to adulthood and germline-transmitting female individuals were identified by crossing to wild type zebrafish and selecting for presence of reporter expressing offspring. Transgene expression and TSS usage was analysed in F1 embryos. Experiments were carried out under licence by the Home Office Licence Number 40/3681 and PPL 40/3131.
Quantification of the reporter mRNA levels by qPCR {#S12}
--------------------------------------------------
RNA from reporter expressing embryos at high/sphere stage was isolated using GeneElute Total RNA extraction kit (Sigma-Aldrich), following the manufacturer's instructions. qPCR was performed using the SYBR Green detection method on 7900HT Fast Real-Time PCR System (Applied Biosystems). Two primer pairs were used for both the *mCherry* reporter and the endogenous *sf3a2* gene (normalisation control). Technical triplicates were run for each primer pair. The Ct values were determined by the SDSv2.4 software (Applied Biosystems), using manual threshold of 0.2 and automatic base line. Expression levels of the transgene were calculated relative to the endogenous *sf3a2* in the same sample, using the average Ct values across technical triplicates and both primer pairs. The sequence of the primers used in qPCR is provided in Extended Data Figure 7c.
SL-CAGE {#S13}
-------
We have introduced a novel method for quantitative high-resolution detection of TSSs and their usage within a targeted promoter, called Single Locus deep CAGE. The method combines generation of 5′ complete cDNAs transcribed from capped mRNAs as described in the CAGE protocol^[@R7]^ with the amplification of targeted cDNAs using gene-specific primers and subsequent high throughput paired-end sequencing of the single locus (typically single promoter region) based library. [Supplementary Table 2](#SD3){ref-type="supplementary-material"} describes main steps of the protocol and provides sequences of all primers used in different steps. Paired-end sequenced reads (34 bp + 35 bp) were mapped to either spliced sequence of *sf3a2:mCherry* transgene or endogenous *sf3a2* and TSS usage was reconstructed as described above for CAGE tags.
Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) {#S14}
------------------------------------
ChIP experiments were carried out using the ChIP-IT Express Enzymatic kit (Active Motif) in line with the manufacturer's instructions. Chromatin was prepared using \~5000 and \~3000 embryos for 512 cell and oblong stage, respectively. Embryos were dechorionated enzymatically using pronase and fixed in 1.85% formaldehyde in Hanks Media for 20 min at room temperature. The embryos were washed once with PBS and the fixation was stopped by incubating in 1x Glycine for 10 min at room temperature followed by 3 washes with ice-cold PBS. Embryos were resuspended in 1 ml ice-cold lysis buffer, incubated on ice for 20 min, transferred to a pre-cooled dounce homogenizer and dounced by 10 strokes. Nuclei were collected by centrifugation, resuspended in 200 μl digestion buffer and incubated at 37°C for 5 min. Chromatin was sheared by adding 10 μl of enzymatic shearing cocktail working stock (200 U/ml) and incubating for 10 min at 37°C. Shearing efficiency was checked by gel electrophoresis according to manufacturer's instructions. The reaction was stopped by adding 5 μl ice-cold 0.5M EDTA and incubating on ice for 10 min and sheared chromatin was cleared by centrifugation. For ChIP reactions 70 μl of sheared chromatin were mixed with 25 μl Protein G magnetic beads, 20 μl ChIP buffer 1, 1μl protein inhibitor cocktail, 4 μg of anti-H3K4me3 (Abcam ab8580) or anti-H2A.Z (Abcam ab4174) antibody or an equivalent volume of water (no antibody control) respectively, and water to a final volume of 200μl. ChIP was performed in duplicates for each stage. ChIP reactions were then incubated overnight at 4°C while rotating. Magnetic beads were washed and incubated in elution buffer. After addition of reverse crosslinking buffer samples were decrosslinked for 4h at 65°C. Samples were Proteinase K and RNase A treated and purified using pheonol chloroform extraction.
TBP knock-down {#S15}
--------------
One-cell stage embryos were injected with either *β-actin:yfp*^[@R41]^ (1.7nl, 42pg/nl) or 1.3*ntl:yfp*^[@R42]^ (1.7nl, 68pg/nl) constructs. The injected embryos were then split into four groups. One was kept as non-injected control and the other three groups were further injected with one of the two *tbp*-targeting morpholinos (1.7nl, 2.5mM) or with a mismatch morpholino described in Ferg *et al*.^[@R43]^. All embryos were kept in E3 medium at 28.5°C until non-injected group reached 30% epiboly stage (4.7 hpf) and were then analyzed under fluorescence stereoscope (Nikon SMZ1500). Arrest of epiboly movements, loss of *β-actin:yfp* (TBP dependent) and retention of *ntl:yfp* (TBP independent) reporter activities^[@R42]^ were used as marker for assessing and sorting TBP morphants for ChIP analysis. Approximately 1500 non-injected, 1500 mismatch morpholino injected embryos, 1200 *tbp mo1* morphants and 1000 *tbp mo2* morphants were used for ChIP as described above. We used a previously published set of genes downregulated in zebrafish TBP morphants^[@R43]^. Genes with log fold change ≤-1.5 were selected as TBP-dependent and were aligned with respect to dominant TSS of the nearest promoter detected by CAGE for H3K4me3 ChIP-seq signal visualisation.
Deep sequencing of chromatin DNA {#S16}
--------------------------------
ChIP-seq was performed as described before^[@R44]^. In brief, 10 ng of ChIP DNA was end-repaired, ligated to single read adaptors, size selected and amplified for 18 cycles according to Illumina's ChIP-seq protocol. Cluster generation was performed according to the Illumina Cluster Reagents preparation protocol (<http://www.illumina.com/>). Samples were sequenced for 36 bp or 56 bp (*tbp* morphants and controls) on the HiSeq 2000 system.
ChIP-seq data analysis {#S17}
----------------------
Sequenced reads were mapped to the reference zebrafish genome (Zv9/danRer7 assembly) using Bowtie^[@R31]^ with default parameters allowing up to 2 mismatches and keeping only uniquely mapped reads. Coverage was calculated for plus and minus strands separately using unextended reads and taking max. 20 reads mapping to the exactly same position. Minus strand coverage was subtracted from plus strand coverage to obtain subtracted coverage, which was used for visualisation and nucleosome midpoint estimation. Significantly enriched regions (peaks) were detected using MACS^[@R45]^ (<http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/MACS/>) with default parameters. Midpoints of nucleosomes within significantly enriched regions (FDR≤0.01) were estimated from subtracted coverage and the nearest CAGE signal was used to determine strand specificity and relative position of the first downstream nucleosome.
Supplementary Material {#SM}
======================
The authors are grateful to Laszlo Tora, Emma Kenyon, Guilhem Chalancon and Julie Chih-yu Chen for comments on the manuscript, and to Laura O'Neill, for technical advice. V.H., C.N., C.P., A.A. and X.D. were supported by grants from Norwegian Research Council (YFF) and Bergen Research Foundation awarded to B.L. F.M., U.S. and B.L. acknowledge support from EU FP6 integrated project EuTRACC and FP7 integrated project ZF Health. B.L. was additionally supported by Medical Research Council UK, F.M. and P.C. by EU FP7 project Dopaminet and U.S. by EU FP6 project NeuroXSys. C.Pl, A.M.S and P.C. were supported by a Research Grant from MEXT to RIKEN CLST.
**Extended Data** is linked to the online version of the paper at [www.nature.com/nature](http://www.nature.com/nature).
High throughput sequencing data has been deposited at the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under accession numbers SRA097279 and SRA104816.
Reprints and permissions information is available at [www.nature.com/reprints](http://www.nature.com/reprints).
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
**Data accession:** Processed data is available for download at: <http://promshift.genereg.net/zebrafish/>
Tracks can be visualized as annotated custom tracks in the UCSC Genome Browser using the following URLs: <http://promshift.genereg.net/zebrafish/CAGE_and_nucleosome_tracks.txt> and <http://promshift.genereg.net/zebrafish/Transgenic_lines_sf3a2_SL-CAGE_tracks.txt>
{#F1}
{#F2}
{#F3}
{#F4}
[^1]: Present address: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Genomics & Proteomics Core Facility (GPCF), Im Neuenheimer Feld 580/TP3, Heidelberg 69120, Germany
[^2]: Present address: Broegelmann Research Laboratory, The Gade Institute, University of Bergen, The Laboratory Building, Haukeland University Hospital, N-5021 Bergen, Norway
[^3]: Present address: Acquifer AG, Sophienstraße 136, 76135 Karlsruhe, Germany
[^4]: Present address: Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, USA
[^5]: Present address: Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Maulbeerstrasse 66, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
[^6]: **Author contributions:** B.L., F.M, P.C. and V.H. conceived the study. N.L., Y.H., J.G., and M.F. performed experiments. O.A. and W.v.I. performed sequencing. V.H., C.P., C.N., X.D. and A.A. performed computational analyses. C.Pl. and A.M.S. developed and performed SL-CAGE with input from P.C. V.H., B.L. and F.M. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript with input from P.C, W.v.I. and U.S.
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Q:
Smoothness of frame bundle of (global) orbifolds [reference request]
Background
Let $(M,g)$ be a riemannian manifold and let $G$ be a finite group acting effectively and isometrically on $M$. Recall that this means that for all $x \in G$, the diffeomorphism $\gamma_x$ is such that $\gamma_x^* g = g$ and that if $\gamma_x(p) = p$ for all $p \in M$, then $x$ is the identity element.
If $G$ acts freely, then $M/G$ is a smooth manifold, otherwise let's call it a (global) orbifold.
Years ago I was told that even when the action of $G$ on $M$ is not free, its lift to an action on the orthonormal frame bundle $F(M)$ is free. This means that the quotient $F(M)/G$ is smooth and is the orthonormal frame bundle of $M/G$.
I can see this when $M = \mathbb{R}^n$ with the standard euclidean inner product, so that the action of $G$ is via orthogonal (hence in particular linear) transformations. Indeed, suppose that $x\in G$ fixes a point in the frame bundle. Such a point consists of a pair $(p,f)$ where $p$ is a point in $M$ and $f$ is a frame for the tangent space $T_pM$ to $M$ at $p$. The action of $x$ on the pair $(p,f)$ is given by
$$(p,f)\mapsto (\gamma_x(p),(D\gamma_x)_p f),$$
where $(D\gamma_x)_p$ is the derivative (i.e., the push-forward) of $\gamma_x$ at $p$.
Now if $x$ fixes $(p,f)$, then $\gamma_x(p)=p$ and $(D\gamma_x)_p$ is the identity endomorphism of $T_pM$. But since $\gamma_x$ is linear, it agrees with its derivative, which means that $\gamma_x$ itself is the identity. Finally, since $G$ acts effectively, we conclude that $x$ is the identity.
Question
Is this still true for $M/G$, where $M$ is a riemannian manifold? And if so, can someone point me in the direction of a reference where this is proved?
Many thanks in advance.
A:
First, one can clearly assume $M$ is connected by simply applying the argument to each componenet of $M$.
The key fact is a generalization of your argument for $M=\mathbb{R}^n$: that if $f:M\rightarrow M$ is an isometry with $M$ connected and if there is a point $p\in M$ with $f(p) = p$ and $d_pf = Id$, then $f$ itself is the identity map.
Assuming this fact for the moment, then if $\gamma_x(p,f) = (p,f)$ one concludes $\gamma_x = Id$, and then since the action is effective, x itself must have been the identity element. Thus, the only element of $G$ which fixes any element of the frame bundle is the identity, so the action on the frame bundle is free.
Now, why is the fact true?
Set $X = \{p\in M| f(p) = p$ and $D_p f = Id\}$. $X$ is nonempty by assumption and clearly closed (by, say, a continuity argument). If we can show it's open, then we'll have $X=M$ by connectedness of $M$. Thus, in particular, $f(p) = p$ for all $p\in M$.
To see $X$ is open, let $q\in X$. Let $U_q$ be a normal neighborhood around $q$. Normal means that every pair of points in $U_q$ has a unique minimal geodesic between them. Normal neighborhoods always exist (any sufficiently small neighborhood is totally normal), though I don't immediately remember how to prove it, only that it uses the Gauss lemma. Do Carmo's Riemannian Geometry book proves it, if you need a reference for this.
I claim that $U_q\subseteq X$. For, if $r\in U_q$, there is a unique minimal geodesic $c$ with $c(0) = q$ and $c(1) = r$. Since $d_q f = Id$, we must have $f(c(t)) = c(t)$, so in particular, $f(r) = f(c(1)) = c(1) = r$. In short, $f$ fixes all points in $U_q$
So, we must simply establish that $d_r f = Id$. But, if there is a $v\in T_r M$ with $d_r f v\neq v$, then the we have $f(exp(tv))\neq f(exp(t d_r f v))$ for all sufficiently small $t$. But for all sufficiently small $t$, both curves lie in $U_q$ and we know $f$ fixes all points in $U_q$. Thus, $d_f v = v$ and the result follows.
A:
I recommend looking at Moerdijk and MrCun's "Introduction to Foliations and Lie Groupoids". On page 42, they define the frame bundle and orthonormal frame-bundle of an orbifold and show it's a smooth manifold. To do this, they first establish this on orbifold chart $(U,G,\varphi)$ by essentially your proof. Then you need to take the filtered colimit of the smooth manifolds resulting from each chart. This becomes the frame bundle of the orbifold, and is of course, a manifold.
(So, applying this to canonical orbifold charts on $M/G$, this gives you the proof).
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"The widespread popularity of English as a second language in Asia has brought about the most fertile period of word generation since William Shakespeare's time with new terms coined on average every 98 minutes," reports the Telegraph.
Global Language Monitor acknowledges new words once they have been used 25,000 times by media outlets, social networking websites and in other public sources.
Other words that might make the cut include "defollow", "defriend", "greenwashing" (what companies do to appear environmentally friendly) and "chiconomics" (referring to credit crunch inspired fashions!).
Paul Payack, chief analyst at the Global Language Monitor, claims that the "average persons vocabulary is fewer than 14,000 words out of these million that are available. A person who is linguistically gifted would only use 70,000 words.
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When Yanqing Ye applied for a visa to come to the United States to conduct research at Boston University, she was asked if she planned to conduct any espionage, sabotage or any other illegal activities.
Federal authorities say she flat out lied when she answered, “No.”
Ye, according to investigators, was a lieutenant of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Chinese Communist Party when she to the United States.
Ye was charged in federal indictments Tuesday, along Dr. Charles Lieber, chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, and Chinese national Zaosong Zheng, with aiding China and hiding their connections to the country.
While federal officials did not say if all three cases were connected, Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said the cases are all part of China’s ongoing campaign to siphon off U.S. technology and research.
China continues to attempt to conduct “a massive, long-term campaign to steal U.S. technology,” authorities said.
Records show during one conversation Ye had with people back in China that they even mentioned “American (sic) taking precautions against us.”
According to federal documents, Ye was being directed by senior leaders of the PLA while conducting research at Boston University. Her supervisor was a colonel in the PLA and professor at the National University of Defense Technology, a top military academy in China directed by the country’s Central Military Commission.
The colonel is not named in federal records. Another co-conspirator listed in Ye’s case is not named but authorities say this person was also involved with the NUDT and had worked on “military research projects regarding rocket launchers.”
There is also a third, unnamed co-conspirator, who was a professor at NUDT.
Ye applied for a J-1 visa application to conduct research at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering Center of Polymer Studies at Boston University.
Her research and studies were funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council.
On Aug. 4, 2017, Ye electronically signed her visa application and certified all her answers were true and correct.
“Ye falsely identified herself as a ‘student’ and lied about her ongoing military service at the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), a top military academy directed by the CCP,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
She claimed her military service ended on July 31, 2017, but it hadn’t. Ye was not a student and instead was a member of the PLA and a lieutenant, records said.
Ye’s visa was approved Sept. 5, 2017 by the U.S. Department of the State.
Ye, who is in China now, studied in the United States from October 2017 to April 2019.
Supervisors in China instructed Ye to conduct research, assess U.S. military websites and send U.S. documents to China.
It was in April 2019 when officers from Customs and Border Protection and FBI agents interviewed Ye at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
Ye is accused of lying to investigators about her activities. Devices seized from Ye showed she accessed U.S. military websites, researched U.S. military projects and compiled information for the PLA on two U.S. citizens with expertise in robotics and computer science, according to federal documents.
Ye used “WeChat” to talk to co-conspirators. During one conversation there was a discussion about a research paper focused on a “risk assessment model designed to assist the PLA in deciphering data for military applications,” authorities said.
Ye also gave a co-conspirator her Boston University login information. The access allowed the co-conspirator to see Boston University’s document database.
During the April 2019 interview, Ye admitted she was a lieutenant in the PLA and was a member of the CCP, authorities said.
“Ye acted as an agent for the Chinese government, yet she never notified the Attorney General as required for agents working for a foreign government,” federal records said.
Ye was instructed to research a U.S. professor at the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. The professor did work on computer security, digital forensics and computer software engineering.
She was told to create a biography and send it back to China.
Other conversations via “WeChat” involved Ye sending links about U.S. military’s surface force strategy.
The co-conspirator noted the url had a “.mil” domain and it couldn’t be accessed in China.
“This is probably American (sic) taking precautions against us,” the co-conspirator said.
Ye was also asked to compile information about a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio, records show.
Ye, 29, was charged with one count each of visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy.
“Ms. Ye left Boston University in April, 2019. We look forward to assisting the US Attorney’s Office as it continues its investigation,” BU spokesman Colin Riley wrote in an email to MassLive.
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Commentaries
America Wave has been very quiet for a long time. Simply put, we decided that providing information was all nice and good, but if we were to make any real contribution, we had to “disrupt business as usual” in some fashion that would not be destructive, but constructive and helpful to those people interested in relocating to another nation.
This is a dangerous time for the United States, and not just because of the lingering Great Recession. Young adult Americans are packing their bags and heading out of the country in astonishing numbers. Many more are turning their minds in that direction.
In today’s highly polarized, sometimes poisonous, social, economic, and political atmosphere in the US, there is a clear tendency to see anything and everything new as either a huge step forward or a looming disaster, more often than not the latter.
Some people have one of two misconceptions of the type of people who relocate. One I call the “Retiree Myth”, that the majority of American relocators are retirees looking for a warmer climate. Although that is the case for some, elsewhere at this site it is made clear that they are not the primary age group to relocate.
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Department of Happiness
by Sablesword
Part 2
Tracy still had her
hand out. Iāll explain when you hand it over was the silent message.
Elanor handed her permit over, and Tracy explained: āThatās actually the
problem. Youāve had four unhappiness permits issued already this year, and four
the year before that. And another four permits back two years ago. Thatās the
unofficial limit: Four permits per year. So you see I canāt possibly approve
another permit for you this year.ā
Elanor asked carefully,
āFour permits per year is the unofficial limit?ā
āThatās right,ā Tracy
said brightly. āOfficially itās ten every three years, without a special
variance, but four per year is much easier to implement, and itās how weāve
always done things. Four a year; thatās just the way things are.ā
āButā ā Elanor made
herself fall silent. Sheād dealt with the DOH enough to know the meaning of thatās
just the way things are. Once one of their agents spoke those words, there
was no moving them.
āIām glad you
understand,ā Tracy smiled. āOne more thing: Iāll have Sam escort you over to
J-wing. You clearly need cheering up, but I donāt think weāll need to call an
orderly.ā
Elanor knew herself
trapped. For a wild moment, she imagined making a break for it, and escaping
into the noir sector of the city. Only she then wouldnāt be able to work on her
commission at all. Worse, an escape attempt would fail miserably, and only earn
her the rejection of any further permit applications she might make. She stood
up and forced a smile. āThank you,ā she told Tracy.
#
J-wing looked just as
hospital-like as Elanor remembered, with its wide corridors, pastel walls, and
white ceilings. It also sounded like she remembered, with faint sounds of mad
laughter filtered through beneath the announcements. The sound-insulation here,
while good, was far from perfect. Still, it wasnāt bad, for a free service, and
Elanor had been here any number of times before. While she preferred a paid
provider of cheer-up services, she had often been too short of cash to afford
one.
Elanor stepped out of
the dressing room wearing the skimpy two-piece outfit that everyone but the
pedants called a āteekini.ā A bright red teekini, in this case ā it was what
had come up in her size. In addition, she still wore her moodstone, set in its
collar-necklace, and nothing else. Her feet were bare on the tile floor as she
left the changing room, her creamy soles a contrast to the darkness of her
skin. She let Sam help her up onto a waiting gurney, and thrust hands and feet
through the dilated openings of the stocks. āReady,ā she told the gurneyās
computer.
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Is there still hope for a Halo movie?
Whether there will ever be a Halo movie or not is one of the longest running sagas in the world of gaming.
There have been several previous attempts to make a big, blockbuster Halo film, first at Universal with Peter Jackson producing, and then screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Collateral) tried to launch his own version - to no avail.
Yet finally it seems the Forward Unto Dawn webisode version of Halo, which is much cheaper to produce, has gotten some serious hits on YouTube, and it could eventually pave the way for a big screen version, or so some would hope. We weren’t even aware there were still plans for a Halo movie until we stumbled upon this little news by accident in Variety.
The industry trade did a recent story on games being adapted into movies, and this report tells us that Microsoft "still hopes to eventually fully finance the project and exploit it across various platforms." Until then, the primary focus is on the web series, which Variety said cost $10 million, a huge bargain, especially considering one of the reasons a Halo movie fell apart at Universal was the budget, which would have been enormous.
There are also Halo books that are keeping the story going, like the Star Wars novels, and as Kiki Wolfkill, Halo 4’s executive producer of Halo told Variety, "There’s much more story than books and other media have delivered. We want to get to a point where a movie makes sense."
With so many video game movies currently in development, a Halo movie could start making a lot of sense very soon. Variety reports that Halo has "over 1,500 SKUs," which includes the books, the series, toys, and more. Not only would a Halo movie have a huge built in audience, but it’s also a major merchandising opportunity for a major studio as well.
So once again, talk of a Halo movie is surfacing again, and it may soon be too irresistible for a major studio to pass up. After all, we may have movies of World of Warcraf and Assassin’s Creed soon, and you know Halo wouldn’t want to be excluded from the party.
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Abigail Hernandez was last seen leaving Kennett High School in Conway, N.H., around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
The Union Leader newspaper in New Hampshire is reporting that investigators say a call was made from her phone several hours after she was last seen, although the exact location from which the call was made is unknown.
Abigail's 15th birthday was Saturday. On that day, her mother went before TV cameras with a plea to Abigail's friends to provide any information that might help to find her.
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Q:
Why do I need an explicit downcast if my object of type "object" is pointing to the correct instance in hierarchy?
Consider the following inheritance:
abstract class Employee
{
private string empID;
private string empName;
}
class SoftwareDeveloper : Employee
{
............
}
class MarketingPerson : Employee
{
...........
}
static void Main()
{
Employee Jaffer = new SoftwareDeveloper();
Employee George = new MarketingPerson();
// Ok because of is-a relationship
LayOff(Jaffer);
// Ok because of is-a relationship
LayOff(George);
object Leo = new MarketingPerson();
// Error because downcast is required as (MarketingPerson) Leo
LayOff(Leo);
}
static bool LayOff(Employee emp)
{
// some Business Logic
return true;
}
Even though the declaration object Leo = new MarketingPerson() points to an instance of MarketingPerson, why do I need to downcast?
A:
You need to cast because the compiler only knows the declared types.
In your example, object Leo = new MarketingPerson();, you are declaring that the variable Leo is of type object. You can put a MarketingPerson (or anything else) in that variable, but it's still declared as an object.
The LayOff method is declared as accepting an Employee - as object does not derive from employee, you need to cast it to tell the compiler "I am forcing this object into an Employee
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Anisotropy of the water-carbon interaction: molecular simulations of water in low-diameter carbon nanotubes.
Effective Lennard-Jones models for the water-carbon interaction are derived from existing high-level ab initio calculations of water adsorbed on graphene models. The resulting potential energy well (εCO + 2εCH ≈ 1 kJ mol(-1)) is deeper than most of the previously used values in the literature on water in carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Moreover, a substantial anisotropy of the water-carbon interaction (εCO ≈ 2εCH) is obtained, which is neglected in most of the literature. We systematically investigate the effect of this anisotropy on structure and dynamics of TIP5P water confined in narrow, single-walled CNTs by means of molecular dynamics simulations for T = 300 K. While for isotropic models water usually forms one-dimensional, ordered chains inside (6,6) CNTs, we find frequent chain ruptures in simulations with medium to strongly anisotropic potentials. Here, the water molecules tend to form denser clusters displaying a liquid-like behaviour, allowing for self-diffusion along the CNT axis, in contrast to all previous simulations employing spherical (εCH = 0) interaction models. For (7,7) CNTs we observe structures close to trigonal, helical ice nanotubes which exhibit a non-monotonous dependence on the anisotropy of the water-carbon interaction. Both for vanishing and for large values of εCH we find increased fluctuations leading to a more liquid-like behaviour, with enhanced axial diffusion. In contrast, structure and dynamics of water inside (8,8) CNTs are found to be almost independent of the anisotropy of the underlying potential, which is attributed to the higher stability of the non-helical fivefold water prisms. We predict this situation to also prevail for larger CNTs, as the influence of the water-water interaction dominates over that of the water-carbon interaction.
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MEDINAH, Ill. — Justin Thomas opened with five straight birdies, added a pair of eagles and shattered the course record at soft, vulnerable Medinah with an 11-under-par 61 on Saturday, taking a six-shot lead into the final round of the BMW Championship.
Thomas hit a 5-wood to 2 feet for an eagle on No. 10, holed out from 180 yards with an 8-iron on No. 16 and made eight birdies, turning a tight race into a one-man show.
“I felt good about my game for a while, and you don’t know when something like this going to happen,” Thomas said. “We’ve all been talking the last couple of weeks that I’m due to have one, and it’s nice when it happens.”
And just like that, he was already thinking about Sunday.
Thomas was at 21-under 195, six shots ahead of Tony Finau (68) and Patrick Cantlay (67). He has a clear path to his first victory in a year, and it would give him the FedEx Cup lead going into the Tour Championship next weekend at East Lake in Atlanta.
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Summary:Jack Mason is a burned-out doctor with no will to live, that is, until he nearly dies in a transport crash. Now he and his infected patient are stranded deep within a dangerous prison on Earth. As Mason, you must use your various skills, including sight and sound awareness, to track andJack Mason is a burned-out doctor with no will to live, that is, until he nearly dies in a transport crash. Now he and his infected patient are stranded deep within a dangerous prison on Earth. As Mason, you must use your various skills, including sight and sound awareness, to track and outsmart your adversaries. Build your own arsenal of weapons, and enhance them with Weapon Energy Cores. The game's vehicles and customizable weapons come together to create an intense multiplayer experience for both online and offline play.…Expand
At times, it's almost as if the game outdoes itself. Storm a room with a gaggle of enemy soldiers dug in, awaiting your arrival with full is pretty exhilarating stuff, but this soon gives way to frustration when you find you've had an enemy sneak up behind you and nailed you enough times to kill you before it even registers.
If firing a weapon in a first-person shooter game starts feeling like a chore, you know there's a problem. If a cutscene leaves you more confused than enlightened about the story of the game, there's a problem.
A nice game wrapped in a amazing world, the chances DE took on this game warrent the 10 easily, its simple and fun, and the map editor is a A nice game wrapped in a amazing world, the chances DE took on this game warrent the 10 easily, its simple and fun, and the map editor is a very nice addition, creating maps with such ease has never been so fun! This game is one of the best fps out there, i wouldnt rate it as high as Half life 2, or Doom 3 but it still stands on its own.…Expand
It isn't a "Halo 2" killer, but I found it to be immensely entertaining. The weapons are really fun to use, and the weapon upgrades It isn't a "Halo 2" killer, but I found it to be immensely entertaining. The weapons are really fun to use, and the weapon upgrades system helps. For instance, you can add a remote detonator to your grenade launcher. I don't see what everyone has against the storyline. I thought that it was really unique -- after all, it's good to be playing a first-person shooter where your character isn't a "tough guy" battling a whole bunch of aliens -- but rather, a doctor battling his way through hostile soldiers that shot his ship down, and he must rescue his infected patient before an infection spreads.…Expand
Reminded me of Gears of War! Similarly dark and nihilistic, while beautiful. This was actually a great game. It DEFINITELY exceeded Doom 3 in Reminded me of Gears of War! Similarly dark and nihilistic, while beautiful. This was actually a great game. It DEFINITELY exceeded Doom 3 in every way (graphics, variety, plot, music) and in many ways Unreal II, and Halo 2. The plot was no more confusing than that of Halo 2. It did feel not quite polished in some areas, and I wish there was more exposition, (it was pretty confusing,) but what you are told is both intriguing and refreshingly adult. I payed way less than $50-60, but even if I had, I would have felt I got my money's worth.…Expand
There's been a lot of this recently - new releases that get wildly differing scores from one magazine or website to another. Gamespot There's been a lot of this recently - new releases that get wildly differing scores from one magazine or website to another. Gamespot 59, Total Games 91, what is going on? Have we now seen it all and done it all to such a degree that some are looking for new developments while others just look for gaming goodness? In the end, more these days than ever, it seems the best judge of videogame character is yourself. Having been convinced to avoid what turned out to be a lovely title before (First to Fight) I decided to get this regardless of the reviews. And as a self-confessed Halo2 hater (what's the fuss about motorcycle riders shooting green blobs at each other, really!) I have to say I love this game to bits. Offline it's a great laugh, online it is hectic chaotic entertainment, very much like Halo2 in terms of looks and gameplay, but with MUCH more entertaining weaponry in my view and more exciting environments. I think my particular favourite feature is that you can see the target dot from a sniper's laser sight. Gone are the days of being taken down by Captain Aren't-I-clever-hiding-up-here-not-moving-and-killing-you-time-after-time, if you see a little blue spot wandering on the ground or on the rocks near to you, dive for cover! Final advice - buy and try for yourself.…Expand
In the end, Pariah tries to deliver with unique ideas (such as the healing tool) and pretty graphics, but comes up short in terms of gameplay.In the end, Pariah tries to deliver with unique ideas (such as the healing tool) and pretty graphics, but comes up short in terms of gameplay. its a good for a weekend rental, but not much else.…Collapse
Lucas B hit the nail right on the head. Many people are looking for an alternative to H2, and sadly, this isn't it. Mapmaker is pretty Lucas B hit the nail right on the head. Many people are looking for an alternative to H2, and sadly, this isn't it. Mapmaker is pretty decent but still limited (however, much easier to use than Timesplitters). I played one single player deathmatch against bots and it could not process it fast enough...and simulated LAG! The weapons are clunky from the sniper rifle to the rocket launcher. The vehicles are awkward. I played online and the lag wasn't an issue, but there was very little precision involved in killing. I was always guess whether each shot would kill or not, nothing precise. I wanted this game to be good, and it isn't bad. It is just middle of the road with very little offer. Also the load times are LONG and CONSTANT.…Expand
Utter garbage. This single worst game on Xbox aside from Close Combat. Nothing about it is good, so I'll just say everything this game Utter garbage. This single worst game on Xbox aside from Close Combat. Nothing about it is good, so I'll just say everything this game has hurt it, including the "Sony"-like hype surrounding this game for the last year.…Expand
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Q:
Why does my subprocess.call work only when shell = True? Python
I am using subprocess.call() to execute commands from a specific directory.
Without using shell = True
scrcpyPath = "C:\\Users\\H\\Downloads\\scrcpy-win64-v1.14"
subprocess.call(["scrcpy", "--window-title", "'Mydevice'"], cwd = scrcpyPath)
I get the following error
FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified.
I have managed to make it work using `shell = True'
subprocess.call(f"scrcpy --window-title 'Mydevice'", cwd = scrcpyPath, shell = True)
but it stops working when I add whitespace in the window title Mydevice.
subprocess.call(f"scrcpy --window-title 'My device'", cwd = scrcpyPath, shell = True)
I get the following error
ERROR: Unexpected additional argument: 1'
The reason I am using a formatted string is that I want the window title to be a variable, but again - it does not work when I add whitespace.
subprocess.call(f"scrcpy --window-title 'Device {deviceName}'", cwd = scrcpyPath, shell = True)
I found the solution. I think I was wrongly using cwd.
subprocess.call([f"{scrcpyPath}\\scrcpy", "--window-title", f"'{deviceName}'"])
A:
You didn't split your arguments properly; basically any space-separation in the command-line should be separate arguments, and no shell quoting is needed when they're passed as separate arguments. What you wanted was:
subprocess.call(["scrcpy", "--window-title", "Mydevice"], cwd=scrcpyPath)
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Outcomes of Acute Myocardial Infarction in Patients with Influenza and Other Viral Respiratory Infections.
Acute influenza infection can trigger acute myocardial infarction, however, outcome of patients with acute myocardial infarction during influenza infection is largely unknown. Patients ≥18 years old with ST-elevation and non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction during January 2013-December 2014 were identified using the National Inpatient Sample. The clinical outcomes were compared among patients who had no respiratory infection to the ones with influenza and other viral respiratory infections using propensity score-matched analysis. Of 1,884,985 admissions for acute myocardial infarction, acute influenza and other viral infections were diagnosed in 9,885 and 11,485 patients, respectively, accounting for 1.1% of patients. Acute myocardial infarction patients with concomitant influenza infection had a worse outcome than those with acute myocardial infarction alone, in terms of in-hospital case fatality rate, development of shock, acute respiratory failure, acute kidney injury, and higher rate of blood transfusion after propensity scores. The length of stay is also significantly longer in influenza patients with acute myocardial infarction, compared with patients with acute myocardial infarction alone. However, patients who developed acute myocardial infarction during other viral respiratory infection have a higher rate of acute respiratory failure but overall lower mortality rate, and are less likely to develop shock or require blood transfusion after propensity match. Despite presenting with acute myocardial infarction, less than one-fourth of patients with concomitant influenza infection underwent coronary angiography, but more than half (51.4%) required revascularization. Influenza infection is associated with worse outcomes in acute myocardial infarction patients, and patients were less likely to receive further evaluation with invasive coronary angiography.
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Robert Schlapp
Dr Robert Schlapp FRSE (18 July 1899–31 May 1991) was a 20th century British physicist and mathematician of German descent. He was affectionately known as Robin Schlapp.
Life
He was born in Edinburgh on 18 July 1899, the youngest of three children of Anna Lotze and Dr Otto Schlapp. His father only appears in Post Office Directories around 1910, at which point he is listed as a university lecturer living at 54a George Square. His father lectured in German at the University of Edinburgh and later (1926) became the University's first Professor of German.
He was educated at George Watson's College, where his father had taught from 1887 to 1894. He was school dux for 1916/17.
In the First World War, obviously a potential problem due to his German background, he enlisted under the Derby Scheme and joined the 31st battalion of the Middlesex Regiment in 1917 at the age of 18. This was a labour corps rather than a fighting battalion and was involved in tasks such as trench construction. After the war, Schlapp studied mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh graduating MA around 1923 then doing postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge gaining a doctorate (PhD) in 1925. Returning to the University of Edinbugh he began lecturing in Natural Philosophy (Physics) and Applied Mathematics in autumn 1925. He became Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Physics in 1927. In this role he was assistant to Charles Galton Darwin (who had recently replaced Cargill Gilston Knott).
In 1927 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, Sir Charles Galton Darwin, David Gibb, and Edward Thomas Copson. He served as Curator of the Society's artefacts from 1959 to 1969 and as their Vice President from 1969 to 1972. In 1983 he won the Society's bicentenary medal (presented to him by Queen Elizabeth II). He was President of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society.
In 1936 Professor Darwin retired and was replaced by Max Born whom Schlapp then assisted in turn.
He retired in 1969 and died in Ashford in Kent on 31 May 1991.
Family
Whilst playing cello in his brother, Walter Schlapp's, string quartet, he met Mary Fleure (who played second violin). He married her in 1940. They had two daughters. Mary died in 1975.
