Datasets:

jbrinkma

/

pile-300k

like 0

Retrosigmoid intradural suprameatal approach to Meckel's cave and the middle fossa: surgical technique and outcome. The goal of this study was to determine whether some petroclival tumors can be safely and efficiently treated using a modified retrosigmoid petrosal approach that is called the retrosigmoid intradural suprameatal approach (RISA). The RISA was introduced in 1983, and since that time 12 patients harboring petroclival meningiomas have been treated using this technique. The RISA includes a retrosigmoid craniotomy and drilling of the suprameatus petrous bone, which is located above and anterior to the internal auditory meatus, thus providing access to Meckel's cave and the middle fossa. Radical tumor resection (Simpson Grade I or II) was achieved in nine (75%) of the 12 patients. Two patients underwent subtotal resection (Simpson Grade III). and one patient underwent complete resection of tumor at the posterior fossa with subtotal resection at the middle fossa. There were no deaths or severe complications in this series; all patients did well postoperatively, being independent at the time of their last follow-up examinations (mean 5.6 years). Neurological deficits included facial paresis in one patient and worsening of hearing in two patients. The approach described here is a useful modification of the retrosigmoid approach, which allows resection of large petroclival tumors without the need for supratentorial craniotomies. Although technically meticulous, this approach is not time-consuming; it is safe and can produce good results. This is the first report on the use of this approach for petroclival meningiomas.

#!/bin/bash set -e #DEBHELPER# case "$1" in purge) # purge configuration /usr/share/zentyal/purge-module openvpn ;; remove) # openvpn changes network interfaces so we must restart network module # to propagate the changes zs network restart || true dpkg-trigger --no-await zentyal-core ;; esac exit 0

I cannot believe that this one is not sold yet. Attitudes from the same period is being sold in a split second. Does people not know that the rascal is based on the Attitude but with a different head tube and fork? I even have an MC1 that fits the Rascal lying around. If I had the money (and the space) I would have bought this fuselage asap! Who is online You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum

Insulin action and insulin binding following pancreas transplantation. Insulin action and insulin specific binding to erythrocytes were examined in ten recipients of a pancreatic segment and renal graft (Group 1), in nine non-diabetic kidney recipients (Group 2) and in ten age- and weight-matched healthy control subjects (Group 3). All transplant recipients were normoglycaemic without need of insulin, received the same immunosuppression and had good renal graft function at 11-18 months post-transplantation, when the investigation was performed. Using the insulin clamp technique, insulin action was expressed as the metabolic clearance rate of glucose at insulin infusion rates of 1.0 (MCRsubmax) and 10.0 (MCRmax) mU.kg-1.min-1. In comparison with the healthy control subjects, fasting free insulin and C-peptide levels were significantly higher in Groups 1 and 2, but no differences between Groups 1 and 2 were found (p greater than 0.05). Mean values +/- SEM of MCRsubmax in Groups 1, 2 and 3 were 6.30 +/- 0.55, 6.09 +/- 0.69 and 10.52 +/- 1.10 ml.kg-1.min-1 respectively, and of MCRmax 12.65 +/- 0.78, 13.14 +/- 0.92 and 19.28 +/- 1.42 ml.kg-1.min-1 respectively. Insulin action was significantly decreased in Groups 1 and 2 at the low as well as the high insulin infusion rates but there was no difference between the two groups of recipients (p greater than 0.05). No differences in binding data (specific binding, number of binding sites per cell) were found. It is concluded that insulin resistance is common to all immunosuppressed organ recipient and is not related to the pancreas graft. The decrease maximal response to insulin and normal insulin binding to erythrocytes tend to suggest a post-receptor defect in insulin action.

Anatomy of an Investigation By Staff Writer | May 1, 2008 PRODUCTS | You are relaxing in the pilot lounge waiting for passengers to arrive when you see on TV "Breaking News" — an aircraft has crashed. You see overhead pictures from news helicopters, the FAA or NTSB investigators on the way to the crash site, and finally someone talking about aviation safety. Many pilots have often wondered what really happens during an investigation. The FAA, National Transportation Safety Board, and the military each have their own procedures for an investigation, but all have things in common. An investigation’s purpose is to find out what happened, why, and what can be done to prevent it from occurring again. I’ve spent many years promoting safety and investigating accidents, having been trained by the U.S. Army and the FAA. The most satisfying aspect of these investigations is arriving at recommendations that will reduce risks and avert future accidents, thus saving lives and conserving resources. In the case of large aircraft accidents or ones with significant public interest, the NTSB will normally launch a "Go Team," with an investigator-in-charge leading the team. When smaller aircraft are involved, the NTSB may not respond but rely on the FAA to investigate. When a military aircraft is involved with a civilian one, the FAA or NTSB takes the lead, with the military working alongside as a member of the team. Sometimes the military will conduct its own probe, too. If the mishap involves only military aircraft, the FAA and NTSB don’t get involved unless the military asks them to. Sometimes the military will tap the NTSB’s technical abilities to aid in gathering information, for instance by deciphering flight data or voice recorder informations. The team will initially meet at the crash site and begin to organize and discuss the tasks before them. They will quickly need to organize a work area. Each member is an expert in their respective areas. The investigator-in-charge or board president guides and leads the investigation, setting rules and goals, delegating duties, and establishing schedules for briefings. Each member plays an important role in the outcome. Members may include representatives of the operators and the aircraft and engine manufacturers, an instructor pilot and a maintainer experienced in the aircraft type involved, medical personnel, the company safety officer (if there is one), and a records keeper. The team will focus on three contributing-cause aspects: material failure, human error, and environment conditions. Each should be looked at intensely. Human error, the leading cause of most aviation mishaps, can be any human factor that contributed to the mishap — scheduling or dispatch, maintenance, or error by the crew members. The maintenance team will look at the aircraft’s maintenance and weight and balance records, assess damage, and check fuel, hydraulic fluid, and oil samples. They will also look at whether systems were operating as designed prior to impact. The human-factors team consists at a minimum of a pilot or flight instructor rated in the mishap aircraft and a flight surgeon (or a psychologist or human-factors expert on the civil side). It will look at pilot and ATC logs, medical files, and the crewmember daily activities leading up to the crash. Known as the 72-hr autopsy for fatal accident probes, this activities review includes sleep habits, diet, and personal or financial issues. The human-factors team also reviews environmental conditions and training records and normally interviews witnesses. The investigation is normally conducted in three phases: information gathering (which is normally the longest), analysis, and deliberation. Information gathering involves the relentless, sometimes tedious tasks of uncovering all aspects of the mishap. Once the team determines all pertinent information has been gathered, it moves on to analysis. During this phase, investigators look at the information gathered to develop a timeline of events leading to the mishap. They will decide on what information will be the focus of the deliberation phase. That phase is when information and analysis is discounted or kept for further discussion in the search for contributing factors. After these factors are discussed, they are organized and reviewed for recommendations. When the factors gathered in the investigation are considered to be present and contributing, recommendations are made to prevent further mishaps and forwarded to the appropriate agencies for review and implementation. In conclusion, we can use the investigation process and the team recommendations to help us with our risk-management process to reduce accidents. When pilots, maintenance and flight operations personnel use the risk-management process, they reduce the probability of having to participate in an investigation where they are the main characters.

Categories: Price: Location: Alesha, F, 23 Edwardsville, IL, United States $800 USD per month Looking for entire place Young professional looking for a place. Not interested in living with someone I don\\\'t know or subletting a room. NOT interested in axis/edge/enclave or any of the other major college student buildings. Contact me Rent: $800 Lynne, F, 37 Winfield, MO, United States $650 USD per month Looking for entire place I\\\'m searching for a 3 bedroom within Lincoln County Mo. Can pay up to $650/month. Prefer to be in Winfield school district but anywhere in Lincoln county is acceptable Contact me Rent: $650 Rebecca, F, 32 Saint Peters, MO, United States $500 USD per month Looking for entire place Just moved here. Need a place soon. Employed, in 30\\\'s, non smokkng, not a partier. Looking for small place. Don\\\'t need much. A loft or studio. Just need somewhere to call my own. Contact me Rent: $500 Public Transportation to everywhere*Free WiFi*Free Breakfast served daily by the Pool*Total security 13 security cameras on premisesRates are $165 dollars a week for dormitories or $30.00 a day (Share Room)Rates are $350 dollars a week for private rooms or $90 dollars a day.All suites with their private bathroom and private kitchen....More details ==>> Click Here Jay, M, 18 UIC, West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL, United States $800 USD per month Looking for entire place Any place I can live up until april 2016, open lease preferred, if not a 6-7 month lease as well. Contact me Rent: $800 $150.00 a person $300 to move in!! Couples a little more... Private bathroom.. Washer and dryer.. Cable and internet!! No smoking.. You have access to everything.. Serious inquiry only.. Call only no texts or emails.. Thanks for your interest ... Ashley, F, 25 Chicago, IL, United States $650 USD per month Looking for entire place Hello my name is Ashley. I am looking for something temporary, being that I am with the US Army deployment happens pretty often. I am needing a place from October 1-March 2016. Thank you ! Contact me Rent: $650 Jessica, F, 34 Chicago, IL, United States $1200 USD per month Looking for entire place I am looking for an entire place to rent in mid-to-late October. I work in River North as a counselor and I also walk dogs. I am a clean, quiet, and responsible female who doesn't smoke or do drugs. I have an therapy dog who is a male 30 lbs soft-coated wheaten. He doesn't shed, is house/crate-trained, very frie Nick, M, 21 Chicago, IL, United States $900 USD per month Looking for entire place I'm open to moving in with someone who already has a place or finding someone and getting our own. You tell me. I'm responsible, friendly, and open-minded. Contact me Rent: $900 I am a young professional looking to fill one room in a 3 bedroom 2 baths townhouse.There are new carpeting, spacious rooms, wood fire place, washer/dryer, and shared bathroom.It is easy access to the freeway, grocery store right down the street and close running paths.I am looking for either male or female roommates that have steady income, like to go out, and like to be active. Rent will be $400 I'm seeking a room for rent for 2 adults for a couple of weeks, currently we have been living out of our car for a couple of days. I'm employed but my funds are limited until next paycheck. Anyone who can help please respond to this ad, my name is Carlos. We're clean, drama free and drug free. Bedrooms: 1Rent: $100

New owner claims it has ‘no intention’ of demolishing Waldorf Share: Text: The condo developer that purchased the Waldorf Hotel in East Vancouver is attempting to quell concerns that the historic site is being torn down and replaced by a residential high-rise. Social media erupted Wednesday after news broke that the Waldorf’s ownership was changing hands, with many lamenting what they feared would be the loss of an important cultural institution in the city. A Change.org petition was launched almost immediately calling on the City of Vancouver to save the hotel, and has already gathered almost 3,500 signatures. But the Solterra Group of Companies issued a statement Thursday assuring that it currently has “no intention of demolishing” the hotel. “We have an open mind about the future of this site and we are studying all the options,” CEO Gerry Nichele wrote. “We want to work with the City to explore possible ways to retain and improve the hotel.” Mayor Gregor Robertson’s office has already pointed out that the Waldorf site is zoned as a commercial mixed-use property, not residential, and a change in zoning would require neighbourhood consultation and council approval. The current leaseholders plan to vacate the property on Jan. 20, but Solterra won’t be taking possession of the Waldorf until September. Until then, Marko Puharich, whose family has owned the hotel since the 1970s, insisted the Waldorf will remain open. “We will continue as we’ve done all along, as a family,” Puharich said. “The bars will be running as soon as [the current leaseholders] leave.” Partners Daniel Fazio, Thomas Anselmi, Ernesto Gomez and Scott Cohen took over operation of the hotel in 2010, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars renovating it and turned what was once considered a dive bar into a thriving cultural hub. Fazio told CTV News that even if the Waldorf remains open past January, it won’t be the same venue neighbours have come to know and love. “The space itself has been here for 64 years,” Fazio said. “It was only when we started programming interesting arts and culture and nightlife that people started flocking here.” The partners said they were offered a chance to rent the space on a weekly basis until September, but argued running the Waldorf’s popular bar and dual nightclub spaces would be impossible without the ability to book acts months in advance. Instead, they’ve decided to go out with a bang, planning a sure-to-be-rowdy farewell event the night before they vacate and move on to their next venture. “The kind of programming we were doing as a group really spoke to people in Vancouver, they’re hungry for it and they wanted it, so it’s really disappointing that we can’t continue doing stuff like that here. But I’m hopeful that we’ll continue doing that somewhere else,” Fazio said.

This is a senior and key role at RSHP and we are looking for a great communicator with exceptional knowledge of the architectural sector and its issues as well as signifi cant and wide ranging media contacts. The strong in-house communications team lead the practice’s website management, publications programme, new business, outreach, as well as managing its relationship with both the media and clients. The role requires a strategic thinker with proven project management skills and innovative ideas. The ideal candidate must display an ability to co-ordinate media campaigns for RSHP launches, events and project completions as well as crisis management plans if required; a keen eye for detail and visual presentation; strong written skills and an understanding of the role of online and social media in communication plans. We are looking for a leader who will mentor their team as well as providing support to both the partners and wider staff . In exchange, RSHP offers an excellent salary with unrivalled benefits including profit share, private health care, a great working environment and cake. The role is based in Hammersmith and is full time (for an exceptional candidate a four-day week would be considered). If you feel this role matches your skills and experience then we would love to hear from you. Please apply by submitting your CV and covering letter ASAP to Amanda Darbon, HR Manager, via email via the button below. RSHP is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to a policy of equality and opportunity. We aim to provide a working, learning and social environment that is free from unfair discrimination and it is our policy to ensure that all staff are treated with dignity and respect regardless of age, disability, gender, marital and parental status, nationality, race, ethnic origin, religion and sexual orientation.

Lynda Erkiletian On the sixth episode this season, titled “Securing Homeland,” Mary and Cat connect over parenting issues, while family dramas haunt Stacie, who hopes to find her biological father. Elsewhere, Cat copes with the death of a friend; Michaele searches for a new home; and Tareq’s family troubles escalate. In other DC news, Popeater is reporting today that Bravo is oh so over the Salahis, adding that the Salahis are the only cast members of the DC Housewives to not be invited back for another season. “The DC show is the only show in the entire franchise that isn’t a true hit,” an insider tells Popeater. “And the Salahi’s are the biggest reason for that. At first, execs thought they struck gold with all the attention the couple got over the White House dinner. But now they realize not all press is good press and this couple’s involvement in the show has turned more viewers off than on.” According to Popeater, the final straw with the Salahis came this week when they alleged in their new book that Bravo’s “iron-clad” contract didn’t allow them to talk to the media about the White House-crashing incident. Bravo was apparently not happy with this claim, that they had to release a statement denying the allegation. An unidentified Bravo housewife tells the site, “They are a loose cannon. Now, Michaele has revealed she has multiple sclerosis; next she’ll be announcing she is pregnant with triplets to get attention.” Following a one week hiatus for reasons unknown, the Real Housewives of DC returned last night with the airing of the 5th episode of the season, titled “Special Interests.“ The episode began where we left off two weeks ago, with Tareq Salahi about to drop a bomb on Mary Amons, you know, because when you invite people over for dinner, confronting them over asinine issues and accusing their daughter of a crime is always the way to make them feel right at home and comfortable. Tareq begins to tell a story of how a $90,000 car and $30,000 worth of polo gear was stolen from his charity. Tareq then drops a bombshell when he tells Mary cops have informed him that her daughter, Lolly Amons, was an accomplice to the crime based on some facebook postings she had made, admitting to enjoying a joy ride. And I have to ask myself, is this really the time or place to bring this up? Coming up on the 5th episode of the season: A fun vineyard grape stomp turns sour when Michaele and Tareq make upsetting accusations about Mary’s daughter. Meanwhile, Cat tries to get a political party fired up. RadarOnline is reporting that in tonight’s episode, Tareq will accuse one of Mary’s daughters of being linked to the theft of his personal belongings — polo gear — a claim that Mary denies to the site. “It was very upsetting and disturbing to have your daughter falsely accused of something,” Mary Amons told Radar. “What was so upsetting, they actually don’t accuse her any crime, but being friends with someone who wronged them. She made a Facebook comment about whatever happened — it was a benign comment, which you will see.” It seems the fact that the Salahis decided to drag her daughter into something that happened years ago isn’t sitting too well with Mary. “I don’t care if it was true or not, but the fact that these people decided to bring something up that ‘apparently’ occurred years ago and to link to my daughter, I think was unfair. To put this on national television speaks to their character,” said Mary, who shares she has developed a close bond with all of her castmates with the exception of Michaele. And finally, the Washington Post is reporting today that Mary and her husband Rich Amons have put their home up on the market. The asking price? $2.35 million. Let’s hope all is well financially with the Amons, because putting one’s home on the market is usually a sign of financial hardship when it comes to Bravo housewives. The 4th episode of the Real Housewives of DC aired last night, and boy oh boy, did it tell us a lot about the Salahis. The episode titled The Grape Stomp of Wrath was a perfect foreshadow to what is to come later on this season. I was going to wait until next week to start doing the DC recaps but after watching last night’s episode, I say let’s get right to it! The episode starts out with Lynda cooking a meal for her family. In the kitchen with her is her younger boytoy boyfriend Ebong Eka. Something about this union just robs me the wrong way. I can’t decide who’s using who. Ebong’s 35 and Lynda’s 52. Lynda also mentioned in a previous episode that she has no desire to get married again or have any more children. At 35, does Ebong have any kids? If not, does he not want any? Has he ever been married? If not, does he not plan on ever marrying? Is he with her for the money? Is she with him for the arm candy? It just seems like an interesting relationship. A little search on Ebong shows he was raised in Canada, born to Nigerian parents. He is also a Certified Public Accountant with a taste for designer fashion. Nothing out of the norm. Perhaps I’m just reading too much into things, and these are just two adults in a healthy happy genuine relationship. Only time will tell. Next, we see Stacie having a get together with her sorority sisters. Stacie, who is adopted, explains she has found her birth mother, who just happens to be Caucasian. Stacie also reveals her birth father is of Nigerian nationality, and does not know of her existence. And this scene is a perfect example of why the DC franchise has a bit more substance than the others. Race, politics, and other “controversial” topics don’t seem to be off limit. Stacie shares that her birth mom wants to keep her a secret and is not willing to tell her who her birth father is. As Stacie tells her story, we see her sorors, who all look very camera ready and aware that this might be on national television, occasionally chime in. It’s the opening day for Celebrity Hair Stylist Ted Gibson’s DC salon. Mary is very proud of the monumental day, as she is tired of people referring to DC as the “Hollywood for ugly people.” And in case the Ted Gibson name rings a bell, it’s because Ted also happens to be the hair stylist for Kate Gosselin. Michaele makes her entrance and declares her love for Ted, who thanks her for sponsoring the event. Mary however makes in clear in her voice over interview that she is the one responsible for Ted’s big day, and Michaele is only responsible for providing the store bought wine. Something about Mary is giving me Jill Zarin. Will touch more on that later. As she’s getting her hair washed, Mary chats it up with Ted, and looks for reassurance that she’s still his #1 favorite girl in the whole entire world. The event starts and the other housewives excluding Stacie are in attendance. Cat makes her mandatory rude comments, and we see Lynda chatting it up with Michaele following their not so nice words of exchange in a previous episode. Lynda makes it clear she doesn’t like to hold grudges. “I don’t hold bad energy, it’s just not worth it to me,” says Lynda, who prefers to get her attorneys involved in joking matters. “It seems like Tareq and Michaele have used their wine as a bit of a bartering system to get into places and to get to know important people,” says Mary, who seems to have a pretty good read on the Salahis. I always find it interesting how certain couples just manage to find one another. You ever know a slimy person, who just happened to marry another equally slimy individual? The Salahis are a good example of this. They just seem made for one another. In the 4th episode this season, titled ‘The Grape Stomp of Wrath,’ Lynda deals with the stress of moving from her Georgetown condo to a sprawling suburban mansion to accommodate her grown children, while Stacie opens up about her birth mother. Cat raises suspicions that there may be more than meets the eye with Michaele and Tareq (you don’t say Cat). In an effort to patch things up with the rest of the ladies, Michaele reaches out and invites everyone out to her winery for an old fashion grape stomp. The new episode airs tonight on Bravo at 9/8c. In other DC news, it seems Lynda Erkiletian, who allegedly decided to put her life, family and business on national television, cannot take a joke. The NY Post reports the alleged 52-year-old DC Housewife, who most certainly looks like she can move her face as she pleases, has spent the last couple of weeks getting her lawyers on any media outlet that dares says anything negative about her DC modeling agency. It all started when Lynda, a cougar or alleged cougar rather (no need for the cease and desist letters), tried to play up her political connections on the Bravo show by boasting, “We cater to ambassadors and dignitaries.” This statement of course led to many lols, jokes, and speculations about the exact kind of catering Lynda’s modeling agency provides. The writers at Comedy Central, Gawker and independent blog DBKP joked that her agency provided escorts to the Washington elite. Lynda, who might or might not be a famewhore for choosing to appear on a nationally televised reality show, decided to get her lawyers involved, who then sent out cease and desist letters to the mentioned media outlets, even getting one blogger to apologize 14 times. Perhaps someone should tell Lynda that waging a war against the media is something one does not want to do, especially when that one chose to appear on a Bravo Housewives series, and likely has skeletons in their closet. Here’s to hoping there will be no foreclosures or bankruptcies in Lynda’s future, as something tells me the media will definitely have a field day writing about such things. Lynda even took to her Bravo blog to clear up the jokes. “OK everyone, calm down, and shame on YOU!” she said. “Embassies host cultural and philanthropic events that often include an element of fashion, which is how we ‘cater to ambassadors and diplomats.’ “ Whew! Glad she cleared that one up, because I for one most certainly believed she was really providing escorts and then went on national television to acknowledge having an escort service. But thanks to the cease and desists letters, in addition to Lynda’s blog posting, I now believe different! And oh yeah, the lovely picture above of Lynda was taken during the premiere party for the show. TELL US – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON TONIGHT’S EPISODE OF THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF DC? The 3rd episode of the season is titled ‘Foreign Relations.’ It’s off to Paris! After a spontaneous decision by Michaele and Tareq to join Stacie and her husband in Europe, the couples start to bond. Meanwhile, controversy over D.C. etiquette has the housewives questioning Michaele’s role as a host for high profile events. Cat is hard at work on her book and getting her cover ready, when disappointment strikes. The housewives gather at Mary’s fashion dinner to welcome a celebrity hairstylist, but with previous drama still lingering, things don’t go as planned. The new episode airs tonight on Bravo at 9/8c. In other DC news, the NYPost is reporting even more debt for Tareq and Michaele Salahi. According to the Post, six of 20 vendors who worked on the Salahis charity, America’s Polo Cup, last year told HBO the Salahis owe them sums ranging up to $25,000. This comes up in a HBO’s “Real Sports” profile of their charity. “Do we owe people money? Sure, sure,” said Tareq before claiming that he’s waiting to collect his debts from others as well. “It’s a trickle-down effect,” added Tareq. As for Michaele, she just wants to get back to the couple’s old life. “We’ve been the ‘it couple’ for the past decade,” Michaele tells Bernard Goldberg of HBO’s “Real Sports” The NYPost is also reporting today that the premiere party the Salahis held two weeks ago, you know the one that was suppose to raise money for charity, brought in a huge zero amount for charity, confirms the event organizer. The organization said it was promised 40 percent of the profit but was recently told the packed, cash-bar event didn’t make any money. As for why the packed event failed to bring in any money for charity, a rep for the Salahis claims they know nothing about this: “This was not a Salahi event. They were not privy to the operational and management aspects of this event, nor were they compensated for their appearance.” Allrighty. As for the show so far, I thought it would be a boring franchise but I found myself really enjoying last week’s episode. Bravo did a great job with the casting. Will likely start doing recaps in about 2 weeks or so. TELL US – DO THE SALAHIS OWE YOU MONEY? WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON TONIGHT’S EPISODE OF THE DC HOUSEWIVES? First, Michaele Salahiis speaking out on her website and denying claims that she is anorexic (who accused her of being anorexic?), while slamming her co-stars in the process. “Lynda takes pleasure in tearing down other women, which I think is wrong,” Michaele wrote on her website, adding that she is “sick of her not being up front and talking behind my back”. Lynda Erkiletian however spoke to E! news and denied she ever accused Michaele of being anorexic. “At the beginning of filming, when I would see her I felt that she had lost a lot of weight and I was genuinely concerned,” said Lynda. “As a [modeling] agent, I don’t ever use the A-word, which she’s been parading around and making up and the media has picked up on. I know better.” Michaele also had some words for Catherine Ommanney and Mary Schmidt Amons, who both bad mouthed Michaele during the last episode as they visited the Salahis winery for a polo lesson. Michaele claims both Cat and Mary “are always the type of women who have to wear what I wear… Silly really,” she wrote. “Cat and Mary decided that they wanted to be a little sarcastic about my attire – they were upset that they were in jeans and I was wearing riding pants. I am married to a polo player – of course I wear riding pants.” In other DC news, while the second episode of the DC Housewives aired last Thursday, a lot of viewers had many questions. One being why are the Salahis rolling in a white stretch limo? Another being why the heck do they have police escort? It seems the DC Police Department was also curious about the later question as they launched an investigation into the escort issue right away. Police spokesman Lt.Nicholas Breultold CNN Saturday, “The chief has asked that an investigation be conducted into whether or not there was any type of an escort for the Salahis. We’re working to identify the car and the officer… Escorts are generally used for safety reasons to swiftly move people, and those are generally dignitaries, from one point or another. Generally speaking, there are no escorts for people going to parties or social functions.” CNN is however reporting today that the investigation has been concluded and the finding was that the Salahis had a Park police escort and that “the MPD [Metropolitan Police Department] car featured in the episode was not the escort car and was edited into the shot incorrectly.” And finally, TMZ also reported this weekend that Micahele’s husband Tareq Salahihad the cops called on him by his own mother on July 27th. We reported back in November that “Tareq sued his mother, Corinne, and the case was dismissed. Corinne then sued Tareq and the case went to trial. Tareq and Michaele won control of the Oasis Winery in 2007, but it has run into debt since then. The winery filed for bankruptcy back in February 2009, and owes over $900,000 in debt.” The Oasis Winery in Virginia was founded by Tareq’s parents back in 1977. According to TMZ, Tareq’s mom called the cops and reported that her son was trespassing on the property. Upon the cops’ arrival, Tareq explained to the officers that he still has an apartment located above the winery and should therefore be allowed to enter his residence. The cops determined that Tareq was right and he was allowed to enter the apartment. Though the ratings of the premiere episode of the Real Housewives of DC were nothing to write home about, a new episode comes our way tonight. In the second episode of the season, titled Disloyal To The Party, Mary Schmidt Amons discovers that her adult daughter’s move back home creates various challenges. Elsewhere, Stacie highlights her down-home roots by serving up a soul-food dinner—but one guest stirs the pot. And Michaele takes Cat and Mary horseback riding. Housewife Stacie Turneralso did an interview with parade.com during which she shared why the DC cast stands out a bit from the other Housewives franchises. “On the show we also get into local politics that have national implication, such as the issue of gay marriage,” says Stacie. “We are not afraid to weigh in. In one episode, we meet with Washington City Council member David Catania [the council’s first openly gay member when he was elected in 1997], who is one of the biggest gay-rights and gay-marriage advocates.” “Our cast is split politically,” Stacie adds. “I’m a Democrat and I believe that Mary [Mary Schmidt Amons] is an Independent. In the first episode, Cat [Catherine Ommanney] and I have a debate on Obama and Biden and their leadership and if they’re effective.”