Publications
Colin Maclaurin, a Biographical Note (1949)
The Contribution of the Scots to Mathematics (1973)
References
Category:1899 births
Category:1991 deaths
Category:People from Edinburgh
Category:People educated at George Watson's College
Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh
Category:Scottish mathematicians
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
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inspired from the cookbook for R
https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/r-graphics-cookbook/9781449363086/ch04.html
# ggplot2 library
library(ggplot2)
#DATA
set.seed(345)
Sector <- rep(c("S01","S02","S03","S04","S05","S06","S07"),times=7)
Year <- as.numeric(rep(c("1950","1960","1970","1980","1990","2000","2010"),each=7))
Value <- runif(49, 10, 100)
data <- data.frame(Sector,Year,Value)
# Stacked area graph:
png("#136_stacked_area_graph_1.png" , width = 480, height = 480 )
ggplot(data, aes(x=Year, y=Value, fill=Sector)) +
geom_area()
dev.off()
# Custom version
png("#136_stacked_area_graph_2.png" , width = 480, height = 480 )
ggplot(data, aes(x=Year, y=Value, fill=Sector)) +
geom_area(colour="black", size=.2, alpha=.4) +
scale_fill_brewer(palette="Greens", breaks=rev(levels(data$Sector)))
dev.off()
# To reverse the stacking order, you have to change the order in the initial data frame
png("#136_stacked_area_graph_3.png" , width = 480, height = 480 )
data=data[order(data$Sector, decreasing=T) , ]
ggplot(data, aes(x=Year, y=Value, fill=Sector)) +
geom_area(colour="black", size=.2, alpha=.4) +
scale_fill_brewer(palette="Greens", breaks=rev(levels(data$Sector)))
dev.off()
# You can also set a specific order:
png("#136_stacked_area_graph_4.png" , width = 480, height = 480 )
data$Sector=factor(data$Sector , levels=levels(data$Sector)[c(1,4,3,2,7,6,5)])
ggplot(data, aes(x=Year, y=Value, fill=Sector)) +
geom_area()
dev.off()
# Proportionnal stack area graph ?
my_fun=function(vec){ as.numeric(vec[3]) / sum(data$Value[data$Year==vec[2]]) *100 }
data$prop=apply(data , 1 , my_fun)
png("#136_stacked_area_graph_5.png" , width = 480, height = 480 )
ggplot(data, aes(x=Year, y=prop, fill=Sector)) +
geom_area(alpha=0.6 , size=1, colour="black")
dev.off()
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So Donald Trump’s first big campaign push for 2020 is a phone line that you can leave him little thank you messages on. And I’m going to give you the number. It’s 1-800-684-3043. You’ll have to get through the solicitation portion, but once there, you can leave the President a message. Any message. You can tell the man exactly what you think about him and his presidency. The expectation, according to the remarkably self serving campaign ad that aired on CNN, is that you’ll thank him for doing all the things he’s doing to our country. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful when I called the number, and I may have used a few more expletives than is dignified, but I have to tell you, it was a wonderfully cathartic experience. I don’t know that Trump himself will ever actually hear my message, but I have to say, even the thought of it gives me some glimmer of satisfaction. So call the number, let the man know what you’re thinking.
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I don't hate gay community for the fact that they watch MLP, i hate them because it's overflowing FJ with friendship is magic, and on almost every post there is a pony picture in the comment section. I love Pokemon very much, it's a big part of my childhood, but that does not neccesarely mean that i should make a picture in the comment section, saying "gotta catch em all" or "are you a boy or a girl?" just because the post has something to do with Pokemon. So gay community please stop being so attention seeking, it annoys many of us and it's impossible to ignore.
And don't ******* use that comparison--Pokemon is probably the second most posted and retoasted and retoasted cartoon (if not the first). Remember when Red and Blue and the cards were popular? You think ponies are an issue...
My Little Pony has been around basically forever, but was never particular popular with guys (or really, the internet) until the new generation, which came out late 2010. Pokemon? It's been around since the 90s, . It just. Won't. *******. Die.
And okay, that's fine by me. But if you're going to bash on something because your effeminate little cack is trying to slap you in the face and tell you to "macho up" the internet or some ****...
HERE's the ******* idea: If you don't want to see ponies, get the **** off FunnyJunk. Go to ****** site we should ignore or some ****, they don't get as many ponies far as I can tell.
Dealwithit.jpg. ******* deal with it. I'm full of love and ******* tolerance but I've tolerate so much ******** from people who should be on my level... Ooooh lordy.
Unless you were being ironic by showing how accurate the above comic is, in which case, well done, but quit crying for attention.
not only that but now that some of my friends have turned ponyRon Paul hatergot (yes Ron Paul hatergot on the ranks of fan freak Ron Paul hatergot) trying to shove it down my throat and throwing me out wenever the conversation goes about ponies telling me i should leave
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[Peculiarities of intermediary metabolism in extremely premature infants].
Based on own studies with labeled amino acids on very young animals and on numerous investigations of different authors on fetuses and prematures the high turnover rate of proteins, carbohydrates and fats in VLBW is emphasized. Thereupon some particularities of ammonia metabolism and the difficulties of exact determination of amino acid requirement are discussed. The inadequate activity of some enzymes and the immaturity of the transport processes, further, the question of the essentiality of taurine and carnitine in VLBW are debated. Briefly some dangers which result from the immaturity of the bowel mucosa are pointed out. The knowledge of the fat metabolism in VLBW has still many gaps. Beyond all doubts the unsaturated fatty acids play an decisive role for the synthesis of prostaglandins and the other derivatives, which are synthesized by the cyclooxygenases in all tissues, especially in brain. Probably the linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid for prematures. The influence of kidney immaturity on the metabolic processes in the entire organism is shortly outlined. Finally some references to the scarcely investigated field of the maturation of the biotransformation are presented, and the risky influence of some repeatedly used drugs on the intermediary metabolism and the inhibition of enzyme induction are pointed out.
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A Journey to Onei (3)
The Book of Onei is an antinomian dream grimoire, providing deceptive yet true information about the art of Oneiromancy or dream magic in the form of poetry, fantasy, and intentionally ambiguous instructions.
“The Book of Onei is not The Book,” my father once said. I remember him still, walking beside me on that sunless beach – but was it before he had died, or after? “The Book of Onei is only a guide, a book of riddles that don’t always lead to any answers, a book of truths within lies. I have been to Onei many times, but I have never been to any of the cities or nations mentioned in the Book of Onei, nor have I seen their ruins, nor met their citizens. As far as I can tell they do not exist, and most likely they never existed – not even in Onei.”
“Then what is the Book of Onei?” I asked him. “Is it just a fraud?”
“The Book of Onei is both a key and a lock,” he said. His face was haunted, as if he always listened and always waited – perhaps for a footfall. “Those stories mean something, but I do not know what. The Book of Onei hints at something, but I am afraid to ask.”
“Perhaps all this darkness is just a means,” I said, and yet he would not hear me and would not answer.
“So what is The Book, then?” I asked him.
“It contains all knowledge, all knowledge on any topic. It contains the secrets of the Primal Darkness! It is the gift of the Veiled One, the most ancient of all the Powers in Onei.”
“Did she give it to you?”
“And why would she have done that? I snuck in to the library, the Great Library of Onei, and I stole what I wanted. I walked out with the Book of Onei in my coat pocket! What power would give me any aid or comfort?”
“Maybe that isn’t something she would even care about. We know nothing about her. Perhaps the Book of Onei means nothing to her. Perhaps she wanted you to have it. Perhaps if you had ever made use of it, she would have shown you The Book.”
Still he did not answer, would never answer. He only looked at the ocean, at the light that flickered across the dark waters, and recited a poem:
“I’m Prometheus,” he told me,
“I’m the traitor and the thief.
But his eyes were still defiant
Through his horror and his grief.
Then the eagle stuck its beak in
For the hundred millionth time,
And I watched in guilty wonder.
Was I worthy of his crime?
Have I used the gift he gave me?
Have I kept the embers warm?
Have I fed the god inside me
Striving daily to be born?”
And now here I stood, deep beyond the Borders of Onei, among the gorges and mountains. How far would I travel, how many mountains would I have to cross, until I discovered the secret? Was there even a secret to be uncovered, or only lies within lies?
I dug into my bag and found the Book of Onei, opened it up to a random page and read a poem about these mountains.
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Patterns of consumption of alcohol in Seville, Spain. Results of a general population survey.
The results of a general population survey of the patterns of consumption of alcohol in a representative sample of the province of Seville, Spain, are analysed in this article. The proportions of drinkers and abstainers and distribution by age, by sex and by urban-rural residency are discussed. Frequency of consumption declines as age increases in both sexes but the negative slope is more marked in females. Analysis of the results on quantity of alcohol consumed during the week prior to the interview shows that men drink more heavily than women in all age-groups and young people drink more heavily than other age-groups. The combination of data on frequency of consumption and maximum quantity of alcohol reportedly consumed on the highest drinking occasion shows that the majority of men belong to the High Frequency-Low Quantity typology, followed by High Frequency-Medium Quantity, but in women nearly 60% belong to the Low Frequency-Low Quantity typology, followed by High Frequency-Low Quantity. The highest proportions of both abstainers and heavy drinkers are found in the group of people with the lowest income.
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"Our eyes on the ground report target is in Smallville, sir." "Right on schedule." "[GIGGLES]" "So, what are you in the mood for?" "Oh, I'm in the mood." "Just not for breakfast." "Lois." "The bedroom's upstairs." "Mm-hm." "But the porch swing is out there." "Target is on the move." "He's heading for the Kent farm." "Target closing in on farmhouse." " Daddy." " General Lane." " And Lucy." " Happy Turkey Day, sis." "Great." "The whole Lane family is together for the holidays." "Don't be nervous." "Your dad just wants to spend time with you." "He's interested in doing recon on the man dating his daughter." "Hopefully someone's monogram jacket has vanished." "Your dad has met me before." "Before we were a couple." "None of my boyfriends have survived the general's assault." " I'll be fine." "Fine? "Fine" won't pass inspection." "You have to be perfect." "It's important to me that my dad likes you." "It's important to me that you're happy." "There's nothing to worry about." "Except maybe if he finds out that you're a superhero." "My dad hates superheroes." " Hey." " Oh, that's a good cup of coffee." "Make yourself at home, Daddy." "Your sister's still upstairs unpacking." "She could be all day." "It's good to see you, sir." "So nothing much has changed around here." "You mother still own the place?" " It is in her name, but I..." " I see." "You live in your mother's house and you work in a basement." "Is that correct?" "Well, it is the bullpen at the Daily Planet." "I work side by side with Lois." "Ah." "She seems to write more articles than you." "What exactly do you do with your time, Clark?" "Hey, Daddy, uh, Clark and I work together a lot." "He just gives me the byline sometimes, and that's just how sweet he is." " We look after each other." "LANE:" "Good." "Because if Lois is gonna be spending any time around here..." "I've had a look around." "...There's a few things that are gonna have to be brought up to code." "Like scrubbing the bathroom tile with a toothbrush?" "That's number 17 on the list." " You're not kidding." " No, I never do." "Though I feel a little uncomfortable inspecting the enemy camp." "Your mother is my major opposition in the senate." "Oh, does this mean you're finally running for office, Daddy?" "No, sweetheart." "I'm the senior military adviser on a new bill:" "The Vigilante Registration Act." "And by "vigilante" you mean...?" "Vigilantes." "Weekend warriors in masks who run around inciting anarchy." "Well, I don't think they incite anarchy." " They stop crime, protect people." " And they commit acts of terrorism." "Like the RAO Tower in Metropolis, blown to kingdom come." "No evidence of explosives." "You wanna know why?" " Because one of them super-freaks did it." " You know what?" "Since we're pretending it's a holiday what say we make it official and take a furlough from work?" "Clark, do you know who the real heroes of the world are?" "The men and women of our Armed Forces." "They have to enlist go through background checks, training." "There are rules." "Be held accountable for their actions." "People start believing in these so-called superheroes soon the superheroes form cells start taking the law into their own hands." "No, I will not let them compromise our national security." "Mm-mm." "Lois, what do you think?" "I think we need some veggies with our starches." "Baked or mashed?" "Whatever the general would like, of course." "You know, when you need first aid you expect it to be in the first place you look." "It's over here." "Look at this." "New chairs." "Got a whole new setup going on." "When I said you could move in, I didn't think you'd actually move in." "Take off your shirt." "Like I haven't seen it all before." " Looks like you had a rough night." " Yeah." "Somewhere between chasing the bad guy and dodging the press I ran into someone who literally had an ax to grind." "That sounds like some serious overtime." "But if I remember correctly, your cure-all was two raw eggs in a Belgian beer, hmm?" "Let me tell you something, Tess." "I can do this whole 9-to-5 thing with you but I draw the line at happy hour." "[GRUNTS]" " How did you say you hurt yourself?" " Just your typical ax-wielding maniac." "Scratched the surface." "Something's happening beneath the surface." "Your skin is reacting to the iodine." "It's a sub-dermal tattoo." "Oliver, I've seen this before." "This is the signal for the Suicide Squad." "OLIVER:" "Suicide Squad, huh?" " That's a hell of a name." " They're a hell of a team." "When I was working for Amanda Waller there were certain dirty jobs a government agent couldn't do." "Not even us." "And Waller would send in the Squad." "They were led by Rick Flag." "But they all died when Checkmate was attacked." "Wait a second." "Wait a second." "I know this guy." "This guy tied me to a chair, beat me, and then wanted to kiss and make up." "I knew he got under my skin, but come on." "Wait, Flag survived?" "He's recruiting a whole new squad." " I politely declined." " If he tagged you, he's tracking you." "Something tells me I'm not the only one." "ANNOUNCER:...first of 10." "Gillman hands the ball to Garcia." "Garcia up the left." "The Bullets hold Garcia at the 30 with a good stick." "The Sharks have to start passing if..." "NEWS ANCHOR:" "We interrupt this scheduled program for breaking news." "A fire has broken out at a refinery in Smallville, and firefighters..." "Clark should see this." "Remind him what a real hero is." " Hey." " Hey." "They were all out of cranberries." "The store must've had a fire sale, huh, Clark?" "NEWS ANCHOR:...sending a massive plume of thick black smoke billowing into the air." "Firefighters are struggling to gain control of the flames..." " Where's Clark?" " He went upstairs." "Leave you holding the bags?" "What happened to being a gentleman, hmm?" "NEWS ANCHOR:" "Update on the refinery blaze." "The fire is out, thanks to the Blur." "And now we go to Sarah for more..." "Leave it to the Blur to turn a fire into a photo op." "NEWS ANCHOR:...continue the investigation of the incident." "Found the cranberries." "They were in the truck." "Where were they, honey?" "Under the hood?" "LANE:" "Hmm." "I thought you said that Clark went upstairs?" "Yeah, he was upstairs, outside." " Checking the chimney." " Thanks." "[CELL PHONE RINGING]" "Excuse me." "It's not a good time." "You're where?" "I'll be right there." "Lois, I need to go chop some wood." "Get me a workup on Clark Kent, Kilo-Echo-November-Tango." "He's hiding something." "It's exactly what I was afraid of." "Flag's tracking me too?" "Which is a bit surprising considering your impermeable skin." "He must've used Blue Kryptonite." "Oliver, we have to figure out why he's tracking us." "Tess is working on that back at Watchtower, which..." "I appreciate the help, but she's running around there like she owns the building." "If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't know about these tattoos." "We wouldn't even be on Flag's trail." "You gotta go." " What, the window?" "What are we, 16?" " Now." "Lucy?" "Lucy." "Did I hear you up here talking to someone, Clark?" "No." "It's just me." "Good, because I only brought one lemonade." "I thought you could use the refreshment." "Thanks." "The general give you a list?" "Yeah, I'm afraid so." "He likes to test Lois' boyfriends." "He's convinced they all have something to hide." "So far, no one's passed." "I'll be the first." "Well, if anyone can do it, I'm sure you can." "You've grown into quite a man in the past six years, Clark." "I'm sure Lois could use your help." "I think I've earned a 10-minute break." "Lucy." "Well, at least show me around the barn." "Well, there's really not much to see." "Ahem." "Really?" " Lois, your sister just..." " Ambushed you." "Well, this has Lucy written all over it." "In backstabbing, bitch-berry lip gloss." "You, come with me." "LUCY:" "Ow!" "Lois, not so tight." "So, what, you thought I would catch you two tongue wrestling and then have a big fight with Clark?" " Lois..." "Just save it." "Now, the only reason that I am keeping you around is for Dad." "So go make yourself useful and get us some ice." " There's ice in the freezer." " Dad likes crushed." "[CRASH NEARBY]" "Chop and stack one cord of wood." "Sir, yes, sir." "Careful Dad doesn't catching you making with the kung fu there, Paul Bunyan." "I'm sorry about what happened with Lucy." "It wasn't your fault." "Still, you can put out a burning building, but you can't contain her hot lips?" "She surprised me." "You know what's a bigger surprise, is that you couldn't stand up to your dad." "Unless you actually agree with his Vigilante Registration Act." "Clark, I am just trying to get through this holiday without a fight." " You either agree with him or you don't." " I don't." "But this means something to the general, so please do not make me choose sides." "You were somebody who stood up for what you believed in." "When it comes to your father, you do the same thing he does." " You make your choices based on fear." " Hey, just because you don't have a..." "A what, Lois?" "Were you gonna say father?" "Okay, what I am trying to say is that you haven't had to deal with a family for a really long time." "All you have to answer to is yourself." "Clark, if you wanna be with me, you're gonna have to deal with my family too." "I hope you can respect that." "FLAG:" "I'm surprised the general's daughter would leave herself open to attack." "Always watch your 6, Ms. Lane." " Who are you?" " Sorry." "I'm, uh, Colonel Richard Stafford." "I'm sorry if I startled you." "I'm posted nearby, at Fort Ryan." "I'm here because we think he can help us." "Thanks to his influence, your father is crucial to Congress passing anti-vigilante legislation." "But right now, he's in serious danger." "We need to get him off that farm and away from Clark Kent." " Clark?" " Kent is a vigilante sympathizer." "Whether he knows it or not, he's helping agitators who want nothing more than to stop your father from completing his current mission." "That's a very serious accusation." "Do you have proof?" " Get this to your father." " Why not just deliver it to him yourself?" "We don't want to arouse Kent's suspicions." "For your father's protection, it's best if he not know that you got this from me." "Just tell him you found it on the farm." "He'll know what to do." "Could you also plant this on him?" "It's a homing device." "It'll help us track and protect him." "The U.S. Army is depending on you, Lucy." "And so is your father." "You can count on me." "Go make your father proud." "I intercepted a Suicide Squad transmission." "Flag's planning on killing someone, but we need to decode this before he does." " Yep." " Come on." "Chloe would have this finished, like, yesterday." "Oliver, I'm trying to help you, and you keep acting like I'm the enemy." "Well, I'm just trying to get used to all the changes around here, okay?" "Look, I come here, and I think of Chloe, all right?" "I think of all the time that I spent here with her, and I just..." "Just..." "It's hard for me being here with someone else, okay?" "Okay." "And I'm not trying to take her place, Oliver." "But at some point, you need to start treating me like I'm on your side." "[COMPUTER KEYS CLICKING]" "General?" "List completed and accounted for, sir." "Clark." "Have a seat, son." "Let's get down to brass tacks." "Lois likes to date men of action, men who make the news." "Now, you, Clark, you just report the news." "Why would she be possibly interested in you?" "Why don't you ask her, sir?" "I asked somebody at the Pentagon instead." "Guess what he came up with." "Nothing." "Nobody's record's that clean." "Unless they had somebody higher up wipe it out." "Somebody, let's say, like a U.S. senator." "Hmm?" "Excuse me, sir, but what gives you the right to spy on us?" "Well, I'm a four-star general, Clark, and a war hero." "I know a smokescreen when I see one." "Now, nobody could've done this list by themselves." "You're searching for enemies where they don't exist." " Just like your vigilante witch-hunt." " I was talking about you, Clark." "Why would you bring up vigilantes?" "Lucy found this in your loft." "Huh?" "You're in league with them, aren't you?" "I'm not on trial, Sam." "You wanna protect the United States, but as soon as you're threatened everyone else's rights go out the window?" "No wonder Lois is too afraid to be herself around you." "You questioning my relationship with my daughter?" " You have been questioning me all day." " It's my right to protect my family." "It may be your right but you're wrong to think that we don't belong together." "I love your daughter, and I don't want a day to go by where I'm not with her." "Well, I hope you enjoyed today because it's the last day you'll ever spend with her." "I did everything I could to make today work." "I dealt with my family, I helped the Blur, I even found my inner Iron Chef and all I asked, the only thing you had to do was deal with my dad for one day." "Lois, your dad had me investigated by the Pentagon." "He has surveillance photos of me with Kara." "She's in her costume." "I think your sister planted them in the loft." "I thought it would be a good idea if we all went to your place tonight without Clark." "I'll meet you in the car, Daddy." "Thank you, sweetheart." "Come on, let's go." "That's an order, young lady." "Can't we stay and work this out?" "There's nothing to work out." "Your friend Clark is a dishonest man." "And he has dangerous friends." "And when the vigilantes try and take over this country with anarchy he's gonna go down with them." "So come on now." "Let's go." "I am sorry, Clark." "The general is leaving the farm, sir." "Which means Clark Kent won't be able to Blur to his rescue." "The Blur may be faster than a speeding bullet but I bet he can't outrun this." "Please, Dad, go back and talk to him." "It's Clark." "You know him." " I can't do that, Lo." " Why?" "Because he's in league with masked vigilantes." "When he pays the price for this, I do not want you to get hurt." "Not all of your vigilantes are bad." "Why do you have to go to DEFCON 1?" "You haven't met a single one of them." "Can you stop running damage control?" "We are just trying to protect you." "Back off, Lucy." "Or do you happen to have some compromising photos of me that you'd like to share with the class?" "Please, both of you." "Trust me, Clark is not who you think he is." "Now, a couple calls to the NSA and we'll find out what he's hiding." " It doesn't matter, because I love Clark." "Everything you need to know about him is standing right in front of you." "Talk to me." "The only thing that matters is how I feel." " Lois..." " I appreciate that you like straight talk so I will give it to you in one razor-sharp line." "I am staying with Clark, and if you love me you will respect that." "Daddy, let's go." "[DOOR CLOSES]" "FLAG:" "And the rockets' red glare" "Bombs bursting in air" "Gave proof through the night" "That our flag was still there" "Missile is locked on target, sir." "There's only one tattooed hero at that address." "I'm the target." "It doesn't make any sense." "Flag would try to recruit you before he'd try and kill you, Clark." "And how can you be sure?" "Flag spends so much time on the front lines with super-powered people, that he identifies with them." "To him, you're all freedom fighters and he would attack anyone that threatens that." "Presidents, senators, the military, it doesn't matter." "There's about to be a new law, the Vigilante Registration Act." "Its biggest supporter is in Smallville right now." "It's General Sam Lane." "God bless America." "Lois!" " Daddy?" " Oh, my God." "The Blur saved your life." "We hit the building, but not the target." "General Lane survived." "Damn it." "It's over, Flag." "We know you blew up that building." "It's a classy move, attacking your own country." "I did it for my country." "Kill Lane, kill a movement." "That Registration Act is nothing but a weapon to profile, hunt and destroy us." " We don't need a history lesson." " Well, apparently you do, Shamrock." "You've become the politicians' poster boy for full disclosure." "They're gonna be on your doorstep soon, holding you up as a volunteer." "Get all the other heroes to stand up and be counted and be killed." " We're not gonna let that happen." " If the bill passes, it already has." "Don't you see?" "America's turning against us." "We have got to fight back, show strength make them choose us as their leaders." "You'll only be stirring up anti-hero hysteria." "Violence isn't the answer." "Violence is the only answer." "And more and more superheroes are coming over to my side." " Lo, can we talk?" " That depends." "Can you form a sentence without lying to my face?" "I can't believe that I almost got you killed." "Let's not forget the Talon shock:" "An awful missile makeover." "Who would've known fire insurance didn't cover mortar fire?" "I'll replace everything you lost, Lois." "I promise." "Just like you're gonna make Clark and I trust you again?" "Look, Lucy, I'm not happy that you went behind our backs again." "But I do get trying to protect Dad." "Our larger-than-life hero needing someone to protect him?" "Who wouldn't wanna do that?" " I should've told you what was going on." " Yeah." "But I thought that if I helped Dad on my own he'd stop seeing me as..." "The troublemaker?" "Okay, I know I came down on you pretty hard, Lu." "But I think that a part of me sort of liked the fact that you turned into the troublemaker because I was finally able to be the good one." "When you say it all out loud, it's just..." "Well, it sounds really exhausting." "Yeah, I..." "I think we were so busy trying to be the perfect daughter that we forgot how to be sisters." "No, Lois." "You're a great sister." "I thought you said no happy hour." "Yeah, but I'm still on the clock, so, ha, ha..." "So I was curious, you hear anything about that tattoo-removal research?" "I have Emil looking into it." " Okay." " No need to worry, my friend." "I think it's a little early for "friend."" "Friendly, I can do that." "Be friendly." "I'll take it." "I was beginning to think the best that I could do was frienemy." " I don't even know what that means." " Ha." "We've, uh..." "We've survived tax audits and typhoons together, Tess." "I think we're practically like family at this point." "We've come a long way." "From the middle of the ocean to the top of the city." "I can work with that." "You know, this place is sort of like an island, isn't it?" "It's just too bad I gotta vote myself off." "I don't understand." "It's a funny thing about Green Arrow showing his face to everyone." "Now everyone wants to stick theirs in my business and peek in my window, and..." "What if someone sees me come in here?" "Watchtower, I mean." "There are people who count on this place remaining secret." "They count on that for their safety." "They didn't step out into the limelight like I did." "That wouldn't really be fair to them, would it?" "After everything you've told me about Chloe and what this place means to you that must be a really hard decision to make." "But it's the right one." "Watchtower's in good hands, Tess." "Clark." "I owe you an apology." "I'm not so set in my ways that I can't appreciate the way you stood up to me earlier." "And you were right, I have not always been a perfect father." " No, sir, I..." " I needed to hear that." "Nobody's had the guts to talk to me like that since my wife passed away." "You must really miss her." "Every day." "But, thankfully, I can see my Ella in our daughters' faces." " Can I give you some advice, Clark?" " Yeah." "Going to war having to deal with the rush of battle and the struggle to save lives it made coming home and doing the simple things difficult." "But, you know, it's funny." "It's the simple things, like taking a walk or dancing with your wife tucking in the kids, that make us human." "Now, don't get me wrong." "I've loved serving our country." "I even got to be a hero a couple times." "But if I had to do it over again I'd spend more time with the family." "Your girls love you, sir." "You're their hero." "But I think Lois has got herself a brand-new hero now, huh?" "I almost lost her tonight." "But by the grace of God we're all gonna get to have ourselves a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal." "And that's all thanks to the Blur, hmm?" "So Lois being saved by a vigilante, that will change your mind on the bill?" "Well, I gotta admit, I kind of like her having her own private guardian angel." "But not every hero has the Blur's code of honor." "Not all politicians have yours." "Some will use the law to destroy people." "I'm a military man, Clark." "I have to believe that when push comes to shove, America will do the right thing." "Kind of like Lois did the right thing by you tonight." "For years, I've been giving her boyfriends an impossible list of chores to do." "Not to test them." "To test Lois?" "Those poor bastards, I put them through hell." "Lois never said a thing." "That's how I knew she didn't love them." "About Lois and I there's a question I was hoping to ask you." "No more hiding in the shadows." "That's a declaration of war." "Go." "[English" " US" "SDH]"
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Christmas Dinner Menu
On Tuesday 11th December we are bringing you a special Christmas dinner. The cost will be £2 per meal with reception, year 1 and year 2 being free, you will need to order your meal via parent pay before Friday 7th December.
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2017 Boyd Tinsley Women's Clay Court Classic – Doubles
Asia Muhammad and Taylor Townsend were the defending champions, but both players chose not to participate.
Jovana Jakšić and Catalina Pella won the title, defeating Madison Brengle and Danielle Collins in the final, 6–4, 7–6(7–5).
Seeds
Draw
References
Main Draw
Boyd Tinsley Women's Clay Court Classic - Doubles
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
tools:background="?attr/bottomAppBarColor"
tools:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.MaterialComponents.Dark.ActionBar">
<FrameLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="?android:attr/actionBarSize">
<com.google.android.material.textview.MaterialTextView
style="@style/Widget.Danmaqua.IconTextButton"
android:id="@+id/connectButton"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="start"
android:text="@string/action_connect"
android:drawableStart="@drawable/ic_play_circle_filled_24"/>
<com.google.android.material.textview.MaterialTextView
style="@style/Widget.Danmaqua.IconTextButton"
android:id="@+id/setFilterButton"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="end"
android:text="@string/action_set_filter"
android:drawableEnd="@drawable/ic_filter_list_24"/>
</FrameLayout>
<View
android:id="@+id/bottomAppBarBackground"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:background="@color/darken_nav_bar"
tools:layout_height="48dp"/>
</LinearLayout>
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Microsoft helps to launch free web-based version of Catan board game
Microsoft's Internet Explorer team has announced it has helped to launch a free web-based version of the classic board game Settlers of Catan called Catan Anytime. The game was made in collaboration with Catan, Mayfair Games and Bontom Games.
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When we all share love, we all win.
Over the last 10 years, through the Share the Love Event, Subaru of America and its participating retailers have donated more than $118 million to charity, with customers choosing between four national and over 1,170 local charities. In this, our 11th year, we are on track to bring that total to over $140 million, proving there’s no limit to the amount of love we can all share.
Byers Airport Subaru 401 N. Hamilton Road Columbus, OH 43213
As part of our commitment to supporting those in our local community, you can also choose this hometown charity:
Columbus Dog Connection
Our mission is to rescue abandoned dogs, promote all rescues and shelters in Ohio, and save every adoptable dog/cat until they are no longer euthanized for lack of space. We operate a high quality statewide mobile spay/neuter service, targeting areas with high animal population and low spay/neuter resources. Our unofficial mission: To go out of business because our services are no longer needed. We often hear a chuckle when we say this, and we say this often, but if we didn't believe we could end the problem of overpopulation, we have no business asking anyone to believe in us... much less to give us even one of their hard-earned dollars.
Get a great vehicle and support a great cause. With every new Subaru purchased or leased, Subaru will donate $250 to your choice of charities that benefit your local community*, like Columbus Dog Connection. November 15 through January 2.
Byers Airport Subaru impacts in the local community
Every penny entrusted to our care goes toward saving homeless dogs/cats in Ohio, as well as providing low cost spay/neuter options to those in need. We are able to extend our services to rural areas of Ohio. Some Ohio counties have two or fewer vets in their community. Ohio has 32 Appalachian counties and we visit many of them with our mobile spay/neuter truck to offer low cost surgeries.
A leading voice for animals for over 150 years, the ASPCA® provides life-saving protection and care to those in need. Whether it’s rescuing animals from abuse and neglect, introducing and enforcing more humane legislation, or supporting animal shelters across the country, the ASPCA relies on donations and public support to help animals live better lives.
Through the ASPCA, Share the Love has had a significant impact on the rescue, transport, and adoption of more than 50,000 animals across the country.
Research shows when children diagnosed with a critical illness are granted their one true wish, it gives them renewed strength and energy to keep fighting. Their families and entire communities come together. The impact from just one wish, has the power to transform the lives of everyone involved.
Through Make-A-Wish, Share the Love has granted the wishes of more than 1,800 kids with life-threatening medical conditions.
Meals on Wheels provides 2.4 million homebound seniors with the nutrition and companionship they need to age without fear of hunger and isolation. For these vulnerable seniors, the Meals on Wheels volunteer’s daily visit keeps them healthy, connected to their community and able to live independently in the place they love most: their home.
Through Meals on Wheels, Share the Love has helped deliver nearly 2 million meals to America’s seniors.
The National Park Foundation, in partnership with the National Park Service, enriches America’s national parks and programs, safeguarding our heritage, and inspiring generations of national park enthusiasts.
Through the National Park Foundation, Share the Love has provided funding for critical programs and projects in more than 100 national parks and helped increase public awareness and engagement across our national park system.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I select the charity or charities I want to receive the donation?You can make your charity selection on subaru.com/share, by calling 1-800-SUBARU3, by completing the form on the Digital Showroom kiosk, or by filling out a self-addressed prepaid envelope provided by your retailer. You will be asked to provide your name, contact information, VIN, and charity selection. Subaru will then make the donation based on your designation. Visit www.subaru.com/share to learn more about the program and each of the participating charities.
What if I want to split the donation (i.e., select more than one charity) or vote more than once?Each customer who has purchased or leased a new Subaru (2018-2019) can either designate one charity to receive the $250 donation or split it among any number of the participating charities. Only one donation (of $250) is made per vehicle sale or lease.
How long do I have to make the charity selection?While we encourage customers to make their charity selection at the retail store at the time of purchase, selections will be accepted online at subaru.com/share, by phone at 1-800-SUBARU3, and by mail via prepaid mailer through January 31, 2019.
I bought a car, but forgot to submit my charity selection. Where does my money go?For those who do not submit their charity selection by January 31, 2019, Subaru will allocate each $250 donation on the customer’s behalf to participating charities.
How will I know that the donation was made?You will receive a thank-you letter from Subaru on behalf of all of the charitable beneficiaries of the campaign.
By what date will Subaru make the donations to each charity? How much money is expected to be donated?Subaru will make the donation to each charity by March 31, 2019. Over the last 10 years, Subaru of America and its participating retailers have donated more than $118 million through the Share the Love Event. By the end of this year, Subaru and its participating retailers will have donated over $140 million to help those in need.
Can I take a tax deduction for this donation?Because Subaru is making the donation, the donation is not a tax-deductible contribution from the purchaser.
Why do some retailers have four charity options and others have more charity options?Subaru of America offered the retailer community an optional opportunity to select up to two charities local to their communities to join the four national charities in the Share the Love Event. While some retailers are participating in this option, others chose to participate solely with the four national charities.
Subaru is a registered trademark. *Subaru will donate $250 for every new Subaru vehicle sold or leased from November 15, 2018, through January 2, 2019, to four national charities designated by the purchaser or lessee. Pre-approved Hometown Charities may be selected for donation depending on retailer participation. Certain participating retailers will make an additional donation to the Hometown Charities selected. Purchasers/lessees must make their charity designations by January 31, 2019. The four national charities will receive a guaranteed minimum donation of $250,000 each. See your local Subaru retailer for details or visit subaru.com/share. Additional information about Make-A-Wish Foundation of America is available by calling 1-800-722-9474, or by visiting its website at wish.org. All donations made by Subaru of America, Inc.
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'Supergirl' Finds Its Superman in 'Teen Wolf' Favorite
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's … the next actor to don the iconic red cape. Find out who landed the super role for season two of the CBS-turned-CW drama.
Supergirl has officially found its Superman.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the CBS-turned-CW series has cast Teen Wolf grad Tyler Hoechlin as Superman/Clark Kent. The newest version of the iconic superhero will first be seen visiting his cousin Kara (Melissa Benoist) in National City at the beginning of the series' second season when it moves to its new home on The CW.
"Greg [Berlanti] and I have wanted to work with Tyler for ages, so this worked out perfectly because Tyler is Superman," executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said. "We are so thrilled and humbled to add another amazing actor to the legacy of this iconic character."
Hoechlin is best known as a series regular on MTV's Teen Wolf in which he starred for its first four seasons. He most recently appeared in Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some! His résumé includes the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, 7th Heaven, Road to Perdition, Hall Pass and Solstice. Hoechlin is repped by UTA, Management 360 and attorney Todd Rubenstein.
This casting brings Superman back to The CW after The WB's former Tom Welling drama Smallville, which followed a teenage Clark Kent as he learned how to control his powers and grow into the superhero he was destined to be. Smallville ran for 10 seasons on The WB and The CW.
Supergirl returns for season two on Mondays this fall at 8 p.m. on The CW.
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Utilizing formerly untapped assets together with inner most collections, the files of cultural associations, and federal and kingdom govt information, Schoonover analyzes the German position in crucial American household and foreign relations.Of the 4 international locations such a lot lively in self reliant primary America-Britain, the us, France, and Germany- historians be aware of the least concerning the complete quantity of the involvement of the Germans.German colonial growth was once in accordance with its place as an industrialized country looking monetary overall healthiness and safety in a turning out to be international industry. German leaders have been speedy to acknowledge that ties to the inexpensive exertions of in a foreign country international locations might atone for a few of the expenditures and burdens of conceding fabric and social privileges to their family hard work strength. The imperative American societies possessed restricted source bases; smaller and poorly proficient populations; and not more capital, communications, and technological improvement than Germany. They observed the borrowing of improvement as a key to their social, financial, and political growth. cautious vital American leaders additionally observed the inflow of German industrialists as insurance opposed to over the top U.S. presence of their political economies and cultures.Although the simplistic discount to exchange monetary improvement for inexpensive exertions looked as if it would reach the fast time period, advanced problems with German family unemployment and social ailment filtered to critical American international locations and extra to their very own burdens. by means of 1929, Germany had recovered so much of its pre-World warfare I monetary place.
Dismantling the myths of usa isolationism and exceptionalism, No better legislation is a sweeping background and research of yank coverage towards the Western Hemisphere and Latin the USA from independence to the current. From the nation’s earliest days, argues Brian Loveman, U. S. leaders seen and handled Latin the United States as a crucible during which to check overseas coverage and from which to extend American worldwide effect.