Welcome To $29.95 SmogStar.com Let our professional friendly technicians serve you. We do smog checks for all cars, trucks, SUVs and mobile homes. If you need a smog test for any reason, we can do it - DMV, change of ownership, test only and out of state inspections. No appointment necessary. Reviews It was a pleasant surprise for me, being a young woman to go into an auto shop and not feel like you're being taken advantage of because most women don't know a lot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Read Very friendly and funny staff. Showed up five minutes before closing and serviced my 2004 Taurus even though they were trying to get home for son's birthday party. Good price and was done in 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . .Read I used this service just recently as they are located close to my job. I didnt have to wait long, they got the check done in about 20 minutes. The price. . . . . . . .Read

Q: Study the convergence of $\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}{\prod_{k=1}^{n}{\sin (k)}}$ Can you help me to study the convergence of the following series: $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}{\prod_{k=1}^{n}{\sin (k)}}$$ Thanks. A: The series is convergent since it is absolutely convergent. Since the sequence $\{\{n/\pi\}\}_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ is equidistributed $\pmod 1$, we have that $|\sin n|\leq\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}$ holds for about $\frac{2N}{3}$ integers in the range $[1,N]$, assuming that $N$ is large enough. This gives: $$\left|\prod_{n=1}^{N}\sin n\right|\leq \left(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\right)^{2N/3}.$$ Since it is well-known that $$\prod_{k=1}^{n-1}\sin\frac{\pi k}{n}=\frac{2n}{2^n}, $$ exploiting the concavity of $\sin x$ over $[0,\pi]$ and the Karamata's inequality we get the true order of magnitude of $|a_n|$: $$\left|\prod_{n=1}^{N}\sin n\right|\approx\frac{1}{2^N}.$$ This also follows from Weyl's equidistribution theorem and the fact that: $$\int_{0}^{\pi}\log\sin x\,dx = -\pi\log 2.$$ Moreover, since $$ \sum_{n=113}^{+\infty}\prod_{\substack{k\in[1,n]\\k\neq 113}}\sin k$$ is bounded by some small constant by similar arguments, and $\frac{355}{113}$ is an extremely good approximation of $\pi$, we can compute the first four significant figures of the value of the series by just summing the first $113$ terms: $$\sum_{n=1}^{+\infty}\prod_{k=1}^{n}\sin k = 1.\color{red}{6583}\ldots.$$ A: $|a_{n+2}/a_n|$ is bounded above by a number $x<1$, so $$\sum_n |a_n|<C\sum_n x^{n/2}$$

414 P.2d 297 (1966) Stella PRUSA and Christine Prusa, Plaintiffs in Error, v. John CERMAK, James Jirous, Joan Jirous, et al., Defendants in Error. No. 41045. Supreme Court of Oklahoma. May 10, 1966. Charles Hill Johns, Gomer Smith, Jr., Oklahoma City, for plaintiffs in error. Emmett V. Rosser, Jr., Perry, for defendants in error John Cermak, James Jirous and Joan Jirous. *298 PER CURIAM. The defendant in error, John Cermak (plaintiff below) instituted this action in the lower court against appellants, Stella Prusa and Christine Prusa, and eleven other individuals, to secure partition of three tracts of land. Two of the tracts are located in Noble County, and one is located in Garfield County, Oklahoma. The plaintiff and the defendants (including appellants) are the owners of various undivided interests constituting the entire title to said tracts of land. There was no issue raised as to the undivided interests the various parties had in the tracts of land. The lower court rendered judgment for partition of the properties and appointed Commissioners for that purpose. These Commissioners reported that they could not make partition without great and manifest injury to the parties and appraised each of the tracts of land. The partition action was pursuant to 12 O.S. 1961, §§ 1501-1516. We find no dispute as to the facts. Two of the tracts were originally owned by appellants' grandfather and the third tract was originally owned by their grandfather and grandmother together. By reason of the deaths of said ancestors in 1919 and 1917, respectively, the title passed by descent, and in some cases by intervening deeds, so that the undivided interests eventually became vested in the parties to the partition action. The appellants each own an undivided 6/240 interest in the lands by reason of inheritance. The appellants also jointly owned an undivided 48/240 interest in the lands by reason of two quit claim deeds from their mother to them in 1942, whereby such interest was vested in them as joint tenants and not as tenants in common, the survivor to take all. All of the undivided interests were held by the owners thereof as tenants in common, except as to the described 48/240 interest, which was owned by appellants as joint tenants with right of survivorship. Appellants contend that their 48/240 undivided interest should not have been subjected to partition. This contention is limited to the two tracts which are farm lands and is not made as to the remaining tract consisting of two town lots. The grounds for the contention are that appellants acquired their undivided 48/240 interest in the farm lands by deeds constituting them joint tenants with right of survivorship and all the other parties acquired their interests by inheritance after the survivorship interest of appellants had become vested, and such lands were thereby burdened by a covenant running with the land to the effect that no involuntary partition can be equitably accomplished during the lifetime of appellants. It is further contended that the estate of appellants is different in character from the estate of the others and cannot be legally partitioned. At this place we point out that from our examination of the record it does not appear that all of the other parties acquired their interests after the deeds to appellants and entirely by inheritance. However, we believe that this does not affect our disposition of the controversy. Appellants cite North v. Coffey, 200 Okl. 44, 191 P.2d 220, in support of their contention. The facts therein are not at all like those in the present case. In that case *299 an owner of two city lots had erected a house which rested upon both lots and thereafter Coffey bought one lot and North bought the other lot at the same tax resale. Coffey filed an action against North for partition of real property. We held that each party owned the lot bought by him at resale and only that portion of the house resting on his lot. We denied partition because the lots and portions of the house were owned in severalty and not in cotenancy. We stated: "Partition under the modern practice, combining both the equitable and common law remedies, is defined as follows: `* * * a division between two or more persons of real or personal property which they own as coparceners, joint tenants, or tenants in common, effected by the setting apart of such interests so that they may enjoy and possess the same in severalty, * * *' 47 C.J. p. 266, section 1; 40 Am.Jur. p. 4, section 2; Sweeney v. Bay State Oil & Gas Co., 192 Okl. 28, 133 P.2d 538. "Under this modern doctrine it is applicable only to cases in which the property is held in cotenancy." See also 68 C.J.S. Partition § 28, pp. 40, 41. The contention that all of the undivided interests must be held by one of the enumerated types of cotenancies is without foundation. The requisite is that there shall be a cotenancy, either as tenants in common, joint tenants, or coparceners. In Thomason v. Thompson, 123 Okl. 218, 253 P. 99, 102, this court quoted with approval as follows: "`Partition is the act or proceeding by which co-owners of property cause it to be either divided into as many shares as there are owners, according to their interest therein, or if that cannot be equitably done, to be sold for the best obtainable price and the proceeds distributed.'" There is nothing uncertain about the present title of the appellants. Together they own the undivided interest vested in them by the deeds, with the common right to possession of the lands enjoyed by the other owners. Their joint tenancy does not legally compel them to continue in that status until one, or both, should die. Either, or both, may convey their undivided interest or perform some act inconsistent with the continued existence of the joint tenancy and thereby terminate the joint tenancy. Shackelton v. Sherrard, Okl., 385 P.2d 898. This court has held that generally speaking the law favors the partition of property held by cotenants, and that courts are adverse to any rule which compels unwilling persons to use their property in common, and that a denial of the remedy of partition can only be justified in the most extreme cases. Henson v. Bryant, Okl., 330 P.2d 591, 593, and Komarek v. Perrine, Okl., 382 P.2d 748. Appellants seek to apply to the present situation the principle of "philosophy" of the rule stated in McInteer v. Gillespie, 31 Okl. 644, 122 P. 184, that "An agreement not to partition certain land is implied where the purpose for which the property is acquired would be defeated by its partition." In the cited case all persons having an interest in the property agreed to plat the land and sell lots and participate in the profits. One of the parties became dissatisfied and filed a partition action when the venture had barely started. The other owners produced evidence that there would be a serious financial loss if partition was made. The decision denied partition. There is absolutely no similarity to the present case. The record here is completely devoid of any agreement, express or implied, by any or all of the parties that there would be no partition of the lands on the basis of the undivided interests owned by the parties. Our careful examination of the record discloses no legal reason for denying partition, and that appellants' opposition thereto is, at most, a mere unwillingness that partition be made. *300 This court has stated that it is generally recognized that the right of a cotenant to partition property is absolute and not to be defeated by the mere unwillingness of a party to have partitioned. Wolfe v. Stanford, 179 Okl. 27, 64 P.2d 335, 337. Affirmed.

Q: Typo3 Fluid Image crop of with and height failure Using this code: <f:image src="/uploads/extkey/{image}" alt="" width="115c" height="70c" /> Produces following HTML output: <img src="typo3temp/_processed_/csm_testimage_31f6051846.gif" width="115" height="92" alt=""> The image has a wrong height now and there are white bars at top and bottom. I figured out that "92" comes from its proportion (original image is: 1280 × 1024). I guess if the white bars at top and bottom are cut out the height of 70 will be reached. Any ideas why Typo3 is doing that wrong and does some others here having the same problem? Using Typo3 6.1.5 ImageMagick 6 EDIT #2: Tried different combinations with width,height,crop,maxWidth,maxHeight like: <f:image src="/uploads/extkey/{image}" alt="" width="115" height="70c" maxHeight="70" /> The results/fails are: Image is not 115x70 Image is deformed A: I have found the correct solution for this Bug. Its now more then 4 years old and still not fixed. The file and the line has changed to: /typo3/sysext/core/Classes/Imaging/GraphicalFunctions.php , Line: 2315 http://forge.typo3.org/issues/19045 t3lib/class.t3lib_stdgraphic.php line 2181 (in version 4.2.6 that is) adapt line to $params .= ' -crop '.$data['origW'].'x'.$data['origH'].'+'.$offsetX.'+'.$offsetY.'! '; I just added the "!" at the end and it now works - "!" after the crop command tells imagemagick to adjust canvas and viewport. Didn't test this with any other installations than the one I'm working on right now (4.2.6 with IM 6.3.7), so somebody should probably do this before this fix is commited into core.

[Impact of genital prolapse on the upper urinary tract]. The authors reviewed five cases of genital prolapse affecting the upper urinary tract and causing renal failure. Five patients aged 55 to 75 years presented with genital prolapse, which was known by the patient in 3 cases for a period of 2 to 30 year, but left untreated. All cases had induced bilateral dilatation of the uretero-pyelocaliceal cavities with severe obstructive renal failure in 3 cases, moderate renal failure in 2 cases and associated with hypertension in 2 cases. Repair of prolapse, preceded by upper urinary tract diversion by ureteric and bladder catheters in 3 cases or pessary + bladder catheter because of the patient's age in 2 cases, cured or improved renal failure in 4 patients; only one patient had to be treated by dialysis because of the severity of the residual renal failure severity. The frequency (4%) of aetiopathogenic mechanisms (ureteric compression, progressive stretching of the ureter and posterior tilting of the trigone) are analysed. The delayed onset of sudden deterioration and the varying degrees of severity of renal failure demand emergency treatment of stage III prolapse with primary diversion of the upper urinary tract, currently by double J stents, until correction or improvement of renal function, after which surgical repair of the prolapse can be performed according to the usual surgical rules. Intravenous urography is still indicated in this situation. Palliative treatment is only indicated in elderly patients or patients with a high operative risk. The best treatment remains prevention by detection and treatment of prolapse before the development of this fortunately rare complication. This short clinical series emphasizes that undiagnosed prolapse can still be complicated by repercussions on the upper urinary tract with a risk of renal failure.

Pentafluorobenzyl esterification of haloacetic acids in tap water for simple and sensitive analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry with negative chemical ionization. Chlorine is the most widely used disinfectant for control of waterborne diseases in drinking water treatment. It can react with natural organic matter in water and form haloacetic acids (HAAs). For analysis of HAA levels, derivatization with diazomethane is commonly recommended as the standard methodology in Japan. However, diazomethane is a carcinogenic alkylating agent. Therefore, in this study, a safe, simple, and sensitive quantification method was developed to monitor HAAs in drinking water. Pentafluorobenzyl esterification was used for pretreatment. The pentafluorobenzyl-ester derivative was detected by gas chromatography-negative ion chemical ionization-mass spectrometry analysis with very high sensitivity for HAAs analysis. The method has low detection limits (8-94 ng L(-1)) and good recovery rates (89-99%) for HAAs. The method was applied to 30 tap water samples from 15 cities in the Kansai region of Japan. The levels of HAAs detected were in the range 0.54-7.83 μg L(-1). Dichloroacetic acid, trichloroacetic acid, and bromochloroacetic acid were the major HAAs detected in most of the tap water, and accounted for 29%, 20% and 19% of the total HAAs, respectively. This method could be used for routine monitoring of HAAs in drinking water without exposure of workers to occupational hazards.

Different variations of tissue B-group vitamin concentrations in short- and long-term starved rats. Prolonged starvation changes energy metabolism; therefore, the metabolic response to starvation is divided into three phases according to changes in glucose, lipid and protein utilisation. B-group vitamins are involved in energy metabolism via metabolism of carbohydrates, fatty acids and amino acids. To determine how changes in energy metabolism alter B-group vitamin concentrations during starvation, we measured the concentration of eight kinds of B-group vitamins daily in rat blood, urine and in nine tissues including cerebrum, heart, lung, stomach, kidney, liver, spleen, testis and skeletal muscle during 8 d of starvation. Vitamin B1, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, folate and biotin concentrations in the blood reduced after 6 or 8 d of starvation, and other vitamins did not change. Urinary excretion was decreased during starvation for all B-group vitamins except pantothenic acid and biotin. Less variation in B-group vitamin concentrations was found in the cerebrum and spleen. Concentrations of vitamin B1, vitamin B6, nicotinamide and pantothenic acid increased in the liver. The skeletal muscle and stomach showed reduced concentrations of five vitamins including vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid and folate. Concentrations of two or three vitamins decreased in the kidney, testis and heart, and these changes showed different patterns in each tissue and for each vitamin. The concentration of pantothenic acid rapidly decreased in the heart, stomach, kidney and testis, whereas concentrations of nicotinamide were stable in all tissues except the liver. Different variations in B-group vitamin concentrations in the tissues of starved rats were found. The present findings will lead to a suitable supplementation of vitamins for the prevention of the re-feeding syndrome.