Indigenous humans represent a wide section of Latin America's inhabitants and be afflicted by frequent poverty. This booklet offers the 1st rigorous evaluate of adjustments in socio-economic stipulations one of the region's indigenous humans, monitoring development in those symptoms through the first foreign decade of indigenous peoples (1994-2004).
Archaeoastronomy and the Maya illustrates archaeoastronomical ways to old Mayan cultural construction. The e-book is contextualized via a background of archaeoastronomical investigations into Mayan websites, originating within the nineteenth century discovery of astronomical tables inside of hieroglyphic books.
The increased German role in Central America sharpened the rivalry between Germany and the United States. S. metropole leaders to resolve the domestic difficulties allowed them to blame foreign rivals for ineffective domestic policies until violence tore through the problems. The fourth period, 1918 to 1929, delineated the recovery and renewal of competition as if little had been learned from the earlier struggles for material success. , British, and French officials. S. hegemonic position. The leaders on the isthmus were often attracted to the vision of mate- Page 7 rial growth that liberalism and metropole promoters conjured up.
Colombia Bidlack treaty (1846), which gave the United States special advantage on the isthmus. S. rights at the Tehuantepec isthmus; the British extended their authority along the Atlantic side of the Central American isthmus from Honduras to the Panamanian province of Colombia in agreement with the puppet Mosquito king; and the British expanded their political authority in Belize and on the Bay Islands. -British agreement via the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in 1850 calmed matters. During the time the Anglo-American contest was running its course, Page 22 Prussia was not a preeminent power.
4 The idea of a customs union to expand the German market for industrial goods took preliminary form in the early nineteenth century. Many Germans considered a customs union essential to unify the German domestic economy and to tie it to the world economy. By 1828 Prussia had organized a small customs union. Around 1830 Prussian leaders adopted free trade and removed tariffs in order to accommodate domestic producers entering international competition. Prussia sought the maximum material and political benefits from its role in the Customs Union.
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Q:
Emulate This SWT Shell in Swing
I've been experiencing with SWT (GUI lib Eclipse uses) and I'm wanting to create the following using Swing.
The previous screenshot is done by the following code using SWT
public static void main(String[] args) {
Display display = new Display();
final Shell shell = new Shell(display, SWT.RESIZE);
shell.open();
while (!shell.isDisposed()) {
if (!display.readAndDispatch())
display.sleep();
}
display.dispose();
}
I was wondering, how could I possible emulate this in Swing?
P.S The border around this Shell is currently the native border for my windows color scheme, I don't wanna just create a MatteBorder and emulate the color, I'd like to use the native border for windows.
A:
Use an undecorated JDialog. Then you can add a MatteBorder to the root pane of the dialog. Or you can always implement you own custom Border to emulate the LAF Border.
A:
So the question is: Can native-styled windows with borders only be created using Swing?
Shortly: No. Unfortunately it is impossible to do this using Swing.
Also: Same "No" goes for the tool windows which can also be created using SWT.
Now let me explain why.
Swing uses pure-Java written rendering to paint any components and custom decorations within your application. Window decoration in Swing is a bit different topic though - by default JFrame and JDialog are decorated using native style - basically when window instance is created in your system from Java application - that window is asked to have default decoration for either frame or dialog (plus some other possible options). After that this window is used to render Swing components on it. But Swing code has no real control over the system-provided decoration, it can only switch it on/off and configure a few options in it. Unfortunately the option you are looking for is not there - most probably wasn't not implemented as not very popular one.
Though Swing allows custom component/window styling through custom L&F (Look and Feel). L&F which supports custom window decorations simply provides its own way to paint and control window decoration. In case such L&F is installed - Swing uses undecorated frames/dialogs by default and simply asks L&F to do the decoration. Anyone can write their own L&F which means anyone can create custom decorations.
So as @camickr mentioned before you have only one option if you want to create such frame (like on the screenshot in your post) in Swing - use either JDialog/JFrame with setUndecorated set to true or JWindow which is undecorated by default and "paint your way through". Graphics2D provided for all painting operations will allow you to create any custom decoration of your window, even the one on your screenshot.
I won't lie - creating custom window decoration is pretty difficult - it requires a lot of knowledge in Swing and large amount of written code, not only painting code. So I really doubt you will choose that option unless you are passionate about UI creation.
In the end - you have to choose between SWT and Swing (or even JavaFX) as each of these UI frameworks offer totally different sets of features and options. Window decoration is just a tip of the large iceberg.
EDIT:
Since JDK 7 it is actually prossible to create tool windows, all you need is to set your window type to Window.Type.UTILITY. Though it is still not possible to create a window with native borders only without any title bar.
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Chapter Text
The mine is unremarkable: the floor maintains a steady decline and the uniformly placed timbers supporting the roof of the tunnel look dusty but robust. Faint ruts worn by wheelbarrows are visible in the rock floor, but the party sees nothing else worth noting. They all slow as they approach a bend in the tunnel. The path, up to this point, has been arrow-straight.
“Spot checks, please. If anyone’s got a higher Knowledge: Dungeoneering or Geography, use that instead.”
“Faiiiiled,” whined Ruby.
“17.”
“29.”
“24.”
“29, you said?” Velvet asked Blake.
She nodded in response, then paused. “Velvet, your ear’s twitching.” Blake knew that tell. The party must have missed something big, but if a 29 wasn’t enough to spot it then pushing the issue wouldn’t do much.
“Is it?” The DM sounded nonchalant.
Rose is seized by a sneezing fit and is incapable of noticing anything. Shroud and Ember identify the source of her troubles: some crates of red Dust stacked against the tunnel wall, just past the bend. A few have been prised open, some of their contents wafting in the air, but a half-dozen of them still look sealed. A length of fuse is coiled behind one loose crate lid.
Everyone but Rose—who’s still sneezing—notices distinct changes in the tunnel construction. Makeshift torches are set in hacked-out niches haphazardly scattered along the mine shaft. Several have burned out and have yet to be replaced. The rock floor is less worn and the walls look hastily-cut and uneven. Ember glances suspiciously at the next set of timber supports: unlike the sturdy beams near the head of the tunnel, these look far too rickety to properly hold up the ceiling and they’re spaced further and further apart as the party moves deeper.
Velvet looked at Yang preemptively. “No OSHA jokes.”
Yang’s expression made it clear that was exactly what she was planning, but—mercifully—she kept her mouth shut.
“So... what’s Oobleck doing?” Ruby wondered aloud.
The sudden shuffling behind the DM screen suggested that Velvet had forgotten to keep track herself. “The Doctor—” she huffed in exasperation at the results of her dice rolls, “is taking meticulous notes on some ‘pretty rocks’ scattered along the floor of the mine shaft.”
The party advances down the newer section of the mine shaft at a slower pace, each of them tense with alertness. Before long, Shroud materializes out of the shadows and gestures for everyone to stop. She’s spotted a small group of White Fang ahead. If they can sneak up quietly, they can surprise the enemy.
“I can cast Silence on you and you can move forward, preventing any sound from coming from them when you sneak attack, then the rest of us can follow behind,” Rose offers.
“Give me twelve seconds before you follow,” Shroud whispers back, pulling out her crossbow.
With a gesture and a barely audible word, an eerie quiet falls over the group—their armor stops creaking and when Myrtle opens her mouth to ask a question, no sound comes out.
The cat faunus presses forward, taking the area of silence with her.
“How did you know to prepare that spell?” Myrtle asks in disbelief as her voice returns.
Rose just shrugs. “Seemed like a decent idea since we’re trying to keep things under wraps.”
Several long moments later, they follow Shroud’s path around the corner. She’d already taken out two of the grunts, and is fighting a third, while a fourth is unsuccessfully attempting to cast a spell.
Myrtle, also restricted by Rose’s spell, fires a crossbow bolt at the other spellcaster, who staggers back, but doesn’t go down.
Blithely unaware of the magical silence, Oobleck walks towards the fight—his lips moving a mile a minute—as he starts up another lecture. He draws everyone’s attention, only to cause them to throw their hands up in frustration as he wanders off to study an inscription on the cave wall.
“Is he going to do anything useful?” Yang demanded.
Velvet looked steadily at Yang. “The Doctor picks up a rock with great gravitas... and licks it.”
There was a thud as Yang banged her head against the table in a fit of pique. Blake looked ready to join her while Weiss and Ruby shared a smile.
Shroud finishes off the grunt she had already injured before moving out of Rose’s line of fire to allow her to take out the final combatant.
Taking advantage of the spell’s duration, they scour the area thoroughly for additional enemies and any traps in the immediate vicinity.
The artificial quiet is shattered as Oobleck becomes audible mid-word, signaling the end of the time limit. They ignore his monologue in favor of searching for anything of value on the White Fang grunts, only looking up when he goes silent again, half-wondering if something had come up behind them and killed him.
But it isn’t anything so extreme: he is staring down at a handpick, studying it closely before resuming his lecture, “This doesn’t make any sense. While far from the quality that the Guild provides to its members, these are, in fact, archaeological tools—which are not the sort of thing I would expect miners to possess. No, this is for delicate work.”
He looks closer at the cavern wall in front of him, running his hand over a nearly invisible change in the rock face. Waving Myrtle closer, he adjusts his glasses.
“What is it, Doctor?” she asks.
“This...” He shakes his head and moves back down the cavern, kneeling to study a small section of wall that, while the same color, is shinier than the surrounding rock. “This is organic.”
“But is it certified organic?” Yang muttered under her breath, earning a glare from the two faunus at the table.
There’s a repeating pattern just barely visible in the uncovered sections that’s reminiscent of scales. Oobleck runs a finger along the surface with the utmost delicacy, then turns to the group. “This is a dragon,” he murmurs.
The rest of them step back in unison. “What?!” Myrtle asks, incredulously.
“THIS IS A DRAGON!”
Ruby recovered from her shock first and turned to the DM with a grin. “So, Velvet... where are the dwarves? And hobbits?”
“Unearthing a dragon is delicate work indeed...” the Doctor continues on, pointedly ignoring the interruption. “Why, look at—”
Shroud takes the opportunity to skip the lecture and scout out the light she’s seen from the next room up. Within moments she rushes back into the cavern, having apparently decided to forgo stealth for speed. With a frantic wave of her hand, she signals for everyone to follow her quickly. She leads them to a tiny offshoot of a cavern up ahead of where they were, the space lit by the afternoon sun. Every flat surface is covered in pooling wax and smoldering wicks, and the flickering of a few dozen candles guttering low triggers urgency in the party: whatever happened here had been set in motion hours ago. They’re late.
In an alcove to their left, a dragon skull—bigger than any they’d ever seen—sits nestled in the wax. An altar dominates the middle of the space with a carving of a five-pointed star made of black, blue, green, red, and white dragon heads. Everything is covered in a thin film of a sticky, rust-colored substance, and the air shimmers with the power radiating off runes etched into the stone.
“Kord bless,” Rose breathes, taking a step closer to the perverse altar. “Tiamat—the goddess of chromatic dragons.”
Blake leaned over to whisper in Weiss’ ear. “Chromatics are evil; metallic ones are good, with little to no exception.”
“That’s... not good.” Oobleck steps closer, studying the runes and glyphs covering the altar and surrounding walls.
Myrtle reaches out as if to touch one and then thinks better of it. “Someone damaged these—those are tool marks. The runes look like they were once some sort of modified Sleep spell.”
“And this,” Rose gestures to a complex diagram that is half-concealed behind the altar. “Looks like some sort of divine ritual—extremely powerful; it’s not anything I’m familiar with.”
Oobleck frowns. “Well, that’s because that’s part of a Wish spell! Immensely powerful, yes—it’s rumored even Guildmaster Ozpin has only ever cast it once—but it is arcane in origin, not divine. Though, why would an arcane spell be set up in a shrine to a divinity?”
Ember throws her hands up in frustration. “This doesn’t make sense!”
“Wait—they’re not trying to wake the dragon up, are they?” Shroud asks, horror creeping into her voice.
Oobleck straightens abruptly with a too-loud “Of course!” He darts around the room as he speaks, gesticulating wildly. “Of course that’s what they’re trying to do—a powerful dragon was terrorizing the area and so it was put to sleep through magical means—which, as you noted, Myrtle, are now damaged—” he waves a hand towards the defaced runes without a pause, “and then, as the years passed, the beast became little more than a legend of a powerful being—our friends in the White Fang have likely been trying to unearth the creature in preparation of waking it up through an even more powerful magical ritual—seemingly both arcane and divine in origin—possibly in hopes of controlling the creature or having it finish what it started all those years ago.”
“Did you breathe during that?” Yang asked Velvet, who merely took another sip of Red Bull before wrapping up the speech from Oobleck.
“Guildmaster Ozpin must be informed of this immediately; we may be too late—you four need to head back to the city as quickly as you can; I will stay behind to study the remains of the ancient spells and try to undo the damage they’ve already done.”
They took a moment to stretch and refill drinks before settling back at their seats to make their way out of the mine. There was a loud pop as Yang cracked open a beer with a gap in her prosthetic joints.
Blake looked at her curiously. “Should you be doing that?”
“It’s durable enough to handle some pull-tabs.” Yang shrugged as she took a swig.
“I thought you said to never split the party?” Weiss asked the table in general, even as she moved her white token to follow the rest of them.
“He’s an NPC, he doesn’t count,” Ruby said, moving her token out towards the middle of the map.
“Wait, Ruby don’t—”
Shroud’s warning came too late, however, and Rose surges forward into an area of the cavern they hadn’t searched earlier, tripping an unseen Alarm. The entire room fills with the din of ringing bells.
A single White Fang grunt comes out to investigate—shouting to his friends when he sees the four of them.
Velvet stood and set out more miniatures.
“Now the die is cast,” Weiss commented, looking pointedly at Yang and tossing a d20 across the table.
Blake eyed the distinctly colored figure positioned at the front of the grouping. “That one must be some sort of mini-boss.”
A young female elf emerges from the shadows, with a half-dozen White Fang members in her wake. Even for an elf, she’s on the short side.
“Sounds more like a mini mini-boss,” Yang muttered under her breath. She dodged the incoming popcorn kernel from Ruby.
“She looks wildly out of place—dressed in a corset and pantsuit in pastel pink, brown, and white.” Velvet pointed at the token in question that was, in fact, a mix of those three colors. “She doesn’t appear to be armed; she’s only carrying a parasol.” She turned to the players. “What did everyone get for initiative?”
“16!” Ruby leaned in closer to study the token. “That’s so cool! How did you get it to look like that?”
Velvet let out a small laugh. “Printing error, actually. The elven warrior’s shield ended up looking more like a lace parasol when the nozzles went wonky. But Neopolitan—” she gestured at the miniature, “has become one of my favorite tokens!” She turned to Weiss for the rest of the initiative results.
“13...”
“27!”
“18.”
“Okay: enemy leader first, Blake, Yang, grunts, Ruby, then Weiss.”
The four of them exchanged a look—it was the first time that campaign that someone had managed to get the drop on Blake’s character.
The elf saunters towards the four of them, tactically positioning herself next to Ember and does nothing more.
Shroud lets out a low curse and moves closer to flank the elf, who looks over her shoulder with a cheeky smile and swings her parasol at Shroud, who barely manages to duck in time. She slips in with her kusari-gama and—
“Wait, are you adding a flanking bonus to that 23 to hit?” Velvet asked, peering over the DM’s screen to look at the placement of their tokens.
Blake looked at the map where “Shroud” and “Ember” were clearly flanking the enemy. “Yes...?”
“Right. Correction: that missed.”
Blake studied the tokens—her black one was opposite the enemy from Yang’s yellow one. “Should I not be adding the flanking bonus?” she asked, knowing that Velvet wouldn’t answer that.
“You’re flanking Neo, aren’t you?” Velvet asked cryptically, then prompted, “Yang, your turn,” when she made no move to roll, having also become distracted by the question of whether to add the additional two to hit.
Ember steps forward slightly to deliver a Flurry of Blows—right fist connecting solidly with the elf’s jaw but the left missing by a wide margin. The rest of the members of the White Fang close the distance, one heading towards Myrtle, but the majority of them focus in on the main combat.
Velvet scowled down at her dice. “The White Fang grunts all missed. Okay, everyone—”
“Velveeeeet,” whined Ruby, “at least describe how they whiffed! C’mon, this is a role playing game!”
“Says the little munchkin!” The DM let out an exasperated groan. “Fine.”
Two White Fang grunts, armed with bows and arrows, manage to miss their targets by quite frankly embarrassing margins given their proximity. One swings a halberd in a wide overhead strike, but only manages to embed the axehead in a wooden truss above. Another, twirling a large mace, finds his powers of depth perception failing him, missing Myrtle by a good three feet and nearly maiming another grunt on the backswing. Grunt Number Five wields a pair of menacing daggers, which do little more than create a light breeze in Ember’s very general vicinity.
“The sixth, wielding an unremarkable long sword...” Velvet sounded positively drained at this point, but Ruby still looked on expectantly. “He... um... swings and misses.”
Yang let out an amused snort at the disappointment that flooded her sister’s face.
“Now, everyone, roll a Spot check.” Even Weiss groaned at that, having quickly learned to hate those words.
“21!”
“13.”
“22.”
“18?”
“All right. Rose and Shroud notice shifting shadows at the far end of the tunnel—up towards the entrance. It seems as though another group is coming towards you.” Velvet added a single token to the side of the map that indicated the mine’s entrance.
Ruby studied the table. “I could move forward, see what’s going on,” she said, tracing a potential path with her finger. It would provoke at least two attacks of opportunity.
“No!” shouted the other three.
Blake smiled when she heard Weiss join in. She’d known Weiss would have no trouble getting the hang of things.
“Never split the party!” Yang admonished. “That’s the fastest way to get us all killed.”
“Ruby, it’s your turn.”
Rose spares one last glance down the tunnel at the incoming foes but focuses on the battle directly in front of her. Quickly darting forward, she swings her massive scythe, yelling triumphantly when the White Fang grunt falls to a single strike. A quick ninety-degree turn to the right and she takes down the next without a second thought.
Weiss frowned at her spell sheet. With an additional fight looming, it wouldn’t do to burn all her high-level spells right away—not that she should be firing into the melee unless she was certain she would hit only the enemy.
Blake leaned over and pointed at “Wand of Magic Missile (7th)” on Myrtle’s character sheet when she saw Weiss floundering over spells. “It doesn’t do a lot of damage, but it can’t miss and it won’t use up your spell slots.”
Myrtle draws and brandishes the wand, saying a word that makes the air around her shimmer, and four bolts fly forth, unerringly finding their elven target who neatly dodges Shroud’s kusari-gama a moment later.
Shroud merely frowns, but Ember growls in frustration. “Hold still!”
But the elf just gives that same cheeky smile and adds a sly wink as she smacks Ember’s head with her parasol. In retaliation, Ember surges forward... and trips over her own feet, falling flat on her face.
“Seriously?” Yang griped, staring down at the d20 that had betrayed her twice in a row.
Velvet hid a smile behind one hand. “Could be worse, I once was in a party where someone rolled so many 1s in a row they accidentally opened a portal to another dimension. We had a masked woman dressed in red and black armor and wielding a katana showing up to save—or attack—us randomly the rest of the campaign.” She moved the tokens of the remaining grunts to their new locations and added a few more at the tunnel entrance before beginning her own rolls. “Weiss, does 22 hit?”
She flinched. “It does.”
Velvet went back to scowling at her dice. “4 damage.”
Weiss let out a sigh of relief. “That’s not so bad.”
“Blake—17 doesn’t hit, does it?”
“Nope,” came the smug reply.
She scowled again. “Okay, Ruby.”
Rose closes distance to the elf and manages a devastating blow. She shakes her head as if dazed by the attack.
“Wait, I thought you said 23 didn’t hit a moment ago,” Blake asked, a touch indignantly.
“Mmm, no, your 23 didn’t hit.” Velvet clarified.
Blake’s eyes narrowed. “She’s a rogue?” If she was, she was a high-level one if Blake wasn’t able to flank her, thus losing the associated attack bonus.
“Could also be a barbarian,” Ruby pointed out. “They get that bonus at level 5.”
Velvet just shrugged. “Weiss?”
Myrtle moves five feet back and casts Scorching Ray, downing another White Fang grunt and injuring a second. Shroud manages to draw a little more blood from the elf and then steps away, trying to lure her from Ember’s prone form while the monk elects to hold off on her action for the time being.
Velvet rolled a couple of dice.
The elf looks around and studies Ember for a moment and then smiles. She twists the parasol and a wand comes out of the handle, which she waves. A moment later she disappears—her image shattering into a thousand pieces like glass.
“No! Not the loot!” Ruby bemoaned the loss.
Weiss’ brow furrowed and she flipped through the Player’s Handbook. “Did she say anything? Did I recognize the spell?”
“She didn’t say anything, just waved the wand and disappeared.”
“But illusion spells require a verbal component, don’t they?” She had stopped in the Feats chapter and was studying the rules on how to cast a silent spell.
“Illusion spells do, but who said it was an illusion spell?” Velvet asked, ear twitching again. “Yang? Your turn.”
Blake leaned over to Weiss. “How do you even know that? Didn’t I tell you not to memorize the handbook?” she teased.
“I didn’t read it cover-to-cover,” Weiss sniffed. “I was just very thorough in reading the relevant parts.”
There were still two low-level grunts in the immediate vicinity—and another group no more than two rounds away.
No longer threatened, Ember scrambles to her feet, then moves around to help Rose flank one of the remaining grunts.
The one between them swings with all his might at Rose, but barely gets through her chainmail, leaving little more than a scratch along her side. The other closes distance on Shroud, who dodges his clumsy blow.
Rose, muttering under her breath about not needing the help from Ember, easily slices through the grunt’s armor, felling him with a second solid hit from her scythe.
Engrossed in a spell description, Weiss didn’t notice it was her turn until Blake nudged her. “I’m going to cast Glitterdust.”
“Glitterdust?” Yang asked as Weiss leaned over the table to point on the map where she wanted to aim her spell: right in the middle of the newest batch of White Fang combatants.
“It’ll outline any invisible creatures in the area. I figure our short friend can’t be much further than here, based on movement speeds for medium creatures.”
“Did you account for a speed bonus if she’s a barbarian?” Ruby seemed doggedly determined to pin that particular class on the elf.
“I can’t account for every possibility—it only has a ten foot radius. I’m thinking that Blake’s assessment is more likely since she seemed to use a wand.” She looked up at Velvet. “The spell’s got a Will save against blindness as well as a massive hide penalty.”
Blake shuddered. “Keep it away from me!”
Velvet nodded, picking up her dice. “DC?”
“16.”
A golden orb speeds towards its destination, exploding some distance down the tunnel, covering everything in a ten-foot radius in a fine mist of gold light that clings to anything it touches. Two of the grunts stumble back, scrubbing at their masks in a futile effort to restore their sight.
Weiss looked up at Velvet expectantly.
“Sorry, Weiss, nothing new.”
She slumped back into her seat.
“That was a really good idea,” Blake reassured her.
“I hope she comes back; I want what she was carrying,” Ruby muttered.
Yang reached across the table and snagged Rose’s character sheet. “You probably can’t even use it!”
“I have ranks in Use Magic Device!” She tried—and failed—to reach the paper. “Yaaang, give it back!”
Yang passed the sheet over with a roll of her eyes.
“Blake, your turn,” Velvet said, shaking her head at their antics.
Shroud gives the sparkly grunts a sidelong glance, opting to let them come to the party rather than moving out to meet them. She focuses, instead, on the remaining grunt in front of her. Having been injured once already by Myrtle, he was easy enough to take down with her kusari-gama. She hesitates a moment, then moves forward in preparation of the next fight, the other three following shortly after.
The sound of heavy footsteps grows louder, signaling the White Fang lieutenant’s approach. He towers over even the tallest of the grunts fanned out behind him. Though menacing in stature, the effect is greatly lessened by the soft, shimmering gold sparkles that cling to every inch of uniform and skin. He raises his chainsaw and fires it up, but the ominous whirring noise is punctuated by the occasional splutter as motes of iridescent powder shoot out from the spinning teeth. “Finally, I get to kill a Schnee...”
Ruby raised an eyebrow. “Is... is that Yatsu’s voice?”
The groan from the couches confirmed that it was.
“And why am I being dragged into this?” Weiss added indignantly.
“’Cause you covered him in glitter?” snickered Yang.
The DM squeaked in startlement as she frantically flipped back and forth between several sheets of notes. “Bloody hell, I’m sorry, I’ve got the wrong dialogue for this scene. This is from... uh, a White Fang versus SDC storyline...” Velvet trailed off as she shrank under Blake’s withering look.
“It’s okay, I know the SDC is a boogeyman for faunus everywhere.” Weiss managed a small smile before bringing them back to the issue at hand. “But that doesn’t explain why Yatsuhashi’s an evil henchman.”
Blake broke from her attempts to set Velvet on fire with her eyes and cracked a smile. “It’s a pretty good story.”
Yang was grinning in anticipation. “I wanna hear!”
This time, Velvet’s groan matched Yatsuhashi’s.
“Velvs was having a hard time reaching equipment on a high shelf in the lab and Yatsu had tried to help by picking her up. She struggled, he dropped her—accidentally copping a feel in the process, and she was offended about the entire affair. He ended up taking her out to lunch to apologize, and they started dating soon thereafter.” Blake smiled at the memory. “They’ve been together since, but she trots out the ‘Banesaw’ character frequently as a running joke.”
Yang’s expression was nearly beatific as Blake wrapped up the story. “So you’re telling me that Yatsu picked Velvs up and then picked her up?” Blond eyebrows waggled salaciously. A jelly bean and three popcorn kernels flew at Yang in response. She managed to catch the candy in her mouth and deflected the rest with her mechanical hand. “Thanks guys!”
“So, same initiative order for the party as the previous encounter,” Velvet began briskly, trying to steer the conversation back to the game as she rolled for the incoming combatants. “Blake, Yang, and Ruby have already gone this round, so the grunts, Weiss, and then Banesaw are up next.”
The blinded grunts do little more than make a nuisance of themselves. Even their comrades are careful to step away from their flailing weapons before making attacks on the adventurers. Two of the grunts connect with their sword swings against Ember and Rose, and the third’s arrow finds its mark in Myrtle. The fourth growls as his spear hits nothing but empty space where Shroud once was. The wizard takes the opportunity to send a pair of fiery rays at him, scorching cloth and skin alike.
Banesaw advances on Myrtle, driving her into a corner. In such close proximity, the wizard cannot cast spells without provoking an attack of opportunity so she turns to the only option she has: her quarterstaff. She deals piddling damage but manages to knock a bit of glitter off his shoulder. He merely laughs at the blow but frowns as he spots the cloud of gold sparkles floating off his uniform. With a roar, Banesaw grabs Myrtle by the face and slams her bodily into the rocky floor and succeeds in pinning her to the ground.
The DM smirked a little as she tipped the white token onto its side.
Weiss glanced up from the handbook in her lap with a look of consternation. “I have, like, negative strength. There’s no way I can unpin myself...”
Velvet’s smirk only intensified.
“Hrmph mrg?” the wizard calls out, but the plaintive plea is stifled by the giant hand over her mouth and most of her face. She settles for waving her arms.
Somehow her companions manage to understand her muffled cries and thrashing limbs. Myrtle is unable to see the attacks, but the sounds of a chain wrapping around her assailant and fists connecting solidly with flesh are unmistakable. The whistle of a massive blade sounds through the air and—finally!—the hand pinning her lets go, leaving her free to pick herself up.
Shroud is standing to one side, frowning at the faint clouds of glitter swirling around the retreating Banesaw as she unconsciously scrubs her hand against her own tunic. “Does this stuff go away?”
Myrtle grins to herself. “It will once you kill him!”
“Consider it done!”
With a slew of attacks that defy physics, Shroud lands several crippling hits against the White Fang lieutenant. An uppercut from Ember catches him in the stomach and a mighty headbutt connects with his chin with a sickening crunch. His giant form falls to the ground, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. “Kill steal!” Shroud grumbles.
Ember merely shrugs. “Did you want him down or not?”
Shroud prods at the body, still faintly shimmering with gold iridescence. “Isn’t this supposed to disappear once he’s—”
“Did you just manipulate me into killing Banesaw?” Blake hissed at Weiss, but only received a grin in reply.
The white-suited, orange-haired elf appears in a huff at the far end of the tunnel, taking in the situation with a sweeping glance. He looks angry, but not all that surprised, cursing loudly in an Elvish tongue. With a visible effort he clears the irritation from his face and turns towards the adventurers. “Not so pleased to make your acquaintance,” he says with a bow as he doffs his hat, “I’m Torchwick, head of the... joint business venture here.” Despite the chaos around him, he keeps his tone suave and self-assured, as if he’s introducing himself at a cocktail party.
“Nice to meet you, too, Captain Exposition,” replied Yang, teasingly.
Velvet bristled. “Listen here, we’ve got eighteen pages of character background to get through, so the less time you waste interrupting me, the better.”
“Pff, nice try.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s his favorite scotch?”
“Mr. Torchwick is more a bourbon man, but if pressed, he prefers a Laphroaig single malt, 30-year-old, of course,” Velvet answered without missing a beat.
Yang let out a defeated huff. “You win this round.”
He rapidly barks commands to several of the grunts still in the melee, evidently no stranger to violence. “Take care of these kids. I have to find Neo.”
“We need to stop him!” Rose shouts.
“But we can’t just go after him with these mobs still attacking us!” Ember grunts as she weathers a glancing blow from a mace.
The adventurers turn to look at Myrtle. “Got any area-of-effect spells?” asks Rose, casually parrying a sword swing with the haft of her scythe.
The wizard winces as an arrow nicks her leg. “I’m running low on higher level spell slots, and it looks like we’ve got at least one more fight ahead of us...”
Rose’s gaze alights on the Dust crates stacked along the tunnel wall. “I’ve got an idea...”
Shroud follows Rose’s line of sight and picks up on the plan immediately. She runs one end of the fuse along the back of the boxes. Upending an open crate, she dumps the contents between the wall and the rest of the stack, over the cord. She unwinds the rest of the coil, backing away from the pile of Dust as she does before striking a tindertwig on the rough rock floor and lighting the makeshift incendiary.
Velvet stared pointedly at Blake, the faint drumming of fingers audible from behind the DM’s screen.
“What?”
“I thought you said you weren’t going to firebomb anything.”
Blake’s lips were pressed into a thin line as she fished for a response. “You’re not wrong,” she admitted reluctantly, “but this was Ruby’s idea. Now did I roll well enough for this to work?”
A sharp explosion tears through the mine shaft, followed by the rumbling of falling rocks and faint patter of debris. The large gout of flame takes out the final White Fang grunts, but Torchwick is outside the blast radius and remains unaffected. He wastes no time and runs towards the center of the chaos, away from the adventurers, and disappears. When the smoke clears, a new passage is visible. Those closest to the entrance, and Shroud, can see that the floor of the tunnel slopes upwards, and a faint light is visible in the distance.
Rose lags behind the group as they make their way through the gap.
“Rose!” Ember shouts when she notices.
“But he had a chainsaw!” she whines, though she picks up the pace, regardless, to join the rest of the party.
Racing forward towards the sounds of machinery, the adventurers struggle to adjust to the brightness of natural light as as they peer out from the bowels of the mine into the sprawling open air cavern. Towards the mouth of the cave is a massive airship, larger than any vessel commonly used for transport. It is tethered loosely by several ropes.
Sweeping aside the tokens on the map, Velvet unrolled a large, laminated grid onto the table, the markered-in lines depicting a “room” vastly larger than the close quarters of the mines they had all gotten used to. The DM hurriedly placed down a dozen-odd tokens and markers indicating the positions of various people and items of interest, but the airship itself was large enough to be represented by a second gridded diagram layered atop the first.
“Make a Spot check.”
“11.”
“14.”
“8.”
There was a smattering of mockery for the scout of the party rolling so poorly, but it was silenced with a scowl.
“19!”
Velvet nodded approvingly.
The distinct orange hair and black hat of Torchwick is visible beyond the glare of the setting sun, gesturing with a cane towards the tethers. Several grunts, cowed by his shrieks of fury, scuttle off to do his bidding. Torchwick storms up the airship’s ramp in a huff.
“Does it look like the airship is ready to take off?” asked Blake.
Velvet nodded. “Although still tethered down, the airship is clearly being prepared for departure. The ramp is being stowed—it could take off at any minute.” She consulted her notes. “From your position, you’re just under 200 feet away.”
Shroud hunched low, keeping her body pressed against the cavern’s rock. “We should try to sneak aboard,” she murmurs. “There doesn’t seem to be too many guards, so if we stick to the shadows, we should be able to make it to the underbelly without being spotted.”
Ember snorts at that. “Why bother? Thing doesn’t look so tough. If we hit it with everything we’ve got we could probably cripple it right here.”
“Wait, are we supposed to get onto the airship or destroy it?” asked Weiss, turning to Velvet. The DM shrugged unhelpfully.
“We definitely need to get someone on that airship, before it’s too late,” whispers Rose. “I propose me.”
Weiss didn’t miss the way Blake, Yang, and Velvet all rolled their eyes, with varying degrees of discretion.
“There’s not a lot of cover,” murmurs Shroud. “And you’re not exactly stealthy. I don’t know if you can make it without being spotted and attacked.”
“That’s why you guys are going to create a distraction for me,” Rose hurriedly explains, her tone suggesting the debate is already over. “Myrtle and Shroud, you two hang back and pin them down with ranged attacks. Ember, you’ll move to those crates there—try to keep their attention occupied.”
Ember blinks, stupefied at how Rose is trying to rope everyone into her ridiculous scheme.
“With the mooks focusing on you guys, I’ll move in a wide arc along the cavern wall like so...” Ruby gestured to the grid, tracing a finger along the closest line on the map.
“What happens to those of us who stay behind?” asks Myrtle.
Rose shrugs. “Then I turn around and create a distraction for the rest of you to get aboard. Shouldn’t be hard if it looks like we’re flanking them. Or you could find some other way to follow me.”
“That’s splitting the party!” hisses Ember.
“You can see several of the guylines being untied. The airship is already being buffeted slightly by the wind, it looks ready to sail at the drop of a hat.”
“And what if we get stuck down—”
“Only a single rope keeps the airship tethered to the ground at this point.” Velvet moved several tokens on the map around, towards the final guyline. “The grunts are beginning to relax again, now that their job is almost done.”
“We’re not going to have time to board it,” growls Shroud. “Does anyone see any other way we could follow—”
“I can make it!” Rose insists. “Using Haste,” she pulls a red bottle off her belt and waves it meaningfully, “I can sprint there in less than six seconds,” she explains as she uncorks and chugs the potion.
“Ruby, don’t!” Yang pleaded, but her sister was already sliding her avatar across the map.
Rose zooms towards the airship, moving at three times the speed of a normal human. Velvet rolled a few dice behind her screen. The White Fang mercenaries are immediately alerted to her presence and raise their weapons menacingly. One raises the alarm.
“Dust!” Ember swears. “You two, try to suppress the grunts by the final rope, keep them from untethering.” She balls her fist. “She’s not getting away that easily.”
“Torchwick is a male dark elf, Yang,” reminded Velvet, slightly puzzled. She thought this had been established already.
“I meant my sister,” growled Yang in reply. She jabbed a finger angrily in Ruby’s direction. “Never. Split. The. Party.”
The clatter of dice filled the air.
Myrtle casts Color Spray in the direction of the two grunts nearest the tether and they stumble around dazed as a garish rainbow floods their vision.
Gasping for breath, Rose makes it to the airship, fingers curling around the rope netting the balloon.
Ember comes to within sixty feet of the base of the ropes, running at full-tilt directly towards the ship, but Rose is already clambering across the netting, making her way towards the starboard entrance.
Shroud looses a bolt, striking one of the dazed White Fang guards. He’s gravely injured but still standing.
Apparently sensing Ember’s plan, one of the grunts turns his back to the fight and sprints for the last rope keeping the airship in place. His sword is drawn, and there is no mistaking his intent to cleanly slice through the rope.
“M, freeze him!” Ember calls over the chaos.
Myrtle panics, casting the only thing that came to mind. “Ray of Frost!” she shouts, as a faint blue ray pings off the grunt’s armor, having about as much effect as a hastily thrown ice cube.
Ember shoots Myrtle an incredulous look. “What was that?!”
“It’s the only ice spell I have!”
Ember continues sprinting towards the airship, but she can’t hope to close the distance in time. “I’m not going to make it! Just stop that damn grunt however you can!”
Furrowing her brow, Myrtle’s fingers move in a blur of motion, the wizard muttering quietly as she prepares to cast Fireball—
Velvet interrupted. “There’s some half-finished constructions in the way and the engines and wind are kicking up a great deal of flying debris. You’ll need to roll to hit: DC 15 and add your dex bonus and attack bonus. Do you still want to do it?”
The wizard narrows her eyes in determination and completes the incantation. A moment later a brilliant red beam streaks out from between her fingers, sizzling through the air as it is launched in the direction of the moving grunt. But she can only watch in horror as the ship bucks in a gust of wind and the guyline goes slack, putting it directly in the line of fire. The Fireball blossoms to life prematurely, catching the running grunt—as well as his two comrades—by surprise in the periphery of the flaming sphere, felling all three immediately. It also incinerates the rope he was so desperately trying to sever and scorches a large section of the hull as the airship lurches forward, no longer held down by its moorings. Bone-chilling screeches fill the air.
Velvet slid the diagrammed airship towards the edge of the cavern.
“Guys?” Rose glances over her shoulder. She sees the other members of her party growing more distant with each passing second.
Running at a dead sprint, Ember nevertheless loses ground to the departing airship. Barring a miracle, she will never catch it before it clears the cavern’s entrance.
Shroud hisses something under her breath and fires her crossbow at the last remaining White Fang grunt. He falls to the ground a moment later, a bolt protruding from his throat.
“Guys!”
The airship clears the cavern, passing over the edge of a cliff. It is soon drifting over the forest, following the winding river below. The rest of the engines kick in a moment later and it lurches forward towards an unknown destination.
“Were we supposed to be on that?” Weiss asked the DM for the second time.
Velvet said nothing, and this time nobody missed the way her ear twitched.
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From birth to maturity: a group of patients who have completed their protocol management. Part II. Isolated cleft palate.
The optimal management of the cleft palate patient from birth to completion of treatment continues to present a formidable challenge to the plastic surgeon. The management by multidisciplinary teams is well established, but long-term outcome data of cases managed by protocol remain sparse. This study continues to present the results of the Australian Craniofacial Unit of patients with isolated cleft palate who completed protocol management at the unit under the care of the senior author (D.J.D.) during the 29-year period from 1974 to 2003. A retrospective study of the outcomes in relation to facial growth, speech, hearing, and occlusion is presented of patients with an isolated cleft palate. Thirty-two cases were identified from the departmental database, involving 17 female patients and 15 male patients. Cephalometric analysis at skeletal maturity revealed a range of facial growth, and maxillary advancement surgery was deemed necessary in just two cases. Speech results were evaluated using speech therapy assessments during development and at maturity. At maturity, 18 of 32 patients were assessed as being within normal limits. The hearing was within -20 dB, with just two exceptions. Overall, these is a range of outcomes, but the results confirm that facial growth does not appear to be adversely affected by use of the pushback technique to reconstruct the palate.
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I have mental illness. I’ve seen doctors; they’ve diagnosed me. I suppose I could go into all the gritty details of my diagnoses, which would make all the armchair psychologists come out of the woodwork to give me advise on how to overcome my mental illness and become a better person. I’m not going to do that.
2016 was a very bad year. I went into it very optimistically, thinking that maybe I could finally line up my ducks and move forward with my life and plans. That didn’t happen. One thing led to another, which led to disappointment following disappointment. I tried writing it all off, but there are some things that can’t be swept under the rug and ignored.
2017 hasn’t turned out so hot for me either, in many ways. There has been a lot of good. I won’t say that everything is bad, because it isn’t. It’s just that the bad outweighs the good, no matter how much of each there is. The bad always weighs more. It bogs one down until the load feels too overburdening to carry. And then I want to lay down and just stop breathing.
It’s been a very long time since I last updated this blog, so I should back up and fill everyone in on what’s going on in my brain. I returned to college after a 23 year absence and started working towards a degree in a field that interests me. It hasn’t been easy for me, because I’m much older than most of my classmates, and it’s a heavily male-dominated field. Every time I would get excited about achieving something, I would get knocked down by friends who mock me and accuse me of bragging. I guess I’m not supposed to be excited at finally being good at something. School has not always been easy for me – not now, and not back in my high school days. When I struggle with something, my brain tells me that I’m not good enough, and that I should just give up. My parents were always good about reinforcing the fact that I was never good enough, and that I’d never be as successful or intelligent as my sister. I don’t recall a single time when either of my parents have ever said they were proud of me, for anything. I’m not praiseworthy. I’m not anything. My brain tells me to give up. It’s not worth fighting for a sliver of recognition about anything. I’m not worth fighting for.
Logically, I know that my mental illness is giving me bad messages. Logically, I know that my thoughts are damaged. Logically, I know that depression lies. Mental illness isn’t logical. Mental illness is pulling my hair out by the roots or digging my nails into my own skin until I bleed, just to feel the pain. Mental illness is downing the last half of my prescription bottle of painkillers, just to see what would happen. Mental illness is jumping off the end of a pier, just to see if I would float. Thankfully (?) so far, mental illness hasn’t won. It probably will, someday.
According to my family, I could permanently cure my major depressive disorder by thinking happy thoughts instead of dwelling on negative ones. According to my family, the medications I take are unnecessary and probably filled with all kinds of things that are bad for me, and may cause cancer. (Then again, I’ve had cancer, so maybe they’re right.) According to my family, if I would just change my diet and exercise more, I wouldn’t feel sad anymore. It would seem that I’m the only person in the entire history of both sides of my family to have ever battled mental illness, so it must be in my head. Well yeah, that’s exactly where my mental illness is… in my head.
That’s the mental illness part (for now), here’s the fear part. I’m scared that I’ll never get better. I’m scared that something will happen that will hit me at just the wrong time, and I’ll actually push myself too far. I’m scared that no one will care. And after that, I’m scared that no one will take care of my cats. Let’s face it, they are the only reason I’m still alive some days. Some days, the pain (both real, physical pain and mental pain) is so bad that I don’t want to be here any longer. Right now, the stabbing headache from my screwed up spine hurts so badly I can barely breathe. I overcame my fear of chiropractors a couple weeks ago, when I met a very kind one through a friend. He’s been trying to help with my headaches because he says the pain I’m experiencing doesn’t match up with what the x-rays tell him. In 7 visits, we’ve gone from “no change at all” to “severely worse pain.” This is not an improvement. I want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head until the world goes away.
That’s a favourite song of mine, by Dave Barnes. It’s an oddity to me because it’s a breakup song, but the lyrics call to me in a way that not many songs do. (I highly recommend searching out the song and listening to it sometime) The gist of it is that what we want is not always what we get – in case you didn’t figure that out by the song title. I think we all have those things that we want, that we know we’ll never have, but which doesn’t stop us from wanting them regardless. Sometimes even selfishly.
When I moved back to San Diego in July 2008, I told myself that it was a temporary thing while I sorted out several life altering things that had turned my world upside down. My goal was always to get back to the place I loved. Home is where the heart is, and my heart is back in South Carolina. Well, here I am 7 years later, and I still haven’t made it back “home.” I’ve gotten to the point mentally where I question myself as to whether I love South Carolina because that is where I truly was at my happiest (barring a couple really bad months) or if I’m fondly remembering a place that my mind has altered to seem better than it really is, simply because I despise San Diego so much. And I do despise San Diego that much. The only things I love about this place are a few people who have made my life richer by being here.
Everything happens for a reason, and right now, I’m extremely torn. It looks like I will be given the opportunity to relocate back to my beloved Carolinas as soon as my knee is completely healed, and that is screwing me up mentally. I loved the Carolinas very deeply. Maybe because it was my first taste of true independence. I basically threw a dart at a map and ended up there by chance when I had the opportunity to escape San Diego back in 2004. I drove for three days with a two year old and two crying cats, arriving in the middle of a hurricane. Ivan, if you care. From the very first day, I was in love. I’d never seen a place so lush and green, with water everywhere and gorgeous old buildings.
The longer I stayed, the more I loved it. I met some incredible people and found my way to a job that I actually really enjoyed, and at the end of the day, I could dip my feet into a lake or stream and mentally escape. It wasn’t all wine and roses though. Towards the end, some things happened that caused me to move back to San Diego. I started regretting that decision almost as soon as I started driving west, and by the time I reached the California border, I had to pull over because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see. I hated myself for moving back and swore that as soon as I could afford to, I’d head east again.
Then, the doubts crept in. Do I love the Carolinas or do I just despise San Diego and anywhere else would be better? I flew back to Charlotte for my birthday the following February, and said that the only gift I wanted was to see snow. It almost never snows in the Piedmont, so I knew it was a long shot, but minutes after I collected my rental car and started driving to my friend’s house where I would be staying, the flurries started. It felt like the Carolinas were welcoming me back with open arms and begging me to return. Getting on the plane to return to California hurt even worse than driving away. I told myself then that I couldn’t return unless I was returning for good. It was like running into an old love from whom you parted amicably. Best not to spend too much time or mental energy chasing down all the what ifs. And there are a lot of what ifs.
So, what’s next for me? If everything falls into place, do I return to my true love knowing that time changes things and that the enchantment may no longer be there? Heraclitus once said “You cannot step twice into the same river” and that is true. By your second step, both you and the river have changed. I just don’t know how the changes I’ve undergone over the past seven years will affect my love of a place that once filled me with happiness. Perhaps I should consider a new place to call home, so I’d be out of my hated San Diego, and can keep my fond memories of the Carolinas as fond memories. Maybe I should stay in San Diego and remember that the people I love here outweigh the hatred I have for the city. I’m lost. I’m confused. I’m even a little bit scared. This is something I’ve wanted so badly for so long that I no longer know if I actually want it or if the wanting of it is just a mental twist. Sometimes, having mental illness really sucks. I can’t trust my brain to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A niggling thought in the back of my mind is yelling to GO FOR IT! Even if it’s no longer the perfect oasis that I remember, I still have a support system there, and it would be better than living somewhere I hate.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve had some screwy weather around here. It’s been super hot and muggy more days than not, which means that personal productivity is slightly higher than a tortoise galloping through mud. However, since I’ve been dealing with nearly two weeks of insomnia this time around, I figured I’d put it to good use.
I’ve been spending a good portion of the evening, night, and early morning to clean and organize my house. It’s relatively cool, considering the nice breeze from the fan that’s blowing on me, so I just put on some music and get stuff done. In an ideal world, I’d like to have my room completely organized before my knee surgeries.
I knocked out a big chunk of my to do list today by doing some remodeling in my closet. I hung up a new clothes bar with a shelf over it, so that I have more room to store things, and I plan on adding some additional shelving in there as well. I’ve also dismantled part of the Elfa system that was in my room and reconfigured it to make it more user-friendly for me. By the time I’m done, I should have an actually functional room that will be easy to maintain and look a lot less messy.
I love the satisfaction of writing out lists of things I want to accomplish, and being able to check things off once they’re completed. I guess that’s the super-organized overachiever part of my personality. I don’t like when things are messy and I can’t find what I want. It drives me nuts. I’m also taking the time to do some more crocheting. Again, it is immensely satisfying to see the progress as I stitch together whatever the hell it is I’m making.
Yesterday (September 7) was the one year anniversary of trashing my knee, and I’m getting to the point where reading is getting boring. While I was out of work on full disability, I was reading an average of 600 pages a day, because I just wasn’t able to do anything more than go to the kitchen or bathroom, or to the doctor’s office or physical therapy. Slowly but surely, things are coming together. I’m still waiting on whether or not my surgeries will be approved; I plan on calling WC tomorrow (today?) and trying to get an answer from them. The new claim rep that has been assigned to me doesn’t have a direct phone number listed, and I can’t find him in the company directory when I try to call. If I can’t track him down, I’ll call my previous WC admin and see if she can get me his phone number. There are things I need to discuss with him in addition to trying to settle the surgery plans.
I’m just so ready to move on with my life now, so I can start the next chapter and see where it leads me. I feel like I’m walking up a down escalator. One step after another, with no forward progress in sight. Fortunately, I seem to be keeping the depression at bay for now, which is making things a lot easier for me. I still have just the edge of anxiety gnawing at my subconscious, but I’m doing my best to ignore it, and mostly succeeding. The not knowing what’s happening next is the hardest part of the whole situation.
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Kyocera (NYSE:KYO)Historical Stock Chart
5 Years : From Dec 2011 to Dec 2016
Kyocera
Corporation (NYSE:KYO)(TOKYO:6971) today announced its consolidated
financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012, as
summarized below. Complete details are available at: http://global.kyocera.com/ir/financial/f_results.html
667.23
451.90
-
-
5.51
4.11
Note: As a convenience to the reader, U.S. dollar (USD) and euro
(EUR) conversions are provided based on the rates of USD1 = JPY82
and EUR1 = JPY110, rounded to the nearest unit.
Summary of Consolidated Financial ResultsWhile sales and
operating profit increased in some reporting segments during the year
ended March 31, 2012 ("the period"), these gains were not sufficient to
offset the negative impact of other factors influencing Kyocera's
consolidated results — including the yen's continued appreciation
against the euro and U.S. dollar; weak demand for components used in
consumer electronic equipment; and a decline in sales of mobile phones.
Consequently, Kyocera's overall results declined during the period in
comparison with the year ended March 31, 2011 ("the prior period").
Specifically, consolidated net sales for the period decreased 6.0%
compared to the prior period, to JPY1,190,870 (USD14,523) million;
profit from operations decreased 32.3%, to JPY105,575 (USD1,288)
million; income before income taxes decreased 28.7%, to JPY122,793
(USD1,497) million; and net income attributable to shareholders of
Kyocera Corporation decreased 32.3%, to JPY82,901 (USD1,011) million.
"Although this fiscal year was characterized by a difficult business
environment, we nevertheless made strategic efforts through merger and
acquisition to enhance the future growth prospects of the Kyocera
Group," stated Tetsuo Kuba, president of Kyocera Corporation. "In July
2011 we added the Denmark-based industrial cutting tools manufacturer
Unimerco Group A/S as a wholly owned subsidiary; as well as the
Japan-based LCD manufacturer Optrex Corporation in February of this
year. These acquisitions will allow us to further expand our sales
networks and enhance our business in each respective market."
28,731
10,791
(17,940)
(62.4)
132
98
Note: As a convenience to the reader, U.S. dollar (USD) and euro
(EUR) conversions are provided based on the rates of USD1 = JPY82
and EUR1 = JPY110, rounded to the nearest unit.
Consolidated Forecasts for the Year Ending March 31, 2013During
the year ending March 31, 2013 ("fiscal 2013"), despite uncertainties
regarding the European economy and exchange rates, the Japanese economy
is forecast to move toward recovery due to demand from reconstruction
projects following the Great East Japan Earthquake. In addition, the
U.S. economy is expected to recover moderately while the Chinese economy
is expected to show continued strong growth.
Kyocera expects recovery in production of consumer electronic equipment
as the impact of the Thai floods dissipates; as well as an increase in
demand for components, primarily for smartphones. In the environment and
energy markets, demand is expected to show general improvement compared
with fiscal 2012, primarily due to projected growth from the expansion
of government subsidy policies, including the implementation of Japan's
Renewable Energy Law. Kyocera aims to enhance its financial performance
and expand its business in these potentially high-growth markets by
introducing new products, reducing costs, boosting productivity, and
pursuing synergies within the Kyocera Group. Specific financial
forecasts for fiscal 2013 are as follows.
451.90
523.30
-
Average USD exchange rate
79
80
-
Average EUR exchange rate
109
105
-
NOTE: Forecast of earnings per share is computed based on the
diluted average number of shares outstanding during the year ended
March 31, 2012.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTSExcept for historical information
contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release are
forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties
including, but not limited to, product demand, competition, regulatory
approvals, the effect of economic conditions and technological
difficulties, and other risks detailed in the Company's filings with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
About
KYOCERA
Kyocera
Corporation (NYSE:KYO)(TOKYO:6971) (http://global.kyocera.com/),
the parent and global headquarters of the Kyocera Group, was founded in
1959 as a producer of fine
ceramics (also known as "advanced ceramics"). By combining these
engineered materials with metals and plastics, and integrating them with
other technologies, Kyocera has become a leading supplier of printers,
copiers, solar power generating systems, telecommunications equipment,
electronic components, semiconductor packages, cutting tools and
industrial ceramics. During the year ended March 31, 2012, the company's
net sales totaled 1.19 trillion yen (approx. USD14.5 billion). The
company is ranked #426 on Forbes magazine's 2012 "Global 2000"
listing of the world's largest publicly traded companies.
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Partial impairment of immune functions in peripheral blood leukocytes from aged men with Down's syndrome.
Down's syndrome (DS) has been considered a model of accelerated aging and of Alzheimer's disease. We investigated immunologic functions using peripheral blood leukocytes in order to correlate the production of cytokines and development of neuropathological changes of Alzheimer type in aged persons with DS. Cytokine production (IL-1beta, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-alpha), phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated proliferation of nonadherent monocytes, and superoxide anion production from polymorphonuclear leukocytes were measured. PHA-stimulated proliferation in aged individuals (>30 years old) with DS was significantly lower than that of age- and sex-matched controls (DS vs control, 55,707+/-5810 vs 88,310+/-6994 cpm, P < 0.001). PHA-stimulated IL-2 production was also significantly decreased in aged individuals with DS (DS vs control, 7.1+/-2.1 vs 10.7+/-1.3 ng/ml). Interestingly, the decrease of proliferation and IL-2 production in aged males with DS is significantly greater than in aged women with DS. PHA-stimulated proliferation and IL-2 production of nonadherent monocytes in females was not significantly reduced. IL-1beta production by LPS-activated adherent monocytes was significantly decreased in older adults with DS compared with non-DS controls. Other immune parameters measured in DS were not significantly different from that of age-matched controls. We conclude that there is partial impairment of T lymphocytes in aged persons with DS that is significantly greater in males than in females.
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'He’s kind of like a whirlwind.' Jim Gray changed Lexington. Can he change Congress?
Editor's Note: This is the first of three profiles of leading candidates in the Democratic primary to represent Central Kentucky's 6th Congressional District.
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray hopped in and out of a black SUV one recent Sunday in a Republican-leaning neighborhood not far from Lansdowne Shoppes.
At each stop, he checked a list of the registered Democrats he was targeting that day. He said the name once or twice, knocked on the door and asked for their vote in May.
One man who opened the door instantly recognized Gray, but told him he was having a hard time deciding between the three Democratic candidates in Central Kentucky's 6th Congressional District. He said he wished Gray had run for another term as mayor, or even governor.
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It wasn't the first time Gray has had to justify his presence in a race with two other strong Democrats.
Now, five months into the campaign, he’s worked the answer into his stump speech.
“Lexington is on the right track, our country isn’t,” Gray said in a recent iteration at his Lexington campaign headquarters. “There’s a lot going on in the country that deserves experienced people and seasoned people.”
Gray has been in charge since he was 19. After his father’s death in 1972, Gray helped run the family business, Gray Construction. He leveraged that business experience into running the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council as vice mayor in 2006 and then the entire local government as mayor for the last eight years.
Now he wants to start over. Should he get elected, Gray would walk into the Capitol a year before he’s eligible for full Social Security benefits as the junior member of the Kentucky delegation. After years of making executive decisions, he’ll be 0.2 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives, forced to work with others to achieve his goals.
Gray said he isn’t daunted by the prospect of coalition building and deal making. He shrugs off a question about whether he’ll enjoy being a legislator after years of being in charge.
“I’ve had that push back before, when I was on the city council,” Gray said. “But over time, if you’re persistent, then you can achieve the results that you hope to.”
Related stories from Lexington Herald Leader
For four years, Gray presided over the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, working with other people to pass legislation.
“Yes there’s only 15, but it’s still working with others, working together with others collaboratively to achieve something,” Gray said of his time leading the council. “And I know that these skill sets are unique.”
Gray started his term as vice mayor quietly, learning the ways of government, said Don Blevins Jr., who served on the city council for two years with him. There was a lot to learn.
“He gradually got the confidence and knowledge to use his position as a bully pulpit and try to execute change,” Blevins said.
As problems arose, Gray used his role to speak out, often calling for reform.
Shortly after the Herald-Leader published a report about the misuse of public funds by the executive director of Blue Grass Airport, Gray called for the resignation of the board chairman and an audit of the airport.
“He wasn’t so much about bringing legislation as he was steering the legislation of the day,” Blevins said.
Gray asserted himself most during a controversy about the proposed CentrePointe development. After years in the construction business, Gray questioned the plan to build a high-rise hotel and office building in downtown Lexington during the Great Recession. Even though steel frames are now rising from the ground 10 years later, Gray was largely proven right about a project derisively called “CentrePit.”
“He knew from his background building his company,” said Councilwoman Peggy Henson, who served on the council for the last two years of Gray’s term as vice mayor. “He knew what it took to build something of that magnitude and he didn’t see it happening.”
Overall, Blevins and Henson said they are impressed with the job Gray did leading the council and city.
“I think he did a better job as mayor than as a city councilman,” said Blevins, who is not endorsing anyone in the Democratic race because he is the Fayette County Clerk. “I don’t think he did a bad job as vice mayor, but he wasn’t introducing much legislation.”
Mike Scanlon, a Republican who preceded Gray as vice mayor, said Gray isn’t detail oriented and criticized his ability to legislate and govern.
“He’s going to go in there at 65 and he’s going to go in there as a junior with no stick,” Scanlon said. “I don’t think Jim knows how to operate unless he carries a big stick.”
It can take a lifetime for a representative to see his vision for a district come to fruition in a partisan U.S. Capitol that values seniority, but Gray said he’ll be able to make the transition.
“I’ve been able to adjust and adapt and that’s what I’ll be able to do here,” Gray said. “I try to make friends, I try to meet with people. I know that may sound corny and cliché, but that’s how you get things done. And especially in a legislative body.”
An executive’s vision
Gray has a skill set uniquely suited toward urban issues. Aside from his construction background, useful in a time when Lexington is deciding whether to expand into surrounding farmland or build within its existing boundaries, he studied urban planning at Harvard as a Loeb Fellow.
“His ideation skills are very good,” Scanlon said. “He can see things in a pile other people can’t see. He has a good imagination.”
While some have criticized his lack of attention to detail — a 2010 New Year’s message to Gray from the Herald-Leader editorial board shouted “Follow through! Become a details guy…” — almost all have complimented his ability to think outside of the box.
“He’s kind of like a whirlwind,” said Ann Stewart, Gray’s childhood friend who also worked for Gray Construction. “He’d want to achieve something, but how he’d get there might not be the normal way.”
“We often get frustrated trying to compromise,” Henson said. “He is able to find that common ground and be innovative about it.”
Gray has emphasized his mayoral record throughout his congressional campaign. In recent weeks, he has leaned particularly hard on the work he did to address an epidemic of opioid abuse.
While Gray touts his experience, others are busy painting him as an establishment Democrat. Gray has long been involved in Democratic politics in Kentucky, and the campaign of former fighter pilot Amy McGrath has used that connection as a foil to paint her as the outsider candidate.
"Voters like the idea of outsiders and people who can shake things up," said Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky.
That isn't to say voters will punish Gray for his experience, Voss said, but his time as mayor may not matter much to them this year.
"Voters don't seem to value experience as they once did," Voss said.
Fitting the role
Jim Gray first represented Kentuckians at the national level in 1972. As the youngest member of the Kentucky delegation elected to the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Gray fought to be taken seriously.
Back home, "some people say I'm not old enough to know anything," an 18-year-old Gray told the Associated Press at the convention.
That home was Glasgow, where Gray played trombone in the high school band, worked at the family's business on weekends and in the summer, and was occasionally called "Mr. Brooks Brothers."
Gray has spent a lot of time highlighting those rural roots this spring. It’s a political strategy — an effort to help the gay mayor with a contemporary art gallery in his home appeal to voters in the district's rural counties. But it also calls back an earlier time, when Gray, in his early twenties, had to prove himself in a cutthroat construction business.
Seven years after his father died, Gray Construction teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. As the company slowly worked its way back to profitability, Gray saw an opportunity with the Japanese market and aggressively pursued Japanese businesses.
"We were omnipresent, we were everywhere," Gray said of the company's effort to recruit Toyota to Kentucky. "We were going to win that contract and we were the only Kentucky contractor on that project. So that was a big inflection point. And that led to building for a lot of the suppliers."
Jim Gray conceded the Senate race to Rand Paul to supporters at Manchester Music Hall on Tuesday November 8, 2016 in Lexington, Ky. This week, he announced he is running for Andy Barr’s seat in Congress.
Mark Cornelison [email protected]
Gray has tried to morph his ability to recruit businesses into an ability to recruit voters. As he learned in 2016, when he challenged Rand Paul for his U.S. Senate seat, there's a big difference between local and federal politics. The spotlight is brighter, there are more voters and most of them don't know you personally.
In his 12 years in politics, Gray still hasn’t perfected the art of the stump speech. He sounds less like Willie Stark from "All The King's Men" on a stump and more like a student giving a presentation; writing answers in his head, then stopping and starting when they don’t come out as he intended.
Gray’s campaign says it’s what makes him authentic, that it shows the people of Central Kentucky that he is like them and not a polished politician.
But it’s unclear how his style would translate to the gloss of D.C., where U.S. Rep. Andy Barr can take a question about how people are angry at him for his support of Obamacare repeal and seamlessly spin it into an answer about why people are mad about Obamacare.
Gray sees the spin from people like Barr and, in a joke he has cracked several times on the campaign trail, says they need “adult supervision.”
“I think we’re at a particularly challenging time where voices of reason, voices of experience and reason will be effective,” Gray said. “And that’s what I’ve got.”
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray touts his experience as mayor of Lexington as a reason why voters should elect him to Congress in the Sixth Congressional District. [email protected]
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General Hospital's John J. York Chats On: If Mac Could Be Levi's Dad, Zachary Garred, Jon Lindstrom, & 23 Plus Years in Port Charles!
Last week on General Hospital, perennial good guy Mac Scorpio (John J. York) was shot by none other than treacherous Levi Dunkleman (Zachary Garred), after Levi’s true colors were revealed! As Mac stood there witnessing Maxie’s (Kirsten Storms) wedding by Felicia’s (Kristina Wagner) side, the camera panned to a hilarious shot of Mac crossing his fingers hoping that the wedding would be stopped. Mac has never liked Levi, and always thought something was off about the guy, and that the professed self help guru was completely the wrong man for Maxie.
As the wedding played out, it was revealed that Levi was after Felicia’s Aztec jewels and had tied up our hero Nathan (Ryan Paevey) in the process. When Dante (Dominic Zamprogna) found Nathan, the hot shot cop went to save Maxie from Dunkleman, only in the process, Maxie and Lulu (Emme Rylan) were taken hostage and Mac got shot! The story continues this week!
On-Air On-Soaps caught up with one of our favorite all-time General Hospital stalwarts John J. York at the recent GHFCW 2014 to get his thoughts on: what if it turned out that Levi was Mac’s biological son … or if he thinks we are way off the mark? Plus, John tells us if he is digging the current story involving “Dunkleman” and his on-screen family, and we take a moment to discuss the long time relationship between Mac and best bud, Kevin (Jon Lindstrom)!
I love the fact that Mac cannot stand Levi Dunkleman (Zachary Garred) which leads me to believe … he could possibly be his son?
Courtesy/Pinterest Photo: Becca Gomez Farrell
JOHN: I don’t thinks so, but it would be crazy if he was. How ironic if Levi is a little mysterious rogue kind of pirate like Mac was when he first came on the show.
JOHN: That’s right … Mac did too! So there are a lot of things that are going to be surprises coming up!
Do you like the current story? I always love checking in with you to get your thoughts on what’s unraveling on GH, since you always level with me and have great respect for fans of the show.
JOHN: I love the story, and I love Zachary. He’s great! You have to embrace the bad guy, and he got a lot of flack from fans at first. Many people for hundreds of years have gone through that. Some people didn’t like Susan Lucci when she played the more villainess side of Erica Kane on All My Children. So there is that love/hate thing, but Zachary is awesome.
Courtesy/ABC
I haven’t had the opportunity to tell you how much I liked the touching, albeit brief, moment between Mac and Kevin (Jon Lindstrom) at this years Nurses Ball when Kevin found out that Lucy (Lynn Herring) cheated on him with Scott (Kin Shriner). Kevin’s good bud Mac was there for him, as Kevin was walking out of the ball, and Mac walked out with him with his arm around his shoulder to support his friend. I think longtime fans of GH really understood that moment.
JOHN: Thank you very much. You know how I feel about Jon. I love him. I love him as a brother. We have had some really great memorable times: shaving our legs, smoking cigars, playing Norma and Eve, oh, my gosh. There has been so much great stuff. I always like when Jon comes back on the show. I really liked the scene after that, when it came out that Mac knew about the affair, and we had the fight. That was even more special to me, and then having a shot of whiskey and laughing about it afterwards. It was like two young brothers getting pissed off at each other and hamming it up.
Courtesy/ABC
It’s been 51 years of General Hospital and you are still here and beloved by the audience!
JOHN: It’s been 23 and half years for me. I am thrilled to still be a part of the show, I truly am.
So, do you think there is a chance that Mac and Levi are related? What do you think will happen next in the story as Mac is shot?
Have you enjoyed John J. York’s performance as Mac Scorpio over the last few decades? What do you think of the relationship between Mac and Kevin? Weigh-in on John’s comments in the interview below!
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jimh(leave it to beaver)
It was good to see Mac and Felicia used more…if Levi is Mac’s son who is Levi’s mum…who was Mac involved with before Felicia and is this woman Levis mum…maybe she’s been angry at Mac for whatever reason, told Levi a whole bunch of untrue lies about his DunkleDaddy Mac who was honestly unware he had a son, then Levi did research on Mac and thinking this is his daddy and was very mean to his mummy, decided revenge and that would be to steal the jewels but i still think he could be Flukes or Victors…maybe Levis mum lied and said Mac was his daddy when either Fluke or Victor really is and will find out long after Mac thinks he is the DunkleDaddy?
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August 18, 2014 9:21 am
Timmm
Levi could be Frisco’s kid Frankie. Frankie Jones could be the son of one of Frisco’s affairs while working at the WSB. He sent Frankie to steal the jewels off Felicia since she chose Mac over him?
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August 18, 2014 9:54 am
Karen
But that would mean that Levi slept with his own half sister.
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August 18, 2014 10:04 am
Timmm
Yeah, I didnt think about the Maxi factor. That would be gross but so is Milo and Epiphany!
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August 18, 2014 10:11 am
jimh(leave it to beaver)
Thats a good possibilty, Trimm…i like that one!
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August 18, 2014 10:19 am
jimh(leave it to beaver)
But Karen is right…that would make Maxi and Levi half siblings but since someone blatantly pointed out recently a certain unrelated subject happen in relife…maybe it could still be Levi’s father is Frisco’s…this wouldnt be the first time on a soap for an almost bro and sis pairing!!!
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August 18, 2014 10:28 am
Juls
But if he Frisco son Frankie, why would he wan to marry his sister? unless Maxie is not Fricso daughter, but Mac is.
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August 18, 2014 1:23 pm
Tim
Maxie was born Oct 31 1990,Mac didn’t come to PC untill 1991
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August 18, 2014 3:07 pm
MaxDaddee
I totally love John J York’s performance and role as Mac. I would like to see him have some higher profile story lines like he did years ago. Such as him hunting down where Maxie and Felicia are. Alot of exciting things could come out of all that. Maybe Mac will be bandaged up quickly and go in pursuit of hunting them down!
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August 18, 2014 9:25 am
Timmm
I cannot believe “Uncle Mac” has been on GH for over 23 years! This is a great character and a great guy. I only hope Levi is his son so Mac gets more air time. Him and Felicia kind of just hold up scenes with Maxi and Lucy right now and I would love it if Mac was back on the front burner again. The Aztec treasure could also bring back Frisco and Sean Donnely.
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August 18, 2014 9:49 am
janet
Frisco and Sean wow ! no thanks really . All FrankenRon have done is ruin all the characters they brought back. Love Mac, and would love to see him and Kevin on more. Plus Lucy away from the garbage they have her in now. I loved the old stories. They could at least put these four on more when the kids come back. They need Parents. Right now I dvr the show but I have no desire to watch it. The boards tell me all I need to know. Levi Dunklebore can return as his twin only if it gives us more mac.
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August 18, 2014 10:26 am
Timmm
You have a good idea Janet. Levi could have a twin and the actor recently cut his hair really short so who knows, maybe they are writing that very story?
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August 18, 2014 10:35 am
Shay
Timmm….Throughout this entire Dunkleman escapade, I have thought that the circumstances were screaming for Frisco to make an appearance. (In addition to other ongoing storylines that could easily and logically have featured his presence, too.) I love the idea of using legacy characters, but most of the ones currently on canvas simply bore me….they didn’t grab me the first time around, so to see them today really doesn’t gladden my heart, particularly when they are so spectacularly ridiculous in the storylines they are assigned. Lucy is a complete waste, as is Bobbie…their triangle with Scotty is ludicrous! As for Felicia, for me she has never been a stand-alone sensation…she owes her popularity to her ex, so to see her being propped up at his expense with the snarky remarks and jokes really dismays me. While Mac may be a perfectly decent fellow, he does nothing for me as he has been recently written….he’s just so ineffective….first as police commissioner, then with “Mr. Marbles'” and his corny shtick. I have nothing against York, but I often wonder why he is still around when other much more exciting male actors, like Jack Wagner and Rick Springfield, have been brushed aside. Since both are fathers to children who are major players in Port Charles, it would make much more sense to have them show up, even if only now and then…the excuses for and digs at their being absent fathers really rub me the wrong way, since I have only the fondest memories of both Frisco Jones and Noah Drake in their heyday. They helped make GH great, and for their images to be besmirched is just so wrong! In terms of Mac being the possible “Dunkledaddy” (Hat tip to jimh for coining that clever moniker!) I really don’t see it….if Levi (or whoever he is) should be attached to anyone in Port Charles it would probably be FLuke, and since the most feverish speculation points to him actually being Bill Eckert, then that would make Levi his real son, Sly. That would work for me, even though I can also think of some wildcard picks for other paternal figures for the “Dunkster.”
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August 18, 2014 7:56 pm
Timmm
Excellent points Shay. Yes, why haven’t we seen or heard from Noah. Patrick has been through hell and back and this would actually give him a story line and not a stunt casting to satisfy us super fans like they have with Scotty, Lucy, and Bobbie. Plus, Bobbie and Noah have history. Lucy has been a bust since Alan died. Your right about Felicia. Frisco could have sang “Lady of my Heart” to anyone and they would have been a fixture as long as Frisco was around.
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August 19, 2014 5:54 am
Shay
@Timmm….Yes, Noah’s conspicuous absence is mystifying. All we have heard of him as of late is that he dumped Bobbie for former GH nurse Anne Logan. Of course, I never could figure out why they put him back with the abominable Bobbie to begin with, other than that they were both supposedly at the same Seattle hospital. He broke up with her the first time because her past as a hooker caught up with her when the original Dr. Drake’s blue-blooded senator uncle visited Port Charles and recognized Nurse Spencer from one of his assignations at her Aunt Ruby’s cathouse. That should have been enough for him to swear off of her for good!!! At any rate, it has been quite unnatural not to see hide nor hair of Noah during Patrick’s many crises. Ditto for Frisco with all of Maxie’s melodrama….although I enjoyed his performance of “All I Need” at last year’s NB, it was an odd choice because it was not meant for Felicia, but Tania. (who I never liked…yuck!) I realize the fact that the song was a big hit for Jack Wagner was probably the reason behind the selection, but a much more appropriate choice would have been “Too Young.” The lyrics perfectly fit the situation and that tune was one of his finest! I still love it……
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August 19, 2014 10:09 pm
Timmm
“Too Young” was his best song EVER! It only charted at 52. It should have been #1!
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August 20, 2014 6:04 am
Wendelyn Sullivan
I agree. All I Need was the wrong choice for Frisco to sing to Felicia, Too Young, would have been better. I think Anna should contact Frisco, his Daughter has been kidnapped, his ex-Wives jewels were stolen. It makes sense that He would make an appearance. Why bring up the Aztec Jewels. That is Felicia and Frisco’s storyline, not Mac’s. Spinelli too, should know what is going on with Maxie. She’s his Baby Mama.
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August 22, 2014 8:26 pm
Shay
@Wendelyn Sullivan….So right on all points! It truly irks me that we currently have so many worthless and unnecessary filler characters on the GH canvas, while a great legacy role like Frisco Jones is overlooked and cast aside when it would be perfectly logical for him to be present and accounted for….ditto for Noah!!!
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August 22, 2014 10:32 pm
Shay
Totally agree with you, Timmm! The BEST! : )
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August 20, 2014 10:29 pm
Kaleesi
I would like Levi to be related to Fluke. I think it fits!
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August 18, 2014 10:31 am
Tammy Kreiss
He is as awesome off camera as he is on. As long as he is on screen, I will enjoy whatever they throw his way! He doesn’t strike me though, (as Mac) to have created such a vile child, or to have had a child that he was never told of. Mac would also never abandon his child if he did know of one.