Introduction {#S1} ============ Symptom-based diagnostic systems such as the current versions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) ([@B1]) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) ([@B2]) have proved to be useful in the clinical approach to the neuropsychiatric patient and in epidemiological settings. Notwithstanding, in opinion of some authors, their massive utilization in molecular-genetic studies has probably hampered (or even obstructed) the identification of susceptibility genes for neuropsychiatric disorders, due to the inherent multidimensionality of phenotypes defined by them ([@B3]). This multidimensionality probably hides genetic heterogeneity, non-genetic phenocopies, and complex networks of gene--gene and gene--environment interactions, among other confounding phenomena, lowering the statistical power of association studies ([@B3]--[@B5]). Taking this into account, it has been proposed to replace symptom-based phenotypes by quantifiable markers of liability or "risk" for a specific disorder ([@B4]). These markers, generically called "endophenotypes" constitute a more "direct" expression of the gene effect, since they conceptually lie between the gene and the disorder and -- in consequence -- are influenced by fewer genetic and environmental variables than the disorder itself. In addition to their potential role improving the statistical power of molecular-genetic studies, endophenotypes should be a valuable tool when studying how the already-known genetic risk variants are related to the neurobiological and neuro-physiological phenotypes that underlie psychiatric disorders, which could be the first step to elucidate the specific domains of brain function influenced by these variants. This kind of approach has been successfully applied, for example, in the functional characterization of risk genetic variants for psychotic and affective disorders ([@B6]--[@B8]). In the last few years, researchers have started to explore the potential of some neuro-cognitive and electrophysiological/radiological markers as endophenotypes for attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Among them, intra-individual variability \[defined as short-term changes in behavior that are signed as moment-to-moment fluctuations in task performance ([@B9], [@B10])\] seems to be especially promising. Elevated intra-individual variability of the response times (RTisv) in ADHD patients is one of the most consistent findings across the ADHD literature and has been documented in task assessing working memory ([@B11]), attention ([@B12], [@B13]), inhibitory control ([@B12], [@B14]), and choice discrimination ([@B15]). Interestingly, the magnitude of the between-group differences reported tends to be larger than most other neuropsychological parameters studied to the date ([@B16]). Additionally, intra-individual variability is in close agreement with some of the criteria proposed by Gottesman and Gould to facilitate the exclusion of spurious endophenotypes and to increase the likelihood of identifying stronger associations with genetic factors ([@B4], [@B17]). In this context, it is worth to mention two important lines of evidence: (1) studies showing that affected relatives of ADHD children present greater intra-individual variability compared to controls ([@B18], [@B19]) and (2) studies supporting the heritability of intra-individual variability ([@B15], [@B18], [@B20]). Traditionally, intra-individual variability has been estimated by collapsing responses across the entire time interval of the task, resulting in a single point parameter such as the standard deviation of the response time (RTSD) or the coefficient of variation of the response time (RTCV), which should capture and represent how data spread around the mean value. This method implies to lose a significant amount of specific information regarding the distribution of response times (RTs) along the task, with eventual effects on statistical power when comparing RTisv among clinical groups. Particularly, this method does not recognize the asymmetrical positive skew that occasional lapses in attention are expected to produce in the RTs distributions ([@B21]). During the last decade, the field has moved toward new statistical approaches aiming to obtain more complete and specific characterizations of the RTisv. Among these approaches, the ex-Gaussian analysis on the RTs has provided enlightening results regarding the dynamic nature of intra-individual variability in ADHD. Basically, the ex-Gaussian analysis is based on the convolution of an exponential and a Gaussian function, obtaining three parameters: μ (mu), corresponding to the mean of the normal component, σ (sigma), corresponding to the SD of the normal component, and τ (tau), which describes the mean of the exponential component. When fitting ex-Gaussian distributions to RT data, greater values for τ indicate a higher frequency of excessively long RTs ([@B22]). In general, most of the studies that have applied ex-Gaussian analysis on RT data from ADHD patients showed elevation of τ component in the ADHD group ([@B11], [@B22]--[@B27]). This finding is consistent with lapses in attention, due to a defective effort control mechanisms ([@B22]). In this work, we hypothesize that RTisv -- expressed as the τ and σ components of the ex-Gaussian distribution of RTs -- may be a potential endophenotype for ADHD. In order to address this hypothesis, we first explored whether healthy siblings of ADHD patients may present intermediate values of intra-individual variability in front of a motor inhibition task (Go/NoGO) when compared to ADHD patients and typically developing children (TD) without family history of ADHD, and so that, whether intra-individual variability may follow the hypothetical distribution postulated for endophenotypes. As a second step, we explored whether RTisv may represent a phenotypic correlate for previously described genetic risk variants for ADHD in the genes encoding for the dopaminergic receptor D4 (*DRD4*) and for the dopaminergic transporter 1 (*SLC6A3/DAT1*). We choose the aforementioned genetic risk variants based on previous evidence suggesting that RTisv may be associated to dopamine dysfunction ([@B28]--[@B30]). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study applying the ex-Gaussian approach to simultaneously characterize the performance of ADHD patients, their asymptomatic first degree relatives, and TD without family history of ADHD. Additionally, after an exhaustive search, we did not find other studies applying ex-Gaussian analysis in order to evaluate intra-individual variability as a phenotypic correlate to genetic variants in *DRD4* and *SLC6A3/DAT1* genes, which has been previously linked to ADHD. Materials and Methods {#S2} ===================== Participants {#S2-1} ------------ In order to evaluate eventual differences in regards to the RT distribution observed among ADHD patients, their non-affected siblings, and TD without family history of ADHD, we evaluated a total of 55 subjects, corresponding to 20 discordant sibling-pairs and 15 unaffected children from the general population. Sibling-pairs were originally recruited as part of a parallel genetic association study started in 2003 ([@B31]). This study included families from the Great Santiago Area, referred from general psychiatric and neurological outpatient services directed to medium-income population. Unaffected children without family history of ADHD were recruited from a medium-income school from the same socio-economical and geographical area. Cases and controls belong to a narrow age-range (ranged between 8 and 13 years) in order to avoid age-confounding effects on performance/neurobehavioral measurements. Groups were comparable by age distribution (ADHD group: mean = 11.2 years, SD = 2.47; sibs group: mean = 11 years, SD = 2.35; unaffected children from general population: mean = 11.6 years, SD = 0.9 *F* = 0.25; *p* = 0.77) and gender distribution \[ADHD group: 17 boys and 3 girls; sibs group: 13 boys and 7 girls; unaffected children from general population: 9 boys and 6 girls χ^2^(2) = 3.1; *p* = 0.21\]. Inclusion criteria for ADHD children were as follows: ADHD combined subtype according to DSM ([@B32]), age between 8 and 13 years, having at least one unaffected sibling in the same range of age and good response to stimulant medication. We included the latest criteria in order to reduce clinical heterogeneity in our size-restricted sample. Operationally, we defined "good response to medication" as a clinically significant improvement in symptomatology reported by parents in an interview with a competent specialist and documented as at least 20% reduction in the Conners' Abbreviated Parent--Teacher Questionnaire for ADHD symptoms ([@B33]). All patients included in this study were treated with [d]{.smallcaps}-amphetamine or methylphenidate, both in doses ranging 10--30 mg/day. A wash-out period of 24 h free of medication was required before the neuropsychological assessment. In the case of the groups composed by non-affected siblings and TD from the general population, inclusion criteria were age between 8 and 13 years old and absence of ADHD or any other psychiatric morbidity according to DSM-IV criteria. Additionally, a negative familiar history of ADHD was required in the TD group. Familiar history of ADHD was explored in first degree relatives (siblings and parents) of TD participants by means of a semi-structured interview assessing presence/absence of DSM-IV criteria during childhood. Children with neurological deficit at physical examination and/or abnormal baseline electroencephalography (EEG) were excluded from the study. All aforementioned inclusion/exclusion criteria were assessed according to current ADHD diagnosis guidelines by a competent specialist (child psychologist or child neurologist). We only included ADHD patients and their unaffected siblings for genotyping analysis. This design was chosen in order to control for an eventual population stratification effect. As additional advantage, discordant sibling-pairs share most of the psychosocial and familial factors that might interact with a potential genetic predisposition. Thus, for the genetic part of the study, 40 participants (corresponding to 20 siblings-pairs) were assigned to "Risk" or "Non-Risk" genotype groups accordingly with the criteria described in Section "[Group Comparisons](#S2-4-2){ref-type="sec"}." Genotyping {#S2-2} ---------- Genomic DNA was isolated from peripheral blood lymphocytes by standard methods and amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify the VNTR of the *DRD4* and *SLC6A3* loci according to the protocols described by Lichter et al. ([@B34]) and by Cook et al. ([@B35]), respectively. PCR products were visualized by electrophoresis in 3% agarose gels. Details on the PCR primers sequences have been previously reported by our group ([@B36]). Task and procedures {#S2-3} ------------------- Details on the Go--NoGo task performed in this study have been previously reported by our group ([@B36]). Briefly, all participants responded to an 8 min long Go--NoGo Task with a Go:NoGo rate of 9:1. Stimuli corresponded to green (Go) and red (NoGo) circles of 2 cm in diameter presented at the center of a black screen during 300 ms, with an inter-trial period of 1,000 ms. A pseudorandom process ensured that at least six Go stimuli were presented before each NoGo stimulus. The total task comprised the presentation of 360 Go and 40 NoGo stimuli. The instruction was to click in a console as fast as possible, with the dominant hand, after every Go stimulus, but to inhibit the response in front of NoGo stimuli. A treatment wash-out period of 24 h was required in all ADHD patients previous to task performance. No additional tasks or procedures were performed in the same session. No exclusions due to task non-compliance were registered. Data analysis {#S2-4} ------------- ### Data treatment for ex-Gaussian analysis {#S2-4-1} Data corresponding to the response time (RT) in front of all Go stimuli were obtained from each subject. Only correct responses were computed in order to determine the parameters of the ex-Gaussian distribution of RT, according to the data-analysis protocol originally described by Leth-Stevenson et al. ([@B22]). Additionally, any single RT of \<100 ms was considered as accidental key press and was excluded. Ex-Gaussian distributions were fitted to RT data using the *R* statistical package ([@B37]), and μ, σ, and τ parameters were computed for each participant. The number of RT observations used for each ex-Gaussian fit depended on the accuracy of responding (mean = 287 trials, range = 97--357). Finally, in order to assess the Goodness-of-fit of the ex-Gaussian models, the empirical distribution for each child was compared to a random ex-Gaussian distribution using the values for μ, σ, and τ adjusted for the same subject. Comparison was performed by means of the Kolmogorov--Smirnov Test. There were no significant differences between empirical and ex-Gaussian distributions for any one of the analyzed subjects. ### Group comparisons {#S2-4-2} In order to compare the characteristics of ex-Gaussian distributions among ADHD children, their non-affected sibs, and TD from the general population (TD), we adjusted independent general linear models for μ, σ, and τ, using age and sex as co-variates and "clinical group" (ADHD, non-affected sib, or TD) as an ordinal variable, with ADHD as the highest ordinal value and TD as the lowest. Additionally, we confirmed the statistical significance of the detected trends by means of the non-parametric Jonckheere--Terpstra test to evaluate trend in the data (e.g., ADHA \> non-affected sibs \> TD). Significance was defined as alpha = 0.05. For multiple comparisons, *p*-values after *post hoc* analysis are reported. When comparing the characteristics of the ex-Gaussian distributions regarding to the presence/absence of genetic risk variants previously linked to ADHD in the *DRD4* and *SCL6A3* genes, on the other hand, we applied three consecutive approaches. First, eventual differences in μ, σ, and τ between the genetic risk and non-risk groups were preliminary explored by means of non-parametrical methods (Wilcoxon Rank Test). In a second step, significance levels were adjusted by age, sex, and clinical status by means of general linear models. Finally, the effect of an interaction between the "clinical status (presence/absence of ADHD) and genotype group (risk/control) was explored by general linear models for μ, σ, and τ, with the independent variables "genetic risk group" (risk versus control group), age, sex, clinical status, and "genetic risk group × clinical status" interaction. As mentioned above, in order to control for population stratification, only sib-pairs were included for genetic analysis. "Genetic risk groups" were defined as follows: (a) For DRD4; the "control" or "non-risk" group was comprised by homozygous for the DRD4 4-repeat allele. A total of 22 subjects were assigned to this group and 9 of them were ADHD patients. The "risk" group, on the other hand, was constituted by carriers of at least one copy of alleles 7R (*n* = 11; 3 of them in homozygous state) or 2R (*n* = 7; two of them in homozygous state). This group included 18 subjects and 11 subjects presented ADHD among them. There was no association between allele possession for Exon 3 VNTR of *DRD4* and clinical status \[χ^2^ (1) = 0.9, *p* = 0.34\]. We chose to include carriers of the 7R and 2R alleles in the "risk group" based on previous reports of association between ADHD and these variants in different populations ([@B38]--[@B40]). Additionally, some *in vitro* studies have suggested that receptors encoded by 2R and 7R alleles mediate a reduced response to dopamine in comparison with the 4R allele ([@B41]). (b) For *SLC6A3*; the "risk group" were comprised by homozygous for 10R (*n* = 24; 13 of them were ADHD patients) and the "control" or "non-risk" was constituted by subjects with any other genotype (*n* = 15; 6of them were ADHD patients). The latter group comprised 14 participants with 9R/10R genotype and 1 homozygous for the 9R allele. There was no association between allele possession for 3′ UTR VNTR of *SLC6A3* and clinical diagnosis of ADHD, χ^2^(1) = 0.28, *p* = 0.59. Ethical issues {#S2-5} -------------- All procedures performed as part of this study were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. The study was fully explained to children and their parents, and they both agreed to participate by signing written consent forms. Results {#S3} ======= Comparison of ex-Gaussian distributions among ADHD children, their non-affected sibs, and TD from the general population {#S3-6} ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"} shows the graphical representation and values for μ, σ, and τ when adjusting ex-Gaussian distributions to the RT data from ADHD patients (solid gray line), non-affected sibs (dotted line), and TD without family history of ADHD (solid black line). In order to statistically explore eventual differences among these groups, we performed linear models for the aforementioned parameters, with clinical group as the ordinal variable. Results from this analysis are summarized in Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}. There was a statistically significant effect of the independent variable "clinical group" on the parameters μ (corresponding to the mean of the Gaussian/normal component of the distribution; *p*-value = 0.015). Since models were adjusted with ADHD as the highest ordinal value and TD as the lowest, we can assume that μ presented with the stair-like distribution typically expected for endophenotypes. A similar interesting trend was observed for σ (corresponding to the SD of the Gaussian/normal component), although it did not reach statistical significance after controlling for age and sex (*p*-value = 0.052). We did not find a statistically significant effect for "clinical group in the models adjusted for τ. Similar results were obtained using Jonckheere--Terpstra test to evaluate the trend ADHD \> non-affected sibs \> TD (σ: JP = 587, *p*-value = 0.009, predictive strength *r* = 0.35; μ: JP = 559, *p*-value = 0.0358, predictive strength *r* = 0.36; τ: JP = 523, *p*-value = 0.13). {#F1} ###### **Summary of estimated effects in general linear models adjusted for mu, sigma, and tau parameters**. Model for... Independent variable Estimated effect SE *t* Effect-size *r* *p*-value -------------- ---------------------- ------------------ ------- ------- ----------------- ----------- μ Clinical group 19.09 7.61 2.5 0.33 0.015 Age −6.96 2.88 −2.41 0.31 0.019 Sex −28.82 13.28 −2.16 0.28 0.035 σ Clinical group 6.33 3.19 1.99 0.26 0.052 Age −3.16 1.21 −2.61 0.34 0.011 sex −9.32 5.56 −1.65 -- 0.1 τ Clinical group 3.67 7.74 0.52 -- 0.6 Age −7.45 2.93 −2.5 0.33 0.015 sex −2.8 13.5 −0.21 -- 0.83 Comparison of ex-Gaussian distributions regarding to the presence/absence of genetic variants previously linked to ADHD in the *DRD4* and *SCL6A3* genes {#S3-7} -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"} shows the RT distributions obtained when we classified and analyzed the subjects in regards to their "genotype group" for *DRD4* (2A) and *SCL6A*3 (2B). In the case of *DRD4*, subjects were classified depending on the presence/absence of VNTR variants previously linked to ADHD in the exon III of *DRD4*, with carriers of at least one copy of the 7R or 2R allele considered as the risk group and homozygous for 4R as the controls/non-risk group. The ex-Gaussian distribution adjusted among subjects from the genetic risk group is more skewed than the ex-Gaussian distribution for *DRD4-4R* homozygous, which is expressed as a bigger value for τ (unadjusted *p* = 0.013; see Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"} for a summary of comparisons between *DRD4/SCL6A3* genotype groups). Interestingly, linear models demonstrated a statistically significant effect of the "genotype group" × "clinical status" interaction exclusively on τ (*p*-value = 0.014; see Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"} for a summary of interaction models). This interaction reflects a greater τ among ADHD subjects carrying *DRD4*-risk alleles in comparison to *DRD4*-4R homozygous (Kruskal--Wallis rank sum test, χ^2^ = 0.9562, df = 1, *p*-value = 0.01467, effect-size *r* = 0.44, and *post hoc p*-value: 0.03196; see Figure [3](#F3){ref-type="fig"}). In the case of *SCL6A3*, on the other hand, we did not observe any significant effect of genotype on any of the ex-Gaussian parameters analyzed (see Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}; Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"}). {ref-type="sec"}," and Sections "[Group Comparisons](#S2-4-2){ref-type="sec"}").](fpsyt-05-00197-g002){#F2} ###### **Ex-Gaussian parameters in subjects presenting "risk" versus subjects presenting "non-risk" alleles for *DRD4* and *SCL6A3/DAT1* genes**. Gene Parameter (ms) Risk group Non-risk group Unadjusted *p*-value[^a^](#tfn2){ref-type="table-fn"} Adjusted *p*-value[^b^](#tfn3){ref-type="table-fn"} --------------- ---------------- ------------ ---------------- ------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------- *DRD4* μ 212.2 209.1 0.96 0.56 σ 52.3 47.3 0.24 0.94 τ 122.7 83.2 0.013[\*](#tfn1){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.14 *SCL6A3/DAT1* μ 214.8 201.8 0.48 σ 51.2 47.2 0.92 τ 97.3 117.2 0.26 *\*Indicates a significance level of 0.05 or less*. *^a^Unadjusted *p*-value was obtained by means of Wilcoxon sum rank test*. *^b^Presented *p*-values are adjusted by age, sex, and clinical status (ADHD, healthy sibs, and/or TD children)*. ###### **Estimated effects for all co-variates included in the linear regression models adjusted for μ, σ, and τ**. Model for... Independent variable Estimated effect SE *p*-value Effect-size, *r* -------------- ---------------------------- ------------------ ------- --------------------------------------- ------------------ μ Genotype −23.75 21.98 0.29 Clinical status 11.52 22.45 0.61 Age −5.73 3.81 0.17 Sex −19.73 20.23 0.34 Genotype × clinical status 24.97 28.76 0.39 σ Genotype −6.17 10.61 0.56 Clinical status 1.5 10.83 0.89 Age −3.35 1.84 0.07 Sex −9.04 9.76 0.36 Genotype × clinical status 11.66 13.87 0.4 τ Genotype −11.87 16.01 0.47 Clinical status 4.78 16.36 0.77 Age −5.79 2.78 0.05[\*](#tfn4){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.34 Sex −26.21 14.74 0.09 Genotype × clinical status 54.71 20.96 0.015[\*](#tfn4){ref-type="table-fn"} 0.41 *\*Indicates a significance level of 0.05 or less*. {#F3} Discussion {#S4} ========== In the present study, we hypothesized that RTisv, assessed by means of the ex-Gaussian approach, is suitable as an endophenotype for ADHD. The principal aim for the first part of the study was to explore whether any of the parameters characterizing the ex-Gaussian curves fitted for ADHD patients, their healthy siblings, and/or TD children without family history of ADHD, present the "stair-like distribution" expected for an ADHD endophenotype. In the second part, we intended to explore if the parameters characterizing the ex-Gaussian distribution of RTs may correspond to phenotypic correlates for genetic variants in DRD4 and *SCL6A3/DAT1*, which have been previously linked to ADHD. From a phenomenological perspective, ex-Gaussian analysis is able to distinguish whether differences in group performances obey to (a) a generalized slowing down of the responses times (reflected at the μ component), (b) an increased variability throughout the complete distribution (reflected at the σ component), or (c) an increased number of abnormally slow responses (reflected at the τ component). The aforementioned distinction could be mechanistically relevant, since it has been suggested that larger τ values may reflect inconsistent effort and fluctuations in attention (attentional lapses), while larger σ components may reflect deficits in motor timing and/or impaired response preparation ([@B22], [@B25]). Notwithstanding the potential enclosed in the aforementioned fine-grained analysis, to date, only few studies have applied this approach to explore the characteristics of responses of ADHD children. The majority of these studies have found that τ values (representing the positive skew of the RT distribution) present the highest association with ADHD in tasks requiring limited executive control, while σ became importantly correlated to ADHD when analyzing data from tasks requiring high executive/inhibition control ([@B11], [@B22]--[@B24], [@B26], [@B27]). Interestingly, the characteristics of the RT ex-Gaussian distribution among ADHD patients seems to be dependent on the task executive control requirements, by one hand, and on the task duration, by the other hand, since some studies applying shorter tasks (3--7 min) have failed to find higher τ component on the RT data of ADHD patients. In the same line, the duration of the inter-stimulus interval can change the cognitive process measure in the Go/No-Go task ([@B42]). A recent meta-analysis shows that long inter-stimuli intervals are more sensitive to induce low inattentive responses ([@B43]). Thus, these findings suggest that both, the rate of stimuli presentation and the duration of the task, influence the amount of low RTs generated by attentional lapses. The Go--NoGo task used in this study demands high levels of executive/inhibition control due to extended task duration (about 8 min), low probability for the NoGo stimuli (10%), and shot inter-stimuli interval (1000 ms). In these conditions, the μ and σ components obtained after fitting ex-Gaussian curves on the RT data from ADHD patients, healthy siblings, and TD children without family history of ADHD, showed the stair-like distribution expected for endophenotypes. This finding suggests that not only ADHD children but also ADHD healthy relatives (or at least a subpopulation of them) may present alterations in response preparation and motor timing. By contrast, our experimental conditions are not particularly conducive to the appearance of attentional lapses. Hence, it was expected that we failed to find the aforementioned distribution in the case of τ component, due to our short inter-trial periods. Nonetheless, the second part of our analysis showed a statistically significant effect of the "genotype" × "clinical status" interaction for DRD4 on τ (*p*-value = 0.014). This result suggests that -- in the context of a relatively long and high demanding inhibition task -- attentional lapses may be predominately expressed on those ADHD patients carrying at least one copy of the 7R or 2R VNTR variants of *DRD4*. This finding is in accordance with other works, which associate DRD4 with severity of ADHD symptoms of impulsivity ([@B44]) and inattention ([@B45]). Thus, the presence of the risk alleles of *DRD4* could reflect an eventual severity mark within the ADHD group that requires further study. Although promising, our results require further analysis and replication. Our small sample size importantly limits the statistical power of the present study. Our inclusion criteria limit the generalization of our results only to patients presenting good response to stimulant medication. Conclusion {#S5} ========== Together, our results suggest that intra-individual variability is suitable as an endophenotype for ADHD. Interestingly, under our conditions of high requirements of executive/inhibitory control, only the σ component of variability presented the theoretical "stair-like distribution" for endophenotypes, while only τ (tau) seemed to be affected by the DRD4-genotype. Overall, our results emphasize the advantages of introducing new statistical methods oriented to reach a dynamic and fine-grain characterization of performance measures obtained from well-validated tasks in the analysis of new candidate-endophenotypes in psychiatric disorders. New studies are needed in order to confirm our results under different attention and inhibitory loads. Author Contributions {#S6} ==================== Study/experiments design: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez, Francisco Aboitiz, and Francisco Rothhammer. Experiment execution: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez, and Francisco Javier Zamorano. Genotyping: Hugo Henríquez and Francisco Rothhammer. Data analysis/statistical analysis: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez and Pablo Billeke. Interpretation of results and discussion: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez, Pablo Billeke, Francisco Aboitiz, and Francisco Rothhammer. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez, Pablo Billeke, Hugo Henríquez, and Francisco Rothhammer. Elaboration of the manuscript: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez, Pablo Billeke, and Francisco Aboitiz. Critic lecture of the manuscript: Marcela Patricia Henríquez-Henríquez, Pablo Billeke, Francisco Javier Zamorano, Francisco Rothhammer, and Francisco Aboitiz. Conflict of Interest Statement {#S7} ============================== The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. This work was financed by the projects 1080219 and 1120412, from the National Fund for Science and Technology, FONDECYT, Chile; by Project "Anillo en Complejidad Social" (SOC-1101 to Pablo Billeke and Francisco Javier Zamorano), and by the Millenium Center for the Neuroscience of Memory, Chile, NC10-001-F. [^1]: Edited by: John Vijay Sagar Kommu, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India [^2]: Reviewed by: Preeti Jacob, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India; Sowmya Bhaskaran T. S., National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India [^3]: This article was submitted to Child and Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Case: 19-10820 Document: 00515383321 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/15/2020 IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED No. 19-10820 April 15, 2020 Conference Calendar Lyle W. Cayce Clerk UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee v. GOLWER JOVANY CRUZ-SILVA, Defendant-Appellant Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas USDC No. 4:19-CR-21-1 Before ELROD, SOUTHWICK, and COSTA, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: * The Federal Public Defender appointed to represent Golwer Jovany Cruz-Silva has moved for leave to withdraw and has filed a brief in accordance with Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), and United States v. Flores, 632 F.3d 229 (5th Cir. 2011). Cruz-Silva has not filed a response. We have reviewed counsel’s brief and the relevant portions of the record reflected therein. We concur with counsel’s assessment that the appeal presents no * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.  Case: 19-10820 Document: 00515383321 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/15/2020 No. 19-10820 nonfrivolous issue for appellate review. Accordingly, counsel’s motion for leave to withdraw is GRANTED, counsel is excused from further responsibilities herein, and the APPEAL IS DISMISSED. See 5TH CIR. R. 42.2. 2 

This invention relates to a tone signal generation device used for an electronic musical instrument and other tone generation devices and, more particularly, to a tone signal generation device capable of changing tone elements such as tone color sequentially at each timing of generation of a tone. This invention further relates to a tone signal generation device capable of generating a tone signal in channels in which tone elements such as tone color are different from one another. U.S. Pat. No. 4,214,500 discloses a tone signal generation device in which tone elements such as pitch, tone color and tone envelope of a tone to be generated are changed randomly at each timing of generating the tone. In this prior art device, tone elements such as pitch, tone color and tone volume envelope of a tone to be generated are independently controlled in plural tone forming channels and sounding of tones of depressed keys is assigned in accordance with a normal tone generation assignment principle (i.e., tone generation is assigned to an empty channel if there is one whereas, if there is no such empty channel, it is assigned in accordance with truncating processing to a channel in which the oldest released key exists or in which attenuation of the tone has progressed to the furthest degree). Accordingly, relationship between the order of depression of keys (i.e., order of sounding of tones) and a channel to which tone generation is assigned is entirely random and, as a result, tone elements such as pitch, tone color and tone volume envelope of a tone to be generated change randomly at each timing of generation of a tone. In the above described prior art device, pitch, tone color and tone volume envelope of a tone to be generated can be changed only randomly so that only a random performance effect can be obtained. U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,617 discloses a device in which generation of a tone corresponding to one depressed key is assigned to channels which are different depending upon tone colors and plural tone signals corresponding to the same depressed key are thereby generated with different tone colors in different channels. If, for example, tone colors 1 and 2 have been selected and keys C4 and D4 have been depressed, the key C4 and the tone color 1 are assigned to channel 1, the key C4 and the tone color 2 are assigned to channel 2, the key D4 and the tone color 1 are assigned to channel 3 and the key D4 and the tone color 2 are assigned to channel 4. In this manner, tone generation is assigned to plural channels in correspondence to all combinations of selected number of tone colors and selected number of depressed keys. When plural tone colors have been selected in the above described prior art device, tones of plural channels of the same number as the number of the tone colors are automatically generated and all tones of the depressed keys become automatically tones of plural channels. It was not possible in the prior art device to easily perform a complicated multi-channel control such as sounding tones of a part of depressed keys as multi-channel tones while sounding the rest of tones as a single channel tone and differing the number of channels between tones of a part of the depressed keys and the rest of tones.

Q: Concurrent INSERTs in XtraDB (InnoDB) I'm currently unable to insert rows concurrently in an XtraDB table on Percona Server 5.1.54. I had the same problem with a similar version of MySQL. My table definition is as follows. CREATE TABLE `test` ( `a` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0', `b` int(11) DEFAULT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`a`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM If in on one connection, I execute something like INSERT INTO test VALUES (0, sleep(60)) and in a second process, INSERT INTO test VALUES (1, 0), the second insert will wait for the first to complete. Note that innodb_table_locks is off. Is there something I'm missing, or is this just not possible? Update As Randy points out below, I created a MyISAM table during testing and then assumed that concurrent inserts weren't possible for my other tables (which are InnoDB). I actually don't have a problem with InnoDB tables. A: You might notice the problem is : ENGINE=MyISAM Try changing that to: ENGINE=InnoDB

News: For the most up to date reports about what is going on with the forum, and the latest topics of interest, throw us a like on Facebook, and if you're wanting some light banter with the seasoned and spiced members, join the Second Sphere Members Group. Lt. Colonel Silas Hawthorne of the Cadian 812th marched along with his newly adapted rolling step that shifted every 8th and a half stride to account for the earthquake caused by his new charges. The sky on Bellanor IV was supposed to be sweltering and for that, Silas was glad that the Hellenic assault was cut off by the previously mentioned monstrosities. Correction, he told himself, Wonders of the Imperium. A gout of dust plumed in front of him, causing him to raise his cloak up to his face, but it was getting to be standard protocol. A ratcheting sound nearly matching the deafening roar of a Bastilisk brought his attention upwards, and he saw the underside of one of the hulking titans. Or rather, he corrected himself again, Knights. Four Knights, lead by a so-called Baron Gravestone, were a bit of a surprise for the Colonel. His bedraggled unit was assigned to Bellanor IV to guard the ruins of a once-mighty cathedral, full of saints and reliquaries and other hand-wringingly important artifacts that he couldn't tell from a hole in the wall. It wasn't Silas' fault, he often told himself. He glanced to his shoulder to see the new omnipresent mechanical two-headed bird that perched there. The Aquilla. An interesting "gift" from his superiors that supposedly held the collective knowledge of military geniuses and was rare as hygiene on a Ogryn. Or at least supposedly. He swore that he had seen Rogue Traders with armloads of the birds and it seemed that every Commander he had run into had one welded to his arm in an attempt to look savvy. Which, Silas had to admit, that he needed in spades. Silas was in a word... modest. Collectively so with a face that neither made maidens swoon nor recoil in horror, a slightly receding hairline that failed to make him look dashing or noble, and a body that was fairly dumpy outside of his uniform. Having had few encounters, his uniform was bare of the usual regalia of his peers, but that bothered Silas little as most of them were dead. Still, he was sure that something about him that must have made the Mechanicum choose him as an escort for the enormous war machines. In fact, he was technically in charge of them and leader in the expedition. He just wasn't entirely sure what the expedition was about. But, the Aquilla told him that it was important and it let of reams of detailed data about how it was of utmost import that he go precisely to opposite side of the Cathedral out in the open on the big hill with all due haste. A lesser man might question the tactical wisdom of such an action, but Silas knew better. The Aquilla was a priceless relic, so it had know what it was doing. After all, ignorance was one of the Imperium's prime virtues and it wasn't his place to know the gritty details. Better men than him certainly knew what was going on. ---------------------------- Haemonculus X'Bella Le'Gosi floated in front of the Webway Portal, her trio of massive Taloi hovering closely nearby. Her head tilted to the side in curiosity at the cackling laughter emenating from their leader Y'stral, Archon of the Grisly Hand Kabal. Something was certainly amusing. "Can you believe these nimrods Thiel?" howled the Archon, turning to his Dracon, the once-Farseer Thielbane. "Marching out in the open to be plucked off. Completely exposed and asking for it. Might as well coat them with lube. Make things faster." Thielbane sighed. Once again, Y'stral was getting ahead of himself. "Y'stral, don't you think we're... biting off more than a bit here? Those are Knight Titans. Titans." "Yeah," nodded the Archon, rubbing his hands together with malicious glee, "Imagine how much we're going to get for their bits. I call dibs on the big one's head. Gonna fit right over my throne in the orgy pit." Fighting down a bit of revulsion, Thielbane continued, "If you... insist upon endangering all of us like this, Y'stral, shouldn't we at least... take some reinforcements? Bella's monsters are effective, but we're clearly outnumbered." Y'stral sighed and stalked forward, throwing a clinging hand around Thielbane's shoulder that made the Dracon wince, "Thiel, it's like this. The more we bring in, the more we gotta share. And I'm tired of sharing. These Knight morons are everywhere spanking Archons left and right. Can you imagine how many rage-induced heart attacks we'll cause if we manage to take a clump of them down?" Thielbane paused, fighting back the mental calculations and reasonable assumption that trying to fight the Adeptus Questoris usually ended up with the losers in very shallow graves as the Knights trodded on them like insects. Still, he saw the gleam of avarice and unrestrained murderlust in his comrade's eyes and he knew there was only one response: "Of course, Y'stral. Can we just... be careful?" The Archon snorted, "We'll be careful, Thiel. Careful as a Succubus on triple Adrenalight. And don't worry, you won't regret this." Thiel rolled his eyes into the back of his head and nodded. Things were just getting better and better. Mission: Retrieval Mission (4 obj)Setup: Front Line Assault ----------------------------Setup:Setup is fairly kind with one big porous ruin in the center of the board (kind of Cathedral looking) with statuary lining the sides and big bunches of trees scattered about. Nothing that can totally block line of sight (gah), but enough to get saves on my boats if I play things right. The objectives go one to each side and my opponent and I put one objective in each of our deployment zones. Right, now before I get into things, I have to say, the combination of IG just to get CPs and regenerating said CPs for the Knights is kind of broken. My opponent uses 2 CPs to give the Castellan a Warlord trait (wait... what?) and Cawl's Wrath as an extra relic (double what?). I raised an eyebrow at this, but apparently, the wording the slightly dodgy and everyone agrees this isn't a bug, but instead a feature. Right. Then he puts his IG commander on the field in the far back behind the hill and we start deploying. Nothing out of note save that when I drop my Ravagers into reserve he rolls as well. Didn't say anything, but I did note that he could end up with more CPs than when he started if he can roll in deployment. In any case, he castles up in the center with his Commander and Psyker in the far back behind the Castellan, who has the Armitgers to either side and a thin line of 30 Guardsmen in front of them. The Gallant goes in front of them all. I deploy to match with the Talos in the front, behind of which I put Bella and her Wracks. The Raiders go slightly to one side, ready to zip up and drop Lances as needed. The Razorwings go a bit to the flanks to prevent heady turn 1 charges and to clog up lanes of traffic on turn 1. Ravagers go in deep strike reserve as does the Scourges. And with that, we roll to see who gets first turn. The Dark Eldar take it (yay), and the Knights fail to seize. And with that we're off to the races! -------------------Turn 1: Dark Eldar-------------------Right, the Armigers have to die. 4d3 re-rolling to hit S7 D3 wounds are nothing to laugh at and I need to keep my boats alive as long as possible. I push the Raiders out to the left in range of the left Armiger, and the Ravagers come out of Deep Strike to the right in range of the right Armiger. The Razorwings hit the skies to land close-ish to the front lines, blocking the closest route for the Gallant. Bella and her crew start the long walk up the right side. Shooting is pretty decent with my plethora of Blasters and the Raiders' Dissie Cannons take down the Armiger on the left and the rest of my firepower takes down the Armiger on the right with some shots going in to pare down the Guardsmen on my right flank. My opponent activates the upgraded shield on the Castellan, so I don't get anything meaningful in on the big guy. Picture Caption: Ha ha! We'll win for sure now! --------------------Turn 1: Knights--------------------This is the turn I see the full might of the Knight list come into play. My opponent advances the Gallant over to the left flank and gets a big move, coming within 12" of my Raiders. Huh... that's not good. The Guardsmen shield retracts and then the Castellan starts firing. He uses the Raven Strategem which is "re-roll 1's." I let it through not knowing that it means ALL 1's. Not just to hit. Not just to damage. But all of the random shot rolls too. Guess who has all random shot guns? Yeah, it's pretty gruesome as despite using Lightning Reflexes to give the Castellan a few wounds off his overcharged Plasma Cannon (ha!), there's not much joy as he annihilates both Raiders with ease. The Archon and Dracon bail out, losing a few Warriors in the process. Some shots go at the Taloi, but no real damage is done. Then, my opponent using a Strategem to let the Gallant charge! Thankfully, he falls short (even with a re-roll). I realize that my opponent has just spent a bucket-full of CPs, and ask him if he really has that much. I wasn't really keeping track, but apparently he's been getting so much back from decent Aquilla rolls, he still has more than enough left over... Picture Caption: Uh... right... We might be boned. -------------------Turn 2: Dark Eldar------------------- Right, that Castellan is super dangerous, but I HAVE to kill the Gallant, or he'll just multi-charge my entire left flank, get Warlord and just go to town on my Taloi. So, I move the Jetfighters out of the way, pull the Warriors to the sides and keep scooching Bella's crew forwards. The Scourges come down from up-high to help on the left. It takes EVERY LAST ounce of shooting, but I'm able to destroy the Gallant, even through the fancy shield. Oh, except for some side shooting into the Guard for kicks which helps thin the line a bit more. Picture Caption: Man, those Knights are TOUGH. ------------------Turn 2: Knights------------------Realizing that my Ravagers did most of the work, my opponent shuffles to the left, trying to keep out of range of the Taloi, but the line of sight on the boats is a bit tough, so he doesn't go quite as far as he'd like. The Guard shuffle around and the Psyker moves up to Smite my Taloi for ONE WOUND... which I save with my 6+ FNP. And... that would be only bit of luck this turn as the Castellan activates his powers again and easily destroys both Ravagers and throws a Missile (1d6 wounds that ignore invuls??) into Y'stral... who somehow survives off his 6+ FNP! Picture Caption: Man... we're going to be walking home again aren't we? --------------------Turn 3: Dark Eldar--------------------Time to tighten the noose.Everyone moves forwards.Shots go into the Castellan. He tries to use his upgraded shield, but I block it with Agents of Vect. We do about a quarter or so of its wounds (man this thing is tough!), but the important thing is that the Taloi get stuck in on the Castelan!I use the Strategem to let them re-roll wounds, and now with 2+ to hit, they go to town on the big guy, tearing him down to the last eddies of his wounds.Bella and her Wracks dive into the Psyker and the Guard next to them, mulching them with surprising ease (Haemonculi can fight? Just as good as an Archon? Say it isn't so!)Oh, and just to see what they can do, the Scourges jump into assault on the last Guard squad and... get the royal stuffing knocked out of them. Still, they tie up combat, so that's ok. Picture Caption: Taloi. You guys... you guys do good work. ----------------Turn 3: Knights---------------- The Castellan uses a Strategem (yes another one) to move as if it had full wounds, and then steps out of combat. My opponent somehow STILL has CPs, so he uses the usual Raven Strategem again and tries to take out the Taloi. He does some wounds to them, but not enough to kill one. He also uses more CPs to fire his missile against Y'stral, but this time he misses (whew). The Guard thump the Scourges to death with their lasguns, but the winged mercenaries at least take their lump of... uh... they killed a few. Really. I shoot everything into the Knight who STILL has CPs for the use of that 3++ shield, so I just settle with Bella charging in with the Vexetor mask (to avoid overwatch) and then charge the Taloi in. The resulting carnage plies the last few wounds off the Knight who finally... FINALLY... falls. Picture Caption: Wow, that was really... really hard. And... I sort of forgot about the Commander who was hiding behind the hill.My opponent gracefully decides to tilt his king at this point. Post-Game Thoughts: First of all, this was a sloppy game on both my and my opponent's ends. I hadn't really faced the Knights before, but now I can see why they have so much of a following. With enough CP they are CRAZY deadly for their points. And the Guard with their Commander can do just that. It's a remarkably effective union and I think it'll probably be nerfed sooner or later. As for the Dark Eldar, it was a really touch and go kind of victory. I had luckily gotten first turn otherwise my boats would probably all be dead and my units inside too. I can see why some people have stopped taking Warrior gunboats all together if this is the kind of firepower than you can expect Turn 1. The Gallant was scary fast and could easily have ripped apart my lines if I didn't devote every shot to take it down. I didn't know about the "act as if you had full wounds" strategem at that point, but it was a good idea to take it down. After this game, I felt that the Taloi were really great counters, especially for their points as they have a meaty number of wounds and with that T7, they can resist a good number of Autocannon shots. Their invul bounces the bigger shots too. Some have said that their price will see a noticeable increase, which saddens me, but I'll probably just take Grotesques in the future if that's so, especially if the Knight population starts to thin. Overall, this was perhaps my toughest game in a while and I can see why Knights are such a dominating force! ------------------------------------------- -----------------Epilogue----------------- Lt. Colonel Hawthorne poked his head out of the ravine. It wasn't the most glorious way of exiting the battlefield, but when the last Knight fell, he knew it was time to go. He frowned, looking at the Aquilla that was still barking out helpful advice. Dropping it to the ground, he raised his Laspistol and put a few well-placed holes in the once revered artifact, finally silencing it's mechanical cries. Never again would he let a toy tell him what to do. Now, all he had to do was find out some way to retreat back to the nearest outpost without being discovered by the Xenos and not be executed for desertion or incompetence.He sighed, looking at the ruined mechanical bird on the ground. Just when he could use a little advice... ------------------------------------------------ Bella watched Y'stral dance amongst the still burning remains of the Knights, occasionally stopping to let someone take holos of his good side. It was a Victory indeed. But, something about it bothered Bella. Why were these enormous creatures so common? Surely something was happening on a systemic level. All she had to do was keep her head and analyze what the... "Haemo!" Bella jerked her head up out of her notes and looked up at Y'stral and a very uncomfortable looking Thielbane standing atop a teetering Casteallan head. "Don't just stand there! We need a girl to sit fawning at our feet!" An odd request, thought Bella, the necessity of a female in a position of adulation would certainly be unnecessary given the importance of her discovery and... "That means you!" yelled Y'stral shaking a fist in her direction, "Get over here and get fawning!" Something clicked inside Bella's head and thoughts started to float away. Something was important. Something. But, she couldn't remember anymore. It wasn't important surely. The Archon needed her. That was what was important. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

The Potential of TikTok as a Social Media Platform You've probably heard about TikTok in passing but perhaps if you're reading this you never particularly payed any active attention to it. However you've been hearing about the platform more and more via various news sites and other mediums discussing how popular it is with a certain demographic. Whether or not you subscribe to the hype, TikTok could become the next Instagram or Snapchat. According to various reports, TikTok boasts of over 500 million active users across the world and the US inclusive of that. Understanding TikTok as a Social Media Platform Indeed, there is a resurgence of developmental changes in the world of social media applications available in the market and one of the tools categorized as “the next big thing” is the TikTok platform. Tiktok, formerly referred to as Musical.ly is a social media platform that is used for creating, distributing, and discovering short music videos. The app is mainly utilized by the largest demographic that companies hope to reach, young people, as a means of expressing themselves through some fun activities such as dancing, singing, lip-syncing, and comedy. The app has gone by a different name, and it's parent company was acquired and it's current iteration is the app commonly referred to as TikTok. With an entirely new logo, this app offers similar features to musical.ly. Apart from that, it also provides users the opportunity to create videos recorded in a short period, usually 15 seconds or less and share them across a wide range of communities within the platform. Originally, TikTok was launched in 2016 under the Chinese name “Douyin.” Since that time, it has grown to become one of the most popular social media platform all across US even after it merged with the popular app Musica.ly in 2017. Many of the elements featured in the TikTok application includes music, communities, and trending issues. Many of the posts shared on this platform are centered around hashtags, humor, and discovery of creative ways to present videos. These and more are a few of the things that are mostly appreciated by users of current TikTok platform. Who is using TikTok? The TikTok application has more than 500 million global users across over 150 countries of the world. In the first half of the year 2018, TikTok rose into the limelight while also becoming the world’s most downloaded application on Apple’s app store. The app boasts an estimated 140 million downloads surpassing downloads of other social media platforms such as YouTube, Whatsapp, and Instagram within that same period. As reported by Iresearch Index in October 2018, TikTok recorded a total of 51.76% males and 48.24% females in the demographic breakdown. Furthermore, this report also revealed the age distribution of users. Statistics showed that globally users under the age of 35 accounted for 26.3%, users between age 31-35 accounted for 28.8%, and users between the age of 25 and 30 accounted for 27.91%. Is TikTok Good for Business Advertising? Currently, one of the challenges with this platform is the absence of advertising framework or methods of monetization. With this, users are provided with a more relaxed as well as enjoyable experience. However, this doesn’t imply that this platform won’t navigate to that direction, because it may not be free for a very long time. Its certainly not sustainable as a business in that form. From the looks of it, TikTok is trending towards a younger clientele when compared with other social media platforms. If you are able to create an appealing video targeted at the demographic on TikTok, there is no doubt that it will remain a valuable marketing tool for brands. TikTok remains an early phase platform where the really big brands in the market are exploring ways to promote themselves. Make use of this avenue to advertise and promote because even if you just rely on the current nascent marketing infrastructure -primarily organic driven tactics- utilized well within the platform, it could result in returns not possible with the other social platforms on the market. Share this: About Von Chucwuemeca I work with you to apprehend the value of your marketing efforts in order to implement strategies that generate product and/or service demand. Let's work together, results are waiting. Reader Interactions Primary Sidebar Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter to get updates on all our latest blog releases, offers, and some free marketing consulting! NameE-Mail Address {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}Your submission failed. The server responded with {{status_text}} (code {{status_code}}). Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. Learn More{{/message}} {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}It appears your submission was successful. Even though the server responded OK, it is possible the submission was not processed. Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. Learn More{{/message}}

More about servareginae I was formerly a high school teacher and college instructor. Now I homeschool my three children. I enjoy sewing for myself and my children. I like to research and sew historical costumes from the Middle Ages, the 19th century, and (my newest interest) vintage fashion from the 1920s and 30s. Location Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States Member since October 10, 2011 Birthday December 23 Skill Level Intermediate Sewing Machine mechanical Featured Pattern Collections Athleisure: 7 NEW Plus Size Patterns These looks with sporty elements bring a spring into the step of everyday wear 10/2017 BurdaStyle is a DIY fashion and sewing community. Our aim is to bring the craft of sewing to a new generation of fashion designers, hobbyists, DIY'ers, and inspire fashion enthusiasts. We offer downloadable PDF sewing patterns, project ideas, tutorials and a community passionate about fashion. Press coverage on BurdaStyle can be found here.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ____________________________________ ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) ) v. ) Criminal No. 18-0098-2 (PLF) ) TIERA HIGHT, ) ) Defendant. ) ____________________________________) MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER On October 10, 2018, the defendant, Tiera Hight, pled guilty to two counts of assault, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111(a) and 22 D.C. Code § 404, both misdemeanors. On April 1, 2019, the Court sentenced Ms. Hight to time served (approximately fifty days in jail, followed by 21 days of home confinement release in the high intensity supervision program), and imposed a 12-month period of supervised release and a $75 assessment – $25 payable to the Clerk of the U.S. District Court and $50 to the D.C. Superior Court. See Presentence Investigation Report [Dkt. No. 70] at 5; Judgment [Dkt. No. 80] at 7. In addition to the standard conditions of supervision, the Court imposed special conditions that included requiring Ms. Hight to participate in an anger management program and cognitive behavioral treatment. See Judgment [Dkt. No. 80] at 5. Her period of supervised release is scheduled to end on March 31, 2020. On December 2, 2019, U.S. Probation Officer Lisa Davis submitted a petition alleging that Ms. Hight had violated conditions of her supervised release. See Probation Petition [Dkt. No. 85]. The petition alleges that Ms. Hight failed to report to the Probation Office on three separate occasions. Id. at 3. The petition also alleges that Ms. Hight was disruptive during the cognitive behavioral therapy sessions that the Court ordered her to attend as part of her supervised release. Id. The petition further alleges that Ms. Hight was disruptive and insisted that she did not need a mental health assessment during her initial meeting with a counselor for the anger management program in which the Court ordered her to participate as part of her supervised release. Id. Finally, the petition alleges that Ms. Hight has not paid the special assessment imposed in full. Id. The Court held a hearing on the supervised release violation on January 9, 2020. The Probation Office, the government, and defense counsel agree that imprisonment would not assist Ms. Hight at this time and do not recommend it. The government represented, however, that it will seek imprisonment if Ms. Hight continues to refuse to comply with the conditions of her supervised release. Having considered the representations by the Probation Officer, the government, defense counsel, and Ms. Hight herself at the January 9 hearing, the Court agrees that Ms. Hight’s supervised release should continue but only on the condition that she comply with this order. The Court hopes that Ms. Hight may ultimately find some of these conditions of supervision helpful, but even if she does not, she is required to participate. Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that Ms. Hight must report to the DC Department of Behavioral Health for a psychological assessment and provide the Probation Office with a copy of its report and recommendation; it is FURTHER ORDERED that Ms. Hight must participate in an anger management program, as specified in the special conditions of supervision; it is 2  FURTHER ORDERED that Ms. Hight must pay $50, the balance of her special assessment, to DC Courts Banking and Finance Division, Attn: Reporting and Controls Branch, 616 H Street, NW, 6th Floor, Rm. 6054, Washington, D.C. 20001; 1 it is FURTHER ORDERED that Ms. Hight must provide the Probation Office with proof of her full time employment, as required by the standard conditions of supervision, No. 7; and it is FURTHER ORDERED that a status conference is scheduled for February 25, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. to confirm whether Ms. Hight has complied with this order and with all of the other conditions of her supervised release. SO ORDERED. ___________________________ PAUL L. FRIEDMAN United States District Judge DATE: January 13, 2020 1 The special assessment should be paid to: D.C. Courts Banking and Finance Division Attn: Reporting & Controls Branch 616 H Street, NW 6th Floor, Rm: 6054 Washington, D.C. 20001 Ms. Hight is advised that she may either mail payment or bring it directly in person to that address. Payment can be made by money order or cashier’s check. Ms. Hight should include the pertinent information with her payment, whether in person or via mail, such as her case number and the amount owed. If Ms. Hight delivers payment in person, she will receive a receipt the same day. If she chooses to mail her payment, a receipt will be mailed back to her. 3 

MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup or TAG or Paradise Face Paints for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality.. Price: $29.95 ]]> MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup or TAG or Paradise Face Paints for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality.. Price: $29.95 ]]>MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup or TAG or Paradise Face Paints for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality..]]>http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-templatequeen-a-nura-by-donna-nowak/ Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:29:01 +0000http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-templatequeen-a-nura-by-donna-nowak/ MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-.. Price: $29.95 ]]> MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-.. Price: $29.95 ]]>MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-..]]>http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-template-peanut-by-donna-nowak/ Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:23:46 +0000http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-template-peanut-by-donna-nowak/ TypMehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and .. Price: $29.95 ]]> TypMehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and .. Price: $29.95 ]]>TypMehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and ..]]>http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-template-radiance-by-donna-nowak/ Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:22:06 +0000http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-template-radiance-by-donna-nowak/ MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-.. Price: $29.95 ]]> MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-.. Price: $29.95 ]]>MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-..]]>http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-template-voodoo-by-donna-nowak/ Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:20:56 +0000http://alwayswicked.mybigcommerce.com/airbrush-template-voodoo-by-donna-nowak/ MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-.. Price: $29.95 ]]> MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-.. Price: $29.95 ]]>MehronAirbrush Stencils created by world renowned face and body artist Donna Nowak. Use these templates with LUX Airbrush makeup for quick and easy professional looking designs every time. These professional quality templates are washable and re-..]]>