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August 18, 2014 10:36 am
umgirl2000
I have my own theory on how Levi and Mac could be father and son and rambled it on Tumblr: Take the time to read it- it makes sense and gives a theory on Levi’s mother- one with connections to Mac and the Jacks family.
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August 18, 2014 10:57 am
Aria
I’ve always been surprise that Mac didn’t have an offspring out there somewhere but I’m not sure I want it to be Levi although I no longer loath the character . I was a kid when Felicia first ce on but I remember all those adventures she had with frisco. Current fans might not know this but back in the days characters like Anna ,Felicia and Laura had stories that where fun and dangerous , today’s girls like Maxie n Sam have nothing on them one would think the daughters of Laura Anna and Felicia would be more kick ass like their mothers use to be..
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August 18, 2014 11:54 am
su0000
!!!!!
Long live da`Dunkleman !!!!
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August 18, 2014 12:00 pm
mfarris70
I’m thinking Levi is either part of Victor’s WSB or Fluke’s plan– or maybe both! Still hoping that if Fluke is Bill Eckert, then Levi is his son Sly Eckert who we last saw as Lucky’s best friend/cousin. Which would also relate him to Lulu.
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August 18, 2014 12:14 pm
rebecca1
I love John York’s Mac. He has always been the epitome of paternal love, as well as friend, husband. He has never veered off course. Good looking, responsible…yet never boring. It’s not so much that he has exciting story lines…but there’s something about his demeanor that draws you in. Soaps are divided between good vs. evil. For those that enjoy the family/friend/homey sort of feel…that’s the embodiment of Mac. He held the fort down when Felicia left…he raised Maxie, Georgie and Robin as his own…he participated in their girly antics…while all the while being a strong leader in the police force.
What I don’t like is how he’s been relegated to the back. I think he, Felicia, Lucy, Scott all still quite a lot to give to Port Charles rather than be the supportive older generation in the background. Because, in actuality, they’re not even old! The give Sonny and Carly more airtime…and they’re in the same age bracket.
They threw Mac to the back of the story when Anna and Duke were trying to find Robin…they’ve rendered him useless when he used to be/still should have a cop’s mind and attitude.
So, I’d like to see him back on the force. At this point they should change Anna’s name to Detective Clouseau (female version). Or, they can somehow pair them together…put Felicia and her private investigative mind back in action…revive these characters!
As for Levi…still not sure who he “belongs to.” Definitely needs work on his American accent. I can still hear traces of his Aussie accent…
Hoping the kidnapping of Maxie and Lulu get Mac back in the running. As for John York? He sounds as nice and genuine as his character. And I always like to hear an actor enthusiastic about the role he plays/show he’s on.
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August 18, 2014 12:25 pm
Lin
I totally agree. There is no reason for Mac not to have good story lines. He did at one time. And I’m sick of Sonny and Carly. I don’t know why Sonny always has such big story lines. And felicia always seems to stupid, but that was not always true.
I have been saying (to myself) for years that John York deserves a front and center storyline.
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August 19, 2014 5:52 am
Lynn Wells
Good grief I hope Levi is not Mac’s soon. Why would he be ? I can’t stand Levi since day one. As far as Kevin and Mac’s friendship, everyone should have one like that.
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August 18, 2014 12:31 pm
Rodd
I love John J. York/Mac but I really hope Levi is not his son. Too many surprise children in too few months.
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August 18, 2014 1:41 pm
Omar
I like the actor the plays Mac..But his character has become sooooo stale and boring for the last few years and it needs to be changed up a bit..After the shooting why not make Mac a little bit more of a gerk..Give him a little bit of an edgier storyline..Not like Fluke, but something to bring him a little to the wildside!
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August 18, 2014 2:57 pm
Omar
And making him Levi’s dad is stupid at best!!
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August 18, 2014 2:58 pm
jaybird369
Omar…dude…AGREED!!!!! I mean…the possibility of Mac being Levi’s dad…AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! Anyway, Mac and Levi as father and son??? Big help…as in N-O-T!!!!! Man…if this is GH’s attempt to make Levi more likable, sorry but this ain’t the way to do it. No. It’s only gonna make me dislike that loony-tune Levi EVEN MORE!!!!! Bottom Line Here: GH had better N-O-T go there with this sudden lunacy!!!!! No.
Take care, Omar. A-C-E-S!!!!!
Reply
August 18, 2014 8:57 pm
Charday
That is true about the stale and boring. Sadly, GH does this to the older, classic characters. They don’t have their own storyline, but only incidentally support the young/newer stories. Still, I do like Mac and Felicia and hope to see more of them with this Aztec/Levi storyline.
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August 18, 2014 5:17 pm
CeeCee
I’m with you, Charday (love the name, btw), bore is the key word. But, I still love GH. It just irks me to have recycled storylines resurface….such as Carly and Sonny. Again? Somebody…..gimme a break. Yuck.
Reply
August 19, 2014 7:01 am
Engrady Pind
If Levi has to be related to someone in Port Charles, let him be a son of Jimmy Lee Holt and thus a Quartermaine. We know Levi is NOT Australian so let’s immediately eliminate the possibility of him being Mac’s son — Heaven Forbid.
Reply
August 18, 2014 5:02 pm
Jimmy
But why would you want to tie such a terrible person to the Q family? I know the Q-count has been running low on GH for a while now, but I don’t think this would be the way to expand the family, considering the character Levi is universally hated.
Plus, it would work better if Jimmy Lee Holt was actually on the show now. To be honest, when ABC announced Michael Easton, Kris Alderson and Roger Howarth were returning as new characters, I was hoping Roger would play Jimmy Lee or another member of the Q family – him playing Franco is a bummer and just doesn’t work considering Franco’s past.
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August 18, 2014 9:32 pm
Guest
@Engrady Pind- Think you are forgetting that Robin has NO accent- her Mom, Anna is British and her Dad, Robert, is Australian. Same with Ethan- he is Australian- his Mom, Holly is British and his Dad,Luke is American. ACCENTS do not matter !! Levi COULD be just about ANYONE’s son. Think with Mac’s shady past and when Mac first arrived to Port Charles he was not well liked either. Heck, Robert could not stand Mac- they were estranged for YEARS!! Could be that Robert’s fiance, Lilly, back before coming to Port Charles had an affair with Mac- maybe that added to their animosity. When Mac first arrived and Robert pulled him out of the water – he immediately pushed him back in when he saw it was Mac. Robert did not forgive Mac until Robert got shot and needed a transfusion and it was Mac that saved his life.
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August 20, 2014 7:41 am
C
Ugh, Levi better not be Mac’s son.
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August 18, 2014 9:17 pm
steve
Hmmmm…I don’t know if I buy that it’s Mac’s son because then it’s almost an element of incest. The actor’s good I sjut don’t want no offense to the actor the character around anymore. I know Im not alone on this.
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August 19, 2014 3:04 pm
Guest
Steve, Mac and Frisco are NOT related. Mac’s brother is Robert. Frisco’s brother is Tony!! Levi and Maxie would not be related at all if Mac was Levi’s biological brother.
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August 20, 2014 7:43 am
Steve
Yes but Mac has always considered himself Maxie’s father which we all know so therefore even though not reallly..whihc is why I put down almost a form of…….
The newest talk shows in the daytime arena premiered on Monday and their initial ratings were quite strong. First up was the premiere of Grammy-winner, Kelly Clarkson and her new series The Kelly Clarkson Show.
According to Variety: the NBCUniversal new daytime series scored a 1.9 household metered market rating and a 6 share in the 56 metered markets. That is the highest debut for a new syndicated show since 2012.
Elsewhere, Disney’s Tamron Hall posted a 1.4 household rating and a 5 share, and with that Tamron scored the highest other debut other than Clarkson in the past five years.
Nashville was the most successful and predicted market for Clarkson, the show scored a 5.97 household rating on its premiere day which climbed 7% to a 6.41 on Tuesday.
Hall will be promoting her show with a cameo appearance on this Friday’s episode of General Hospital where she appears in scenes with Ingo Rademacher (Jax).
In a tweet Tamron also promised that on Friday’s episode of her talker she will talk about her “longgggggg #GH love and history.”
So, have you checked out the new Kelly Clarkson or Tamron Hall Shows? What do you think of them? Comment below.
General Hospital fans know that Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) has fathered a lot of children in Port Charles and then some, and there is even another Corinthos baby on the way.
Now, available on ABC.com and the ABC app (no sign in required) comes a new collection of past GH episodes entitled, ‘All Sonny’s Children’ featuring life-changing moments in the mobster’s life. The collection is available for viewing today September 9th through December 1st.
Courtesy/ABC
Included in the the 16-episode collection is: Sonny learning the truth about Dante, Michael’s devastating confession, Morgan’s heartbreaking struggles with mental health, Sonny’s unconditional love and support of daughter Kristina, as well as the hesitation and joy that comes with knowing a new baby is on the way.
So, check out the collection and let us know which episodes are your favorites? And, who is your favorite kid of Sonny’s of all-time? Weigh-in below. But first watch the just released promo for the collection.
Sonny Corinthos’ children are the reason he wakes up in the morning. Relive some of their most unforgettable moments in the newest General Hospital Collection: All Sonny’s Children. All 16 episodes are available now – without a login! CLICK TO WATCH: https://t.co/IytVDHu6Oe#GHpic.twitter.com/dtdINhykzc
It was a pretty wonky summer for General Hospital’s Dr. Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton), especially concerning the women in his life. After proposing to Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) she exits to go deal with her twin sister, Alex, thus facilitating Hughes’ summer break from the series.
Meanwhile, another great love of Finn’s life, Hayden (Rebecca Budig) re-emerges on the canvas during Liz (Rebecca Herbst) and Franco’s (Roger Howarth) wedding reception, and is now clearly involved in some story with Jasper Jacks (Ingo Rademacher). But what about the unresolved feelings and story with Hayden and Finn? After all, she left him and Port Charles and had his child (who is apparently alive) but is not letting her ex know that little fact.
Meanwhile as a doctor, Finn has had to deal with numerous medical infectious disease crisis’, with the latest being what happened to Sasha (Sofia Matteson) at the hands of the evil Cassandra Pierce (Jessica Tuck), who Finn would love to put behind bars for all of her nefarious drug-related crimes and for what she previously perpetrated on him.
Michael Fairman TV recently caught up with one of our favorite gents in daytime, Michael Easton, to get his thoughts on the on-screen developments in Port Charles, what he hopes is ahead this fall, a look back at some of his favorite soap roles (from One Life’s John McBain to Port Charles’ Caleb Morley), why One Life to Live was such a gem of a soap and a special time for him and his enduring soap career, and much more. So, here’s what Michael shared in our irreverent entertaining, and candid chat.
Photo: ABC
Hayden has been back. But you and Rebecca Budig have not thus far shared many scenes together. Do you think we will eventually circle back to their story?
MICHAEL: First of all, it is amazing having Rebecca back. I’d like to say that I had forgotten how beautiful and talented she is, but I didn’t. She stays with you, and her performances resonate. So, coming back to work with her is like falling back into it. For selfish reasons, I am somewhat disappointed that I thought when Hayden came back; she would completely turn Finn’s life upside down. So, to be honest with you, I don’t know much more than what you are seeing is going on.
I don’t understand why the show is keeping that apart. That’s what people wanted to see when Hayden came back, because many fans loved them together.
MICHAEL: I’ve taken a hit anytime I’ve run into fans because I think (any fans that follow that couple), when they left, are a little disappointed in what they are seeing in that the girl who left is not the girl who has come back. I think that has been the difficult thing for Finn. It’s almost like she has reverted back to a character she was a few years prior to that. In terms of having his life upturned, it hasn’t been upturned because she has been rather cold to him. So, it probably isn’t the way I would have told the story, but maybe they have some great stuff up their sleeve. I think the stuff that we have had together has shown promise. Hopefully there will be more, because I enjoy working with her so much.
So, there’s a baby. Does Finn ever think the baby Hayden said died, could be alive?
MICHAEL: I don’t think he does. I think he (just from Finn’s nature) would believe that she would never to that to him. I imagine his thought would be, “What did I ever do to you? You would do this to me,” because he was clearly in love with her, and she broke his heart. I don’t think he ever sees that coming. I know it’s hard because the audience all knows that, and it’s hard to play the person who is not in the loop when everybody else knows the truth, but you have to play that. You have to play that you don’t watch the show. I think Finn has to come from that place that she would never do that, and I think that will probably take it to a place (if that is the case) that will just make the fall that much grander, but again it is incredible having Rebecca back.
Photo: ABV
Has Rebecca said anything to you like, “What’s going on? I’m barely talking to you on the show?” (Laughs)
MICHAEL: Yes. I don’t want to speak for her, but I think she probably thought it was going to be more the character that left who was coming back. I think we’ve all been a little surprised, but maybe the writers have some great surprises up their sleeves, and this will play out. It’s just different than I thought it would play out.
Finola Hughes had gone off on her summer vacation for awhile which put a pause in what’s next for the Anna and Finn romance, as well.
MICHAEL: Well, you work with me long enough, and then you need some time off, right? It’s like PTSD, right? You need a three-month treatment plan to make it back. So, I don’t blame her for taking some time off. (Laughs)
Finn proposed to Anna with this impromptu-at-her feet-moment at the Nurses’ Ball. Did you like the proposal?
MICHAEL: The only thing that I would have done differently is that I originally thought she said no, just because I love playing uncomfortable, embarrassing moments. I would have had a lot of fun with that because being embarrassed in front of groups of people is something that I would like to play. I do that quite often in my own life. (Laughs) I didn’t watch it back, but in the moment, it felt really nice. She’s lovely. Who wouldn’t propose to her? So, there wasn’t a great deal of difficulty in doing that.
Photo: ABC
Do you sense the on-screen magic between Finn and Anna?
MICHAEL: I hope we both bring each other out of our comfort zones a little bit. I think Finola embraces that, and I embrace that. I think we both sort of pull each other a little bit. When the writers write it that way, especially early on, there was a lot of great dialogue and banter, it was like a very adult-type of movie for a while, and I really enjoy that. It is like Sullivan’s Travels or something like that. That’s a really dated reference. Who else do you know that is going to pull out a reference to Preston Sturges movies? (Laughs) How about Moonlighting? Even that might be dated now, but it’s closer. (Laughs) I think that’s it. She’ll go with it. Sometimes just in the flow of it, stuff comes out, and nothing goes by Finola. There is no ad-lib or gesture that you can make where she won’t go with you on it. She’s such a pro, and she is so good at that.
Do you think Finn will finally help apprehend Cassandra? How is it when you get to work with Jessica Tuck?
MICHAEL: Yeah. I would imagine. I love Jessica. I think she is fantastic, and I always like when the “bad guy” doesn’t know they’re the bad guy. I know when I played Caleb on Port Charles; one of the things I liked about him was that he never thought he was the bad guy. I think that is always the right way to play a bad guy, and Jessica certainly doesn’t play it that way. She plays it like she is just really devious. She is lovely. I sort of look at it like a team, and anytime you lose good players, your team is not as good. So, anytime someone says something about someone coming back who is a really good actor, it’s great when they come back.
Photo: JPI
How does Finn feel now about his brother, Chase (Josh Swickard)? He just can’t seem to get himself to show his affection towards his younger brother.
MICHAEL: He does love him, and that’s right. That’s the conflict, but it’s hard to be mad at Josh because he is the sweetest kid. He looks at you with those big brown eyes, and you go, “Why am I being such a jerk to this guy? He’s just too nice, but it’s good. I think we’ve slowly developed a rapport, and it’s just one of those things that I think every so often, daytime gets right where you can almost tell something in real time. It wasn’t rushed. It’s taken a year, and they are sort of coming around to one another, but there are still a lot of secrets. That’s coming up.
Photo: ABC
Where would you rate Finn in the scope of your characters? I mean, for me, McBain will always be #1.
MICHAEL: Is McBain 1? (Laughs) You and Steve Burton (Jason, GH). I’ve never sat and ranked them. Obviously, I played McBain the longest, and it was probably the character who was the most like me I did ride-alongs with cops in New York City for like a month. So, I was able to ground him in some reality for myself, and I was able to stick to that. We had a great adviser on the show for over a year who was a former New York City detective, gold shield guy. Someone once asked why the police department was so good at One Life, and that was it. They really embraced it. We didn’t have people sneaking out of the jail-cell with a bobby pin picking the lock. (Laughs)
It was a bit grittier on One Life.
MICHAEL: I enjoyed that. McBain not saying “I love you” for 10 years, being on daytime and being able to do that – now that is quite the accomplishment!
Photo: JPI
I remember when McBain FINALLY told Natalie (Melissa Archer) “I love you.” I lost it, but then again, I am sucker for soapy goodness like that. It was a big moment.
MICHAEL: It was. Then, he had to kind of retract it and said, “I was drugged.”
Yeah right, he had that “What did I do?” moment.
MICHAEL: “What did I do?” That’s right. So, that was a challenge, and that was really interesting. Port Charles’ Caleb was probably the most fun to play because that was just an incredible amount of freedom. There was no grounding it in anything. It was the biggest sandbox I’d ever played in. If you wanted to walk over to the couch, you walked over to the couch. You did whatever you wanted to, and obviously, getting to work with the lovely Kelly Monaco (Ex-Livvie, Port Charles, now Sam, GH) every day… it was just nice. Caleb only had one intention. He was in love with this girl, and he just wanted to be with her, and anytime you get one specific need as an actor, it makes it so easy. You’ll stop at nothing to be with this girl, and that’s so fun to play.
Photo: ABC
Right, and Kelly Monaco and you have amazing chemistry when you have been paired romantically together in story.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I think those things exist in a special place, and they probably belong in that special place. Although, I thought it was an interesting dynamic for a period of time, it would have been interesting to see where that would have gone on GH with McBain, and Jason, and Sam, because there was something there that they could have built on very slowly. I don’t know what would have happened, but I think that dynamic was the only dynamic that could have worked for a period of time. I don’t think Fin would work, but that one dynamic would have been interesting when you have the cop, the outlaw, and the girl who comes between them.
Photo: ABC
One Life to Live recently would have celebrated its 51st anniversary if it was still on the air. Back in July, I posted these photos of major characters through the years. I received so many “likes” and so many comments on social media such as, “I miss it so much. Bring it back!” What can you say about those enduring One Life fans and being part of that one-of-a-kind show?
MICHAEL: They’re the most beautiful fans. All of the daytime fans are beautiful, but I think it was a really nice connection with the One Life to Live fans, and we got to know so many of them working in New York on the streets, you came out of the studio, and people were right there. So, you really got to know them. You got to engage with people. I love that show, and I miss it. Otherwise, I still stay in touch with a lot of them. I think that speaks to it. I have lifelong friends who I met on that show, which never happens. Usually, you walk out of a show on your last day, and you’ll never see anybody again. You’ll all say, “Yeah, let’s exchange numbers.” I walk out of there and I go, “Thank you, and I’ll never see you again.” I don’t even lie to people. Like, I know I’ll never see you again, and I never have except for that show, and I am still in touch with so many of those people. So, I think that spoke to how close we were.
Photo: JPI
Were you and Roger Howarth (Franco/Drew) always close on One Life, or are you closer now because you do all of the personal appearance events you do together?
MICHAEL: Well, Roger and I have known each other; it must be going on… 25-30 years now. So, it was pre-One Life. I think at some point we both had long hair, and both had done daytime, so we were pretty interchangeable. I think one time they called him about a part I did, and one time, they called me about a part when he left. I actually know Roger because I did a series called 413 Hope St., and Jesse Martin was the lead in it. It was a Damon Wayans series for Fox. So, I had known of Roger, but I really got to know him at a New Year’s Eve party in like 1995/96. Obviously, I’ve become really close to him now because we never did appearances or that sort of thing, but I think we have both sort of gotten over ourselves a little bit now. (Laughs)
Because you weren’t very visible before. That goes for both of you!
MICHAEL: No, and that’s by default. I don’t think we ever discussed it.
Photo: ABC
It wasn’t a conscious decision?
MICHAEL: No, I just thought (especially when I came back to daytime to do Caleb) it was just more interesting if people didn’t know a lot about me because the character was that. So, it took me a while to ease into it, and also, I just had to get over myself. I had a fear of engaging with large groups of people for a while. In a strange way, Roger and I have kind of gravitated to each other. I think we are both similar types. Between the two of us, we make up one real man, you know? Each of us is like half a man. (Laughs)
Together you can conquer.
MICHAEL: We are a good crutch for each other! He picks up my half, I pick up his. That’s the solution.
So what do you think GH viewers can look forward to coming up with Finn?
MICHAEL: I’m assuming at some point he is going to get his world turned upside down when he finds out about Hayden and the baby, and how he is going to react to that will probably be interesting. I hope that’s going to happen.
Photo: ABC
If he became an addict again, how would you feel about that?
MICHAEL: I think him struggling and getting over that would be interesting. I would hope that wouldn’t be his reaction, but I guess that always hangs over your head. Certainly, him falling apart would be interesting. I think your faith in the universe would be crushed in that moment. I don’t know how he would react. I’m just really curious to see how that would shake out and to play that. I think it would be a challenge. I think you’re always looking for some way to turn everything … and I invite that. I always think that sometimes in daytime we play the gimmick, but you should always play to the heart of the story. What’s going to make you feel something? If you feel something as the character, as the actor, I think the audience will feel something with you. I think it is maybe one of the things that we have gotten away from a little bit is that emotional attachment. When I watch shows that really move me, it’s still that emotional attachment between two people, and at the end of the day it should still be a love story … no matter what it is. I think that is the heart of what we should be doing. I think every poem should be a love poem of some sort. I know they have to weave the other stuff, the science fiction, and the memories, and the missing babies, and the twins, but at the heart of it, it should really be about two people finding themselves in love.
MICHAEL: Trevor St. John (Ex-Todd/Victor Lord Jr. OLTL) and I are always talking about doing a short film. Every time we drink too much beer, next thing you know, we are going to be doing a movie. We have many beers, and then we shoot a film. Then, we call our friends like Kamar de los Reyes (Ex-Antonio, OLTL), and Sherri Saum (Ex-Keri, OLTL), and Dan Gauthier (Ex-Kevin OLTL), and we go, “Now you guys, drink many beers, and you will join us on this film.”
See, now I get how movies are made!
So, are you hoping that GH tells more of the story between Finn and Hayden? Are you hoping that Anna and Finn make it to their “I do’s? What would you like to see happen to Finn? And finally, of all Michael’s soap roles which has been your favorite? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.
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Sitting in the dining room, minding my business, devouring my sushi, I would suddenly feel a pat on the back and then look up to see the judge dropping over for a "How are ya?" and a bit of a schmooze.
I readily can confirm that, knowing the judge and sharing laughs with him during our pre-game chats in the arena's private dining room just off the ice and penalty box. That was the hockey home for the Conte family.
"The judge was loved by everybody," former Devils goalie and current radio analyst Glenn (Chico) Resch once told me. "If you saw him at the games you'd say he was everybody's friend."
"He and his family touched the lives of so many New Jersey Devils players over the years. The 'Judge' was a good friend to me personally. My heart reaches out to Lucille and the entire Conte Family."
"Judge Conte was a tremendous man who was loved and respected by everyone," said ex-Devils general manager and current Islanders president-GM Lou Lamoriello.
The much respected jurist and attorney, an 82-year-old victim of the corona virus, was all things to all people who had the good fortune to know him.
Were it possible for a National Hockey League team to have its own "mayor," the New Jersey Devils choice for more than three decades would have to have been Judge John A. Conte.
His family often sat at the next table and they'd wave a big "hello" at The Maven and that wholesome greeting would make me feel that everything was just right with the world -- at least until the opening face-off.
Before the first puck drop, Judge Conte and family would take their very special ice level seats next to the penalty box and, of course, root-root-root-for-the-home-team.
One unforgettable experience I shared with them took place on May 24, 2012 during the Devils most important victory against its most hated rival, the Rangers.
This was Game Six -- the eventual Adam Henrique OT clincher for New Jersey -- and just before the game, Resch said to me, "How about you stand with me behind Judge Conte and his family?"
I wondered if the judge and his company would mind. "Nah," said Resch,"I just don't get in their way or yell too loud."
The Judge welcomed us and we -- all of us had the same rooting interest in mind -- oohed and ahhed through three periods with still no decision.
By that time I must have "excused me" a dozen times for bumping either Conte or one of his family members as I nervously moved back and forth behind the Conte's seats trying to make "saves" for Marty Brodeur. Now it was overtime.
"Don't worry about it," The Judge comforted me. "Let's just win the hockey game."
The sudden death period began and upstairs, Judge Conte's good pal, former Devils play-by-play man, Mike (Doc) Emrick was articulating the play. Suddenly, we all watched, mouth agape from the Conte ringside pew while Emrick thundered:
Scramble in front, they poke away at it. Still it's loose. Poked at by (Ilya) Kovalchuk...they score! (Adam) Henrique! It's over!"
When the red light flashed, I practically leaped on the Judge's back but he didn't mind. After all John was the number one Devils fan in New Jersey; he had a right.
But The Judge was more than that. In fact on Mother's Day, May 8, 1988, he was the team's most renowned -- yet unsung -- legal hero during the Bruins-Devils heart-throbbing series.
After the NHL had suspended coach Jim Schoenfeld for allegedly pushing referee Don Koharski ("Have another donut you fat pig!") the Devils attempted to reverse the decision via the courts before the game started.
Conte, then a Bergen County lawyer, represented the club before Bergen County Superior Court Judge John F. Madden. Attorney Conte accompanied GM Lou Lamoriello to Madden's home in Clffiside Park, New Jersey.
Among the decisive and eventually winning legal documents presented by Conte included the following:
"The referee, without warning to Plaintiff coach James Schoenfeld, pushed past him, and through use of threats and intimidations, caused a certain concern and anxiety among those in the area, and stumbled through no fault or cause of Plaintiff James Schoenfeld."
While Judge Conte made his case, the sell-out crowd at Byrne Arena patiently awaited word. Judge Madden made his decision at 7:20 p.m. Attorney Conte had won the case for the Devils.
NHL on-ice officials then boycotted the decision and the game and were replaced by off-ice officials who had to wear yellow shirts for the first period because no striped uniforms were available. Hence, "Yellow Sunday."
If Devils players were overjoyed with Conte's legal work they merely were echoing the sentiments of former players such as Ken Daneyko and Brendan Shanahan who at one time or another boarded at Chateau Conte.
John and Lucille Conte treated the young players as if they were their very own kids. Other stickhandlers who were welcomed guests included defensemen Craig Wolanin and Scott Niedermayer.
Nor did you have to be a player to qualify for the Conte hostelry. Former Devils broadcaster Dale Arnold -- now a fixture in Boston -- remembers his warm stay there as well.
In a Tweet, Arnold wrote: "I lived across from Craig Wolanin. If you worked for or played for the New Jersey Devils, you knew Judge Conte, a veteran respected jurist and one of the finest people I've ever known."
Likewise, Toronto Maple Leafs boss Shanahan tweeted, "I will remember 'Judgie' as a sweet gentle man."
What more can one say about "The Mayor Of The Devils" other than they just didn't come any better than Judge John A. Conte!
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Incidence and species distribution of candidaemia in Asia: a laboratory-based surveillance study.
The epidemiology of candidaemia varies between hospitals and geographic regions. Although there are many studies from Asia, a large-scale cross-sectional study across Asia has not been performed. We conducted a 12-month, laboratory-based surveillance of candidaemia at 25 hospitals from China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. The incidence and species distribution of candidaemia were determined. There were 1601 episodes of candidaemia among 1.2 million discharges. The overall incidence was 1.22 episodes per 1000 discharges and varied among the hospitals (range 0.16-4.53 per 1000 discharges) and countries (range 0.25-2.93 per 1000 discharges). The number of Candida blood isolates and the total number of fungal isolates were highly correlated among the six countries (R² = 0.87) and 25 hospitals (R² = 0.77). There was a moderate correlation between incidence of candidaemia and the intensive care unit (ICU)/total bed ratio (R² = 0.47), although ICUs contributed to only 23% of candidaemia cases. Of 1910 blood isolates evaluated, Candida albicans was most frequently isolated (41.3%), followed by Candida tropicalis (25.4%), Candida glabrata (13.9%) and Candida parapsilosis (12.1%). The proportion of C. tropicalis among blood isolates was higher in haemato-oncology wards than others wards (33.7% versus 24.5%, p 0.0058) and was more likely to be isolated from tropical countries than other Asian countries (46.2% versus 18.9%, p 0.04). In conclusion, the ICU settings contribute, at least in part, to the incidence variation among hospitals. The species distribution is different from Western countries. Both geographic and healthcare factors contribute to the variation of species distribution.
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Q:
Copying embedded images fron an existing MailItem object
I'm trying to generate new MailItems from an existing one, currently beeing edited. The user types the content of his email (currentMailItem in the following code), clicks a button, and a bunch of MailItems are generated using the currentMailItem as a template.
Works fine, except for embedded images: signature, images inserted using Insert command, they don't show in the generated mails ("The linked image cannot be displayed..."). So I'm trying to get the images, reattach them to the new MailItems and relink them.
I retrieve the mailItem with:
Outlook.MailItem currentMailItem = Application.ActiveInspector().CurrentItem;
I then loop in the Attachements (I do this anyway to copy the actual attachments to the generated mails)
foreach (Attachment attachment in currentMailItem.Attachments)
{
var tempFile = "...";
attachment.SaveAsFile(tempFile);
}
And that's when some weird stuff happen, using the simplest possible situation: a mail containing one short string, and a signature that includes an image.
First time I start the function, the attachements are completely empty, no trace of the signature image.
If I start the function again, this time there's one attachement, only I get an exception when I try to save the attachment:
System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: 'Cannot save the attachment. Cannot add the attachment; no data source was provided.'
And weirder, once, and only once, even though I ran this code a thousand times, I actually managed to save the attachment, which was as expected the signature image.
I'm open to any pointer at this point...
Thanks!
A:
First of all, I'd recommend saving user changes made in the UI by calling the Save method:
Outlook.MailItem currentMailItem = Application.ActiveInspector().CurrentItem;
currentMailItem.Save();
Outlook.MailItem copy = currentMailItem.Copy();
// do whatever you need with a copy
Then, you may try to use the MailItem.Copy method which creates another instance of an object. Note, the Copy method returns a variable that represents a MailItem object which can be sent.
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Major EB virus-specific cytoplasmic transcripts in a cellular clone of the HR-1 Burkitt lymphoma line during latency and after induction of viral replicative cycle by phorbol esters.
We have estimated by the Northern blotting technique the size and genome location of major viral RNA transcripts found in the same cell line when the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome was latent, and 48 hr after it was induced to replicate by treatment with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol acetate (TPA). A cellular subclone of the P3J-HR-1 line designated GG68-13 made these studies possible. Less than 1% of GG68-13 cells spontaneously synthesize viral antigens, whereas more than 80% of the cells enter the viral replicative cycle after exposure to TPA. In the absence of TPA six clearly resolved mRNA's, derived from scattered regions of the genome, are seen and at least four poorly resolved mRNA's map to BamHI fragment W, the internal repeat. Following treatment with the drug, 54 mRNA's have been identified, 28 of which are prominent. The mRNA's identified during latency are also synthesized, but in greater amounts, during viral replication. However, EBV-encoded small RNA's seem to be more abundant during latency than during viral synthesis.
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Who's Online (5)
Shove, fold or call
2/5 game v starts hand with $385 I have him covered. I raise to $25 on button with 1010 and v who is a losing player and calls a fair amount of raises calls. Flop comes 5h5d6d and he leads out $80 into $50 pot. He has $280 behind, how would you proceed?
Comments
2/5 game v starts hand with $385 I have him covered. I raise to $25 on button with 1010 and v who is a losing player and calls a fair amount of raises calls. Flop comes 5h5d6d and he leads out $80 into $50 pot. He has $280 behind, how would you proceed?
Did V call from the blinds? Is he particularly aggressive post flop? If V is more of a one-and-done type, you could make a case for calling here. Its a tricky spot. I hate raising knowing half my stack would be in the middle, and I would hate to get it all in here too. I think id probably let it go if I didn't have anything else to go off of. Just fold, since you are going to have to fold to a turn bet anyways.
I just think the size of the bet forces you into a marginal situation where you will be up against really tough turn and river decisions. Like I said, if I thought the player was the kind who could make a really polarizing play at the pot, but then would likely give it up if called, I would consider calling since I have position. You also think he is more likely to overplay than be aggressive. What hands is he overplaying that also overlays with him not playing bluffs in an agro manner? To support a call here you would have to range him to 77-99. Pretty narrow. Your own analysis of the situation is leaning you heavily towards folding. So why do I get the feeling you didn't fold?? Did anything else happen?
I just think the size of the bet forces you into a marginal situation where you will be up against really tough turn and river decisions. Like I said, if I thought the player was the kind who could make a really polarizing play at the pot, but then would likely give it up if called, I would consider calling since I have position. You also think he is more likely to overplay than be aggressive. What hands is he overplaying that also overlays with him not playing bluffs in an agro manner? To support a call here you would have to range him to 77-99. Pretty narrow. Your own analysis of the situation is leaning you heavily towards folding. So why do I get the feeling you didn't fold?? Did anything else happen?
This play is usually a pair.. I dont think v only has to have 77-99.. If he is really as loose as hero says I would also consider putting 22-44 also.. Most players just dont lead out with a 6 and certainly not with a full house. Unless you have seen this villain do this again I am inclined to call and let him bluff off his stack on turn.
AKdd he would probably check raise.. 5x he would probably check call 65 or 55 he is also check calling.. So unless he slowplayed a pair big than 10s the you are ahead of his range. Again has hero seen villain call a raise with JJ or QQ?
Well he describes V as "losing" but I didn't get the impression he is painting V as a particularly loose player. All he really says is that V "calls a fair amount of raises"
There's no argument that we're ahead of a substantial chunk of Vs range here. So yeah I guess its wrong for me to characterize the situation as being marginal. I just personally don't like the risk factor involved (given stack sizes) without having any more bet sizing tells specific to our V. If he is a bad, losing, player...and I specifically knew that he was prone to making these kind of overbets with any frequency, then I would definitely be ok proceeding with the hand. I wish we knew more about Vs postflop tendencies because I know it seems kinda tight-bad to fold when his line looks really bluffy. I just think with so little invested, and with a transparently bad player, I would personally be more inclined to find spots where I could be in more control, as opposed to calling off.
Its a situation that doesn't happen all too often (150% bet on the flop as a lead out, heads up) so I think what to do here is really up to the individual and should heavily factor in player dynamics
No I didn't fold. I raised a little over min raise, he shoved and i called his QQ. My first inlination was to fold but I have made some what appears to be bad folds over and over the last 5 weeks and most of them have been with overpairs where I was raised on the flop or turn. I'm not the best hand reader and when I get in tough spots I normally just fold unless I'm getting really good odds .
By overplaying I just meant he didn't have a good feel for what was a good hand in every situation. The difference was he was calling , not betting or raising so I should of just layed down.
ThatOtherJeremy said
I just think the size of the bet forces you into a marginal situation where you will be up against really tough turn and river decisions. Like I said, if I thought the player was the kind who could make a really polarizing play at the pot, but then would likely give it up if called, I would consider calling since I have position. You also think he is more likely to overplay than be aggressive. What hands is he overplaying that also overlays with him not playing bluffs in an agro manner? To support a call here you would have to range him to 77-99. Pretty narrow. Your own analysis of the situation is leaning you heavily towards folding. So why do I get the feeling you didn't fold?? Did anything else happen?
Yeah I think everyone will have a bit of a different take but to me this is really something where I like a player read to go with it. Such senseless bets are usually bluffs, and I agree that it would be a bad fold *if* you fell into any kind of pattern of allowing yourself to be exploited via these kinds of plays. If its a really isolated incident I guess I just take the overly cautious route. If I was deeper I think I would definitely put in a raise
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The present invention relates to a projection lens shifting mechanism of a projector apparatus for projecting a light beam from a light source such as a lamp onto a screen by way of a projection lens to make an enlarged projection of an image rendered on a display device such as a liquid crystal panel
Conventionally, a liquid crystal projector apparatus, in which a liquid crystal display panel is provided, has been employed to make an enlarged projection of an image in a personal computer display or video device. The liquid crystal projector generates a light signal of a picture by transmitting or screening the light projected from the lamp light source, in response to the image of the liquid crystal display panel.
The liquid crystal display panel is made up of liquid crystal elements arranged in a two-dimensional plane on a liquid crystal panel, and a projection lens serves the enlarged projection of the image to present a picture on a screen. The projection lens is normally equipped with a cam and screw mechanism whereby the lens-barrel can be rotated to shift a part of a plurality of lenses in the direction of the optical axis to adjust focus and zoom.