414 F.Supp. 33 (1976) Ethel H. GEORGE, Plaintiff, v. GENERAL FINANCE CORPORATION OF LOUISIANA, Defendant. Civ. A. No. 75-2548. United States District Court, E. D. Louisiana. April 27, 1976. *34 Joseph W. Thomas, New Orleans, La., for plaintiff. Kenneth J. Berke, New Orleans, La., for defendant. ALVIN B. RUBIN, District Judge: The regulations[1] adopted by the Federal Reserve Board pursuant to authority of the Truth in Lending Act[2] require that the cost of credit, or, in the words of the regulations, the "finance charge" be clearly disclosed and that its component charges be identified. However, certain charges, specified in the regulations, which actually contribute to the cost of credit, are exempted from that requirement: (b) Itemized charges excludable. If itemized and disclosed to the customer, any charges of the following types need not be included in the finance charge: (1) Fees and charges prescribed by law which actually are or will be paid to public officials for determining the existence of or for perfecting or releasing or satisfying any security related to the credit transaction. 12 C.F.R. § 226.4(b)(1). The issue raised by the plaintiff is whether a $2.00 charge for "official fees" and a $.75 charge for "notary fees," both disclosed to the borrower and in fact paid *35 for the purposes stated, were covered by the exemption or whether the Act required that they be identified as components of the finance charge. The plaintiff contends: A. The charges were finance charges. B. Mere revelation of these charges was not enough; the disclosure form was required to itemize them separately as components of the finance charge because neither of these costs constituted "fees and charges prescribed by law" within the meaning of section 226.4(b)(1); C. It was necessary for defendant to give a further explanation for the term "official fees" used to describe the $2.00 charge. These issues are considered separately: I. The $2.00 charge was made for recording the mortgage; the other charge was for the notary's fee. Both were actually paid by the lender. They appear to be embraced within the exemption. The recordation cost was paid to a public official, the clerk of court. While a notary public is not an elected public official, like the clerk of court, the office is a public one. It was necessary to have the mortgage notarized and recorded to perfect the security retained by the creditor. II. The plaintiff maintains that the notary fee was not a "charge prescribed by law" because "there is no law in Louisiana that prescribes a $.75 notary fee for notarizing a chattel mortgage." In fact, Louisiana law does require authentication of a chattel mortgage in order to perfect a security interest. LSA-R.S. 9:5353. It does not, as plaintiff has urged, direct notaries to charge a set fee of $.75 for their services. But the plaintiff's argument rests on the notion that the term, "prescribed by law" refers to the amount of the charge rather than to the legal nature of the charge. It is possible to reason this way: Exempted charges need not be itemized on the disclosure form because the amount of the charge can be discovered by the borrower by reference to extrinsic documents —statutes, regulations, etc. — and if the amount is not prescribed by law, the justification for the exemption is lost. But it is unrealistic to suppose that any of the exempted charges, even if fixed in amount, would be readily ascertainable by the layman. Moreover, since the precise amount of the charge is set forth on the disclosure form, the argument is, at best, academic. It is far more likely that Congress exempted these charges because they are effectively out of the lender's control and do not inure to his financial benefit. The charges that must be included in the finance charge are, inter alia, interest, service fees, and insurance required by the creditor. These are charges that the creditor does control and that do usually benefit him. III. Neither the statute nor the regulations demand a detailed explanation of the charges made for "official fees." Neither requires use of a particular term to describe the exempted charges. It is not necessary that the consumer be informed exactly what law permits the charge or to what official it is paid; it suffices if the charge in fact is "prescribed by law," and its payment disclosed. While the Truth in Lending Act is to be interpreted liberally for the protection of borrowers, it is to be read in a manner calculated to protect borrowers, not as a maze containing obscure technical pitfalls for creditors. The statutory arguments advanced by the plaintiff rest on subtle interpretations of provisions that are ambiguous, at best. The amount involved in the alleged violations was $2.75. The maxim, "De minimis non curat lex,"[3] is a venerable and sensible principle of law. Congress did not intend by the Truth in Lending Act to make a federal case out of a lawful charge *36 of $2.75 made by a money lender, fully revealed to the borrower, even if the amount were set forth on the disclosure form in a manner that did not conform precisely to the regulations. Accord: Gordon v. Backus Cadillac-Pontiac, Inc., U.S. D.C., S.D.Ga. (CCH Para. 98,689).[4] This case does not involve either concealment or the taking of a secret profit by the creditor. The official fees and notary fees were disclosed on the disclosure form. There is no allegation that exaction of the fees, or their amount, was unclear or inconspicuous. Different facts might lead to a different result. The court holds only that, in the facts of this case, the statute does not permit recovery. The defendant's motion for summary judgment is hereby GRANTED. NOTES [1] 12 C.F.R. § 226.4(a). [2] 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq. [3] The law does not concern itself with trifles. [4] In that case, the court refused to allow recovery for failure to itemize a $1.00 license fee.

Upcoming Marvel Comic Cover Shows Captain America & Thor Kissing As the old Marvel Comics multiverse edges ever closer to its death and subsequent rebirth, hints as to what awaits us at the other end of this humongous overhaul have begun to surface. Marvel Entertainment just tweeted the cover of an issue set to be released in January of 2016, and we think its amazing. For those unfamiliar with the relatively recent goings-on in the world of Marvel Comics, the comics are undergoing a much-anticipated and long-overdue revamp, and leading the absorption of Marvel-616 and the Ultimate Universe into one Omniverse in the Secret Wars story arc. Said series is set to mark the end of the line for several characters from Marvel’s endless roster and a new beginning for many others, forming an “All-New, All-Different” Marvel. Although Jane Foster’s Thor and Sam Wilson’s Captain America will be reprising their roles as Avengers after Secret Wars, it seems their relationship is set to take a pleasant turn. The tweet we mentioned earlier posted a awesome cover done by the talented Alex Ross showing the new Thor and Cap locking lips mid-air – doing a kiss-by, if you will. If your only exposure to the Marvel Universe has been through the MCU and its movies, you might be slightly confused right now. Marvel made some huge changes to the two legacy heroes before Secret Wars. After the original Thor, or “Odinson”, as he calls himself, loses the ability to wield Mjolnir, the mantle is taken over by a mystery women later revealed to be his love interest Jane Foster – the character played by Natalie Portman in the movies. The new Thor is said to be more worthy of the might hammer and its powers than her Asgardian predecessor. Sam Wilson becoming Captain America is a simpler story of an aging Steve Rogers appointing a successor. Even if business is all there is to Marvel’s diversification spree, one can’t help but applaud their bold decisions Given the popularity of both characters pre-Secret Wars, it’ll be interesting to see how the prospect of the interracial match-up is received. Certain long-time fans might argue Marvel is going overboard trying to introduce racial and gender diversity in their universe, and they might even be true to an extent, but as long as said diversity doesn’t come in the way of quality storytelling, the complaints are bound to simmer down eventually. Let’s not forget that Marvel is, first and foremost, a business, which needs to redefine itself to appeal to the new generation, and that is probably what inspired this course for the iconic superhero duo. However, even if business considerations are all there is to the publisher’s recent diversification spree, one can’t help but applaud Marvel for their bold decisions. Liked this post? Don’t forget to check out our coverage of all things Marvel. I'm an engineer, blogger, and graphic designer who loves creating and experimenting with different forms of online content when he's not looking for a mix of inspiration and escape in PC gaming, comic books and anime. You can find me on Twitter and Google+.

Q: How to refer to an employer that isn't a company What term may use I refer to a non-business employer? For instance, a babysitter or housekeeper working for a family or single parent. A: Individual employer is the common definition for a a person employing their own staff: Support for individual employers : There are many benefits to employing your own staff to provide care and support in your own home but we also know that being an employer can be daunting and confusing. Skills for Care has a range of resources to help make this process easier to understand and to help you support your personal assistant (PA) with learning and development. We also have information about funding that is available for training for you and your PA. Ngram: individual employer vs personal employer.

Q: how to navigate one page to another page in nokia qt C++; hi i want to make an application for nokia in nokia qt sdk. so please help me how to navigate one page to another page in qt C++ when user press the button in one page. A: There's no page concept in Qt, but you can simulate it with other widgets or components. A couple of examples: Using Qt Desktop Widgets: http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Create_a_page_based_UI_with_QStackedWidget_and_QToolbar Using Qt Quick: http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7/declarative-modelviews-visualitemmodel.html In Qt Quick you can also do it by changing properties like visibility or position of elements like rectangles. And there are other ways to do this, search for examples in Forum Nokia Wiki or in Qt DevNet.

Red Roof Inn Kingsport Exclusive for Expedia+ members Book your hotel today, and if you find the same hotel for a cheaper price elsewhere online, we'll refund the difference up until midnight before check-in. Terms & ConditionsOpens in a new window apply. Points of Interest Get an overview of this hotelHotel in Kingsport with free breakfast and outdoor pool Location Situated in Kingsport, this hotel is 1.8 mi (2.9 km) from Warpath Bowling Lanes and 1.9 mi (3 km) from Kingsport Town Center Mall. Netherland Inn and Riverfront Park are also within 6 mi (10 km). Hotel Features An outdoor pool, coffee/tea in a common area, and a seasonal outdoor pool are available at this hotel. Free full breakfast, free WiFi in public areas, and free self parking are also provided. Additionally, a meeting room, a 24-hour front desk, and a picnic area are onsite. Room Amenities All 122 rooms provide conveniences like refrigerators and microwaves, plus free WiFi and flat-screen TVs with cable channels. Other amenities available to guests include coffee makers, free local calls, and hair dryers. Red Roof Inn Kingsport Hotel Amenities Hotel Amenities Guests can enjoy a complimentary breakfast each morning. High-speed wireless Internet access is complimentary. This Kingsport hotel also offers an outdoor pool, a picnic area, and coffee/tea in a common area. Onsite self parking is complimentary. Payment types Children and extra beds Pets For more information contact the property at the number on the booking confirmation You need to know Extra-person charges may apply and vary depending on property policy. Government-issued photo identification and a credit card or cash deposit are required at check-in for incidental charges. Special requests are subject to availability upon check-in and may incur additional charges. Special requests cannot be guaranteed. Pets allowed (no fees) This hotel's policy is to accept bookings only from non-local guests. Guests whose residence is within 60 miles of the property will not be allowed to check in. Guests can contact the property for additional information using the number on the reservation confirmation received after booking. Hotel Name We should mention The property has connecting/adjoining rooms, which are subject to availability and can be requested by contacting the property using the number on the booking confirmation. Guests can arrange to bring pets by contacting the property directly, using the contact information on the booking confirmation. Featured Destinations Our featured destinations pages take you through our most popular travel destinations worldwide. Explore our full selection of partner hotels in each location along with star ratings, photos, special room rates, hotel reviews and destination maps.

// srw_lock.hpp --------------------------------------------------------------// // Copyright 2010 Vicente J. Botet Escriba // Copyright 2015 Andrey Semashev // Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. // See http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt #ifndef BOOST_DETAIL_WINAPI_SRW_LOCK_HPP #define BOOST_DETAIL_WINAPI_SRW_LOCK_HPP #include <boost/detail/winapi/config.hpp> #ifdef BOOST_HAS_PRAGMA_ONCE #pragma once #endif #if BOOST_USE_WINAPI_VERSION < BOOST_WINAPI_VERSION_WIN6 \ || (defined(_MSC_VER) && _MSC_VER < 1600) // Windows SDK 6.0A, which is used by MSVC 9, does not have TryAcquireSRWLock* neither in headers nor in .lib files, // although the functions are present in later SDKs since Windows API version 6. #define BOOST_WINAPI_NO_TRY_ACQUIRE_SRWLOCK #endif #if BOOST_USE_WINAPI_VERSION >= BOOST_WINAPI_VERSION_WIN6 #include <boost/detail/winapi/basic_types.hpp> #if !defined( BOOST_USE_WINDOWS_H ) extern "C" { struct _RTL_SRWLOCK; BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::VOID_ WINAPI InitializeSRWLock(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::VOID_ WINAPI ReleaseSRWLockExclusive(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::VOID_ WINAPI ReleaseSRWLockShared(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::VOID_ WINAPI AcquireSRWLockExclusive(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::VOID_ WINAPI AcquireSRWLockShared(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); #if !defined( BOOST_WINAPI_NO_TRY_ACQUIRE_SRWLOCK ) BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::BOOLEAN_ WINAPI TryAcquireSRWLockExclusive(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); BOOST_SYMBOL_IMPORT boost::detail::winapi::BOOLEAN_ WINAPI TryAcquireSRWLockShared(::_RTL_SRWLOCK* SRWLock); #endif } #endif namespace boost { namespace detail { namespace winapi { typedef struct BOOST_DETAIL_WINAPI_MAY_ALIAS _RTL_SRWLOCK { PVOID_ Ptr; } SRWLOCK_, *PSRWLOCK_; #if defined( BOOST_USE_WINDOWS_H ) #define BOOST_DETAIL_WINAPI_SRWLOCK_INIT SRWLOCK_INIT #else #define BOOST_DETAIL_WINAPI_SRWLOCK_INIT {0} #endif BOOST_FORCEINLINE VOID_ InitializeSRWLock(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { ::InitializeSRWLock(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } BOOST_FORCEINLINE VOID_ ReleaseSRWLockExclusive(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { ::ReleaseSRWLockExclusive(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } BOOST_FORCEINLINE VOID_ ReleaseSRWLockShared(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { ::ReleaseSRWLockShared(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } BOOST_FORCEINLINE VOID_ AcquireSRWLockExclusive(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { ::AcquireSRWLockExclusive(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } BOOST_FORCEINLINE VOID_ AcquireSRWLockShared(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { ::AcquireSRWLockShared(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } #if !defined( BOOST_WINAPI_NO_TRY_ACQUIRE_SRWLOCK ) BOOST_FORCEINLINE BOOLEAN_ TryAcquireSRWLockExclusive(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { return ::TryAcquireSRWLockExclusive(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } BOOST_FORCEINLINE BOOLEAN_ TryAcquireSRWLockShared(PSRWLOCK_ SRWLock) { return ::TryAcquireSRWLockShared(reinterpret_cast< ::_RTL_SRWLOCK* >(SRWLock)); } #endif } } } #endif // BOOST_USE_WINAPI_VERSION >= BOOST_WINAPI_VERSION_WIN6 #endif // BOOST_DETAIL_WINAPI_SRW_LOCK_HPP

<head> <style> body { margin: 0; } </style> <script src="//unpkg.com/force-graph"></script> <!--<script src="../../dist/force-graph.js"></script>--> </head> <body> <div id="graph"></div> <script> // Random tree const N = 80; const gData = { nodes: [...Array(N).keys()].map(i => ({ id: i })), links: [...Array(N).keys()] .filter(id => id) .map(id => ({ source: id, target: Math.round(Math.random() * (id-1)) })) }; // cross-link node objects gData.links.forEach(link => { const a = gData.nodes[link.source]; const b = gData.nodes[link.target]; !a.neighbors && (a.neighbors = []); !b.neighbors && (b.neighbors = []); a.neighbors.push(b); b.neighbors.push(a); !a.links && (a.links = []); !b.links && (b.links = []); a.links.push(link); b.links.push(link); }); const NODE_R = 8; const highlightNodes = new Set(); const highlightLinks = new Set(); let hoverNode = null; const elem = document.getElementById('graph'); ForceGraph()(elem) .graphData(gData) .nodeRelSize(NODE_R) .onNodeHover(node => { highlightNodes.clear(); highlightLinks.clear(); if (node) { highlightNodes.add(node); node.neighbors.forEach(neighbor => highlightNodes.add(neighbor)); node.links.forEach(link => highlightLinks.add(link)); } hoverNode = node || null; elem.style.cursor = node ? '-webkit-grab' : null; }) .onLinkHover(link => { highlightNodes.clear(); highlightLinks.clear(); if (link) { highlightLinks.add(link); highlightNodes.add(link.source); highlightNodes.add(link.target); } }) .linkWidth(link => highlightLinks.has(link) ? 5 : 1) .linkDirectionalParticles(4) .linkDirectionalParticleWidth(link => highlightLinks.has(link) ? 4 : 0) .nodeCanvasObjectMode(node => highlightNodes.has(node) ? 'before' : undefined) .nodeCanvasObject((node, ctx) => { // add ring just for highlighted nodes ctx.beginPath(); ctx.arc(node.x, node.y, NODE_R * 1.4, 0, 2 * Math.PI, false); ctx.fillStyle = node === hoverNode ? 'red' : 'orange'; ctx.fill(); }); </script> </body>

Categories About Us Oak Knoll Publishing is located on a hill surrounded by oak trees with a view of the Southern Oregon mountains. It is owned and operated by the family of Dr. Alfred Thompson Eade. When Dr. Eade's books "went out of print", the publishing rights were returned to Vivian Eade Voltz, his daughter, and Connie King, his granddaughter. They received many inquiries about where his books might be obtained and they soon exhausted their small quantity of personal black & white copies of the books. When they continued to receive requests for the Panorama books it was decided to have all four of the books reprinted. Dr. Eade had "re-done" the Panorama Number 1, The Plan of the Ages, in color while living with his granddaughter, Connie King. Connie then "re-did" the Panorama books: #2,3,4 in color using the same techniques that Dr. Eade had used to color the Panorama #1. Panorama Number 1, The Plan of the Ages is a great place to start for anyone: new believer, or "old", or just wondering what the Bible is all about. The illustrations from Panorama #1 are also available in a "set" of 11 Posters (14 inch by 36 inch). They can be used for display as a teaching aid. It was the desire of Dr. Eade and now also of his family, that his books continue to be available to aid anyone interested in the Bible. The illustrated Panorama Books with their commentary and Scriptural references serve that purpose well. Please give us a call if you have any questions or would prefer to speak and order from a "real person". We realize that not everyone is comfortable using a computer shopping cart. We are able to process single copy orders or large volume orders as all items are in stock and available on site. Please call for information on shipping and volume prices.

FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION DEC 16 2014 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT VEASNA KANG, AKA Veasna Sandy No. 11-71166 Kang, Agency No. A025-264-764 Petitioner, v. MEMORANDUM* ERIC H. HOLDER, Jr., Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals Submitted December 12, 2014** San Francisco, California Before: O’SCANNLAIN, N.R. SMITH, and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges. Veasna Kang petitions for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing her appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying her * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). motion to reopen proceedings and refusing to reopen proceedings sua sponte. Our jurisdiction is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We dismiss the petition. 1. Kang has failed to exhaust her administrative remedies regarding any argument for equitable tolling of her time-barred motion to reopen, and we therefore lack jurisdiction to address this argument. Barron v. Ashcroft, 358 F.3d 674, 677-78 (9th Cir. 2004). 2. The decision whether to reopen proceedings sua sponte is committed to agency discretion and not reviewable by this court. Mejia-Hernandez v. Holder, 633 F.3d 818, 823-24 (9th Cir. 2011). DISMISSED. 2 

Q: Color based legend in python , matplotlib My question goes as follows: Imagine I have four lists a, b, c, d. I want to plot them by using the same radial grid R. For some reason a, b share a common property X and c, d share Y. Therefore I want a, b and c, d to appear in the same color respectively (green and blue), and I just want two labels to appear into the legend: one being green and resembling X and the other blue and resembling Y. Any ideas of a simple method to do it? An example: import matplotlib.pyplot as plt a =[2,4,6,8,10] b =[3,6,9,12,15] c =[1,4,9,16,25] d =[1,8,27,64,125] R =[0,1,2,3,4] plt.plot(R,a,color ='green') plt.plot(R,b,color ='green') plt.plot(R,c,color ='blue') plt.plot(R,d,color ='blue') plt.legend('blue'= X,'green'=Y) plt.show() A: You can label only the objects you want to display in the legend once instead of manually setting the legends as following. I also replaced color ='green' by a shorter syntax '-g', same for the blue color. # Your imports and data here plt.plot(R,a,'-g', label='X') plt.plot(R,b,'-g') plt.plot(R,c,'-b', label='Y') plt.plot(R,d,'-b') plt.legend(fontsize=18) plt.show() Alternate way Without putting label='X' and label='Y' while plotting leg = plt.legend(['X', 'Y'], fontsize=18) colors=['green', 'blue'] for i, j in enumerate(leg.legendHandles): j.set_color(colors[i])

Paranapiacaba Paranapiacaba is a district of the municipality of Santo André in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is located approximately by road southeast of the centre of the city of São Paulo, and about east of Rio Grande da Serra. The word paranapiacaba means "where you will find the sea" in Tupi. There are about 1,200 residents. Paranapiacaba was established as a company town for the employees of São Paulo Railway, a privately owned British railway company. A large industrial complex, which the district is known for, lies off the main road from Rio Grande da Serra, on the way into the main village. The growth of this centre was facilitated by the railway, transporting cargo and people from inside Paulista to the port of Santos. The village design has been characterized as being panoptic. Geography The village is located on a slope opposite Santo André, approximately by road southeast of the centre of the city of São Paulo, and about east of Rio Grande da Serra. The industrial complex, larger than the village itself, however, lies just several kilometres to the southeast of Rio Grande da Serra. The village is located amidst the Serra do Mar coastal forests, in the south coast, at the highest point of the area, and hence it came to be known as “a place to view the sea” in Tupi-Guarani language. The Mata Atlantica around the town provides ample opportunities for hiking into the forest of the Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar where orchids and bromelias are major attractions. Agriculture and grazing farms are situated to the west while the nearby mountains reach elevations of . Trains connections can be made to Paranapiacaba from Estação da Luz, one of the four stations in São Paulo. The nearest international airport is the Cumbica at Guarulhos, outside of São Paulo. MRS Logística used electric traction between Paranapiacaba and Raiz de Serra. History Vila de Paranapiacaba was established during the middle of the 19th century; it was designed according to the prison model style developed by Jeremy Bentham. It was founded by the British-owned São Paulo Railway Company. The construction of this zig-zag railway line in the hilly local terrain was considered a feat by the British engineers and workers at the time. The town was built when the company built the railway line to export coffee beans from the area through the port Santos. The village prospered for 30 years, until automated machinery replaced the funicular, which was labor-intensive. The village's population suddenly declined and many of its buildings were abandoned. At one time, there were 4,000 workers, most of them British citizens. The last steam train in Paranapiacaba was deactivated for labor work in 1982. City design Paranapiacaba was designed in a special model style. Because of its remoteness, the town has been well preserved. The buildings were all of English style (even the large homes were of Victorian style) built with wood and bricks. The houses in the town are all made of timber and looks like a mofussil area of Surrey. The town was laid out in the 1890s in a grid pattern. Even though Brazil attained independence in 1822, its architectural styles were influenced by Portuguese colonizers and by the British. The town is stated as having more English architecture than perhaps anywhere else in the country. Notable landmarks The District of Paranapiacaba is known for its large industrial complex, which lies off the main road from Rio Grande da Serra, on the way into the main village, but is actually nearer Rio Grande da Serra. The growth of this industrial centre was facilitated by the railway, transporting goods to the port of Santos. The railway station's clock tower is based on Big Ben in London. The locomotive stations, old British carriages and steam engines, cable station (funicular type), and workers' cottages are all well preserved and form part of the museum which is open to the public. On the hill top above the village is the old Victorian style Castilino, which was once the residence of the Chief Engineer of the Railways, is now a museum known as the Centro Preservacao da Historia de Paranpiacaba, where old railway line maps and photographs are displayed. The museum has elegant furnishings and provides views of its surroundings. In the 1980s, a working steam engine from the turn of the 20th century ran several times a day, originally used to pull inclined trains from the coast. Visitors can view the working parts and watch them while the engine is running. Recivitas (Instituto pela Revitalização da Cidadania) created a free toy center and library here. The Funicular de Paranapiacaba railway museum was established in 1970, and today is one of the biggest attractions in the district. The Clube União Lira Serrano is also of note, and was founded in 1930 as a social club for the railway operators. The parish church, Capela do Alto da Serra or Igreja matriz de Paranapiacaba, opened for the first time on August 8, 1884. Preservation In order to preserve the heritage status of Paranapiacaba as a well-preserved railway town, the government of Brazil decreed it to be a historic district and initiated further steps to preserve its heritage status and encourage its development as a suburb of São Paulo and to promote tourism. The objective of this project is to preserve the natural, cultural, and industrial heritage and ensure economic progress of the town in particular and the region as a whole. The site was included in the 2000 and 2002 World Monuments Watch (WMW) by the World Monuments Fund, calling for investments to revitalize the village. With funding from American Express the Fund helped local stakeholders implement this effort. By 2008, the conservation efforts of the WMW team were successful in restoring Casa Fox (the Archive), the Castelinho (now a museum), the Lyra Serrano Club, and the Old Market. Further restoration works are continuing. The town has witnessed a dramatic change in its environment with much improved facilities also resulting in economic progress of the area. References External links Reflexiones en torno a la conservación integrada, compartida y participativa del paisaje cultural. El caso de Paranapiacaba. Category:Neighbourhoods in São Paulo (state) Category:Company towns

Dortmund need time to settle, says Klopp Borussia Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp has warned his new-look team need time to gel fully. Published 11 September 2014 After losing Robert Lewandowski to Bayern Munich, Klopp added firepower to his squad in the shape of Adrian Ramos, Shinji Kagawa, Ji Dong-won and Ciro Immobile - as well as signing defender Matthias Ginter and securing a permanent return for playmaker Nuri Sahin. A season-opening 2-0 loss to Bayer Leverkusen went a long way to proving Klopp's point, but signs look better after a 3-2 win over Augsburg before the international break. Immobile is set to shake off an injury in order to lead the line against Freiburg on Saturday and Klopp picked last season's Serie A top-scorer as a perfect example of where improvements can still be made by his team. Klopp said of the Italy striker: "He's a real goalscorer. "He scored a nice goal [against Netherlands last Thursday] and that will be good for him. But our only problem is the pace in which developments obviously have to happen in football. "You always get asked about a new player in a new club after a really short time of being able to train together, that's our only problem. Everything else is fine. "I hope that in three years we'll look back and no one remembers the first five or six games. He needs time to integrate in this team; we need time to develop our team play. "Now we could have had the time for it, but now Marco Reus is injured. "Of course we've got Shinji Kagawa as well but he hasn't played with the team yet. "Everything is far from perfect but we've got to stabilize our game while we collect results. Most likely we have to do that with a new player in the starting line-up who will have to reclaim his self-assurance as well. "That will be hard. When Ciro came back he seemed very relaxed, I think he was very glad his injury wasn't as bad as feared. The bruise hurts a lot at the beginning but it heals quite fast."

Ali Roba Ibrahim Ali Roba, commonly known as Ali Roba is the governor of Mandera County. He is the member of United Republic Party and a coalition member for Jubilee Party of Kenya. Since the beginning of 2008, when Ali Roba was appointed to the position of the Chief Pilot, he has contributed exceptionally to the overall compliance levels of DAC Aviation (EA) Ltd by playing instrumental roles in the achievement of an ‘A’ systems and operational audit rating by DAC Aviation International. Ali roba has played a major role in re-structuring of flight operations department and enhancing the efficiency of operational control functions to enviable levels within the general aviation industry in Kenya. Once Roba was attacked by militants where 4 people were killed and he was injured; one of the deaths was in his convoy. In an interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Roba said he was on his way to the office from his home when the IED exploded. The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union and the Kenya National Teachers Union have advised their members to vacate the North Eastern region over insecurity. History Education history Graduated with a masters from the University of Nairobi( 2009 to 2011 ). He under graduated earlier as a Bachelor of Commerce. He also studied in Kenya Utalii College, Delta Qualiflight School of Aviation in Fort Worth, Texas, Kenya School of Flying among other institutions. Job history Ali Roba worked as an Operations Coordinator of Airkenya Express helping with crew coordination, ramp coordinations, line maintenance coordination, cabin crew coordination, customer relations, flight dispatch, flight operations planning. References Category:Kenyan politicians Category:University of Nairobi alumni Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Music from Atlas Dei Music from Atlas Dei (2007) is an album by the American ambient musician Robert Rich. New and previously released pieces, all new mixes/edits. Track listing ”Opening” – 1:01 ”Mythos” – 5:47 ”Starmaker” – 6:03 ”Glint in Her Eyes” – 6:10 ”Night Spinning Inward” – 4:41 ”Poppy Fields” – 4:33 ”Deconstructions” – 6:29 ”Symbolics” – 4:37 ”Liquid Air” – 4:19 ”The Core” – 5:07 ”Never Alone” – 6:13 ”Minaret (layered)” – 6:04 ”Terra Meta” – 5:09 External links album feature from Robert Rich’s official web site Category:Robert Rich (musician) albums Category:2007 albums

Total perinatal-related wastage in twin pregnancies. The primary obstetric cause of total perinatal-related wastage (TPRW) in twin pregnancy was studied in a clearly defined population over a 3-year period. There were 77 deaths from 204 pairs of twins; the perinatal mortality rate (PMR) was 51/1,000 and TPRW was 189/1,000. Of the 77 deaths 52% were late abortions, 14% stillbirths, 10% early neonatal deaths, 18% late neonatal deaths and 5% perinatal-related infant deaths. The major obstetric factors leading to TPRW were spontaneous preterm labour (32%), antepartum haemorrhage (30%), infection (16%), unexplained intra-uterine death (10%) and hypertension (8%). The major factors responsible for perinatal-related loss in twin pregnancies are similar to the major factors in singleton pregnancies, but occur earlier in pregnancy. Rather than considering the primary causes of loss in twin pregnancies as a separate entity, we should direct our attention to solving the same obstetric factors responsible for initiating loss in both twin and singleton pregnancies.