The position of the projection lens in a liquid crystal projector is typically fixed with respect to the liquid crystal panel, and the position and size of the picture projected onto the screen is therefore determined by the relative positions of the screen and projector. In order to project a picture of the proper size onto the proper position of the screen, the projector must be adjusted to the proper relative position with respect to the screen, and considerable time and effort are therefore required to position the projector.
In many liquid crystal projectors, the projection lens is shifted in advance to a fixed height above the liquid crystal panel and then secured. Thus, by projecting the light beam from the fixed height shifted upward with respect to the liquid crystal panel, a picture can be projected onto a screen at a high position to facilitate viewing regardless of the height of the stand on which the projector is set up. When it is desired to shift the position of the picture on the screen still higher, the projection direction is shifted upward by means of a height adjustment mechanism attached to the forward legs of the projector. In such a case, however, since the angle between the liquid crystal panel surface and the screen surface changes, the picture that should be projected, for example, as a square is distorted to a trapezoid. To eliminate this distortion, the inclination of the screen must be adjusted according to the inclination of the liquid crystal panel, and it was therefore necessary to provide a screen having a tilting mechanism.
To solve this problem, some high-function liquid crystal projectors are provided with a mechanism for electric-powered shifting of the projection lens by means of, for example, a motor. However, such devices necessitate a complex mechanism to enable vertical and horizontal movement while accurately holding the heavy projection lens. This requirement results in an increase in cost. The following examples have been proposed in the prior art as liquid crystal projectors provided with mechanisms for moving the projection lens.
A liquid crystal projector is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Laid-open No. 21246/1993 (hereinbelow referred to as the first example of the prior art) in which a projection lens is supported by a pantograph mechanism constituted by four control links and in which rotating of a dial drives the pantograph mechanism to enable vertical movement of the projection lens.
A method of adjusting the alignment of a liquid crystal panel in a liquid crystal projector is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 107434/1993 (hereinbelow referred to as the second example of the prior art). According to this method, a liquid crystal panel holding part is constituted by a bracket secured to a base plate and a liquid crystal attachment plate secured to this bracket by means of securing screws. A jig is used for shifting the liquid crystal attachment plate with respect to the bracket, and after adjusting the position of the liquid crystal attachment plate by means of adjustment screws of the jig, the bracket and liquid crystal attachment plate are secured by the securing screws. The jig is then removed.
A projection display device in which the projection lens can be moved vertically by means of a projection-lens moving mechanism is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 196888/1993 (hereinbelow referred to as the third example of the prior art). This projection-lens moving mechanism is provided with a lead screw that is rotatably borne by a housing and a projection-lens holding member having a threaded hole that engages with this lead screw such that the projection-lens holding member moves up and down with rotation of this lead screw. This lead screw is provided with a knob for rotating the screw. The projection lens holding member, being accommodated inside the housing, can both hold the projection lens and translate while being guided vertically by the rotation of the lead screw. The projection lens holding member is thus movable vertically by rotating the knob.
A liquid crystal projector is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 249409/1993 (hereinbelow referred to as the fourth example of the prior art) in which a projection lens is installed in a projector body so as to allow horizontal and vertical movement of the projection lens by magnetic force or by leaf springs and in which the user applies force manually against the projection lens to move the projection lens.
A liquid crystal projector is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 138377/1997 (hereinbelow referred to as the fifth example of the prior art) in which light from a light source is collimated by a first condenser lens to a substantially parallel light beam and incident on a liquid crystal panel, this light beam is optically modulated in response to a video signal that is externally supplied to the liquid crystal panel, and the modulated light beam emitted from the liquid crystal panel is then condensed by a second condenser lens to enter a projection lens to present a picture on a screen. In this liquid crystal projector, when the position of projection on the screen is to be moved up and down, a motor provided for shifting the projection lens is activated and a link mechanism that supports the projection lens is moved in a vertical direction.
A liquid crystal projector is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 258565/1999 (hereinbelow referred to as the sixth example of the prior art) in which pictures from two projectors are superimposed on each other on a screen in order to brighten the picture projected on the screen. In the lens moving mechanism for shifting the position of projection on the screen, a lead screw rod is rotatably attached to the housing of the liquid crystal projector and a nut to be engaged with the lead screw is secured to the lens-barrel of the projection lens. When the lead screw rod is rotated by operating a control member provided on the side surface of the housing, the nut moves to cause the lens-barrel to move in a vertical direction. This lens moving mechanism is basically equivalent to the previously described third example of the prior art, but differs from the third example of the prior art in that the lead screw rod tilts forward. The reason for this is to compensate for change in the size of the projected picture that is brought about by a change in the distance between the liquid crystal panel and projection lens caused by the vertical movement of the projection lens.
Thus, although a number of liquid crystal projectors provided with projection lens moving mechanisms have been proposed in the prior art, the projection lens moving mechanism disclosed in the first example of the prior art has the problem of large-scale structure resulting from the use of a pantograph mechanism. The second example of the prior art is a method of adjusting the alignment of a liquid crystal panel and therefore has an object differing from that of the present invention, which is directed to adjusting the position of the projection lens. The second example of the prior art is further directed to using a jig to make a single initial adjustment of the liquid crystal panel and is not directed to a construction for making adjustments with each use of the liquid crystal projector as in the present invention.
The projection lens moving mechanism disclosed in the third example of the prior art has the problem of bulky and heavy construction.
The reason for this is that it is provided with a lead screw that is rotatably borne by the housing; a knob for rotating this lead screw; and a projection-lens holding member for supporting the projection lens having a threaded hole to be engaged with the lead screw to enable vertical movement with rotation of the lead screw.
In the projection lens moving mechanism of the fourth example of the prior art, the projection lens is semi-secured to the projector body by magnetic force or by a leaf spring. Since the projection lens is in a semi-secured state both during and after a user applies manual force to move the projection lens, this construction has the problems that adjustments relating to the force of the magnetic force or leaf spring are difficult and the secured position may in some cases be shifted by, for example, an undesirably applied external force.
The projection lens moving mechanism of the fifth example of the prior art uses a link mechanism to shift the position of projection on the screen by means of a motor. This example therefore has the problems that the structure of the moving mechanism is bulky, heavy, and moreover, expensive.
The projection lens moving mechanism of the sixth example of the prior art has the problem of complex structure. The reason for this is that it has a construction in which a lead screw rod is rotatably attached to the housing and engages with threaded hole provided in the projection lens and in which the lead screw rod is rotated by operating a manipulation means provided on the side surface of the housing to cause vertical movement of the projection lens.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a projection lens shifting mechanism for a projector that enables two-dimensional movement of a projection lens by a simple structure and with high accuracy, that enables easy and manual operation of this two-dimensional movement by way of a simple user interface, and that thus solves the above-described problems of the prior art.
To achieve the above-described objects, the projection lens shifting mechanism of the present invention is provided in a projector apparatus for projecting a light beam from a light source onto a screen by way of a projection lens to make an enlarged projection of an image rendered on a display device; the projection lens shifting mechanism comprises:
a base plate secured to the housing of the projection lens shifting mechanism, provided with a guide surface that is parallel to the display surface of the display device;
a moveable plate capable of rigidly holding the projection lens, and, when in a moveable state, moving in a prescribed direction parallel to the display surface of the display device while being guided by the guide surface of the base plate;
a holding plate linked to the moveable plate by way of elastic members; constituting, together with the moveable plate, an elastic clamping structure that holds the base plate from both sides with the base plate interposed between the holding plate and the moveable plate and that clamps the base plate by means of the elastic force of the elastic members; and, when an external force works against the elastic force to release the clamping, being rendered moveable to move integrally with the moveable plate in a direction parallel to the guide surface of the base plate;
an engagement structure that is interposed between the holding plate and the base plate, the engagement structure, when the clamping structure is clamping the base plate, engaging the holding plate with the base plate to place the holding plate in a locked state, i.e., a state in which the holding plate cannot move with respect to the base plate in a direction parallel to the guide surface of the base plate; and
an engagement-release structure for releasing the engagement brought about by the engagement structure and switching the holding plate from the locked state to a moveable state.
Here, xe2x80x9ca direction parallel to the guide surfacexe2x80x9d means xe2x80x9ca direction included in a plane parallel to the guide surfacexe2x80x9d.
The projection lens shifting mechanism of the present invention thus adopts a construction in which elastic members are used to constantly press the moveable plate against the base plate. This construction is able to prevent tilting of the projection lens both when in the locked state and when in the moveable state and is therefore able to, for example, prevent deterioration of resolution.
The clamping structure is preferably provided with elastic members and securing screws that are screwed from the side of said holding plate into threaded holes formed in the moveable plate through through-holes provided in said base plate; the elastic members being arranged between the heads of the securing screws and the holding plate to press the holding plate normally toward the base plate.
The elastic member may be a coil spring.
The engagement structure comprises friction members provided on the holding plate and protrusions provided at positions on the surface of said base plate that confront said friction members.
The friction members may be rubber members bonded to the holding plate.
The engagement-release structure preferably comprises a right-angle lever structure that has an axis of rotation included in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis of the projection lens to generate output torque that makes a right angle with respect to input torque.
The right-angle lever structure preferably comprises:
a first lever having an axis of rotation included in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis of said projection lens and two arms are substantially in the same plane; and
a second lever having an axis of rotation included in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis of the projection lens and two arms thereof form a right angle;
the first and second levers being arranged such that:
a second arm of the second lever is arranged interposed between the holding plate and the base plate;
torque for releasing the engagement is applied to a first arm of the first lever; and the torque is transmitted to a first arm of the second lever through a second arm of the first lever.
The engagement-release structure preferably comprises two right-angle lever structures that are opposite each other across said projection lens;
the first arm of the first lever of each of the right-angle lever structures curves in a shoehorn shape to conform with the contours of the projection lens; and
the first arm of the second lever engages with the holding plate, and receives the torque transmitted from the first arm of the first lever while engaging with said holding plate.
The projection lens shifting mechanism includes a rotation prevention device that guides the moveable plate along the guide surface of the base plate without rotation, the rotation prevention device having a translation structure that allows translation movement only in a vertical or in a horizontal direction with respect to the base plate, and the rotation prevention device further having a guide means that guides the moveable plate to translate in a horizontal or a vertical direction with respect to the base plate.
The adoption of this configuration enables the constitution of a simple user interface for moving and holding the projection lens by means of the minimum necessary construction wherein the moveable plate becomes movable by grasping the lever members, provided opposite across the projection lens, with the hands so as to clasp the projection lens, following which the moveable plate is held at a desired position by releasing the grasp on the lever members. In addition, since the focus ring and zoom ring are clasped and held by the lever structure when the projection lens is being moved, the focus ring and zoom ring do not move and do not require readjustment after the projection lens has been moved.
Explanation next regards the operation of the projection lens shifting mechanism of the present invention.
Friction members are bonded to the holding plate, and a powerful friction force is produced when the holding plate is pressed against the base plate, whereby the holding plate is held tightly against the base plate. The moveable plate is attached to the holding plate such that it moves integrally with the holding plate in the moveable state, and as a result, in the state in which the holding plate is pressed against the base plate and moreover the friction members on the holding plate are pressed against the base plate, the moveable plate is also held securely against the base plate.
By separating the holding plate from the base plate by means of the engagement-release structure, the friction members on the holding plate are separated from the base plate and the holding plate can be easily shifted with respect to the base plate. The moveable plate thus can easily move parallel to the guide surface of the base plate.
A construction in which the moveable plate is pressed against the guide surface of the base plate both when being held immobile and when in a moveable state can prevent the inclination of the projection lens at all times and thereby prevent problems such as deterioration of resolution. In addition, since the focus ring and zoom ring are clasped between and held by the lever members during movement of the projection lens, rotation of the focus ring and zoom ring can be prevented and no changes occur in the state of focus and zoom before and after movement of the projection lens. The above and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description referring to the accompanying drawings, which illustrate examples of preferred embodiments of the present invention.
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Image copyright Wales News Service Image caption Mourners gathered outside St Catwg's Church for Carson Price's funeral
The funeral of a teenager whose death has been linked to drugs has taken place in Caerphilly county.
Carson Price, 13, was found "in and out of consciousness, pale and shaking" in Ystrad Mynach Park on 12 April.
The teenager, from Hengoed, was rushed to hospital but his condition deteriorated rapidly and he died.
A service was held at St Catwg's Church in Gelligaer, followed by a wake at Penallta Rugby Club in Ystrad Mynach.
Image copyright Family Photo Image caption Police have said that drugs were involved in Carson's death
The order of service contained a heartfelt poem written to Carson which began: "The moment that you passed, My heart was torn in two, One side filled with heartache, And the other died with you."
A written tribute signed "Mammy, Daddy and Coby" spoke of Carson as "the perfect little teenager, mischievous at times but that cheeky little face, we could never stay mad".
His family wrote: "We only wish we had the chance to to tell you again how much we love you, and will always love you...
"We feel robbed that we will never watch you grow old and continue your passion with music and reach all the milestones in life.
"Mammy wishes she could kiss your handsome chops one more time and feel your floppy hair."
It ended: "Love you to the moon and back our handsome boy."
Image copyright Gwent Police Image caption The poem was printed in the funeral service
Image copyright BBC Sport Image caption Photos of Carson included in the order of service
An inquest opened into Carson's death heard he may have taken drugs just before he became unconscious.
One person was later arrested but the arrest was not "directly concerning" the boy's death, Newport Coroner's Court heard.
During a vigil held six days after Carson died at the park where he was found, his family said in a statement he was "bright and caring, kind and loving".
They added: "He was a cheeky little boy. He was the best big brother to Coby and was loved by so many."
The family urged parents to talk to their children about the "devastating consequences" drugs could have.
Friends and family also released balloons in a tribute to Carson.
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Prof. Derek Muller
Derek Muller is an Associate Professor of Law at Pepperdine University School of Law. He earned his B.A. summa cum laude from Hillsdale College and his J.D. summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, where he was a note editor on the Notre Dame Law Review. His research and writing focuses on election law, particularly federalism and the role of states in federal elections. At Pepperdine, Professor Muller teaches in the areas of civil procedure, complex civil litigation, election law, and administrative law.
Before joining the Pepperdine faculty in 2011, Professor Muller clerked for the Honorable Raymond W. Gruender on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, Missouri. He then practiced litigation at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago, where he dealt with white collar criminal defense, commercial contract disputes, derivative shareholder suits, and appellate litigation. Professor Muller then served as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Shughart Scholar at the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law, where he taught Civil Procedure and Federal Courts. He is admitted to practice in the state of Illinois.
The Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues.
The people listed as Experts have spoken or otherwise participated in Federalist Society events, publications, or multimedia presentations.
A person's appearance on this list does not imply any other endorsement or relationship between the person and the Federalist Society.
All expressions of opinion by an expert are those of the expert.
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LEBEC, Calif. — Anyone who has traveled between Los Angeles and San Francisco along Interstate 5 has driven along the western flank of Tejon Ranch, a vast expanse of luminous oak-studded hills that divides the southern and central portions of the state. Download PDF
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Jo Konta was forced to retire from the Brisbane International due to injury in her quarter-final clash with Elina Svitolina on Thursday.
Ukraine's Svitolina was leading 1-6 7-6 (8/6) 3-2 when Konta called time on her participation at the Pat Rafter Arena after seeking treatment two games earlier.
The British number one had looked in fine form, particularly in the first set, but will now turn her attention to getting fit for the Australian Open later this month.
Konta appeared to be suffering with a right hip problem and, with the first grand slam of the year beginning on January 15, decided not to risk further injury.
Svitolina said: "It's the worst thing that can happen to a player, especially when it happens during a match. It's always very disappointing.
"Hopefully Jo will recover quickly and we will see her back on court soon. She played a really good match today and you can see she's really playing well."
Konta had not reached a quarter-final of an event since August but looked to have returned to form after dominating the first set in which she saved all four break points against her serve.
Konta was looking good before having to retire early (Getty)
Svitolina twice served her way out of trouble in the second set to force a tie-break which she eventually won.
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Multifocal FIGO Stage IA1 Squamous Carcinoma of the Cervix: Criteria for Identification, Staging, and its Good Clinical Outcome.
Multifocal squamous cervical carcinomas account for up to 25% of IA1 tumors identified on excisional biopsy, yet there are no uniformly accepted histopathologic criteria for defining and staging these lesions. Here, we use a strict case definition and meticulous specimen processing from colposcopist to pathologist to identify and follow-up 25 cases of multifocal IA1 cervical squamous carcinomas identified in excisional biopsies. We stage these tumors using the dimensions of the largest focus and a minimum of 2 mm between each foci to define multifocality. The cases are followed up for a median of 7 yr with no episodes of tumor recurrence or metastasis. We also show that the prevalence of residual preinvasive (20%) and invasive disease (5%) on repeat excision/surgery are comparable to data available for unifocal IA1 cases. Our study supports the hypothesis that multifocal lesions should be staged according to largest individual focus of invasion and we emphasize the importance of meticulous specimen handling to appropriately identify multifocal tumors. In addition, our analysis suggests that outcomes are comparable to unifocal lesions and supports the hypothesis that they may be managed in a similar manner.
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Men's 3N2 Showtime Mid Navy/Gold
3N2's next generation, pro-caliber metal baseball cleats -- the Showtime -- are primetime performers, featuring a 100% genuine upper with high-frequency strapping and double-stitched reinforcement. The Showtime is one of the lightest,
Details
ITEM#: 14930418
3N2's next generation, pro-caliber metal baseball cleats -- the Showtime -- are primetime performers, featuring a 100% genuine upper with high-frequency strapping and double-stitched reinforcement. The Showtime is one of the lightest, most durable baseball cleats in the 3N2 arsenal, purpose-built for the professional athlete. A raised upper provides additional ankle support.
Questions & Answers
Shopping Guides
How To Compare Athletic Shoes
With the large variety of athletic shoes available, it's easy to get lost in the selection. The consequences of choosing the wrong athletic shoes for a given activity include pain and injury, most commonly to the feet, ankles, hips and back. Before buying a pair of men's athletic shoes or women's athletic shoes, it can be helpful to compare them and look for the best features for you. By paying attention to the details, you'll choose the right pair of athletic shoes every time.
How To Shop for Athletic Shoes
If your running shoes have seen better days or you are ready to begin a new fitness regime, it's time to shop for athletic shoes. From cross trainers to actual tennis shoes and everything in between, there are a myriad of choices. Find out how to get the right pair of men's athletic shoes and women's athletic shoes for your budget and your body the easy way.
FAQs about the Challenged Athletes Foundation
The generous funds of the Challenged Athletes Foundation have made it possible for paraplegic athlete Erica Davis and challenged athlete Tara Butcher to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for the first time. The foundation, which was created in 1994, is dedicated to helping challenged athletes succeed in all sports they pursue. Learn more about the Mount Kilimanjaro climb and read the following list of frequently asked questions to find out how you can become involved.
Best Athletic Shoes for the Weekend
After a long week of work and shuffling kids around to various activities, your feet need a break -- so why not look for men's athletic shoes and women's athletic shoes that give you the comfort you need? Follow these tips to buy athletic shoes that fit your active lifestyle and provide stability and versatility for all your weekend activities.
How to Choose Men's Athletic Shoes for Tennis
When it's time to choose a pair of athletic shoes to improve your tennis game, it might help to have a basic understanding of athletic shoes themselves. Tennis shoes have a few major components that are specific to them. Although many kinds of men's athletic shoes are popularly called tennis shoes, make sure the men's shoes you buy are in fact tennis shoes made for tennis. Here are a few things you should look for in a new pair of athletic shoes.
Best Ways to Accessorize with Gold Charms
Accessorizing with gold charms is one of the best ways to wear your personality. These little symbolic baubles can adorn charm bracelets, charm necklaces, purses and even electronics to tell a story or represent your interests or personal beliefs. You can purchase gold charms with an animal theme to show your support for endangered species, flower charms to symbolize your gardening passion or gold charms with a sport's theme to showcase your athletic side. Use these trinkets to create distinctive gold jewelry or to personalize a handbag.
How to Compare Men's Gold Necklaces
For centuries, gold has been a symbol of luxury. The precious metal has been used to make gold jewelry of all kinds for both men and women. Men's jewelry selections in shiny, lustrous gold are great additions to any wardrobe or outfit. Enjoy this precious metal by choosing men's gold necklaces. Men's necklaces made of gold or accented with gold detailing are luxurious, versatile and sexy. Jewelers love working with gold when creating men's jewelry because it has a range of vibrant hues, and it is soft enough to mold into any jewelry design. Gold jewelry selections, such as gold necklaces and gold chains, are investment pieces, meant to last a lifetime in many cases. Choose your gold necklace carefully by learning about the characteristics of gold and considering your personal jewelry taste.
Gold-Over-Silver Jewelry Fact Sheet
When you want the look of gold jewelry without the high price tag, look for gold-over-silver jewelry. Gold-plated jewelry has been around for at least 100 years, but modern gold-plated jewelry is created with such advanced techniques than many pieces have quality standards similar to solid gold jewelry. The best gold-plated jewelry is gold-over-silver jewelry. Silver is a fantastic base metal for gold-plating. When you are shopping for fine jewelry and designer jewelry, you will come across a variety of gold-plated pieces, including gold-over-silver jewelry. Use these facts to decide which types of gold jewelry are right for you.
How to Wear Gold Pendants
Gold necklaces can be had in any budget, style, and size. Gold necklaces are fun because they offer such a lovely, sparkling appearance. Gold pendants and charms can be hung from shiny gold chains, simple leather strings, beaded necklaces, and charm pendants. Here are a few ways to add stunning gold pendants to your outfits.
Best Reasons to Buy Gold Earrings
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Tips on Gold Overlay Jewelry
Wear gold overlay jewelry and you'll not only add a lot of eye-catching sparkle to your outfits; you'll have a great option for keeping up with the ever-changing fashion scene without spending a lot of money. More and more jewelers are offering chic gold overlay earrings, long gold overlay necklaces, shiny bangles and sweet charms to their customers, so keep reading to learn more about beautiful gold overlay jewelry.
How to Choose Gold Jewelry for Men
Gold is one of the world's oldest precious materials. Adding luxurious pieces of gold to your fingers, wrists, ears, neck and shirt sleeves is a great way to add your personal signature to all your clothing selections. Men's jewelry featuring this valuable metal is sleek and versatile. There is a seemingly endless array of men's gold jewelry to choose from, and selecting quality, stylish gold jewelry is important. Whether you are looking for elegant jewelry to wear with your best workday wear or you want to give luxurious men's gold jewelry as a fantastic gift, our tips will help you select men's jewelry in a variety of gold designs for your jewelry collection.
How to Clean a Gold Ring
Even the most lustrous and valuable gold jewelry can occasionally lose its shine. Dirt, lotion and natural oils from your skin can easily dull your gold rings. Keeping your gold jewelry clean not only improves its appearance; it can also keep stone settings from becoming loose. There are many options when it comes to cleaning jewelry, and you can choose from several cleaning methods for your gold rings. Your professional jeweler will be happy to clean your gold jewelry for a fee, and gold rings can also be cleaned efficiently in an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner. Cleaning jewelry at home is also easy and affordable. You can clean your own gold rings with a few household staples and save money on cleaning fees while keeping your gold sparkling.
How to Wear Gold Watches
For making an impact, nothing is more classic than a gold watch. Bold and traditional, gold watches have the ability to effortlessly dress up an outfit with their brilliant shine. When accessorizing with a gold watch, it's important to keep it simple and let your timepiece be the focal point of your look. Different looks call for different gold watch styles that suit both men and women. For ideas on how to wear gold watch, keep reading.
How to Artfully Stack Gold Rings
If you're looking to make a style statement, try wearing gold stackable rings. Stacking rings is more than just piling on every ring you own; you'll want to approach it with a bit of style. With a variety of gold rings in your jewelry box and these tips, you can easily stack your rings with artistic flair.
How to Accessorize with Gold Charms
If you want to bring more sparkle to your life, then consider shopping for a few new gold charms. A charm bracelet isn't necessary for showcasing gold charms, so even if you aren't the type to wear fancy jewelry, you can still try a few luxurious trinkets. This fun type of gold jewelry can be worn in a variety of ways, allowing you to showcase your personality with plenty of sparkly flair. If you are looking for new, unique jewelry options, consider these tips for accessorizing with gold charms.
What to Wear with Gold Jewelry
Highlight your beautiful skin with gleaming gold jewelry. Gold jewelry looks stunning against all skin tones and it can be worn with anything in your wardrobe. You can choose between yellow gold jewelry and white gold jewelry in a variety of styles to suit your fashion preferences and project your individuality. You'll make the biggest impact when you combine jewelry and apparel in unique and creative ways; these ideas can inspire you to craft looks around bright gold jewelry.
How to Clean Gold Pendants
Gold pendants go with everything. You can easily wear gold pendants on chains, ribbons and leather cords with jeans, dresses and suits. Gold jewelry also requires a substantial monetary investment, especially if you collect pendants with gemstone embellishments and designer details. If you wear your gold jewelry frequently, then you'll want to keep it looking its best with proper jewelry care. Keeping your pendants clean means always having something shiny to don. Get started with these tips on cleaning gold pendants.
Why You Need Men's Gold Rings
If you're looking to invest in men's jewelry that will never go out of style, consider men's gold rings. When shopping for men's rings, you will find a variety of stylish options. Each piece of gold jewelry will bring a unique style to your fashion wardrobe. If you're considering investing in a new piece of men's gold jewelry, reflect on these reasons for selecting gold rings.
5 Quick Tips on Accessorizing with Gold Chains
Sparkly gold chains are available in new styles and new lengths. Until now, you've been accessorizing with silver jewelry and beaded necklaces, so how do you work gold jewelry into the routine? Gold is surprisingly versatile in updated designs. Use these easy tips to start wearing gold necklaces with all of your favorite outfits.
* For your protection, all orders are screened for security purposes. If your order is selected for review, our Loss Prevention Team may contact you by phone or email. There may be a two business day delay to process your order.
** Most Oversize orders are delivered within 1-4 weeks. Some orders may take 6 weeks to be
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Welcome to Isle of Pines
OUR ISLAND
The Isle of Pines is an island in the Pacific Ocean situated South-East of the New Caledonian
island Grande-Terre in the Coral Sea. This little paradise is located on the Tropic of Capricorn and is also a commune and an district coutumier in French.
When you land on the Isle of Pines, named Kunié in Kanak you will be immediately fascinated by
the enchanting natural landscape: bays with crystal clear water, often empty beaches and fantastic seabeds.
if you take time to get to know the island’s inhabitants you will be impressed by their
kindness, generosity and their amazing timeless way of living.
The population of the island consists mainly of the Kanak people (population of about 2,000).
The Kunié people are divided into eight tribes and have preserved their cultural and social traditions.
The Kanak people live in communities (clans). Many clans form one tribe in which respect for the
individual and the community is essential.
Destinations
The Isle of Pines measures 14 x 18 kilometers or 8 x 11 miles. The center
of the island is a plateau which is surrounded by the tropical endemic forest. The highest summit of the island is the N’Ga peak which is 262 meters or 859 feet high.
The Isle of Pines is one of the Pacific’s gems and is situated about one
hundred kilometers away from Grande-Terre: its turquoise bays and sandy beaches make it one of the most visited destinations in New-Caledonia.
Whilst exploring its many wonders, whether by land or sea, you will
discover extraordinary natural sites where time seems to have stood still.
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The bank's losses on consumer and corporate loans declined, a sign that the worst may soon be over for Citigroup, whose toxic assets forced it to seek U.S. government help three times in 2008 and 2009.
They've crept out of the abyss like everyone else, said Henry Asher, president at Northstar Group, whose clients own Citi shares.
They have a long way to go before they start reporting significant profits, Asher added.
The bank is still facing significant headwinds. When asked about the outlook for loan losses on a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said that losses could increase in the first quarter, and after that, the economy will be a key variable.
Pandit also said that the bank sees a good outlook for foreign credit performance.
It's not an impressive quarter in my view, said Matt McCormick, portfolio manager and banking analyst at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel. Investors are still worried about further credit losses ahead, as well as the impact of sweeping changes to banking regulation, McCormick said.
The third-largest U.S. bank said its quarterly loss narrowed to 33 cents a share, compared with a loss of $17.3 billion, or $3.40 a share, a year earlier.
The loss matched analysts' average estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Citigroup shares rose 10 cents to $3.52 in early afternoon trading.
New York-based Citigroup set aside $8.2 billion in the quarter to cover credit losses and other items, compared with $12.7 billion in the 2008 fourth quarter. Loan losses were $7.14 billion, up 16 percent from a year earlier but down from $7.97 billion in the third quarter.
For a graphic on Citigroup earnings, click on: http://link.reuters.com/tyt44h
Like JPMorgan Chase & Co , Citigroup's investment banking revenue in 2009 helped offset deepening consumer credit losses. But in the fourth quarter, Citigroup's securities and banking business, apart from the assets it is looking to shed, recorded a gain of $300 million because of a tax benefit.
PANDIT
Citigroup is the second major bank to report fourth-quarter results, following JPMorgan. Bank of America Corp , the largest U.S. bank, and Wells Fargo & Co are due to report on Wednesday.
Citigroup has been struggling to return to profitability in its main lending businesses after posting more than $100 billion of credit losses and writedowns since the credit crunch began in 2007.
In a sign that some asset prices are recovering, Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach told analysts the bank is transferring $61 billion in assets to Citigroup from Citi Holdings, the bad bank created to wind down troubled assets.
Part of that shift is because the bank moved some fairly high-quality assets into a pool that was guaranteed by the government against excessive loss. With that guarantee now over, the bank can move the assets back to its Citicorp unit, where it keeps assets in its main businesses.
Citigroup ended that guarantee late last year, when it also repaid the government $20 billion and sold $20.5 billion of stock and convertible bonds.
Ending the guarantee and repaying the United States should bring less government oversight in areas such as compensation, but it came at a cost.
The bank recorded a nearly $5 billion after-tax loss because repaying the bailout entailed buying back securities from the government at a lower price than their value on the bank's books. Ending the loss sharing agreement resulted in another $1.27 billion hit to earnings, after taxes.
Citi was forced to sell shares at $3.15 apiece, well below their level before the bank announced a share sale and below the $3.25 price at which the government bought its shares. The low sale price forced the government to delay selling off a portion of its stake in the bank.
The government still owns 7.7 billion Citigroup shares, worth about $26 billion at current market prices.
Citigroup shares fell more than 50 percent in 2009, while the KBW Bank index , a broader measure of banks, dropped just 3.6 percent. Citigroup shares were up 9 cents or 2.6 percent at $3.51 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday afternoon.
(Reporting by Dan Wilchins; Additional reporting by Clare Baldwin and Elinor Comlay; editing by John Wallace and Matthew Lewis)
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Funding effect by selling an asset (e.g. a building) and leasing it on a long-termin basis. The Sale and lease-back procedure is a possibility to raise a signifikant amount of cash for the company and allocate spendings into the future
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A test of linkage for complex discrete and continuous traits in nuclear families.
This article presents a score test for genetic linkage in nuclear families which applies to any trait having a distribution belonging to the exponential family, which includes binary and normal distributions, and distributions which are skewed or have nonnormal kurtosis. The specific distribution need not be specified and the method applies to sibships of arbitrary size. Tests of complex genetic effects are given, including unspecified mode of inheritance or additive, dominant, overdominant, and recessive modes of inheritance, covariates, multiple-locus models, including gene-gene interactions, and gene-environment interactions. The relation of our method to the Haseman-Elston methods is studied theoretically and by simulation.
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-12565041
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Seattle joins effort to press for production of electric heavy-duty vehicles for city fleets
Originally published March 23, 2017 at 6:30 am
Updated March 23, 2017 at 10:39 am
Seattle joined with three other major West Coast cities to ask automakers for information on buying electric trucks and vans, which aren’t currently in mass production. Twenty-seven other cities quickly joined.
Share story
There aren’t a lot of electric cars out there. They account for about 1 percent of U.S. auto sales. Still, if you want one, you can get one. There are Teslas and Volts and Leafs and Bolts.
That’s not the case with trucks and vans. There are virtually no larger electric vehicles available on a mass-production basis.
That’s part of why Seattle has joined with 30 other cities across the country to ask automakers about the cost and feasibility of providing electric vans, pickups and trucks to, gradually, replace the cities’ fleets of vehicles.
In January, Seattle joined with Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland in sending to automakers a request for information — the first step in a formal bidding process — indicating the cities’ eagerness to buy or lease larger and heavy-duty electric vehicles for their fleets. They’re looking for electric police cars, SUVs, vans, pickups, dump trucks and garbage trucks.
Traffic Lab is a Seattle Times project that digs into the region’s thorny transportation issues, spotlights promising approaches to easing gridlock, and helps readers find the best ways to get around. It is funded with the help of community sponsors Alaska Airlines, CenturyLink, Kemper Development Co., NHL Seattle, PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company and Seattle Children’s hospital. Seattle Times editors and reporters operate independently of our funders and maintain editorial control over Traffic Lab content.
The four West Coast cities were quickly joined by 27 other cities, including New York, Chicago and Boston, whose officials wrote to automakers about the “high demand for electrified transportation in municipal fleets.”
The cities have received responses from nearly 40 companies, touting their electric capabilities, according to Michael Samulon, a policy analyst in Los Angeles’ Sustainability Office.
The cities have an obvious interest in adding electric vehicles to their fleets, but there’s also a secondary motivation to their request — to use their combined market weight as a financial incentive for automakers to kick-start more electric-vehicle development.
“Besides reducing the pollution that we’re directly accountable for as a city government,” said Chris Bast, climate and transportation adviser for Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment, “we want to get as many of these vehicles out there and available so that our residents have experience and they’re available for purchase.”
“Leading by example with our fleet is a key thing we’re doing.”
The cities’ actions, intended as a prod and in preparation for a future purchase, are just a request for information. They’re not committed to doing or buying anything.
But their purchasing power is significant.
Combined, the 31 cities have about 114,000 vehicles worth more than $10 billion.
That’s equal to nearly three-quarters of the approximately 157,000 electric vehicles sold in 2016, according to EV-Volumes, an industry analyst.
Seattle has about 3,000 vehicles in its fleet, with plans to purchase about 850 over the next three years, Bast said. About 25 percent of the city’s passenger sedans are electric, but passenger sedans make up only about 500 of the city’s 3,000 vehicles.
Since Seattle’s electricity comes from hydropower, a higher percentage of its emissions come from transportation — gas-burning vehicles — than in other cities that rely on fossil fuels for electricity.
Bast said the cities’ request to automakers has been in the works for about a year and is not a response to the climate-change policies of President Donald Trump.
Still, the contrast is hard to ignore.
Trump last week announced that he would look to roll back Obama-era regulations that require cars and trucks to improve their fuel efficiency by 2025. And Trump’s federal budget blueprint, also released last week, contains severe cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and to climate research.
“We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director, said about climate change. “We consider that to be a waste of your money.”
Seattle, obviously, disagrees.
Mayor Ed Murray announced last year a goal to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from the city’s vehicle fleet in half by 2025.
The city’s current budget includes about $1.7 million for electric-vehicle charging stations: 20 scattered around the city for public use, and 150 in the city’s municipal tower for its fleet.
“The urgency of the climate challenge doesn’t change with whoever is president,” Bast said. “I think, especially in the context of the current administration, the role of cities to lead on climate is more important than ever.”
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[Role of L-type Ca channels in Ca2+ accumulation and changes in distribution of myosin heavy chain and SERCA isoforms in rat M. soleus under gravitational unloading].
It is known that hindlimb unloading brings about the intracellular Ca2+ accumulation and MyHC slow-to-fast shift in m.soleus. SERCA (sarcoendoplasmatic reticulum Ca ATPase) function as a Ca pump to uptake to sarcoendoplasmatic reticulum after skeletal muscle contraction, and can modulate intracellular resting Ca level. The study was aimed at investigation of the role of intracellular Ca2+ level for MyHC and SERCA isoforms transformation in m.soleus under hindlimb unloading. To determine role of intracellular Ca we administrated nifedipin--specific blocker of L-type calcium channel in myofibers. We hypothesized that decrease of intracellular calcium level prevented-NFATc1 nuclear translocation and MyHC slow-to-fast transformation. 42 male Wistar rats (180-200 g) were divided in 3 groups: cage control (C, n = 14), 14 days HU (HU, n = 14), 14 days HU with 7 mg/kg/day of nifedipin administration with water (HUN, n = 14). The study has shown that increase of intracellular Ca2+ level under HU leads to MHC slow-to-fast shift via activation of calcineurin-NFATc1 signaling pathway. Percentage of muscle fibers with SERCA I increased under hindlimb unloading, being dependent of intracellular calcium level, percentage of muscle fibers with SERCA II decreased under hindlimb unloading but did not depend on calcium. We suppose that nifedipin administration decreases intracellular Ca level, prevents MHC slow-to-fast shift via prevention of NFATcl accumulation in nuclear extract of m.soleus, and prevent increase of SERCAI expression. The work was supported by grants RFBR N05-04-49255a, 04-04-49044, 05-04-08200-ofi-a, contract with Federal Agency for Science and Iinnovation N02.467.11.3005, and Presidium of RAS program "Basic sciences for medicine".
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Dimsum
If you have known and eaten momos, you have possibly eaten the cousin of dimsum – A Chinese appetizer and a very authentic Chinese starter food that calls that’s juicy and delicious.
Honestly, momos and dimsum recipes are almost the same but for its shape and wrapping technique that’s different. Momos are wrapped round while dimsums as a half circle. Just for fun, here are the two sketches.
Ingredients:
Dough
2 cups refined flour
1/2 tsp salt
Filling –
1 cup boiled chicken keema
1 tbsp oil
1/2 cup onion-finely chopped
1 tsp garlic-chopped
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
1/4 tsp vinegar
1/4 tsp black pepper
Procedure:
Mix flour, salt and water and knead it to a soft, workable dough.
In a wok, heat oil and fry onions and garlic. Saute for a while and add chicken. Mix in salt, vinegar and black pepper. Fry for about 1-2 minutes and turn the heat off.
Food is our inspiration. Through Slurrpy, we hope to inspire people to cook and try different cuisines and flavours. The new Slurrpy is a global platform to interconnect with foodies, chefs, food bloggers and food brands.
Contact Us
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Our first response: “Wait! Why would I want God to get into my life and point out all the bad things I do? I have enough people doing that already.” To truly appreciate this verse, we need to dig further into God’s plans for us, and who He is.
God has wonderful plans for us. We were created to bring Him glory. He wants us to be the most we can be. He is ready to help us. Jesus came as a man, to die for us so that we could be free from the bondage of sin. Then, Christ arose from the dead so that we could spend eternity with Him. Not only does this show God’s great love toward us, but His interest in our personal lives.
Despite God being perfect, He understands our weakness and frailties. Hebrews 4:15 says,“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus is the Gentle Shepherd. He lovingly cares for us.
Just as we go to the doctor to seek physical wellness, we need to go to God for diagnosis and treatment– the Great Physician loves us more than any doctor could. Treatment does have its hardships, but we can know we are in safe hands.
Once God shows us our illness, we can seek spiritual health by following the instructions in 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Another useful step in overcoming sin is found in James 5:16. “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” We can seek help from God and others.
Let’s take a look at Psalm 139 again. Go ahead and read the entire chapter. God is looking out for us, and He desires to gently work through our lives. Regardless of our failures, He unconditionally loves us. We should desire His guidance to lead us in the way everlasting.
I see a battlefield with two opposing armies. One army fights for Evil. Its warriors (and they are warriors – fierce, gruesome warriors) are the followers of Satan.
The other army fights for Good. Its warriors are the Children of God.
Everyday that we awake as Children of God, we awake to a raging battle. But, you must make the choice to pick-up your sword and face the enemy, rather than stand idly on the side lines watching your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ fight.
When you first choose to join them and fight, you will be inexperienced. You will have to choose whether to stick it out and learn as you fight, or run back to the sidelines. If you choose to stay and fight, each new enemy will teach you something. You learn through experience and by watching your fellow soldiers. And let us not forget, the Captain, the KING of the army, has given us a battle guide. Study it, learn it, memorize it.
As I view this battlefield, I see the King choose to give certain warriors Battle Partners. You see, their missions are better fulfilled when they have someone to work with. They can stand back to back, guarding each other, watching for an onslaught from the enemy on their Battle Partner which they cannot see.
Other warriors can better fulfill their mission alone. One might think this would be a more dangerous position to be in. And grant it, sometimes it may be. But, it seems to me, as though the Enemy has a special hatred for any 2 warriors willing to put aside their difference’s and be brave enough to take on the responsibility of a Battle Partner. And a great responsibility it is!! These warriors are not perfect. No! They are simply fighting for One who is. They don’t always discern the onslaught the Enemy has prepared for their Battle Partner. Sometimes they are weak, sometimes distracted, sometimes blind. But the King chose them for one another for a reason. They each bring out in the other what they lack themselves. They encourage one another, take counsel together, and most importantly, study the great battle plan the King has given them together. And yes, they fight together.
So, it seems to me when two warriors are willing to come together, that there is a special strength, wisdom, and courage found. I believe the Enemy sees it also. And I believe he has a great desire for these warriors to fail. That he sends his best warriors, and hottest fiery darts in their direction.
So now, maybe you understand why I feel it’s easier to be a lone warrior. Making decisions yourself, not worrying about “having any-ones back”.
Anyways, that’s just how I see it. And I pray I have the strength to choose each day to put on my armor and fight. To fight with a passion!! For our cause is so worthy!
And I pray that if the King should choose to make me a Battle Partner, I will have enough courage, selflessness, and humility to accept. But either way, no matter what His plan is for me, my ultimate goal is to fight the battle well. And when this life on earth is over and God once and for all defeats Satan, I want to be able to live eternity knowing that, even though I made mistakes (and mistakes I’ve surely made!), I fought for the cause and never lost sight of the One for whom I fight.
Reach for God, in the face of cloudy horizons; lines out of focus. Fix your eyes on the mark, barely visible – recognizable to the mind, doubted by the heart. Grasp for what is there, but feels like empty air in a closed fist. The Almighty is in the small things…the whispers of life…more than any, magnificent display.
Reach even when you feel your hands stopped by rain-streaked glass; the panes of frustration are hard against your skin, mostly because you can see through them what you should have, but don’t. Reach even when the briars and thorns tear at the hope in your soul, cut and scratch and break the skin of trust in a future where the Suffering Servant’s crown will be turned to gold.
Reach when the darkness in front of your eyes swallows your hand and everything it is outstretched to receive. Fight your way through the valley of shadows and refuse fear. Your God is with you silently, because He forsook the Lamb on the darkest day in history. You have never felt alone as He did, and still He reached:“My God? My God? Why have You forsaken me?” And then submission in the face of what could not be understood: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” It was finished then, and glory triumphed because He reached when He could not see.So we must reach. We will never be forsaken as He was.
Reach for the nail-pierced hands. The hands that healed the unthankful and touched the outcasts. Reach for the broken feet, that walked hundreds of miles to love those who would turn away, reject, scorn His truth. Reach for the side that was thrust through with a sword. It showed the world the broken heart of the Son, poured out for people who knew not what they did.
Reach, and you will not be disappointed. Labor through the dark, the confusing, the barriers, the prisons of this life. It’s all momentary. It’s all working an eternal WEIGHT of glory. And how? How do we reach?
“Call out to me and I will show you great and mighty things which you know not.” Spoken to the prophet Jeremiah – the weeping prophet – who served faithfully and struggled with the depressing weight of failure in the face of a hardened nation. We are to seek the Word – which is from the beginning, and is the exact representation of Jesus, the One we are called to follow. The One who alone can ground us.
Confused? Reach for the One who knows all things.
Tired? Reach for the One who restores souls and satisfies the weary.
Thoughts racing? Reach for the One who says, “Peace be still.” Even the winds and waves obey Him. Our minds are not too great of an ocean for Him to calm.
Suffering? Reach for the One who was forsaken in His darkest hour and remember that you are not alone.
Torn? Reach for the One who makes all things new.
Reach, Christian. And don’t stop. Blink and your life here will be gone. Reach for all that you can lay up in the Kingdom. Reach for what is bigger than yourself. Reach and be totally lost in the Christ who came to displace sinful flesh with holy glory.
I know that some people (like my sister in law that I love very much) think they are really awesome. When there is a spider crawling up the wall that seems really scary and big at the moment, I usually call my brother in and he will take care of it for me.
And I do have to laugh at myself sometimes when I think about how small the spider really is in comparison to me.
I think how we forget about our size compared to a little spider is kind of how we forget about the size of our God.
These huge problems we have in our day to day lives are little, bitty spiders compared to Our God.
One day I was reading in the Old Testament about how God led his people out of Egypt safely and, yes, they were grateful and praised Him but when some other problems came up, they forgot all about their loving, merciful God and what He had done and how mighty He is, and they could only imagine doing things in their own strength. And I thought to myself “What jerks to be so ungrateful and forgetful.” Then it hit me. When a problem stands before me, I think that I will have to face it on my own and in my own strength. Why do I forget what all God has done for me and how big He is?
I am no better then the children of Israel in the Old testament.
I catch myself not giving my problems to God and I ask myself why am I not giving this to Him. I am acting like I don’t think He can handle it. But that is so silly. That is like not letting my BIG, STRONG brother come in and get rid of the teeny tiny spider because I don’t think He is big enough to do it. Sounds silly right?
When I do give God my troubles, He does a better job with them than I ever could. I feel so free and peaceful afterwords. And I wonder why I didn’t do it sooner.
He wants to take our problems; He tells us to give them over!
Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain the: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Psalms 55:22
It’s kind of like having an electrical problem and calling the electrician, the one who knows all about electricity.
God knows all about our problem and how to fix them. But just like you have to call the electrician and let him fix it, you have to call on God and give Him your problem and let Him fix it.
So I think next time I see a spider on the wall, I am still going to call for my brother, And when the next problem comes up hopefully I will remember to give it to God.
Casting all your care upon him; for He careth for you. 1 Peter 5:7
Because Greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world. 1 John 4:4
“With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment;But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,”Says the Lord, your Redeemer.” Isaiah 54:8
The jealousy of God is something remarkable to think about. It embodies the concept that the Almighty Maker of the universe, who needs no one and lacks nothing, is fiercely protective of and possessive towards sinful, human beings. He wants relationship with us so deeply and so passionately, that when we serve other gods, He has to turn His face away. He has to let us suffer the absence of His face, and feel the burn of His jealous affection for us.
There is something incredible to be noted here in this verse: the goodness of God is not circumstantial. It is relational. And that is a constant, unaffected by changing situations. The momentary anger of God over misplaced affections gives way to everlasting love and kindness. The God of heaven came into a world of pain for which there are no words and no explanations, and He met us where we were with love that cannot be described; desire that cannot be comprehended. That should produce worship. That should produce a song that does not take circumstances into consideration nearly as much as it takes the Person of God into thought. He who is faithful, keeping His covenant for THOUSANDS of generations.
Don’t stop praising Him in the valley. He is always good. Not just on sunny days; actually, especially on rainy ones.
It’s a wonderful thought and even more so because it’s true, but I think we often forget one small factor: Jesus didn’t die just to save me. He would have, had I been the only person in the whole world. But the Bible says “For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son”. The word “world” in the Greek is Cosmos, and in this particular verse it refers to the human race.
Jesus died for me, but he also died for the whole world. I think as Christians, we like to dwell on the fact that Jesus died for “Me” and we sometimes treat others like He did not die for them. Instead we begin to view ourselves as somehow more worthy of Christ’s love.
When I truly stop to think about it, I am shocked at how easily I judge others. Instead of seeing them as (1) another child of God who may not have the same standards or preferences that I do, or (2) a lost person who desperately needs to be told about Jesus Christ, I think we tend to sit back and compare ourselves.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt
When we sit in church and hear the pastor talk about the pride of the Pharisees, it’s easy to shake our heads in disapproval and think about how evil and selfish they were. But when church is over and we find ourselves in similar circumstances, surrounded by people who are different then we are, if we truly stop to think, we will most likely find ourselves copying them rather than following the example of Christ. How many times have you compared your standards with others, or mentally judged someone in the grocery store? It’s a habit; it happens all the time and we don’t even realize how much we do it.
John 7:24 – Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment
The thing is, our flesh wants us to feel more important – like we somehow deserve Christ’s gift – when in fact as Paul stated, “I am the least of all sinners” – or in other words, “I am the lowest of the low.” We deserve nothing but death and hell, yet Jesus came and gave His life for us. Jesus showed us by His own example that no sin was too great for Him to forgive. If Jesus, the perfect Son of God, was willing to give His life for those who would nail Him to a cross, is it so much to ask of His children that they put away their judgmental attitudes towards others and take the time to share the truth in love?
Ephesians 4:15 – But Speaking the Truth in Love, May grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
The next time you start to judge someone, stop and remember that just as Jesus died for you, He died for that person too.
Dear Diary, today I hit 500 friends on Facebook. I now get hundreds of comments and likes every day… So why is it that I feel completely alone? Why do I feel worthless and out of place? Why don’t I feel like any one values me for who I really am?
This is the story of so many people around the world today. Social media controls us. We decide that the most important thing in life is what others think of us. If no one likes my picture on Instagram, they must not like me as a person. Why is it that we allow such a small thing to control how we feel about who we are?
Revelations 1:6 – And hath made uskings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Jesus made us the way He made us for a purpose. He has a journey for us to take, a masterpiece for us to be a part of. But instead of waking up each morning praising the Lord for the life He has given us, we allow the world to set the bar for our identity and our worth. Every day when I wake up, I know that Jesus still loves me and he still has a plan for me. I can never make a mistake that will change that because I am his child and he has forgiven me for my sin – past, present, and future. I know that he will always accept me just the way I, am no matter how bad or good my day may have been. He is always by my side and he will never give up on me, because I am his child. But sometimes that knowledge gets lost, and I forget that it doesn’t really matter what my Facebook friends think, or how popular I am.
Jeremiah 1:5a – Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…
There is a saying that if you don’t care what anyone else thinks you, don’t care about anybody. And I think that is true. If you don’t value anyone’s opinion but your own, you don’t tend to value people in general. But we take it too far. Instead of valuing opinions the way Christ meant for us to, we make them into idols. And we find ourselves always trying to measure up to the standard the world has set for us. As humans, we can only go on measuring up for so long before we get tired of trying and fail – and when that happens, our entire identity that we worked so hard to build comes crashing down around us. We find ourselves depressed and ready to give up because we are searching in the wrong place for our worth.
People will disappoint people, but Jesus can never be disappointed.
Disappointment means that someone was not expecting us to fail in some way. Because Jesus knows our hearts and he knows what we have done, are doing, and will do, we can’t surprise him. We may grieve the Spirit by our sinful actions but we can never disappoint him. Unfortunately, it’s much too easy in today’s culture to seek our worth and identity from the world and the world is easily disappointed.
It’s time to start a new trend. It’s time to stop worshiping the identity that the world has set on us and to start looking to our Creator and Savior for our identity.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; You were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
Sometime near the end of last week, I had a crazy, rough day. By the time evening came around, I felt borderline insane. I’m a problem solver, but the issues I had come up against that day were maxing out my little mental motor. I was on zero, and I could feel the last bit of my spiritual battery draining. With a depressing grind, everything within me that was faithful and trusting of God came to a halt.
For a while, I paced the house. I scrolled through social media – which was no help at all. I tried showering. I went through the refrigerator and discovered that my brothers had cleaned out everything good. My head felt like it was going to explode, and by this time, I had about 25,000 journal entries drafted in my head. I locked myself in my closet with my bible, my journal and a pen…and the war began. Should I journal the chaos in my mind first? Or open my Bible – something I probably (no…definitely) should have done hours earlier?
It was a battle for me. I was exhausted and soul-sick. I had huge problems looming over my head that I wanted answers to. I had already had my usual, morning quiet time that day and it felt elementary and somewhat dry.
In that moment, I thought of King David. I knew he understood what was going on in my mind. I believe God filled His Word with the stories of fallen, human beings because He knew we’d need relatable content. I decided to read several, consecutive Psalms, and journal afterwards – but trust me, the whirlwind in my mind was screaming “NO!” with all the ferocity it could muster. My flesh almost didn’t want to be quiet. It almost didn’t want to calm down. In a twisted way, it wanted to figure things out ON ITS OWN.
A lot of you know what I’m talking about. Isolate, divide and conquer. Make it through and emerge with self as the victor yet again. It never lasts.
As I dug into Scripture – reluctantly and maybe even resentfully at first – the storm in my head slowed to a drizzle…then a rainbow in the clouds…then the sun came out. I don’t think I left my closet until almost 11:30 that night. I never did journal – I only ever got around to writing down verses that jumped out as I went along. But my heart was quiet when at last, I turned the knob on the door to go to bed.
I had had to run up the hill to the cross when I least wanted to.
Did I have answers as I fell into bed that night, exhausted and worn out? No. Had my circumstances changed? Absolutely not. Were all the people I cared about where I wanted them to be in order to have peace of mind? Without doubt, they were not. Yet, as I drifted off to sleep, I realized what it meant to cast one’s burdens on the Lord. Most often, we want to hog our burdens because we don’t want to need help. I am a self-doer. I don’t like to ask for help. That’s something I’ve had to learn slowly, the hard way. But there is a peace that the world cannot understand that is found in telling Jesus our troubles. He doesn’t always take them away. But more often than not, we discover in the midst of them that it is not the trouble that is disturbing us as much as it is that we have not been walking as closely with Him as we should have been.
The second balancing truth I mentioned on Tuesday is this: our bodies are the vessels God works through to carry out His Kingdom agenda. That’s a tall order, but with Christ in us, it’s a miraculous possibility.
For the past 4 years, God has led me deeper and deeper into the dark, often impassible territory of the traumatized mind. Young women who are fighting indescribable enemies in their minds and trying to rise above the horrors of unspeakable abuse in their past have crossed my path, forcing me to learn to love at a new level – an unconditional one.
It is contrary to human nature to patiently and genuinely love someone who cannot possibly meet any human expectations, or contribute much back to a relationship. But there is something incredibly beautiful about watching a trampled, tightly closed bud begin to bloom. And that is the life I get to live. That is the miracle I get to watch.
The more I think about this radical love idea, the more excited I get. But there is also a sad side to this truth. We are part of a body of conceited individuals called Christians. People who live with an enormous sense of entitlement because they were worth enough for Jesus to die for them. The same people who should live with an incredible sense of indebted gratitude, willing to lay down their lives for the least.
Right now, God is taking me through a season of life where I’m learning about the joy of becoming a servant; where I am realizing the gift of not mattering, because someone else has pressing needs. It’s hard and often incredibly painful, but it’s a pain I am learning how to thrive in. It’s a loss I am learning to love, relish and enjoy. I am in the early moments of grasping what Paul meant when He said, “To live is Christ.” To be a representative of Jesus to someone who doesn’t understand Him is an awesome responsibility – and a weighty one. But it’s a precious commission that should not be taken lightly.
Honestly, I feel like I could go on for days, weeks…months or even years about loving broken people, because that is what Jesus came to do. Just this past Sunday, a friend texted me Mark 2:17 which says, “And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”” But a lot of us don’t believe that in practice – right?
In the past 6 months, I’ve had some deeply discouraging and disappointing interactions with people who profess to be Christians, but believe they are completely well – and proud of it! I’m not well – and I suffer the effects of that every day in my soul! But there is good news for those of us who are in disrepair and know it: Jesus came for US. Specifically, especially, and uniquely, He came for US. The vast majority of the “Church” today believes that they are well, and proud of it. But let those of us who think we stand be careful that we don’t fall. Christ came for those who need healing. And as we become aware of our need and receive that desperately needed care, He empowers us to give it for His glory, to others. May we not forget the Lord when we have been filled and satisfied!
Take-Aways for Loving Radically:
Ask yourself in what ways your personal needs or the demands of your comfort zone get in the way of loving people radically – especially those who impersonate Judas.
What is radical love for you? Sacrifice is a key element. If the love you give to others never costs you, and never hurts, it’s probably not really love.
Do the people you love sense that you matter to yourself more than they matter? That your expectations and desires trump the meeting of their needs? Be honest with yourself, and be willing to ask them! If so, something needs to change!
Part of loving others is loving ourselves. It’s true to one degree, but twisted to another. Yesterday, I mentioned 2 balancing truths that relate to loving people. The first was that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. They don’t belong to us – they’ve been purchased at an unfathomable cost. Therefore, they are not ours to do with what we want. They are ours to steward – and God does not deal lightly with irresponsible stewards (See Matthew 25:14-30).
If we want to radically love other people, down the the very last Judas walking this earth, we’re going to need something supernatural. We’re simply not good enough, motivated enough or selfless enough at the core as human beings to succeed at something so audaciously holy. In fact, we’re the opposite in our flesh. But remember what I wrote yesterday about Jesus as He knelt in front of those disciples to wash their feet? He was so secure in His identity as the Son of God, that He was able to stoop to the lowest possible place out of love for them.It is only when we are secure in an identity that far surpasses us – the identity of the Son of God – that we will be able to love radically and sacrificially. Therefore, it is not really about loving ourselves for who we are by nature (children of wrath, Colossians 3 says). Instead, it is about loving the Christ that lives within us (Galatians 2:20). This is why the first greatest command is to love the Lord with all our hearts. The second is only possible when the first is in play. To love ourselves, we must love the One who made us and inhabits us, and in fact has removed everything about us that is us, and replaced it with His perfect self. Learning to walk in an identity that huge and that awesome is a learning curve for our human hearts. But when we begin to search out the Person of God in us, we begin to understand that there is no such thing as self-care. It is rather about worship and stewardship.
Self care usually revolves around what makes life convenient and easy for us. It is aimed at making us relatively comfortable in the battlefield we live and work in. But stewardship is about worshipping the One who is empowering us to do what we do. David wrote, “You have done all of our works in us.” And Philippians 2:13 says that it is God who wills and works out in us what pleases Him.
Jesus’ life was a demanding, exhausting ordeal. Yet somehow, He didn’t have to tote a huge sack of art therapy supplies with Him to stay sane (there’s nothing wrong with art therapy by the way – I use it all the time!). Jesus didn’t cope with the extreme life He lived. He thrived in it, and He did so by staying close to His Father. It was the one “luxury” He afforded Himself. The Son of Man had no place to lay His head at night, no house to call home, no wife or mother who cooked Him three, solid meals a day. He lived a life of constant pilgrimage, persecution and personal sacrifice that left Him exhausted at the end of each day. But it was the nights and early mornings spent in worship and prayer that revived Him. Often, we fail to love people radically because we have not gotten to know the God who loves them radically. And without Love Himself dwelling in us, we will fail our mission.
Take-Aways On Stewarding Your Temple:
Have you learned to wield the weapon of worship? When the battle gets hot, the soldier who doesn’t trust the power and foresight of his commanding officer will retreat. Worship takes us to the heart of who God is so that we won’t run when things get tough, but rather, have faith.
Do you step away on a daily basis to be with your Father? Once a week is not enough. Sometimes once a day is not enough. Jesus was in CONSTANT communication with His Father, and therefore, He did not burn out on His mission to love a world that was actively rejecting Him. You can never get too close to your Sustainer!
Are you meditating on your TRUE identity? Studies are now proving that the person we become is directly linked to what we think about in our solitude. What we think about is inextricably bound to what we watch, read, and listen to. Are you putting the truth in, or are you marinading in lies and then expecting to feel secure enough to emerge from the fight victorious? It won’t happen. Stand fast in the liberty that Christ has set you free for!
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Okinawan kobudō
, literally "old martial way of Okinawa", is the weapon systems of Okinawan martial arts.
Etymology and definition
Okinawan Kobudō is a Japanese term that can be translated as "old martial way of Okinawa". It is a generic term coined in the twentieth century.
Okinawan kobudō refers to the weapon systems of Okinawan martial arts. These systems can have from one to as many as a dozen weapons in their curriculum, among the rokushakubo (six foot staff, known as the "bō" (meaning staff)), sai (three-pronged truncheon), tonfa (handled club), kama (sickle), and nunchaku (two rope- or chain-connected sticks), but also the tekko (steelknuckle), tinbe-rochin (shield and spear), and surujin (weighted chain). Less common Okinawan weapons include the tambo (short stick), the hanbō (middle length staff) and the eku (boat oar of traditional Okinawan design).
Okinawan kobudō should not be confused with the term Kobudō, which is described in the article Koryū, because the term Kobudō refers not to a weapon system but a concept of morals from feudal Japan.
History
It is a popular story and common belief that Okinawan farming tools evolved into weapons due to restrictions placed upon the peasants by the Satsuma samurai clan when the island was made a part of Japan, which forbade them from carrying arms. As a result, it is said, they were defenseless and developed a fighting system around their traditional farming implements. However, modern martial arts scholars have been unable to find historical backing for this story, and the evidence uncovered by various martial historians points to the Pechin Warrior caste in Okinawa as being those who practiced and studied various martial arts, rather than the Heimin, or commoner. It is true that Okinawans, under the rule of foreign powers, were prohibited from carrying weapons or practicing with them in public. But the weapons-based fighting that they secretly practiced (and the types of weapons they practiced with) had strong Chinese roots, and examples of similar weapons have been found in China, Malaysia and Indonesia pre-dating the Okinawan adaptations.
Okinawan kobudō systems were shaped by indigenous Okinawan techniques that arose within the Aji, or noble class, and by imported methods from China and Southeast Asia. The majority of Okinawan kobudō traditions that survived the difficult times during and following World War II were preserved and handed down by Taira Shinken (Ryūkyū Kobudō Hozon Shinkokai), Chogi Kishaba (Ryūkyū Bujustsu Kenkyu Doyukai), and Kenwa Mabuni (Shito-ryū). Practical systems were developed by Toshihiro Oshiro and Motokatsu Inoue in conjunction with these masters. Other noted masters who have Okinawan kobudō kata named after them include Chōtoku Kyan, Shigeru Nakamura, Kanga Sakukawa, and Shinko Matayoshi.
Okinawan kobudō arts are thought by some to be the forerunner of the bare hand martial art of karate, and several styles of that art include some degree of Okinawan kobudō training as part of their curriculum. Similarly, it is not uncommon to see an occasional kick or other empty-hand technique in an Okinawan kobudō kata. The techniques of the two arts are closely related in some styles, evidenced by the empty-hand and weapon variants of certain kata: for example, Kankū-dai and Kankū-sai, and Gojūshiho and Gojūshiho-no-sai, although these are examples of Okinawan kobudō kata which have been developed from karate kata and are not traditional Okinawan kobudō forms. Other more authentic Okinawan kobudō kata demonstrate elements of empty hand techniques as is shown in older forms such as Soeishi No Dai, a bo form which is one of the few authentic Okinawan kobudō kata to make use of a kick as the penultimate technique. Some Okinawan kobudō kata have undergone less "modern development" than karate and still retain much more of the original elements, reflections of which can be seen in even more modern karate kata. The connection between empty hand and weapon methods can be directly related in systems such as that formulated in order to preserve both arts such as Inoue/Taira's Ryūkyū Kobujutsu Hozon Shinko Kai and Motokatsu Inoue's Yuishinkai Karate Jutsu. M. Inoue draws direct comparisons between the use of certain weapons and various elements of empty hand technique such as sai mirroring haito/shuto waza, tonfa reflecting that of uraken and hijiate, and kama of kurite and kakete, as examples. The footwork in both methods is interchangeable.
Weapons and kata
Okinawans kobudō was at its peak some 100 years ago and of all the authentic Okinawan kobudō kata practiced at this time, only relatively few, by comparison, remain extant. In the early 20th century, a decline in the study of Ryūkyū kobujutsu (as it was known then) meant that the future of this martial tradition was in danger. During the Taishō period (1912–1926) some martial arts exponents such as Yabiku Moden made great inroads in securing the future of Ryūkyū kobujutsu. Many of the forms that are still known are due to the efforts of Taira Shinken who travelled around the Ryūkyū Islands in the early part of the 20th century and compiled 42 existing kata, covering eight types of Okinawan weapons. Whilst Taira Shinken may not have been able to collect all extant Okinawan kobudō kata, those he did manage to preserve are listed here. They do not include all those from the Matayoshi, Uhuchiku and Yamanni streams however.
Bō
The bō is a six-foot long staff, sometimes tapered at either end. It was perhaps developed from a farming tool called a tenbin: a stick placed across the shoulders with baskets or sacks hanging from either end. The bo was also possibly used as the handle to a rake or a shovel. The bo, along with shorter variations such as the jo and hanbō could also have been developed from walking sticks used by travelers, especially monks. The bo is considered the 'king' of the Okinawa weapons, as all others exploit its weaknesses in fighting it, whereas when it is fighting them it is using its strengths against them. The bo is the earliest of all Okinawan weapons (and effectively one of the earliest of all weapons in the form of a basic staff), and is traditionally made from red or white oak. Also most of the time they used dark oak for tournaments with the bō.
Sai
The sai is a three-pronged truncheon sometimes mistakenly believed to be a variation on a tool used to create furrows in the ground. This is highly unlikely as metal on Okinawa was in short supply at this time and a stick would have served this purpose more satisfactorily for a poor commoner, or Heimin. The sai appears similar to a short sword, but is not bladed and the end is traditionally blunt. The weapon is metal and of the truncheon class with its length dependent upon the forearm of the user. The two shorter prongs on either side of the main shaft are used for trapping (and sometimes breaking) other weapons such as a sword or bo. A form known as nunti sai, sometimes called manji sai (due to its appearance resembling the swastika kanji) has the two shorter prongs pointed in opposite directions.
Tonfa
The tonfa may have originated as the handle of a millstone used for grinding grain. It is traditionally made from red oak, and can be gripped by the short perpendicular handle or by the longer main shaft. As with all Okinawan weapons, many of the forms are reflective of "empty hand" techniques. The tonfa is more readily recognized by its modern development in the form of the police Side-handle baton, but many traditional tonfa techniques differ from side-handle baton techniques. For example, tonfa are often used in pairs, while side-handle batons generally are not.
Nunchaku
A nunchaku is two sections of wood (or metal in modern incarnations) connected by a cord or chain. There is much controversy over its origins: some say it was originally a Chinese weapon, others say it evolved from a threshing flail, while one theory purports that it was developed from a horse's bit. Chinese nunchaku tend to be rounded, whereas Okinawan ones are octagonal, and they were originally linked by horse hair. There are many variations on the nunchaku, ranging from the three sectional staff (san-setsu-kon, mentioned later in this article), to smaller multi-section nunchaku. The nunchaku was popularized by Bruce Lee in a number of films, made in both Hollywood and Hong Kong. This weapon is illegal in Canada, Australia (unless a permit is held) and parts of Europe.
Kama
The kama is a traditional farming sickle, and considered one of the hardest to learn due to the inherent danger in practicing with such a weapon. The point at which the blade and handle join in the "weapon" model normally has a nook with which a bo can be trapped, although this joint proved to be a weak point in the design, and modern day examples tend to have a shorter handle with a blade that begins following the line of the handle and then bends, though to a lesser degree; this form of the kama is known as the natagama. The edge of a traditional rice sickle, such as one would purchase from a Japanese hardware store, continues to the handle without a notch, as this is not needed for its intended use.
Tekko
The tekko or tecchu is a form of knuckleduster, and primarily takes its main form of usage from that of empty-hand technique, whilst also introducing slashing movements. The tekko is usually made to the width of the hand with anything between one and three protruding points on the knuckle front with protruding points at the top and the bottom of the knuckle. They can be made of any hard material but are predominantly found in aluminium, iron, steel, or wood.
Maezato (From Taira Shinken)
Tinbe-rochin
The tinbe-rochin consists of a shield and spear. It is one of the least known Okinawan weapons. The tinbe (shield) can be made of various materials but is commonly found in vine or cane, metal, or archetypically, from a turtle shell (historically, the Ryūkyū Islands' primary source of food, fishing, provided a reliable supply of turtle shells). The shield size is generally about 45 cm long and 38 cm wide. The rochin (short spear) is cut with the length of the shaft being the same distance as the forearm to the elbow if it is being held in the hand. The spearhead then protrudes from the shaft and can be found in many differing designs varying from spears to short swords and machete-style implements.
Surujin
The surujin consists of a weighted chain or leather cord and can be found in two kinds: 'tan surujin' (short) and 'naga surujin' (long). The lengths are about 150–152 cm and 230–240 cm respectively. It is a weapon which can be easily hidden prior to use, and due to this fact can be devastatingly effective. In the modern era, found with a bladed instrument at one end and a weight at the other, the surujin techniques are very similar to those of the nunchaku. Leather cords are used for practice or kumite, whereas chains are favored for demonstration, but rope (most commonly of hemp) was the original material used.
Nagai Kusari, Mijikai Kusari
Matayoshi Kobudō: Suruchin no Toseki
Eku
The Okinawan style of oar is called an eku (this actually refers to the local wood most commonly used for oars), eiku, iyeku, or ieku. Noteworthy hallmarks are the slight point at the tip, curve to one side of the paddle and a roof-like ridge along the other. One of the basic moves for this weapon utilizes the fact that a fisherman fighting on the beach would be able to fling sand at an opponent. While not having the length, and therefore reach, of the bō, the rather sharp edges can inflict more penetrating damage when wielded properly.
Tsuken Akachu No Eiku De (Also called as Chikin Akachu No Eiku De)
Tambo
The tambo, sometimes spelled tanbo, is a short staff (compared to a bo, or a hambo) made of hardwood or bamboo. Its length is determined by measuring from the tip of the elbow to the wrist. Tambo can be used in pairs.
Kuwa
The hoe is common in all agrarian societies; in Okinawa, the kuwa has been also used as a weapon for as long as there have been farmers. Compared to garden-variety hoes, the handle tends to be thicker and usually shorter, both due to Okinawan stature, and the fact that much of the agriculture takes place on hillsides where long handles would be a hindrance. A classic shape of blade is a simple rectangle of steel with a sharp leading edge, but may also be forked with tines.
Kata Matayoshi No Kuwa Nu De
Hanbō
The hanbō is a middle length wood or bamboo stick, used for striking and joint locking techs. It measures about 90 cm, or can be made taking into account the length from the hip to the ankle.
Nunti Bo
The nunti bo is similar to a spear, but typically composed of a bo with a manji-shaped sai mounted on the end.
Kata Nunti Sho, Kata Nunti Dai
Sansetsukon
The sansetsukon is similar to a nunchaku, but has three sections of wood (or metal in modern incarnations) connected by a cord or chain.
Comparison of Okinawan kobudō styles
This table compares styles of Okinawan kobudō. The weapons practiced by each style are listed. The styles listed below may practice strictly weapons, or may practice another martial arts (usually karate) as well.
Generally, weapons systems are not automatically formalized as karate systems. Some karate systems include weapons standard in their curriculum, while others may offer weapons training optionally. Some individual schools may teach additional weapons not necessarily taught by others in their system.
Although many karate systems do not include weapons, individual schools may choose to teach Okinawan kobudō. These karate systems may or may not be listed here.
See also
Karate
Matayoshi Kobudo
Pechin/Peichin
Ryukyu Kobudo
Yamanni ryu
References
External links
Shinken Taira sensei-> Gansho Motokatsu Inoue Association: The Society for the Preservation and Promotion of the Classical Ryukyu Martial Arts
World Oshukai Federation
Information about Kobudo weapons from a website of the Okinawa Prefectural Government
(Wayback Machine copy)
International Okinawan Kobudo Association
Weapons Connection (Ryukyute Kobujutsu Hozon Budo Kyokai)
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.a ~ > + x {a: b}
.b > + y {@extend x}
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A study regarding data science jobs showed that 60% of the time spent by data scientists consists only on cleaning and organizing data. So in order to make the most out of our time, my data science fellas, in this four-part series we’ll se how to preprocess data like a boss, using the Pandas Python library and the preprocessing module from scikit-learn.
Pretty much everything we do in an AI algorithm are matrix operations. That means that every value must be represented in a numerical format and, ideally, one that optimizes the operations performance. Given that most datasets come in a very nonoptimal format, we must apply certain transformations in order to obtain the most ideal format. This process is called preprocessing.
Start of the cleaning data process
For this series of examples we’ll be using this interesting dataset of FIFA 19 players. This game allows players to create a custom character with different values for their stats like speed, weight, height, etc. We will create an algorithm for recommending the most ideal position (striker, central back, etc.) for that character based on those values and what we’ve learned from the rest of the football player base.
You can find all the code for this series in the GitHub repo.
As always, we’ll start by loading the data and do a basic exploration of it.
import pandas as pd raw_df = pd.read_csv('data.csv') # raw_df.info() # display all the columns and their data type
The very first thing to do is choosing what features could be useful for training the model. Let’s start by discriminating what features definitely won’t contribute and then choosing which ones could.
As rule of thumb, using unique non-numerical values is not useful since we want the model to generalize. So columns like ID and Name have to go. Features that are highly correlated to each other or are directly calculations don’t need to be included twice. For example, if we store the birth date, we don’t need to include the age since it is a result from the prior. In this case, Overall is the score resulting from the rest of the features, so there’s no need to have it.
Knowing what features influence the outcome of the objective one is a complex task. For the sake of this post lenght, we’ll arbitrarily pick some based on what we think impacts a player’s skill. Once the features are selected, let’s make a new data frame with only the colums we chose.