Background ========== The potentials of research to contribute to improvement in health may be surpassed by the magnitude of risk to participants, communities and local researchers. Consequently, systematic ethical regulation of research is put in place to ensure that research is conducted in a manner that maximizes benefits while minimizing harms to research participants. The National Bioethics Advisory Council in USA, the Council of International Organization of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and the Nuffield Council of Bioethics suggested that this situation needs initial and continuing education in the ethics and science of biomedical and behavioral research for investigators, members of the Research Ethics Committees (RECs), and sponsors of research \[[@B1]-[@B3]\]. Several studies have shown that research ethics training improves ethical conduct of research and capacity for dealing with ethical dilemmas \[[@B4]-[@B6]\]. Hitherto, researchers in low and middle income countries (LMIC) including Nigeria have had limited access to training in research ethics due to weak educational, social, economic and health resources however there has been significant investment in ethics education in the last two decades with resulting improvements in ethics capacity building \[[@B7],[@B8]\]. The design and implementation of ethically and scientifically valid research in any country should be guided by a set of rules and regulations based on global ethical principles but domesticated within local laws, regulations and culture. It is against this background that the National Health Research Ethics Committee in Nigeria (NHREC) developed and formulated National Code for Health Research Ethics (NCHRE) in August 2007 to guide all researchers involved in human subjects' researches in Nigeria \[[@B9]\]. This Code reflects the collective concern of the government and the people of Nigeria to ensure the protection of human participants in scientific research to the highest ethical standard that is possible. It serves as the basis for the operations of all institutional research ethics committees in the country thus allowing for uniformity and consistency. The Code is based on universal ethical principles, historical ethical guidelines, existing regulations from different countries, results of modern bioethics research, Nigerian constitution, laws, regulations and government guidelines as well as Nigerian custom and practices. Examples of peculiarities of the Code include conduct of clinical trials in the country which requires approval from the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC) and the emphasis on community engagement in research in view of the country's traditional communitarian ethos. Every scientist involved in human subject research in Nigeria, their sponsors and other stakeholders must function within the scope of the National Health Research Ethics Code. This demands that researchers be aware and educated on the code with the anticipation that the knowledge of the guidelines would translate to its practice in conduct of health-related research. It is therefore appropriate to develop an educational tool that will facilitate the understanding and implementation of the Nigerian Code among stakeholders. An important avenue for the facilitation of training in research ethics is the provision of online courses \[[@B10],[@B11]\]. Such online courses can be accessed at different institutions in the country and can be effective training tool in research ethics. It will also be of immense benefit to all research ethics committees in the country as it will facilitate education of their members thus empowering them to effectively perform their roles in the protection of human subjects guided by the NCHRE. Furthermore international researchers and foreign sponsors would have easy access to the code which will enlighten them on the ethical requirements for conducting research in Nigeria. There are few studies that have assessed the utility of online modules as ethics training tools in improving knowledge and skills in health research especially in resource poor settings. It is against this background that this project was conceived and designed with the objectives of developing an online educational module based on the Nigerian Code to enlighten biomedical researchers on the requirements of conduct of ethically acceptable research in Nigeria and evaluate its reliability in achieving this objective. Methodology =========== This was a prospective quantitative three phased study. During phase one, we developed an online training module based on the contents of the NCHRE and upload it to the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) website. The Nigerian Code is a 68 page document with fifteen main sections (Sections A to O) and one Appendix (with sub-sections 32 to 34) \[[@B9]\]. Because the emphasis of the online module is on ethical requirements for research in Nigeria while avoiding repetition of general ethical guidelines which are already available on the CITI IRB module, we compared the Nigerian Code with thirteen major ethical guidelines, namely; Nuremberg Code \[[@B12]\], Belmont Principle \[[@B13]\], Helsinki Declaration \[[@B14]\], CIOMS \[[@B2]\], United States National Bioethics Advisory Council \[[@B1]\], World Health Organization-Good Clinical Practice \[[@B15]\], World Health Organization- operational guidelines for ethics committees \[[@B16]\], Common Rule -- 46 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) \[[@B17]\], Nuffield Council on Bioethics \[[@B3]\], United Nations AIDS guidance on HIV preventive vaccine research \[[@B18]\], Europeans Medicine Agency -- International Committee on Harmonization \[[@B19]\], Opinion of European Group on ethics in science \[[@B20]\] and Directive 2001 \[[@B21]\] and isolated unique elements of the Nigerian Code. These extracted contents formed the material content used to develop our training module (see Appendix A. Annex 1). The module consisted of 2 parts, an introductory part which enumerated the genesis of the Code and its significance to Nigeria, and the core educational part. The core part contained information on registration of ethics committees, conducting research in institutions without ethics committees, functions and operations of the health research ethics committees, the informed consent process, the health research ethics committee records, continuing ethics training, disciplinary actions against those who violate the Code, the national HREC oversight functions, clinical trials agreement, materials transfer agreement, and other regulatory agencies in Nigeria: including National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), institutional bio-safety committees, data and safety monitoring board and community advisory board. These elements from the Nigerian Code were thereafter re-written and arranged carefully while ensuring that they did not lose their meanings and interpretations, in the CITI format to make the uploading unto the CITI web site easier. The module was reviewed by two experienced bioethicists who made recommendations on how to improve its presentation without losing the originality of the Code and the revised module was sent to the Director of the CITI for uploading unto the CITI website as a preliminary training module. Selection of participants ------------------------- Forty five research participants were identified purposively and selected by convenience sampling from among senior residents and consultants at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin, Nigeria, as well as research assistants and medical officers involved in the Presidential Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program at the Institute for Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN), University of Benin Teaching Hospital and Masters of Public Health (MPH) program trainees of the Center for Disease Control, Department of Community Health, University of Benin. All participants had been involved in human subjects' research. These participants voluntarily consented to participate in the research having received detailed information on what the research was about, what was expected of the participants, the cost to the participant (in terms of time spent to complete the study), expected duration of the task to be performed by the participant, any possible risk (i.e. confidentiality) and anticipated benefits (i.e. knowledge of the Nigerian Code and the award of a certificate on completion of module), incentive to participants (i.e. refreshments during the study), the fact that any of the participants could withdraw from the research at any stage and the address/phone contact of the researcher. Evaluation of module -------------------- The study participants were allowed to choose a convenient day in the week when they had sufficient time to commence and complete the study. They were divided into three groups based on the day chosen for the pilot testing of the online module and gathered in a relatively spacious, quiet and comfortable room. They were instructed on how to register on the CITI home page, complete the pretest, study the online module and complete the posttest. For new users, access to the module was facilitated by logging onto <http://www.citiprogram.org> and clicking '*New Users -- Register Here*' on the home page. The West African Bioethics Program was selected as training institution in step 1 of the registration procedure and admin\@westafricanbioethics.net was entered as the institutional electronic mail address in step 2. On submission of the registration page, a new webpage appeared with the question, 'Are you conducting human subjects' research in Nigeria? If you are conducting research in Nigeria, you are required to complete the NIGERIAN NATIONAL CODE FOR HEALTH RESEARCH ETHICS Module'. Access to the module page was granted by indicating 'YES'. Once registration was completed, subsequent access to the module on CITI home page was obtained by entering username and password. Each participant thereafter completed the module as instructed. The time taken to study the online module was noted. They were given refreshments during the period of undertaking the study as compensation. The online module was tested and evaluated for readability and comprehensibility by the 45 study participants during the second phase. The pre-test was a general quiz of multiple choice, true/false 9 questions to test the knowledge of the Code and was administered on paper. The post-test was completed online by the participants and the scores were automatically generated. A survey, with the aid of a questionnaire, was then conducted after the post-test to assess the comprehensibility and the ease of use of the online module, and any other comments on how to improve it were obtained from the study participants. The participants were requested to choose from three options, namely; a) easily accessible or comprehensible, b) difficult to access or comprehend, and c) not accessible or comprehensible. Thereafter the online module was revised based on the suggestions obtained from the survey. The third phase involved the evaluation of the revised online module. Another set of study participants comprising fifteen participants from the first group and fifteen who did not participate in the initial evaluation assessed the revised module using the same procedure utilized in Phase Two by completing the pretest and posttest on the revised version of the online module. The test performances of the participants in this phase were compared with the performances of the participants in phase two to determine the test-retest reliability of the module. Ethical approval ---------------- This study protocol was approved by the ethics review committee of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City Nigeria. Informed consents were obtained from all research participants. Identifiers were omitted to ensure confidentiality and right of privacy of respondents in line with the ethical principle of autonomy and respect of persons. Data management and analysis ---------------------------- The data was recorded in a password protected database, and analysis was done with Stata version SE 10.0 (Stata Corp, USA). The scores from the pre and post tests were analyzed for difference in performance using appropriate statistics for hypothesis testing namely; paired t test (to assess if there was significant difference in means of performances) and correlation coefficients (Pearson product moment). The level of confidence was taken as p values \< 0.05. The effects of the demographic variables i.e. sex, age and specialty on pretest and posttest scores were assessed for statistical significance using the likelihood-ratio chi-square analysis. The test-retest reliability of the module was estimated using the Cronbach's alpha as a measure of internal consistency which ranges from 0 to 1.00. The acceptable level of reliability was 0.80 or higher \[[@B22]\]. Results ======= Demographic details of phase two study participants --------------------------------------------------- Forty five biomedical researchers participated in the initial evaluation of the online module. The participants comprised eighteen females and twenty seven males with a mean age of 35.72 years (SD 3.36) and a range of 25.5 to 45.5 years. The demographic details are as shown in Table [1](#T1){ref-type="table"}. Fifteen of the participants were senior resident doctors; seventeen were MPH trainees from diverse backgrounds of health-related practices, nine consultants, two research fellows and two research assistants. Twenty of the study participants (44.4%) had attended any seminar or course on ethics in the past while ten (22.2%) had received training specifically on research ethics. The training were however for short periods -- six of the ten who received training in research ethics attended a one day training, two attended a one week training and the remaining two attended a six month training course. ###### Demographic data of study participants for phase 2 evaluation   **Frequency of respondents (N = 45)** **Percentages** ----------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ----------------- **Sex**     **Female** 18 40 **Male** 27 60 **Age**     **21 -- 30** 2 4.4 **31 -- 40** 39 86.7 **41 -- 50** 4 8.9 **Positions**     **Consultant/Clinicians** 9 20.0 **Senior Resident Docs** 15 33.3 **Medical Officers** 9 20.0 **Pharmacists** 2 4.4 **Research Assistants** 4 8.9 **Others** 6 13.4 **Specialty**     **Dental Surgery** 2 4.4 **Family Medicine** 3 6.7 **Internal Medicine** 23 51.1 **Pharmacy** 2 4.4 **Obstetrics/Gynecology** 3 6.7 **Public Health** 5 11.1 **AIDS research (HIV adherence)** 4 8.9 **PMTCT** 2 4.4 **Optometry** 1 2.2 **Location of Research**     **UBTH** 31 68.9 **University of Benin** 3 6.7 **Irrua Specialist** 1 2.2 **NAUTH Nnewi** 2 4.4 **NNPC Medicals** 1 2.2 **IHVN** 4 8.9 **State HMB** 3 6.7 (Internal medicine specialty includes clinical pharmacology, dermatology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, nephrology and pulmonology). *UBTH* University of Benin Teaching Hospital*, NAUTH* Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital*, NNPC* Nigerian National Petroleum Company*, IHVN* Institute of Human Virology in Nigeria*, HMB* Health Management Board*, PMTCT* Perinatal Mother To Child Transmission. Demographic details of phase three study participants ----------------------------------------------------- Thirty biomedical researchers participated in the final evaluation and this group included fifteen participants from the first 45. The group comprised eighteen females and twelve males with a mean age of 34.64 years (SD 4.28) and a range of 25.5 to 45.5 years. The demographic details are as shown in Table [2](#T2){ref-type="table"}. Eighteen of them were resident doctors while the rest consisted of five medical officers, two consultants and five research assistants. ###### Demographic data of study participants for phase 3 evaluation   **Frequency of respondents (N = 30)** **Percentages** --------------------------- --------------------------------------- ----------------- **Sex**     **Female** 18 60 **Male** 12 40 **Age**     **21 -- 30** 1 3.3 **31 -- 40** 26 86.7 **41 -- 50** 3 10.0 **Positions**     **Consultant/Clinicians** 2 6.6 **Senior Resident** 18 60.00 **Medical Officers** 5 16.7 **Research Assistants** 5 16.7 **Specialty**     **Internal Medicine** 5 16.6 **Public Health** 14 46.9 **HIV/AIDS research** 2 6.6 **IHVN(HIV adherence)** 2 6.6 **PMTCT** 7 23.3 **Location of Research**     **UBTH** 17 56.7 **University of Benin** 2 6.7 **IHVN** 11 36.6 (Internal medicine specialty includes clinical pharmacology, nephrology, neurology and pulmonology). *UBTH* University of Benin Teaching Hospital*, IHVN* Institute of Human Virology in Nigeria*, PMTCT* Perinatal Mother To Child Transmission. Accessibility and comprehensibility of the online module on Nigerian code ------------------------------------------------------------------------- All the participants agreed that the online module was comprehensible and accessible. However 2 of the 45 (4.4%) study participants said that the module was not easily comprehensible. The same pattern was noted for accessibility as 43 indicated that it was very accessible while 2 (4.4%) noted that it was difficult to access. The major challenges of these 2 participants were slow internet speed, irregular power supply and arduous registration procedure. Twenty three (51.1%) of the 45 completed the online module within 45 minutes while thirty five (77.8%) of the participants completed the module within an hour. Most of 45 participants (97.8%) agreed that the module improved their understanding of the conduct of research in Nigeria. Two participants (4.4%) were not sure if they would recommend the module to someone else. The responses of the study participants on ways to improve the comprehensibility and accessibility of the module are outlined in Table [3](#T3){ref-type="table"}. Forty-two (93.3%) of the respondents suggested that comprehensibility can be improved by increasing awareness of the Nigerian Code among Nigerian biomedical researchers through organization of seminars, distribution of the hardcopies of the Code and the addition of the Code to undergraduate medical curriculum. Twenty (44.4%) of the respondents indicated that accessibility to the module can be improved by introducing the module as a course in tertiary institutions and providing an access link on the Federal Ministry of Health website. ###### Suggestions on how to improve accessibility and comprehensibility of the online module based on Nigerian code for health research ethics **Item** **Suggestions to improve comprehensibility** **Frequency of respondents** ---------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ **1.** Design programs and training to create awareness about the Code 26 **2.** Provide hardcopies of Nigerian Code for researchers 16 **3.** Add to the curriculum for undergraduate education in Nigeria and make bioethics a core undergraduate course 10 **4.** Module is voluminous and so should be shortened 6 **5.** Highlight key issues and definitive statements of interest 4 **6.** Add more examples and illustrations including pictorial presentations 4 **7.** Add more information on roles of PIs 4 **8.** Make webpage more friendly 2 **9.** Include case scenarios in the module 2 **Item** **Suggestions to improve accessibility** **Frequency of respondents** **1.** Adequate internet connectivity 12 **2.** Recommend the module for tertiary institutions in Nigeria 10 **3.** Provides link for the module on Federal Ministry of Health website 6 **4.** Make the log in procedure easier for researchers 5 **5.** Develop a separate website for training on the Nigerian Code 4 **6.** Encourage computer literacy 2 Test performance of participants -------------------------------- All the 45 participants completed the pre-test and post-test for the initial evaluation. The mean time taken to study the online module was 49.8 (SD 15.7) minutes. The mean pre-test score was 53.9 (SD 26.4) and mean post-test score was 83.6 (SD 12.5) which was statistically significantly different (p = 0.001) -- Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}. The age of the participants did not significantly affect the pre- and post-test scores (p = 0.66). Likewise the sex of the study participants did not affect their scores. The mean pretest scores of the male (N = 27) and female (N = 18) participants were 58.8 ± 28.6 and 57.5 ± 30.9 respectively (p = 0.89) while the means of the posttest scores were 82.2 ± 13.5 and 86.8 ± 8.3 respectively (p = 0.20). The specialty of the study participants did not affect their performances on the evaluation of the online module (p = 0.95). The duration of time taken to complete the pre- and post-tests (p = 0.47) and attendance at any research ethics course (p = 0.23) did not affect their scores. {#F1} Analysis of the scores of the 30 participants who evaluated the modified version of the module showed a mean pre-test score of 49.3 (SD 21.2) and mean post-test score of 86.0 (SD 11.3) which was statistically significant (p = 0.001) -- Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}. The age of the participants did not significantly affect the pre- and post-test scores (p = 0.62). Likewise the sex of the study participants did not affect the pretest and posttest scores. The mean pretest scores of the male (N = 12) and female (N = 18) participants were 50.6 ± 20.5 and 47.9 ± 22.6 (p = 0.74) while the means of the posttest scores were 83.1 ± 13.5 and 89.3 ± 7.3 respectively (p = 0.12). The specialty of the study participants did not affect their performances on the final evaluation of the online module with p values of 0.33 and 0.58 for the pre and post-test scores respectively. The duration of time taken to complete the pre- and post-tests (p = 0.58) and attendance at any research ethics course (p = 0.37) did not affect their scores. {#F2} Correlation analysis and reliability testing -------------------------------------------- The correlation analysis of the pretest scores obtained for the initial and final evaluation of the online module yielded a coefficient of 0.9 and that of the posttest scores yielded a coefficient of 0.8. These coefficients signified excellent correlation between the scores obtained for both the initial and final evaluations of the online module. The test-retest reliability of the test performance on the online module of the Nigerian Code was estimated using the Cronbach's alpha, a measure of internal consistency of an instrument, by comparing the pretest scores of the initial and final evaluation, and the posttest scores for both evaluations. Values above 0.8 signify acceptable reliability index. The Pretest reliability index was 0.9 while the posttest reliability index was 0.8. The internal consistency of the module as instrument to assess the knowledge of the participants is highly indicative of excellent test-retest reliability index. Discussion ========== This study showed the utility of an online module based on Nigerian Code of Health Research Ethics in improving the knowledge of ethical conduct of research among the study participants as demonstrated by significantly improved scores, satisfactory accessibility and comprehensibility, and excellent internal consistency. The reliability of test instruments is paramount to its utility. An instrument that lacks internal consistency and test-retest reliability is less likely to be effective. The ability of the pretests and posttests on the online module of the Nigerian Code to measure the knowledge obtained from studying the module in a consistent manner is remarkable and compared favorably well with a previous study that validated a new tool for assessment of research ethics knowledge and obtained Cronbach's alpha of 0.8 \[[@B23]\]. This suggests that the module can be effectively used as a tool for ethics training on Nigerian Code for all researchers conducting biomedical research in Nigeria. This is important for a developing country like Nigeria where ethics capacity is inadequate and the teaching of research ethics is still in its infancy. It is pertinent to stress that the module emphasized the peculiarities of ethical regulations that administrate human subjects' research in Nigeria hence its focus was not on bioethics as a whole. Therefore it should be used in conjunction with other bioethics and GCP modules. This was the advantage of uploading it onto the CITI website as CITI provides other modules that cover general bioethics training. A recent randomized study that compared the impact and acceptability of online and onsite methods of training in research ethics and statistics showed that both methods led to marked and similar improvements of knowledge, and that the advantages of less logistical demands and cost-effectiveness made the online method more useful for expanding health research capacity in resource-limited settings \[[@B24]\]. For online trainings, a basic requirement is the availability of internet services. Internet usage has been growing in sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade especially for educational purposes. In Nigeria, all major cities have internet services however quality, bandwidth and consistency is low. Online trainings therefore have to take this into account by avoiding use of media-heavy web pages that require high bandwidth. It is also necessary to ensure web pages resume from previous location in event of service disruption, all of which were factored into the design of this online course. Furthermore, its access is not limited by subscription as registration on the CITI website is free. The module can be accessed through the West African Bioethics Program institutional portal on the CITI website ( <http://www.bioethicscenter.net>). This portal is freely accessible to all West African researchers and students. Access to the module would be further enhanced with its inclusion on the website of the Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria as suggested by some of the research participants. The module has been endorsed by the National Health Research Ethics Committee and its timely update is the responsibility of the NHREC. An endorsed certificate of completion is issued by the Director of the West African Bioethics Training Program on successful completion of the online module. The certificate is sent via electronic mail to the researcher or student. The most effective way of delivery of ethics education has not yet being clearly identified \[[@B25],[@B26]\] but ethics workshops and conferences have been held in different parts of Africa \[[@B8]\] and there are clinical fellowships on ethics training available in Canada and the United States \[[@B27]\]. One of the suggestions obtained in this study is the inclusion of ethics training in the undergraduate medical curriculum. This is important because ethics education prepares students to address ethical challenges \[[@B28]\], and this multi-faceted formal ethics teaching equip students with a common framework on which to reconcile patients' medical needs with their values, perceptions, situations and beliefs. It has been noted that the university setting provides an excellent environment for discussions of the principles behind moral reasoning \[[@B29]\]. This is a plausible idea but the shortage of trained bioethicists \[[@B8]\] in sub-Saharan developing nations militates against this. Now is the time to bridge the 'ethics education gap' between the developed and developing countries and resolve the 'knowledge gap' in bioethics among researchers in developing countries especially with the increasing trend of multi-national scientific collaborations and conduct of clinical trials in developing countries. This online training tool would therefore serve to orient national and international biomedical researchers working in Nigeria on cultural and societal relevant ethical principles. It is hoped that the knowledge of ethical requirements obtained by studying this module would translate into conduct of ethically acceptable biomedical research in Nigeria. In the nearest future (i.e. 12 months from this evaluation), we planned to conduct assessment of the knowledge and practice of ethical guidelines learnt from the online module among the participants to determine medium and long-term benefits. Conclusions =========== This study has shown that the online module based on the Nigerian Code of Health Research Ethics can be utilized effectively for online ethics education. The performances of the study participants improved significantly on testing after studying the module and the test instrument demonstrated a high internal consistency. As bioethics is being integrated into healthcare settings more widely and systematically, training in bioethics becomes equally important. Online ethics training has gained wide acceptability and many biomedical researchers all over the world had received training in research ethics with the CITI. The addition of this online module to the CITI would ensure accessibility of the Nigerian Code to biomedical researchers interested in doing multi-national research in Nigeria as they study other general bioethics modules on the CITI website, and this in turn will facilitate understanding of particularities of ethical requirements in Nigeria. The final version is online for ethics training at <http://www.citiprogram.org>. Appendix A. Annex 1 =================== Introduction ------------ All institutions in Nigeria involved in conduct of health research must have a registered health research ethics committee. (See Section C, pp. 16 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics of Nigeria, 2007 and Appendix 1 Section 34 (1) pp. 59 of the National Health Bill passed by the Nigerian National Assembly (Senate) on 15th May 2008). Functions of HRECs ------------------ Apart from the functions of an ethics review committee which have been covered in other parts of this training program, when a researcher in an institution is conducting research at a location very far from his primary place of employment, he/she will need to find a co-investigator in an institution near the research site and obtain ethical approval from the institution there. For example, a Nigerian researcher who is conducting research in Ghana or Cameroun needs to find a local collaborator and obtain ethical approval from the local institution. The rationale for this is that ethical review of research must be sensitive to local conditions, culture and traditions which only a properly constituted ethics committee in that locality is best positioned to understand and bring to bear on the research process. Furthermore, local authorities must have easy access to a member of the research team in case concerns arise with the conduct of the research. In Nigeria, an institution may propose to have more than one research ethics committee but the jurisdiction of each must be clearly defined so that there is no overlap. For example, an institution may have one ethics committee for biomedical research, another for social and behavioral sciences research and yet another for animal research. Transparent and open channels of communication between these multiple ethics committees must be put in place so that there is no "ethics committee shopping" by members of staff. Researchers in institutions with more than one ethics committee may not submit the same protocol to more than one ethics committee within the same institution either simultaneously or sequentially. Of course, this does not include situations where a particular committee decides that the protocol is best reviewed by another committee and refers the researchers appropriately. (See Section C, sub-sections c & d, pp. 19 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria). Registration of Ethics Committees --------------------------------- In contrast to the practice in many other parts of the world, the regulation in Nigeria requires that ethics committees be registered with the National Health Research Ethics Committee. (See Section C, pp.16 of the National Code for health Research Ethics in Nigeria). The objective of this registration is to ensure that all ethics committees in Nigeria adhere to a minimum standard of composition, management and function, and that they adhere to the tenets of the National Code. A list of all currently approved ethics committees is on the website of NHREC (available at <http://www.nhrec.net/>). The list contains the names of the institutions, the principal officers of the committees, their contact information, category that the ethics committee falls into and when the registration will expire. Ethics committees are registered for two years only after which the institution shall apply for re-registration. The re-registration application must be submitted to the NHREC within the last six months of the expiry of the current registration. Requirements for initial registration ------------------------------------- An ethics committee shall be eligible for registration after fulfilling the following requirements: • Submission of an application package which includes: ○ A letter from the authorized head of the institution or his designee stressing that the line of reporting of the Chairman of the institutional ethics committee is directly to the Chief Executive of the institution. This confers sufficient power on the ethics committee chairman and averts or forestalls undue pressure on the committee in event of disapproval of research protocols, ○ Provision of a list of members of the proposed ethics committee indicating names, qualifications, what profession or status (scientist, non-scientist, lay person, community representative, religious affiliation, gender etc.) they are representing, research review experience of the committee, evidence of completion of NHREC approved research ethics training and any other information that may be construed as conflict of interest on the part of members of the committee; ○ Submission of a statement of agreement to comply with the National Code and, ○ Commitment to provide office and storage space for the committee. The guidelines for membership selection are similar to those enumerated in international guidelines and documents. Note however that in common with many developing countries, Nigeria is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society where attention to cultural and religious sensibilities is critically important. (Section C, pp. 16 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics). Requirements for re-registration -------------------------------- An institution seeking re-registration for its ethics committee must provide: • A current list of members, Report of fulfillment of previously stated commitment to provide infrastructure and logistics support for the committee, Complete record of the activities of the committee (including financial records, statutory meetings, complaints and litigations, details of protocols received and their outcomes and the mean time from protocol submission to approval) for the outgoing year. What happens if an institution fails to re-register? ---------------------------------------------------- The ethics committee is de-registered by the NHREC and the institution has to apply anew. During this period, no research may be conducted in the institution. Conducting research in institutions without ethics committee (See Section C, sub-section f, pp. 10--11 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria) In a situation where it is necessary to conduct research in a Nigerian institution or center without ethics committee, there are several options that the researchers may pursue. These include: • The institution without ethics committee may establish a cooperative agreement with a registered ethics committee located within the same state as the institution or in the event of none in the state, within the same geo-political zone of the country, to review the research. This agreement must be submitted to NHREC for approval and its duration shall not be longer than the registration period of the reviewing ethics committee. • The researcher may also submit the proposal to NHREC for review. NHREC may review the research using any of several mechanisms that we shall learn about later in this module. Functions and operations of HREC -------------------------------- The main objective of institutional ethics committees is the protection of research participants in Nigeria from egregious harm by enforcing compliance with the ethical guidelines in the Code, the clinical trial agreement and material transfer agreement (see below under CTA and MTA). The ethic committees also protect the right of researchers to publish their findings and ensure that they are not exploited or put under undue pressure by sponsors, institutions, participants or communities taking part in research. The committee may demand an agreement, before ethical approval is given, indicating ownership and rights of access to data, resources, intellectual property and infrastructure generated in the course of the research at the pre-research stage to protect the right of researchers to publish their findings and avert future exploitation of the researchers (See Section E, sub-section r, pp. 36--37 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria). The review process of research protocols ---------------------------------------- The review process of research protocols entails the following: (the details of which is available at Section E, pp. 24 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria) • Shall be conducted at regularly convened ordinary meetings of the institutional ethics committee with simple majority of members present, including at least a member whose primary concerns are in non-scientific areas, except of protocols that require expedited review. In other words, there is no indication for emergency review of protocols with the risk of abuse. Members can participate by phone, video conference or VOIP. • The ethics committee is expected to complete review of any protocol sent to it within 3 months of receipt otherwise the applicant may complain to the national ethics committee of delay. This provision serves to prevent undue delay in granting approval and commencement of research. Ethics committee that repeatedly delay processing of protocols may find their category downgraded with resultant loss in the types of protocols and research that can be conducted in their institutions. A researcher may be requested by the ethics committee to pay fees commensurate with the requirements for adequate oversight of research (depending on the size, complexity, duration, status of researcher and sponsor of research) and for any other of its activities at the discretion of the Ethics Committee. Fees can be set only after due consultation with the principal officers of the institution where the ethics committee is located. • The committee also performs oversight functions for the studies that it has approved to ensure that all stakeholders in research perform their responsibilities. Requirements for conduct of research ------------------------------------ Research submitted to the ethics committee can only be registered as being properly submitted and accepted for review by the Ethics committee if a complete set of all required documentation has been provided. The minimum requirements are: • A copy of the research protocol and all materials needed for the consent process. This may include consent form -- with translations if necessary, information sheets, radio jingles and video for advertisements, etc. • Evidence of completion of recognized informed consent training and that of key co-investigators undertaken within two years of the date of submission of application for ethical review of protocol to HREC. • Brief curriculum vitae (2-3pages) of the principal investigator so that the committee can ascertain his/her qualification to carry out the proposed research. • Where relevant, copies of letters from co-investigators, laboratories and sources of resources that may be required for the implementation of the project. • Evidence of sponsorship, where the research is being sponsored by organizations, etc. • A one page plain language summary of the proposed research • Copies of all questionnaires, case report forms and instruments to be used in the research. • Samples of drugs, placebos, medical devices etc. such as may be necessary for the ethics committee to make a decision. • Decisions of other ethic committees where this is available, for example in multi-centered research • Copies of all agreements, for example Materials Transfer Agreement (see Section E, sub-section n, pp. 33--34 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria), Clinical Trials Agreement (see section E, of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria), Insurance certificates, etc. (Further details are available in the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria, Section K, sub-section f, pp51-52.) After approval of research protocol, researchers are required to submit an annual report containing a brief summary statistics of the research (number of research participants, number of adverse events, complaints and their resolutions) to the supervising HREC within three months of expiry of the current research approval. Informed consent ---------------- Informed consent is an integral part of the ethical conduct of research in Nigeria. All researchers are expected to design a consent process appropriate for the type and context of their research, the expected participants and risks anticipated (See Appendix 1, Section 32, pp. 57 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics).Where consent forms are used, such consent forms must not be longer than 8 pages, typed in double spacing with Times New Roman size 12 font. This is to enhance legibility and prevent researchers from squeezing information into forms. The contents of the consent form should not be beyond the reading ability of a Nigerian Junior Secondary graduate (that is 9 years of formal education) so that participants can understand and recall the contents.The consent form shall contain the following essentially in this order (See Section F, subsection f, pp. 41of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria): • Title of research, Names and addresses of the researchers and sponsors (including telephone, fax, e-mail etc.), The reason for doing the research • Estimated number of participants in the institution. Where this is a multi-institutional research, the total number of participants should also be stated. Research participants tend to feel more confident if they are part of a larger group than a small one. • What research participants are expected to do; The expected total duration of research -- in months or years. The duration of participants' involvement. For example, participants may be interviewed for 30 minutes and their blood samples taken; or participants may be interviewed repeatedly over several months for some years. • The costs to the participants of participating n the research, generally research should not cost participants anything since those participating are doing so out of sense of altruism. • The risk of participating in the research. This must be presented early in the consent process before introducing information about benefits or compensation so that potential participants are still fresh and engaged when they are given the opportunity to think about the risks that may be involved consequent on their participation. • The health benefits of participating in research are mentioned next. In many epidemiological studies, particularly of the case--control variety, the cases already have the condition of interest. They are therefore not likely to derive any direct health benefit from participating in the research. However, these information generating researches may improve knowledge about the disease that will benefit others including the controls, family members of cases and even the cases, if the disease may recur in some other parts of their body. Where there is no direct health benefit to participants, this should be clearly stated in the consent form. Compensation for lost wages, transport and opportunity costs as determined by the researchers in consultation with local experts or the ethics committee should then be stated. • It is sometimes appropriate to give participants inducement in order to encourage their participation in research. What is frowned upon is undue inducement where the amount offered is so large that participants are tempted to carry out actions that are not in their best interest. Usually what constitutes due inducement can be derived from local knowledge and consultation with the ethics committee. With regards to compensation and inducement, the specific amount (or their equivalent in kind) involved should be stated in the consent form. • The consent form should state the measure that will be used to protect the confidentiality of research participants. This will vary with the sensitivity of the information collected and the complexity of the research. • The consent form should state clearly and unequivocally that participation in the research is voluntary and include information about what will happen to any individual who chooses not to participate in the research. This usually requires a statement of commitment to the individual that the decision they make will not in any way affect their care in the institution where the research is being conducted. In some situations, the participant may want to withdraw from the research after participating in part or all of it. The mode of dealing with requests for withdrawal in such circumstances varies with the type of research and the individual's participation. In any event, a clear statement of the modality for orderly withdrawal from the research needs to be included in the consent form. • Some research participants may suffer injury during participation in research. Because of this, the action(s) to be taken in case of injury or adverse events should be stated. In our environment, this usually requires that the research team takes full responsibility for the care of the research participant once it is established that the injury is a result of participation in the research. • Increasingly, what happens to individuals or communities when research is over is engaging the attention of ethics committees. This is a complex matter that requires extensive dialogue between researchers, ethics committees, and representatives of the community, the institution and other interest groups. There is no single approach that works in all situations that may arise in research, however careful forethought and planning will avoid future ethical dilemma. • The consent process should also include adequate disclosure of any apparent or potential conflicts of interest as determined by the ethics committee based on the prevailing norms. Where written informed consent is not possible (See Section F, sub-section f, p. 43 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics in Nigeria) In some circumstances, it is not possible to obtain a written consent form. This includes situation where research participants cannot read or are unable or unwilling to read the consent form. In such situations, acceptable options include translating the consent form to local languages where the problem is inability to read English language. In other situations, the participants may be unable or unwilling to read even local languages, in such situations, a witnessed thumb printing or witnessed audio recording of the consent may be done. Re-consenting ------------- In some research situations, it may be necessary to take consent more than once. This may be required in situations where participants are being involved in incrementally risky elements of research or in research studies that are taking place over a long duration of time or where information comes to light in the course of a research that changes the risk-benefit analysis of the research project. HREC records ------------ Adequate documentation is expected from all registered HRECs in Nigeria. This is particularly needful for the purpose of inspection by the NHREC and if necessary by other agencies through the NHREC, and also in case of future litigation. Documentation of all its activities and materials pertinent to research review which must be kept include: • Minutes of all meetings which shall contain sufficient information on attendance of members at meetings, actions taken by the ethics committee at the various meetings and how decisions were reached including the vote on decisions, the number of votes for and against and abstentions. • Letters of complaints from applicants who submitted protocol to the committee. And in event of any change of decision in a proposal status, the reasons for such a change, including the information and/or data used to arrive at the new decision, must be included in the minutes of the meeting at which the decision was taken. • A written summary of the discussion and how the issues were resolved for issues that are controversial and demanded extensive debates among members. • All copies of research proposals received and reviewed by the committee, including the reviews from scientific and/or non-scientific experts. These must include the dates proposals were submitted to the committee and when the approvals were given. This provides proof of non-delay in taking decisions on proposals by the committee as it is expected to take decisions within 3 months of receipt of proposal. • Copies of consent materials approved by the committee (see details above - under 'Informed consent') • All progress reports submitted to the committee by the researchers, institutions and sponsors and these must include details of injuries and adverse events to participants accrue to their participation during and after the research • All correspondences between the HREC and researchers, sponsors, institutions and all other agents consulted by the committee in the discharge of its duties. • Details of financial records showing income, direct expenditure and other related expenses. • Complete records of continuing oversight activities of the HREC for all research protocols approved by it during the period of report. (See Section K, pp 50--52 of the National Code of Health Research Ethics). Continuing ethics training and clinics -------------------------------------- The Code emphasizes the importance of ethics training and education, a function that may be performed by the institutional HREC or by independent suitably qualified individuals and organizations. Such training programs are acceptable for membership of the HREC and considered adequate training in research ethics for protection of human subjects if they: • 1. Contain modules on Nigerian National Code of health research ethics, principles of research ethics, HREC functions, research integrity and misconduct, research methodology and administration, and • 2. Are certified by the NHREC to enforce compliance with ethical principles and guidelines, and avert non-inclusion of NHREC-certified modules in the training curriculum. For the purpose of aiding researchers in the development of their protocols and providing advisory support during the conduct of research, the HREC may conduct ethics clinics and consultations for a fee at its discretion and as it may determine. This function should however be strictly separated from the HREC oversight responsibility. In addition, suitably qualified individuals or organizations may also offer ethics consultancy services provided they are certified by the NHREC to ensure that there is no departure from the minimum standard expected from all stakeholders in research. (See Sections G, H, I and J of the National Code for Health Research Ethics). Disciplinary action (see National Code for Health Research Ethics, Section M pp. 54) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Disciplinary actions would be taken against any researcher, institution or sponsor who is guilty of research misconduct or violates the national code or institutional guidelines. The HREC may recommend such party to the NHREC for disciplinary action after: • All steps for resolutions of problems in research have been exhausted by the HREC, and • The actions of the involved party have been fully investigated and discussed at a regularly convened meeting of the committee. Such recommendation from the institutional ethics committee must reach the NHREC within two weeks following the HREC meeting where the decision was taken. The recommendation must be accompanied by detailed records of the misconduct. It is important to note that if such misconducts are either clear violations of civil and criminal law such as fraud or assault, or of institutional rules, the HREC may report to the appropriate legal authorities or the researcher's institution as the case may be. The affected researcher, institution or sponsor shall also be duly notified of the HREC decision. NHREC may in addition take the following actions against any researcher, institution or sponsor found culpable: • Advertises such cases of research misconducts and report to other appropriate regulatory bodies, and if such breach of ethical conduct involves international collaborative research then the matter is reported to the national regulatory agency of the country of origin of the researcher. This action does not preclude the use of legal action against such researcher or his/her collaborators in Nigeria in accordance with the law. For instance, cases of fraud, deception, fabrication or plagiarism may be reported to the police or other relevant authorities. • The researcher may be barred from conducting research in Nigeria for a specified period of time based on the severity of his/her offence. • NHREC may also recommend to institutions and other relevant regulatory bodies penalties that would be faced by researchers who are guilty of misconduct. • Depending on the case under consideration, the researcher(s) may be required to make restitution to research participants, institutions, sponsors, communities or any other person as directed by the NHREC. For instance, if a researcher is found guilty of deception and fraud, he/she may have to make public apology to the research participants or community involved in research and/or pay back (in cash) the amount involved to either the participants or institution as the case may be and as determined by the HREC or NHREC. In addition, he/she may be barred from conducting research in Nigeria for a period of time. • In the event that an HREC is the offender, then the HREC may be suspended for a variable period of time based on the severity of offence. NHREC oversight functions ------------------------- The National Health Research Ethics Committee may review research protocols: • If it involves nationwide trial (more than 3 research sites). For example the protocol of a trial to determine the clinical efficacy of a drug that is being introduced into the Nigerian market which is to be tested among patients attending four tertiary health facilities in different parts of the country requires NHREC review; or • If it is referred by an institutional ethics committee either because the HREC is not qualified to review or otherwise; or • In cases of institutions where no ethics committee exists and such institution has no cooperative agreement with another HREC (as stated above under Conducting research in institutions without ethics committee); or • If the NHREC so desires based on the complexity of the protocol, the magnitude of risks and existence of controversies like issues of standard of care. The NHREC may achieve this by either mandating an institutional ethics committee (thus acting as an HREC of record) to review implying that such committee takes over the oversight function, or the NHREC may constitute itself into a committee for the purpose thus retaining the oversight function. (See Section L, pp. 53 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics for details) The NHREC also reviews the annual report and registration status of the HRECs, and institutions' commitment to ensure proper functioning of the HRECs. It also settles disputes arising from appropriate interpretation of the Code as it is the NHREC that is responsible for the update, revision and modification of the Code in accordance with new developments in international research ethics. In addition, the NHREC establishes the categories of HRECs in the country on the basis of the following criteria (See Section C, subsection g, pp. 20 and Appendix 1, Section 34, pp. 59--60 of the National Code of health Research Ethics): • Size of the committee and the qualifications, training and experience of its members in research ethics and science. The more qualified and experienced the members of a committee are, the higher the rating accorded the HREC by the NHREC. This criterion is not taken in isolation but with others stated below. • History of the committee vis-à-vis its past review activities from records submitted by the HREC to the NHREC, the period that the committee has been in existence, how good its record keeping has been and the level of its compliance with the National Code. • The amount of resources at the disposal of the committee and the affiliated institution i.e. supporting personnel, infrastructure and finances. These criteria are clearly outlined from time to time so that all HRECs are aware of the pre-requisites for rating them by the NHREC at the latter's regularly scheduled meetings. Each category of HREC in Nigeria shall be assigned the types of research it can review. This implies that some HRECs may not be qualified to review some research protocols based on their categorization by the NHREC. Such protocols may be reviewed by qualified HREC within the same institution or same geo-political zone or by the NHREC. There are two important agreements that ensure adequate protection of research participants and the research staff in Nigeria. These are clinical trial and material transfer agreements. What is the clinical trial agreement (CTA)? ------------------------------------------- • It is a contract and agreement between a research sponsor and the principal investigator (PI) of a clinical trial enforcing compliance with all ethical regulations governing conduct of research in Nigeria. This agreement is signed by the PI, the research sponsor and head of institution (i.e. where the ethics committee reviewing the protocol is sited). • It is a statement of commitment made by the principal investigator to conduct trial in compliance with the National Code and the ICH-GCP (Available at <http://www.ich.org/> ), and/or ISO 14155 for trials of medical devices and also in compliance with guidelines from relevant oversight and regulatory agencies, institutional guidelines and Federal Ministry of Health requirements. • This agreement also demands that the principal investigator and his/her institution where the ethical approval is obtained will cooperate fairly and appropriately in the event of legal claim relating to the conduct of trial. This implies that there shall be amicable resolution of issues arising from the research, for instance the institution may assist in the care of research participants who suffer some form of injury or adverse event in the course of experimentation, or in the event of litigation from community participants, and not leave the researcher alone to carry the responsibility, • In the event that the research sponsor is the PI, then he/she must include in the agreement the estimated cost of and sources of funds for the trial, the number of participants, and a complete budget of the trial and the dates of payments. What is the material transfer agreement (MTA)? ---------------------------------------------- • It is a mandatory agreement that is required if a research involves the transfer of samples and biological materials such as animals, herbs and plants out of Nigeria and it must be signed by all parties involved in the research including the local and international investigators, heads of local institutions, and research sponsors. The rationale for this agreement is to protect the (a) local researchers and Nigeria's human and natural resources in all its biodiversity, (b) community participants in research and (c) the nation from exploitation and harm. • The agreement must contain the details and conditions for the transfer of the samples such as: \(a\) The type of materials that is to be transferred and its anticipated use, (b) The locations and duration of storage of the material outside Nigeria, and (c) The limitations to the use of such materials and when its use will be terminated. • The MTA must be reviewed by the HREC to ensure that it conforms to the objectives of the research and contents of the informed consent. The institutional REC may grant provisional approval for transfer of samples pending the submission of both the MTA and provisional approval of the HREC to the NHREC who will acknowledge its receipt for record purposes only. It is the responsibility of the researcher to inform the institutional HREC of the NHREC's acknowledgement of receipt of the MTA. This prevents undue delay in the commencement of research but this does not preclude withdrawal of approval by the HREC or the right of participants or communities from whom samples are obtained to withdraw them according to terms of the informed consent process. Thus ensuring the preservation of their autonomy and demonstration of respect for persons in research. • The institutional HREC has the responsibility to grant final approval to research involving the transfer of research samples out of Nigeria. But such approval can only be given if all the other criteria as stated in the National Code or institutional guidelines have been met and the NHREC has acknowledged receipt of the MTA. • In the event that the NHREC fails to acknowledge receipt of the MTA in 2 weeks and there is a verifiable proof that the applicant has sent same to the NHREC, then the institutional REC can issue the final approval for the research. • If the researcher or PI makes any amendment to the MTA, he/she is expected to submit a request for amendment of protocol to the institutional HREC and the HREC shall review it in the usual manner as for protocol amendment at its regularly convened meeting. (See details at Section E, subsection n, pp 33--34 of the National Code for Health Research Ethics). Other Nigerian regulatory agencies in research ---------------------------------------------- The conduct of clinical trials in Nigeria requires the approval of other regulatory agencies apart from the institutional ethics committee. There are four regulatory agencies specified in the National Code that contribute to protection of research participants from harm and ensure conduct of trials at the highest ethical standard. National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) --------------------------------------------------------------------- • This agency gives permission for the conduct of clinical trials to test the efficacy and safety of new finished products for sale or use as food or drugs in Nigeria. • Such clinical trials that would be conducted in Nigeria must however conform to the guidelines issued by National Health Ethics Research Committee and other regulatory bodies. Institutional Bio-safety committees (IBC) ----------------------------------------- • The IBC provides bio-safety review of research involving the use of classified hazardous substances of physical or biological nature (like pathogens, radioactive materials, application of recombinant DNA techniques and processes etc.) with the overall objective of minimizing potential human and environmental risks. • It is made up of a bio-safety officer and at least three other officers with appropriate expertise, and is established by the institution where research is conducted and registered with the NHREC (see NHREC oversight functions above) • The IBC ensures that the researcher provides safe and suitable storage for materials used for research and also ensures that research staff has adequate training in bio-safety. Data and Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMB) ---------------------------------------- Data and Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMB) -- is an independent group of experts (comprising individuals with appropriate training and scientific knowledge in all aspects of research with adequate medical, pharmaceutical, scientific, bio-statistical and clinical trial experience as well as ethics qualifications) assembled before the commencement of research by the study sponsors to review safety data during the clinical trial. At least three of the members must be independent of the clinical trial and sponsor. This is to avert or prevent conflicts of interests and allow for unbiased assessment of safety data. All drug efficacy trials and clinical trials in Nigeria are expected to have a safety monitoring plan implemented through the DSMB to ensure safety of study participants and preserve the integrity and credibility of the research. Community Advisory Board (CAB) ------------------------------ This committee is established by the study investigators on the recommendation of the institution or the ethics committee supervising the trial depending on the nature and site of research. The role of community 'gatekeepers' in the successful implementation of research in Nigeria underscores the importance of the CAB. The multi-ethnic, cultural and religious diversities of the Nigerian nation and its influence on ethical issues in research demand community participation from the pre-research stage to avoid conflicts and frictions during and after the research. The CAB consists of members, from the communities where trials are to be conducted, who are selected through the usual consultative process with the community (for example religious leaders, persons who understand local laws and cultural values including gender issues, representative of study population, and community leaders) and some members of the research team (usually not more than 20% of the total membership). The CAB plays crucial roles in assisting researchers conducting trials in Nigeria to understand and incorporate community concerns into their research plans and activities. It provides information on traditional beliefs; advises on effective methods of information dissemination, recruitment and retention of study participants and may assist in the resolution of ethical problems that arise during and after research (See Section E, subsection r, pp. 37--38 of the National Code of Health Research Ethics).Furthermore, the CAB offers the community members to air their views on ethical issues relating to the proposed research as they affect individual members, the community as a whole, and possibly neighboring communities and the nation. The Board also serves as s forum for disseminating pre, intra and post research information to members of the community. (details of the Nigerian Code of Health Research Ethics can be accessed at <http://www.nhrec.net>). Competing interests =================== The authors have no conflicting interests to declare. Authors' contributions ====================== CA conceived of the study. OAO, TOO and CA participated in the design and coordination of the study. OAO collected data, performed the statistical analysis and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Pre-publication history ======================= The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here: <http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6939/14/1/prepub> Acknowledgements ================ The contributions of Director of CITI, Professor Paul Braunschweiger, and members of the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) team, especially Viviane Francis, for the assistance in web-designing and space provision for the online module on the CITI website are deeply appreciated. Funding ------- This work was made possible by Grant Number D43 TW007091 from the United States' National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center and the National Human Genome Research Institute. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the awarding office of the NIH/Fogarty International Center.