# it's useful to have the columns in a list you can modify easily useful_columns = [ 'Age', 'Preferred Foot', 'Height', 'Weight', 'Agility', 'Strength', 'Dribbling', 'Jumping', 'Marking', 'Interceptions', 'Position', # I like to let my objective columns at the end ] working_df = raw_df[useful_columns] print(working_df.head())
Age Preferred Foot Height Weight Agility Strength Dribbling Jumping \ 0 31 Left 5'7 159lbs 91.0 59.0 97.0 68.0 1 33 Right 6'2 183lbs 87.0 79.0 88.0 95.0 2 26 Right 5'9 150lbs 96.0 49.0 96.0 61.0 3 27 Right 6'4 168lbs 60.0 64.0 18.0 67.0 4 27 Right 5'11 154lbs 79.0 75.0 86.0 63.0 Marking Interceptions Position 0 33.0 22.0 RF 1 28.0 29.0 ST 2 27.0 36.0 LW 3 15.0 30.0 GK 4 68.0 61.0 RCM
Now that we have a working data set, let’s start processing the data. There are two basic types of transformations we can apply:
Encoding : for getting a numerical representation of categorical values (usally strings)
: for getting a numerical representation of categorical values (usally strings) Scaling: for normalizing continious values
Encoding
Encoding is one of the easiest things to undesrtand, since at its core it is just as simple as assigning one unique numerical value to each unique categorical value. For example, on the Position column of the data set that would mean:
CB -> 0
CM -> 1
GK -> 2
LB -> 3
ST -> 4
…
We can achieve this with the LabelEncoder class in the preprocessing module of Scikit learn.
from sklearn.preprocessing import LabelEncoder # create the encoder for the colum position_encoder = LabelEncoder() # learn the classes and assign a code to each position_encoder.fit(working_df['Position']) # get the encoded column encoded_position = position_encoder.transform(working_df['Position']) encoded_position
array([21, 26, 14, ..., 26, 24, 4])
For getting back the original classes from the numerical representations, we can use the inverse_transform method from the encoder.
position_encoder.inverse_transform(encoded_position)
array(['RF', 'ST', 'LW', ..., 'ST', 'RW', 'CM'], dtype=object)
Scaling
For continious values, there’s no reason to transform them into numerical representations. How ever, a model can have some difficulties on learning patterns in the data if it has a very large range of values.
For example, a model could take some time learning patterns for values ranging from 0 to 255 (like the intensity of a pixel in an image), but it’d take a very short time with values from 0 to 1 . Since a value of 125 in a range from 0 to 255 represents the sames as 0.5 in a range from 0 to 1 , we can change the scale of the first range in order to make it more efficient. This is what the scaling process does.
from sklearn.preprocessing import MinMaxScaler # There are many types of scalers strength_scaler = MinMaxScaler() # Note that the scalers receive a 2D array as input strength_scaler.fit(working_df[['Strength']]) # Get the scaled version scaled_strength = strength_scaler.transform(working_df[['Strength']]) scaled_strength
array([[0.525 ], [0.775 ], [0.4 ], ..., [0.1875], [0.3875], [0.5375]])
Finishing the pipeline
How to store the transformed values depends on your preference and attributes of your data set. Since this case has a data set relatively small, we can create a copy of it with the transformed values.
# New data frame clean_df = pd.DataFrame() # I will create a dictionary for storing all my encoders encoders = { 'Preferred Foot': LabelEncoder(), 'Position': LabelEncoder() } # Encode all the categorical features for col, encoder in encoders.items(): encoder.fit(working_df[col]) clean_df[col] = encoder.transform(working_df[col]) scalers = { 'Agility': MinMaxScaler(), 'Strength': MinMaxScaler(), 'Dribbling': MinMaxScaler(), 'Jumping': MinMaxScaler(), 'Marking': MinMaxScaler(), 'Interceptions': MinMaxScaler() } # Scale all the continous features for col, scaler in scalers.items(): scaler.fit(working_df[[col]]) clean_df[col] = scaler.transform(working_df[[col]]) print(clean_df.head())
Preferred Foot Position Agility Strength Dribbling Jumping Marking \ 0 0 21 0.939024 0.5250 1.000000 0.6625 0.329670 1 1 26 0.890244 0.7750 0.903226 1.0000 0.274725 2 1 14 1.000000 0.4000 0.989247 0.5750 0.263736 3 1 5 0.560976 0.5875 0.150538 0.6500 0.131868 4 1 19 0.792683 0.7250 0.881720 0.6000 0.714286 Interceptions 0 0.213483 1 0.292135 2 0.370787 3 0.303371 4 0.651685
This new clean_df looks really good for now, so I’m gonna finish this part of the series by exporting it into a new file I can keep using later on.
clean_df.to_csv('clean_data.csv', index=None)
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Q:
Math questions in Kalman filter equation derivation
I am interested in data analysis. While my working data (actually it's shopping mall's daily sale) is accumlating, I wish to find some statistical laws underlying business phenomena. I left school for more than 10 years, and I am working in a business enviroment, I have no choice but to study by myself from level 0.
I am actually learning state space method following the book of Durbin & Koopman, and I can understand basic process underlying Kalman Filter, that is, the process starts from an initial state, and then go to prediction and updating, and so on. But it is very difficult for me to understand the math derivation.
In section 4.3 of the book, the linear model is stated as:
$$y_t = Z_t\alpha_t + \varepsilon_t$$
$$\alpha_{t+1} = T_t\alpha_t + R_t\eta_t$$
with $\varepsilon_t\sim N(0,H_t)$ and $\eta_t\sim N(0,Q_t)$. Further assumption is $\alpha_1\sim N(a_1,P_1)$, and $a_1$,$P_1$ are known.
Let $Y_{t-1}$ denote ($y_1,...y_{t-1}$) for $t=2,...,n$, thus:
$$v_t=y_t-E(y_t|Y_{t-1})=y_t-Z_ta_t$$
is the 1-step ahead predicted error of $y_t$ given $Y_{t-1}$. The author says that when $Y_{t-1}$ and $v_t$ are fixed then $Y_t$ is fixed and vice versa. Thus $E(\alpha_t|Y_t)=E(\alpha_t|Y_{t-1},v_t)$, and $E(v_t|Y_{t-1})=0$.
My questions are in the following text of that section, which are:
Why $E(v_t)=0$? Is it calculated by the law of iterated
expectations? $$E(v_t)=E(E(v_t|Y_{t-1}))=E(0)=0$$
Why $Cov(y_j,v_t)=E(y_jE(v_t|Y_{t-1})^\prime)$ for $j=1,...,t-1$?
Why the conditional mean appears in equation? As what I know, by the definition of covariance, it should be calculated straightly without using conditional mean:
$$Cov(y_j,v_t) = E(y_jv_t^\prime)-E(y_j)E(v_t)^\prime =
E(y_jv_t^\prime)$$
The updated state $a_{t|t} =
E(\alpha_t|Y_t)=E(\alpha_t|Y_{t-1},v_t)$, and the result is shown
out in the book as: $$a_{t|t} = E(\alpha_t|Y_{t-1}) +
Cov(\alpha_t,v_t)[Var(v_t)]^{-1}v_t$$ How can I get this equation? I
know how to calculate the conditional distribution $X|Y$ for a joint
normally distribution $(X,Y)$ accorrding to Wikipedia. In my case,
the conditional mean of $\alpha_t$ given $Y_{t-1}$ and $v_t$ is a
little confused. Since there are 2 conditions: $Y_{t-1}$ and $v_t$.
Consider partitioning $Y_{t-1}$ and $v_t$ into a random vector $A =
(Y_{t-1}^\prime,v_t^\prime)^\prime$, thus my result is: $$a_{t|t} =
E(\alpha_t|Y_{t-1},v_t)=E(\alpha_t) +
Cov(\alpha_t,A)[Var(A)]^{-1}(A-E(A))$$ It is not the same as the
equation given by the book. Sad.
A:
Why $E(v_t)=0$? Is it calculated by the law of iterated expectations?
$E(v_t)=E(E(v_t|Y_{t−1}))=E(0)=0$
That works, given the result that $E(v_t|Y_{t−1}) = 0$. Alternatively, you could do it directly:
$E(v_t) = E( y_t - E(y_t | Y_{t-1})) = E(y_t) - E(E(y_t | Y_{t-1})) = E(y_t) - E(y_t) = 0$
Why $Cov(y_j,v_t)=E(y_j E(v_t|Y_{t−1})')$ for $j=1,\dots,t−1$? Why the conditional mean appears in equation?
You're right, but Durbin and Koopman often use the Cov and Var notation implicitly with reference to a particular conditional joint distribution. For example, later on that same page they explicitly state that after they use $Cov(\alpha_t, v_t)$ and $Var(v_t)$ with reference to the joint distribution of $\alpha_t$ and $v_t$ conditional on $Y_{t-1}$.
The updated state $a_{t|t}= E(\alpha_t|Y_t)=E(\alpha_t|Y_{t−1},v_t)$, and the result is shown out in the book as:
$$a_{t|t}=E(\alpha_t|Y_{t−1})+Cov(\alpha_t,v_t)[Var(v_t)]^{-1} v_t$$
Here, $\alpha_t$ and $v_t$ are conditionally jointly Gaussian given $Y_{t-1}$, so as the book notes, you can apply lemma 1 from section 4.2. To start with:
$$\begin{bmatrix}
\alpha_t \\ v_t
\end{bmatrix} \mid Y_{t-1} \sim N \left (
\begin{bmatrix}
E(\alpha_t \mid Y_{t-1}) \\
E(v_t \mid Y_{t-1})
\end{bmatrix},
\begin{bmatrix}
Var(\alpha_t) & Cov(\alpha_t, v_t) \\
Cov(\alpha_t, v_t) & Var(v_t)\\
\end{bmatrix}
\right )$$
(where the note I just made about the joint conditional distribution that Cov and Var refer to still stands). Then applying the lemma is straightforward.
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Q:
what is it called if numbers $a$ and $b$ are such that their sum is equal to unity
Question:
Is there a way to definitionally describe rational numbers $a$ and $b$ when $a+b=1$?
Answer:
My guess is that $a$ and $b$ may be defined as `unitary additive complements,' but this is just a guess.
A:
In the same way that the error function, erf($x$), and the complementary error function, erfc($x$), sum to one (i.e., erf($x$) + erfc($x$) = 1) [1], so too then are $a$ and $b$ complementary under addition if $a + b = 1$.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_function#Complementary_error_function
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Rhodopsin determinations in C57BL/6J-pallid strain mice.
The influence of light environment on rhodopsin concentration per eye was determined in littermate pigmented and nonpigmented C57BL/6J-pallid gene mice reared under cyclic light or continuous dark environments. Attempts to exacerbate a congenital manganese deficiency in pallid strain mice included dietary deprivation and supplementation with manganese and exposure to intense light followed by the determination of rhodopsin recovery rates in darkness. Homozygous pallid mice (pa/pa) reared in cyclic light had rhodopsin levels which were significantly lower than heterozygous (+/pa) or homozygous (+/+) black control mice. Dark-rearing resulted in a significant increase in rhodopsin per eye in pallid strain mice and equivalent levels in adult mice, but young pallid strain mice did not achieve the same rhodopsin concentration as young +/+ mice. Although dietary manganese deprivation or supplementation did not significantly alter rhodopsin levels among pallid mice, the deficient diet resulted in lower rhodopsin per eye in the young +/+ control animals. The recovery of rhodopsin in darkness following intense light exposure was equal and complete within 24 hr for most genotypes. However, recovery by pallid mice after 24 hr was significantly lower than by pigmented or albino genotypes.
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---
abstract: |
A [*$2$-rainbow domination function*]{} of a graph $G$ is a function $f$ that assigns to each vertex a set of colors chosen from the set $\{1,2\}$, such that for any $v\in V(G)$, $f(v)=\emptyset$ implies $\bigcup_{u\in N(v)}f(u)=\{1,2\}$. The [*$2$-rainbow domination number $\gamma_{r2}(G)$*]{} of a graph $G$ is the minimum $w(f)=\Sigma_{v\in V}|f(v)|$ over all such functions $f$. Let $G$ be a connected graph of order $|V(G)|=n\geq 3$. We prove that $\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq 3n/4$ and we characterize the graphs achieving equality. We also prove a lower bound for 2-rainbow domination number of a tree using its domination number. Some other lower and upper bounds of $\gamma_{r2}(G)$ in terms of diameter are also given.
[**Keywords:**]{} domination number, 2-rainbow domination number, Cartesian product\
[**AMS subject classification (2000)**]{}: 05C69
author:
- |
Yunjian Wu$^{1}$[^1] and N. Jafari Rad$^{2}$\
[$^1$ Department of Mathematics]{}\
[Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China]{}\
[$^2$ Department of Mathematics]{}\
[Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran]{}
title:
- 'Bounds on the 2-rainbow domination number of graphs'
- '**Acknowledgments**'
---
Introduction
============
We follow the notation of [@bb] in this paper. Specifically, let $G = (V, E)$ be a graph with vertex set $V$ and edge set $E$. $P_k$ and $C_k$ denote a path and a cycle of order $k$, respectively. For any vertex $v\in
V$, the [*open neighborhood of $v$*]{} is the set $N(v)=\{u\in V\ |\
uv\in E\}$ and the [*closed neighborhood*]{} is the set $N[v]=N(v)\cup\{v\}$. For a set $S\subseteq V$, the open neighborhood is $N(S)=\bigcup_{v\in S}N(v)$ and the closed neighborhood is $N[S]=N(S)\cup S$. The [*diameter*]{} of $G$ is the maximum distance between vertices of $G$, denoted by $diam(G)$. A [*penultimate vertex*]{} is any neighbor of a vertex with degree one (the vertex of degree one is also called a [*leaf*]{} in a tree), and a [*pendent*]{} edge is an edge incident with a vertex of degree one. A [*star*]{} is a tree isomorphic to a bipartite graph $K_{1,k}$ for $k\geq 1$. A [*double-star $DS_{r,s}$*]{} is a tree with diameter 3 in which there are exactly two penultimate vertices with degrees $r+1$ and $s+1$, respectively. A set $S\subseteq V$ is a [*dominating set*]{} of $G$ if every vertex not in $S$ is adjacent to a vertex in $S$. The [*domination number*]{} of $G$, denoted by $\gamma(G)$, is the minimum cardinality of a dominating set. A thorough study of domination concepts appears in [@hay]. For a pair of graphs $G$ and $H$, the [*Cartesian product*]{} $G\square H$ of $G$ and $H$ is the graph with vertex set $V(G)\times V(H)$, where two vertices are adjacent if and only if they are equal in one coordinate and adjacent in the other.
Let $f$ be a function that assigns to each vertex a set of colors chosen from the set $\{1,\cdots, k\}$; that is, $f: V(G)\rightarrow
\mathscr{P}(\{1,\cdots, k\})$. If for each vertex $v\in V(G)$ such that $f(v)=\emptyset$. we have $$\bigcup_{u\in N(v)}f(u)=\{1,\cdots, k\}.$$ Then $f$ is called a [*$k$-rainbow dominating function*]{} ($k$RDF) of $G$. The weight, $w(f)$, of a function $f$ is defined as $w(f)=\Sigma_{v\in V(G)}|f(v)|$. The minimum weight of a $k$-rainbow dominating function is called the [*$k$-rainbow domination number*]{} of $G$, which we denote by $\gamma_{rk}(G)$. We say that a function $f$ is a [*$\gamma_{rk}(G)$-function*]{} if it is a $k$RDF and $w(f)=\gamma_{rk}(G)$. The concept of rainbow domination was introduced in [@bhr], and used in obtaining some bounds on the paired-domination number of Cartesian products of graphs, see also [@bhr0]. A more ambitious motivation for the introduction of this invariant was inspired by the following famous open problem [@Vizing]:
[**Vizing’s Conjecture**]{}. For any graphs $G$ and $H$, $\gamma(G\square H) \geq \gamma(G)\gamma(H)$.
In the language of domination of Cartesian products, Hartnell and Rall [@har] obtained a couple of observations about rainbow domination, for instance, $\min\{|V(G)|,\gamma(G)+k-2\}\leq
\gamma_{rk}(G)\leq k\gamma(G)$. Rainbow domination of a graph $G$ coincides with the ordinary domination of the Cartesian product of $G$ with the complete graph, in particular $\gamma_{r2}(G)=\gamma(G\square K_2)$ for any graph $G$ [@bhr]. Notably a lower bound for the 2-rainbow domination number of a graph expressed in terms of its ordinary domination could bring a new approach to the much desired proof of Vizing’s conjecture. In particular, Brešar, Henning and Rall [@bhr] proposed the following problem:
\[b\] [[(Brešar, Henning and Rall [@bhr])]{}]{}. For any graphs $G$ and $H$, $\gamma_{r2}(G\square H) \geq \gamma(G)\gamma(H)$.
A [*Roman domination function*]{} of a graph $G$ is a function $g:
V\rightarrow\{0,1,2\}$ such that every vertex with 0 has a neighbor with 2. The [*Roman domination number*]{} $\gamma_R(G)$ is the minimum of $g(V(G))=\Sigma_{v\in V}g(v)$ over all such functions. In [@wx], the authors showed the following result:
\[w\] [[(Wu and Xing [@wx])]{}]{}Let $G$ be a graph. Then $\gamma(G)\leq \gamma_{r2}(G)\leq \gamma_R(G)\leq 2\gamma(G).$
In [@wu], Wu showed the following weaker form of Problem \[b\] by Theorem \[w\]:
\[wu\] [[(Wu [@wu])]{}]{}For any graphs $G$ and $H$, $\gamma_R(G\square H) \geq \gamma(G)\gamma(H).$
In fact, Both Problem \[b\] and Theorem \[wu\] are improvements of the result given by Clark and Suen [@CS]:
\[c\] [[(Clark and Suen [@CS])]{}]{} For any graphs $G$ and $H$, $2\gamma(G\square H)
\geq \gamma(G)\gamma(H)$.
Nevertheless the concept of rainbow domination seems to be of independent interest as well and it attracted several authors who provided structural and algorithmic results on this invariant [@bs; @cwz; @tlyl; @xu]. In particular, it was shown that the problem of deciding if a graph has a 2-rainbow dominating function of a given weight is NP-complete even when restricted to bipartite graphs or chordal graphs [@bs]. Also a few exact values and bounds for the 2-rainbow domination number were given for some special classes of graphs, including generalized Petersen graphs [@bs; @xu].
For a graph $G$, let $f: V(G)\rightarrow \mathscr{P}(\{1,2\})$ be a 2RDF of $G$ and $(V_0, V_1^1, V_1^2, V_2)$ be the ordered partition of $V(G)$ induced by $f$, where $V_0=\{v\in V(G)\ |\
f(v)=\emptyset\}$, $V_1^1=\{v\in V(G)\ |\ f(v)=\{1\}\}$, $V_1^2=\{v\in V(G)\ |\ f(v)=\{2\}\}$ and $V_2=\{v\in V(G)\ |\
f(v)=\{1,2\}\}$. Note that there exists a 1-1 correspondence between the functions $f: V(G)\rightarrow \mathscr{P}(\{1,2\})$ and the ordered partitions $(V_0, V_1^1, V_1^2, V_2)$ of $V(G)$. Thus we will write $f=(V_0, V_1^1, V_1^2, V_2)$ for simplicity.
In this paper we present some general bounds on the 2-rainbow domination number of a graph that are expressed in terms of the order and domination number of a graph. More specifically, we show that $\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq 3|V(G)|/4$ and we characterize the graphs achieving equality. We also prove a lower bound for the 2-rainbow domination number of a tree using its domination number. The latter lower bound goes in the direction of the original goal, mentioned above, to obtain a new approach for establishing Vizing’s conjecture. Some other lower and upper bounds of $\gamma_{r2}(G)$ in terms of diameter are also given.
Main results
============
Our aim in this section is to determine some bounds on the 2-rainbow domination number of graphs.
Upper bounds
------------
We first recall a few definitions. A [*subdivision*]{} of an edge $uv$ is obtained by removing edge $uv$, adding a new vertex $w$, and adding edges $uw$ and $vw$. Let $t\geq 2$. A [*spider*]{} $($[*wounded spider*]{}$)$ is the graph formed by subdividing some edges (at most $t-1$ edges) of a star $K_{1, t}$. The unique center of $K_{1,t}$ is also called the [*center*]{} of the spider. Only one vertex of the spider $P_4$ can be called the center.
\[spider\] Let $G$ be a spider of order $|V(G)|=n\geq 3$, then $\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq 3n/4$. Moreover, the equality only holds for a path of order four.
Let $u$ be the center of $G$. Suppose $u$ has $x$ penultimate neighbors and $y$ non-penultimate neighbors. Then $n=2x+y+1$.
If $x\geq 3$ or $y\geq 2$, we set
$$f(v)=\left\{\begin{array}{lllcrrr}
\{1,2\} & \mbox{\ \ $v=u$},\\[5pt]
\{1\}\ \mbox{or}\ \{2\} & \mbox{\ \ $v \mbox{\ is\ at\ distance\ two to $u$}$},\\[5pt]
\hskip0,2cm \emptyset & \mbox{\ \ otherwise}.\\[5pt]
\end{array} \right.$$
If $x=2$ and $y\leq 1$, we set
$$f(v)=\left\{\begin{array}{lllcrrr}
\{1\} & \mbox{\ \ $v=u$},\\[5pt]
\{2\} & \ \ \mbox{$v$\ is\ a\ leaf},\\[5pt]
\hskip0,2cm \emptyset & \mbox{\ \ otherwise}.\\[5pt]
\end{array} \right.$$
In both cases, $\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq w(f)< 3n/4$.
If $x=y=1$, then $G$ is a path of order four. Clearly, $\gamma_{r2}(G)=3=3n/4$.
\[tree\] Let $T$ be a tree of order $n\geq 3$, then $\gamma_{r2}(T)\leq 3n/4$.
We use induction on $n$. The base step handles trees with few vertices or small diameter. If $diam(T) = 2$, then $T$ has a dominating vertex, and $\gamma_{r2}(T)\leq 2$. This beats $n\geq 3$. If $diam(T) = 3$, then $T$ has a dominating set of size two, which yields $\gamma_{r2}(T)\leq 4$. This handles the desired bound for such trees with at least six vertices. When $n=4$ or $n=5$, then $T$ is a spider and the theorem holds by Proposition \[spider\]. Moreover, if $T$ is a path of order four, then it achieves this bound.
Hence we may assume that $diam(T) \geq 4$. Given a subtree $T'$ with $n'$ vertices, where $n'\geq 3$, the induction hypothesis yields a 2RDF $f'$ of $T'$ with weight at most $3n'/4$. We find such $T'$ and add a bit more weight to obtain a 2RDF $f$ of $T$. Let $P$ be a longest path in $T$ chosen to maximize the degree of the penultimate vertex $v$ on it, and let $u$ be the non-leaf neighbor of $v$.
We obtain $T'$ by deleting $v$ and its leaf neighbors. Define $f$ on $V(T)$ by letting $f(x)=f'(x)$ except for $f(v)=\{1,2\}$ and $f(x)=\emptyset$ for each leaf $x$ adjacent to $v$. Since color set $\{1,2\}$ on $v$ takes care of its neighbors, $f$ is a 2RDF for $T$. Since $diam(T)\geq 4$, we have $n'\geq 3$, and $w(f)=w(f')+2\leq 3n'/4+2=3(n-3)/4+2<3n/4$.
We obtain $T'$ by deleting $u$ and $v$ and the leaf neighbor $l$ of $v$. If $n'=2$, then $T$ is a path of order five and has a 2RDF of weight $3<3n/4$. Otherwise, the induction hypothesis applies. Define $f$ on $V(T)$ by letting $f(x)=f'(x)$ except for $f(v)=\{1,2\}$ and $f(u)=f(l)=\emptyset$. Again $f$ is a 2RDF, and the computation $w(f)<3n/4$ is the same as in Case $1$.
By the choice of path $P$, every penultimate neighbor of $u$ has degree 2.
Then $diam(T)=4$ and $T$ is a spider. By Proposition \[spider\], $\gamma_{r2}(T)<3n/4$, since $T$ is not a path of order four.
Then $T-tu$ contains two components $T'$ and $T''$ such that $T''$ is a spider containing $u$. Now $|V(T')|=n'\geq 3$ and the induction hypothesis applies that $\gamma_{r2}(T')\leq 3|V(T')|/4=3n'/4$. By Proposition \[spider\], $\gamma_{r2}(T'')\leq 3|V(T'')|/4$. Hence $\gamma_{r2}(T)\leq
\gamma_{r2}(T')+\gamma_{r2}(T'')\leq 3n/4$.
(40,100)(0,40)
(-82,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}(-32,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}(18,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}(68,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}(118,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}
(-82,130)(-32,130)(18,130)(68,130)(118,130)
(-82,100)(-32,100)(18,100)(68,100)(118,100)
(-82,70)(-32,70)(18,70)(68,70)(118,70)
(-82,40)(-32,40)(18,40)(68,40)(118,40)
(-82,70)[(1,0)[200]{}]{}
Let $L_k$ consist of the disjoint union of $k$ copies of $P_4$ plus a path through the center vertices of these copies, as illustrated in Figure \[treebound\]. Let $G$ be a graph having an induced subgraph $P_4$ such that only the center of $P_4$ can be adjacent to the vertices in $G-P_4$, then every 2RDF of $G$ must have weight at least 3 on $P_4$. In $L_k$, there are $k$ disjoint $P_4$ of this form, so $\gamma_{r2}(L_k)\geq 3k=3n/4$. Indeed, we can assemble such copies of $P_4$ in many ways, and this allows us to characterize the trees achieving equality in Theorem \[tree\].
\[treeexact\] Let $T$ be a tree of order $n\geq 3$. Then $\gamma_{r2}(T)=3n/4$ if and only if $V(T)$ can be partitioned into sets inducing $P_4$ such that the subgraph induced by the center vertices of these $P_4$ is connected.
We have observed that if an induced subgraph $H$ of $G$ is isomorphic to $P_4$, and its noncenter vertices have no neighbors outside $H$ in $G$, then every 2RDF of $G$ must have weight at least 3 on $V(H)$. Thus in any tree with the structure described, weight at least 3 is needed on every $P_4$ in the specified partition. To show that equality requires this structure, we examine the cases more closely in the proof of Theorem \[tree\]. The proof is by induction on $n$. In the base cases and Cases $1$ and $2$, we produce a 2RDF with weight less than $3n/4$ except for $P_4$. Define $u$, $T'$, $T''$, $n'$, $t$ as in the inductive part of Case $3$. The equality holds only if $n'= n-4$ and $T''$ is a $P_4$ path. Equality also requires $\gamma_{r2}(T')= 3n'/4$, so by the induction hypothesis $T'$ has the specified form.
Next we show no copy of $P_4$ in $T$ such that both the two penultimate vertices on $P_4$ with degree at least three in $T$. Suppose there is a spanning subgraph $H'$ isomorphic to the graph shown in Figure \[counter\], then we give a 2RDF $f$ for $H'$ as follows:
$$f(v)=\left\{\begin{array}{lllcrrr}
\{1,2\} & \mbox{\ \ $v=x$\ or\ $y$},\\[5pt]
\{1\} & \ \ \mbox{$v\notin N[x]\cup N[y]$},\\[5pt]
\emptyset & \mbox{\ \ otherwise}.\\[5pt]
\end{array} \right.$$
(40,100)(0,40)
(-32,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}(18,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}(68,130)[(0,-1)[90]{}]{}
(-32,130)(18,130)(68,130)
(-32,100)(18,100)(68,100)
(-32,70)(18,70)(68,70)
(-32,40)(18,40)(68,40)
(-32,70)[(1,0)[50]{}]{}(18,100)[(1,0)[50]{}]{}
(-43,68)[$x$]{}(75,98)[$y$]{}
By Theorem \[tree\], $\gamma_{r2}(T)\leq
\gamma_{r2}(H')+\gamma_{r2}(T-H')\leq 8+3(n-12)/4<3n/4$, a contradiction.
Recall that the [*corona*]{} $HoK_1$ of a graph $H$ is obtained by attaching one pendent edge at each vertex of $H$. Since the rainbow domination number does not increase when edges are added to a graph, we infer from Theorem \[tree\] and \[treeexact\] the following general upper bound.
\[connected\] Let $G$ be a connected graph of order $n\geq 3$. Then $\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq 3n/4$. Moreover, the equality holds if and only if $G$ is $P_4$ or $C_4oK_1$ or $V(G)$ can be partitioned into $k$ copies of $P_4$ $(k\geq 3)$ and all the copies of $P_4$ can only be connected by their centers.
If $G$ has the specified form, then for each copy of $P_4$ in the partition of $V(G)$, every 2RDF of $G$ puts weight at least 3 on it.
Suppose $\gamma_{r2}(G)=3n/4$ and $G$ is not a tree. Since adding edges can not increase the 2-rainbow domination number, every spanning tree of $G$ has the form specified in Theorem \[treeexact\]. If $n=4$, then $G$ is $P_4$. If $n=8$, then it is easy to check that the only extremal graph is $C_4oK_1$. If $n\geq
12$, let $T$ be a spanning tree of $G$ has the form specified in Theorem \[treeexact\]. $G$ is not a tree, so there exists an edge $e\in E(G)-E(T)$ such that $T\cup e$ contains a cycle $C$. Without loss of generality, assume $e$ is not an edge connecting two centers in $T$. If $C$ contains no edge joining the centers in $T$, i.e., $C$ is formed by some vertices of a copy $P_4$, then a 2RDF with weight $3n/4-1$ can be found, since we only need to put weight 2 on the vertices of this copy of $P_4$ to take care of this copy of $P_4$. If $C$ goes through an edges $e'$ joining the centers of two copies of $P_4$ in $T$, then $\gamma_{r2}(T\cup e-e')< 3n/4$ since tree $T\cup e-e'$ is not the form specified in Theorem \[treeexact\]. Hence $\gamma_{r2}(G)<3n/4$. The proof is complete.
The following result for the 2-rainbow domination number of paths is given by Brešar and Kraner Šumenjak.
\[path\] [[([@bs])]{}]{} $\gamma_{r2}(P_n)=\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor+1$.
We conclude this subsection with an upper bound in terms of diameter.
\[diameter2\] For any connected graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, $$\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq
n-\lfloor\frac{diam(G)-1}{2}\rfloor.$$ Furthermore, this bound is sharp.
Let $P=v_1v_2\cdots v_{diam(G)+1}$ be a diametral path in $G$ and $f$ be a $\gamma_{r2}$-function of $P$. By Proposition \[path\], the weight of $f$ is $\lfloor\frac{diam(G)+1}{2}\rfloor+1$. Define $g: V(G)\rightarrow
\mathscr{P}(\{1,2\})$ by $g(x)$=$f(x)$ for $x\in V(P)$ and $g(x)=\{1\}$ for $x\in V(G)-V(P)$. Obviously $g$ is a 2RDF for $G$. Hence, $$\gamma_{r2}(G)\leq w(f)+(n-diam(G)-1)=n-\lfloor\frac{diam(G)-1}{2}\rfloor$$ The family of all paths of even order achieves the bound, and the proof is complete.
Lower bounds
------------
We present a lower bound on the 2-rainbow domination number of a tree expressed in terms of its domination number, maximum degree, and the number of its leaves and penultimate vertices. Given a tree, $T$ we denote by $\ell(T)$ the number of leaves in $T$, and by $p(T)$ the number of penultimate vertices in $T$.
\[lower\] For any tree $T$ on at least three vertices, $\gamma_{r2}(T)\geq
\gamma(T)+ \lceil\frac{\ell(T)-p(T)}{\Delta(T)}\rceil$, where $\Delta(T)$ denotes the maximum degree in $T$.
The proof is by induction on the order of $T$. First we handle trees with small diameter. If $diam(T)\leq 2$ then $\gamma(T)=1$, $\gamma_{r2}(T)=2$, and one can easily find that the required inequality holds. Moreover, we have $\gamma_{r2}(G)=\gamma(T)+\lceil\frac{\ell(T)-p(T)}{\Delta(T)}\rceil$ precisely when $T$ is isomorphic to $K_{1,r}$ for $r>1$. If $diam(T)=3$ then another simple analysis shows that the inequality holds, and the equality is achieved for $DK_{r,s}$ with $r\geq s\geq 4$ and $DK_{r,1}$ with $r\geq 2$.
Let $T$ be a tree. By the above we may assume that $diam(T)\geq 4$. Let $P$ be a diametral path with the leaf $w$ as one of its ends. Suppose $v$ is the neighbor of $w$ and $u$ is the neighbor of $v$ that is not a leaf (hence $u$ also lies on $P$). Let $L$ denote the vertex set containing $v$ and all leaves adjacent to $v$ and $F(u)$ be all the possible color sets among all $\gamma_{r2}$-function of $T-L$. Then $\gamma(T-L)\leq \gamma(T)\leq \gamma(T-L)+1$, $\Delta(T)-1\leq \Delta(T-L)\leq \Delta(T)$ and $p(T-L)\leq p(T)\leq p(T-L)+1$.
In this case $\gamma_{r2}(T)=\gamma_{r2}(T-L)+1$. By induction hypothesis $\gamma_{r2}(T-L)\geq \gamma(T-L)+
\lceil\frac{\ell(T-L)-p(T-L)}{\Delta(T-L)}\rceil$. We finally get $$\begin{aligned}
\gamma_{r2}(T)&=&\gamma_{r2}(T-L)+1 \\
&\geq & \gamma(T-L)+ \lceil\frac{\ell(T-L)-p(T-L)}{\Delta(T-L)}\rceil
+1 \\
&\geq& \gamma(T)+\lceil\frac{\ell(T-L)-p(T-L)}{\Delta(T-L)}\rceil \\
&\geq & \gamma(T)+ \lceil\frac{\ell(T)-p(T)}{\Delta(T)}\rceil.\end{aligned}$$ Since if $p(T-L)=p(T)$, then $\ell(T-L)=\ell(T)$. Otherwise $p(T-L)=p(T)-1$ and $\ell(T-L)=\ell(T)-1$. The last inequality is obtained.
In this case $\gamma_{r2}(T)=\gamma_{r2}(T-L)+2$. Then we get $$\begin{aligned}
\gamma_{r2}(T)&=&\gamma_{r2}(T-L)+2 \\
&\geq & \gamma(T-L)+ \lceil\frac{\ell(T-L)-p(T-L)}{\Delta(T-L)}\rceil
+2 \\
&\geq& \gamma(T)+\lceil\frac{\ell(T-L)-p(T-L)}{\Delta(T-L)}\rceil+1 \\
&\geq & \gamma(T)+ \lceil\frac{\ell(T)-p(T)}{\Delta(T)}\rceil.\end{aligned}$$ In the last inequality we use that the excess of leaves in $T$ with respect to $T-L$ does not go beyond $\Delta(T)$.
In the above proof we mentioned several examples of trees with diameter at most 3 that achieve the bound in Theorem \[lower\]. We pose a characterization of all these extremal graphs as an open problem.
Next we give a lower bound of the 2-rainbow domination number of an arbitrary graph in terms of its diameter.
\[diameterupper\] For any connected graph $G$, $\gamma_{r2}(G)\geq
\lceil\frac{2diam(G)+2}{5}\rceil$.
Let $f=(V_0, V_1^1, V_1^2, V_2)$ be a 2RDF of $G$. Consider an arbitrary path of length $diam(G)$. This diametral path includes at most two edges from the induced subgraph $\langle N[v] \rangle_G$ for each vertex $v\in V_1^1\cup V_1^2\cup V_2$. Furthermore, if vertex $v\in V_0$, then it is adjacent to a vertex with color set $\{1,2\}$, or adjacent to two different vertices with color set $\{1\}$ and $\{2\}$, respectively. Hence excluding the edges mentioned above, the diametral path includes at most $\min\{|V_1^1|,|V_1^2|\}+|V_2|-1$ other edges joining the neighborhoods of the vertices of $V_1^1\cup V_1^2\cup V_2$. Therefore $$\begin{aligned}
diam(G) & \leq & 2(|V_1^1|+|V_1^2|+|V_2|)+\min\{|V_1^1|,|V_1^2|\}+|V_2|-1 \\
& \leq & 2(|V_1^1|+|V_1^2|+|V_2|)+(|V_1^1|+|V_1^2|)/2+|V_2|-1 \hspace{5em} \\
& = & 5/2(|V_1^1|+|V_1^2|+2|V_2|)-2|V_2|-1 \hspace{5em}\\
& \leq & 5/2\gamma_{r2}(G)-1. \hspace{2em}\end{aligned}$$ Then the desired result follows.
Clearly, the bound of Theorem \[diameterupper\] is sharp, e.g. for $G$ isomorphic to $P_3$ or $C_4$.
The authors are indebted to Professor Bostjan Bresar for his valuable comments and the ideas for this paper.
[99]{}
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[^1]: Corresponding author: [email protected]
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