The Australian optometric workforce 2005. This paper presents the findings of the Optometrists Association Australia 2005 optometric workforce study. Data from the association's database, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs were applied to create a profile of the optometric workforce in Australia, including the number of equivalent full-time optometrists (EFTOs), population to optometrist ratios and workloads. In February 2005, 2,866 (76.7 per cent) of the 3,738 optometrists registered to practise in Australia were in clinical practice. Adjusting for the number of hours worked, there were 2,712 EFTOs in Australia. The ratio of population to EFTO for Australia was 7,016. Ratios were higher in the states without schools of optometry (South Australia 9,413, Western Australia 8,810 and Tasmania 8,172) and in the remote and lightly populated Northern Territory (10,521). The lowest ratio was in New South Wales (6,053). The proportion of women in clinical practice has gradually increased since 1977 and was slightly more than 41 per cent in 2005. The percentage of the profession under the age of 40 years was 48.6. The percentages of female and male optometrists under the age of 50 were 89.3 and 72.5, respectively. On average, female optometrists worked approximately 82 per cent of the hours worked by male optometrists. The average time per week spent on Medicare and Veterans Affairs consultations was 25.8 hours. The profession of optometry in Australia is undergoing considerable change in age and gender make-up. In 2005, the number of optometrists was adequate for the needs of the Australian population. Further analysis is needed to determine whether the supply of optometrists meets community needs at local levels.

Q: how much of this is auto-generated methods in Rails "User.find_or_create_from_auth_hash(auth_hash)" How much of this is auto-generated methods in Rails "User.find_or_create_from_auth_hash(auth_hash)". That is just wondering how this works, and what would have been the minimum coding the dev would have to do? That is, what method would they have had to implement in the User model? or would they need a method named exactly that. So just wondering if the "find", "create", "from" keywords are Rails specials here. Taken from here: https://github.com/intridea/omniauth A: Rails provides the dynamic finders find_by_*, find_or_initialize_by_*, and find_or_create_by_* via method_missing for each attribute of your model. The self.find_or_create_from_auth_hash(auth_hash) method however isn't at all provided by rails and is simply using the same type of naming conventions for readability. EDIT: Apparently it also provides find_last_by_* and find_all_by_* as well. I've personally never used them though.

Brothers In Arms - November 2012 A wall of honor for our brave men and women serving this great country! Help us keep it growing: send your pictures of armed forces members to brothersinarms@cigarsinternational.com. If possible, please include the location where the pictures were taken and the unit information. Legal mumbo-jumbo: by sending your picture you expressly agree to the use by Cigars International of the quotes, portrait, picture and/or likeness for the purpose of advertising or trade without compensation, notification or consideration in any and all media in perpetuity unless prohibited by law. View Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron Troops in Afghanistan, August 2012 - February 2013. "The gentlemen in these photos have made purchase orders through Cigar International and we have been extremely satisfied with the quality of the cigars and the fast shipping. Thank you all for what you do." - SFC Eric Padron CPL Justin Lumsdon in Djibouti smoking a Drew Estate. "Sunday nights in Afghanistan..." The FLACK (FOB Lagman Afghanistan Cigar Klub). "We meet twice weekly and are made up of all branches as well as civilian contractors. We could not do it without Cigar International. Thank you." - Christopher Lee CI Customer Service is the best in the business. In-stock items ship same day plus we are here to help - live support, phone, fax, or email. Welcome to Cigar Country! CI hasn’t become the world’s leading cigar retailer by accident. We’re committed to industry-leading prices, exceptional service, the biggest selection, and overwhelming charm. No nonsense, just great cigars delivered fast, fresh, and discounted….beware of imitators. At Cigars International we only sell our products to adults who meet the legal age requirement to purchase tobacco products. If you are not of the legal age to purchase tobacco products, please do not enter our site.

Q: How do I split multiple times in abap? I want to split my code into a workarea and append this to a an internal table for a later perform. But sometimes the text contains more than 3 numbers for example 3;5;3;6;2;5 but its always 3,6,9,12... number. How can I solve the problem that I want to loop 3 times, then the next 3 numbers and so on? DATA: text(100) type c, it_1 TYPE STANDART TABLE LIKE text, it_2 TYPE STANDART TABLE LIKE text, it_3 TYPE STANDART TABLE LIKE text, string(100) TYPE c. text = '123;2;2'. SPLIT text AT ';' INTO wa_1-c1 wa_1-c2 wa_1-c3. APPEND wa_1-c1 to it_1. APPEND wa_1-c2 to it_2. APPEND wa_1-c3 to it_3. LOOP at it_1 INTO string. PERFORM task using string. ENDLOOP. A: You should use the INTO TABLE addition to the split keyword rather than hard coding the fields. DATA: text_s TYPE string. text_s = '123;2;2'. DATA: text_tab TYPE TABLE OF string. SPLIT text_s AT ';' INTO TABLE text_tab. LOOP AT text_tab ASSIGNING FIELD-SYMBOL(<line>). "do whatever on each token here ENDLOOP. A: This will split the string in 3-er blocks, while overwriting it with the rest: WHILE text IS NOT INITIAL. SPLIT AT ';' INTO wa_1-c1 wa_1-c2 wa_1-c3 text. APPEND: wa_1-c1 to it_1, wa_1-c2 to it_2, wa_1-c3 to it_3. ENDWHILE. Please note, the string variable text will be initial at the end, if its original value is still needed, than you can define another string, copy the value and use that one for the split.

Antipayuta Antipayuta () is a rural locality (a settlement) and the administrative center of Antipayuta Rural Settlement of Tasovsky District, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. The population is 2,685 as of 2017. Transport Antipayuta has an airport. Yamal operates flights with the district center Tazovsky, as well with Nakhodka and Gyda. During the navigable period (mid-July to late September) there is a ferry line between Salekhard and Antipayuta every five days References Category:Populated places in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug

Featuring the fantastic cloud print suit (the kind you find in a second hand store) that Prince wore in 1985’s Raspberry Beret music video, this new Pop! Rocks from Funko pays tribute to Prince’s hit seventh studio album ‘Around the World in a Day’!

Scorched (2008 film) Scorched is an Australian television movie broadcast on the Nine Network on 31 August 2008. The telemovie was titled Strike Team, which was ultimately as a decoy due to the state government having been uncomfortable about the premise and plot of the script. Scorched won the International Emmy Award for Digital Program: Fiction in 2009. Synopsis Scorched looks at the problems of climate change and water scarcity in the near future. The year is 2012, and after over 240 days without rain, Sydney has only two weeks of water left. As a state of emergency is declared when a ring of bushfires erupt around the city, a reporter uncovers a conspiracy behind the water crisis. Plot It's several days before Christmas in 2012, and Sydney is in the midst of a water crisis. Despite the creation of a desalination plant, which NSW Premier Angela Boardman insists creates millions of litres of fresh water a day, the city is still under Level 8 water restrictions. The western suburbs especially are seriously dry. Ambitious CPN reporter Susan Shapiro launches an investigation into the crisis. Her report catches the attention of the Premier, who grants Shapiro an interview. Although Shapiro is amicable (perhaps too much so - her cameraman Teddy accuses her of turning into Oprah), she is still suspicious. And with good reason; later conversation between Boardman and her Chief of Staff Tom Daily reveal they are sharing a secret that could end both their careers. David Langmore, the State Operations Commander for the National Fire Service, is preparing dinner when he receives a call from Shapiro. He is angry that the reporter has called him at home and insists the water shortage has been caused solely by a lack of rain. ER doctor Michael Francia is enjoying some quiet time with his pregnant wife Lizzie when Emily, his daughter from a previous relationship, shows up on his door. She has had a fight with her mother and needs a place to stay, even though, as she later confesses to her stepmother Lizzie, she isn't sure if her father likes her. Meanwhile, a lightning storm forms over a national park in the western outskirts of Sydney. A bolt of lightning strikes a tree, which bursts into flames. The dry bushland quickly ignites. The next day at work, Dr Francia is frantically trying to attend to an influx of patients suffering dehydration and heat exhaustion. A courier truck, carrying dozens of gas cylinders, speeds into the hospital car park and a bloodied man is dragged into the hospital lobby. During the commotion that follows, the truck outside is forgotten about and unbeknownst to anyone, one of the cylinders begins to leak. David Langmore is monitoring the fires in the hopes that his team can prevent them from becoming fireheads. Volunteer firefighters, including David's son Brendan and Brendan's girlfriend Deanna, are sent out to control the blaze. Deanna and two other volunteers are overwhelmed by the size and ferocity of the flames and attempt to escape by car. Langmore and the rest of the workers in the control centre watch helplessly via closed circuit cameras as the fire consumes the car and the three perish. It becomes apparent that they have a crisis on hand. The Premier announces a state of emergency and Langmore calls a Section 44, enacting that section of the Rural Fires Act 1997 (NSW); the effect of which means all emergency workers in the area are now under his control. Police and firefighters struggle to fight the flames but are deterred by a lack of water and pressure in the hoses. Lizzie Francia receives a call from her invalid mother. Although Lizzie is concerned, she refuses Emily's offer to collect her mother from her nursing home. Emily sneaks away while Lizzie is dealing with a concerned neighbour. However, she encounters a detour and ends up driving close to the fire. She runs to escape the smoke but falls down a rocky hill and loses consciousness. Shapiro reports from the frontlines. When firefighters try to tap into a residential water tank, the elderly owner becomes incensed and has a heart attack. Shapiro and Teddy take the man to the hospital, where they meet Dr Francio. They encourage him to tell his wife to evacuate. Shapiro also meets the brother of one of Boardman's political opponents and discovers that she received a large, anonymous donation a month before the election. Francio calls his wife and urges her to evacuate. Mid-conversation, the leaking gas cylinder in the courier truck explodes. Francio miraculously survives, but several people in the hospital are injured. Lizzie, meanwhile, is forced to evacuate on foot. When she runs into Shapiro, Lizzie begs the reporter to take her two small children in the news helicopter. Shapiro agrees. Langmore meets with the Premier and insists that they use the water from the desalination plant. Boardman refuses his request. Reluctantly, they resort to using saltwater (which can cause irreparable damage to nature) and the blaze is eventually extinguished. Emily is found and receives medical attention. Francio rushes to be by her side and promises that he likes her 'with all (his) heart.' Upon hearing that over 300 people have died, Daily sends Shapiro a video text message. The video reveals that the Premier made a deal with Argon Energy that gave them unlimited fresh water in return for free power to the desalination plants and one million dollars. Shapiro and Teddy are killed when a factory she is reporting from explodes, releasing toxic gases; however, when Langmore checks his email later that afternoon, he finds a video message from the reporter, with the subject line, 'Guess what? Sometimes it isn't just about the weather.' Later, Boardman calls a press conference to discuss the tragic bushfires. Langmore attends. He asks her questions about the deal with Argon, which Boardman naturally denies. Langmore angrily calls her a liar and tells her that he has a video of their meeting. He gives members of the press copies of the video and Boardman flees the conference. In the final scene, Langmore visits Shapiro's grave. It is revealed that Boardman was forced to resign as premier and Shapiro received a posthumous Walkley Award for investigative journalism... and that, eight weeks after the tragedy, Sydney still hasn't received rain. Cast Cameron Daddo as David Langmore (State Operations Commander for the National Fire Service) Rachael Carpani as Susan Shapiro (Journalist for CPN News) Vince Colosimo as Dr. Michael Francia (Doctor at Baulkham Hills Public Hospital) Georgie Parker as Angela Boardman (Premier of New South Wales) Libby Tanner as Lizzie Francia (wife of Dr. Michael Francia) Bob Morley as Brendan Langmore (son of David Langmore, and volunteer firefighter) Alexandra Fowler as Kate Langmore (wife of David Langmore) Les Hill as Tom Daily (Chief of Staff to the Premier) Brittany Byrnes as Deanna Pearce (girlfriend of Brendan Langmore) Anita Hegh as Linda (National Fire Service officer) Kathryn Beck as Emily Francia (daughter of Dr. Michael Francia and stepdaughter of Lizzie Francia) Ben Oxenbould as Lenny (volunteer firefighter) Simon Maiden as Teddy (cameraman for Susan Shapiro) Mark McCann as Darren Brendan Donoghue as Gabe Justin Rosniak as policeman Salvatore Coco as Richard (National Fire Service officer) Karl Beattie as Ben Francia (son of Dr. Michael & Lizzie Francia) Lucia Mundell as Lilli Francia (daughter of Dr. Michael & Lizzie Francia) Kate Bell as Cassie Hoffman (local resident) Zachary Garred as Jade Hall (boyfriend of Cassie Hoffman) Drew Jarvis as Ewen Trembly Related media The weeks leading up to the broadcast of the telemovie saw a major online viral marketing campaign, with a number of websites and YouTube accounts created specifically to promote the telemovie by highlighting specific events, organisations and characters featured in the film. The official website takes the guise of the homepage for CPN (Cross Platform News), a fictional news network from 2012 which is featured in the film. Websites for the fictional New South Wales Premier Angela Boardman, a fictional resident action group RAWT (Residents Against Water Theft), and the fictional companies Argon Energy and the H20 water transport group were also put online. The official website also allows users to view online prequel and sequel webisodes, and add some of the characters as friends on Facebook. References External links Category:Australian films Category:2008 television films Category:Australian television films Category:Nine Network shows Category:Films about water Category:Films set in Sydney Category:Post-apocalyptic films Category:Television pilots not picked up as a series Category:Television films as pilots Category:Water scarcity in fiction Category:Films scored by Guy Gross Category:Films set in 2012 Category:Films set in the future

[Surgical treatment of hemifacial microsomia]. To summarize the methods and experiences in surgical treatment of hemifacial microsomia. Fifty-eight cases of hemifacial microsomia that have been treated by plastic and reconstructive surgery and followed-up in our department during last 20 years have been reviewed. Every patient's characteristic was assessed by physical examination, photography, craniofacial cephalometry before planned the method of surgery. Different surgical treatments were chosen according to the side and the structures involved in the abnormalities and the severity of hemifacial microsomia, and the cases were followed up since 3 months after the treatments. The follow-up lean of midline of the lower 1/3 face with that before treatment is compared. The degrees of patients' and surgeons' satisfactions with the treatments were evaluated respectively. The average angle of lean of midline of skeletal and soft tissue of the lower 1/3 face decreased 4.2 degrees and 2.9 degrees respectively after treatment. Fifty (82.6%) cases satisfied with the outcome of the surgical treatment and surgeons satisfied with 84.5% of the outcome of all the cases. Individual surgical treatment based on the side and the structures involved in the abnormalities can effectively correct facial asymmetry of hemifacial microsomia.

156 F.Supp. 538 (1957) Samuel SALTZMAN et al., Plaintiffs, v. Lowell M. BIRRELL et al., Defendants. United States District Court S. D. New York. November 22, 1957. Pomerantz, Levy & Haudek, New York City, Julius Levy, New York City, of counsel, for plaintiffs. Leo B. Mittelman, New York City, for defendant Lowell M. Birrell. DAWSON, District Judge. This is a motion to open the default of the defendant Lowell M. Birrell and to set aside judgment heretofore entered against him, and to vacate the order entered by this Court striking out the pleading of the defendant Birrell. The papers show that on September 17, 1957, a motion was brought before this Court to strike out the answer of Lowell M. Birrell and to enter a judgment of default against this defendant on the ground that the defendant wilfully failed to appear for the taking of his deposition. On the return day of this motion neither the defendant nor any attorney on his behalf appeared in opposition to the motion. After consideration of the motion papers the Court entered the following memorandum decision: "Motion granted. No attorney appeared in opposition. The papers fully justify the relief sought." Judgment was entered on September 18, 1957. Thereafter, on September 25, 1957, the order and judgment was resettled to provide that the defendant Birrell's pleading be stricken and that the action be severed as to defendant Birrell. The papers establish without substantial contradiction that this is a minority stockholders' action against the defendant Birrell and others; that the defendant Birrell is himself an attorney; that in this action notice was duly served to *539 take the defendant Birrell's deposition on February 15, 1957. Thereafter, at the request of Birrell, the deposition was adjourned from time to time and finally until May 10, 1957. There appears in the file of this Court a stipulation entered into between counsel for plaintiffs and Glickman & Levinkind, attorneys for Lowell M. Birrell et al., which was "so ordered" by the Court on May 2, 1957, fixing the date for the taking of the deposition of defendant Birrell to be May 10, 1957, at 2:00 p. m. On May 10, 1957, defendant Birrell failed to appear, after having made no prior request for any additional adjournment. The date for the taking of the deposition was not one merely agreed to between counsel but one which was approved and ordered by the Court. Since defendant Birrell did not appear on May 10, 1957, the date fixed for the taking of his deposition, attorneys for the plaintiffs, rather than taking a snap default, requested Mr. Glickman, who was apparently acting as attorney for Mr. Birrell, to fix a new date. After conferences with Mr. Glickman the deposition was adjourned to August 20, 1957. An affidavit submitted on this motion has attached to it a copy of a letter from Mr. Glickman to Mr. Birrell, dated August 14, 1957, advising Mr. Birrell that the deposition had been adjourned to August 20, 1957. On August 20, 1957, defendant Birrell did not appear for the taking of the deposition, nor had he made any request for any additional adjournment. Mr. Glickman apparently advised the attorneys for plaintiffs that he could not fix any date for Mr. Birrell's appearance. Since the defendant Birrell had simply ignored the date fixed for the taking of his deposition, and did not appear or make any application for an adjournment of it, the attorneys for plaintiffs brought on the motion to strike out his answer and to enter judgment by default. An affidavit submitted on this motion shows that on September 6, 1957, Mr. Glickman wrote to Birrell advising him that such a motion would be made and asking the following question: "When do you plan to come to New York City so that I can arrange for a date to complete this examination? Otherwise I will have no defense to the motion." Mr. Glickman testified on deposition that he received no answer to this letter. On the return day of the motion a default was entered and no objection was made to the application to strike out the answer and to enter a default judgment. Now, at this late date, the defendant seeks to set aside this order and to open the default. The defendant does this on the ground that he had no notice, until after the default and entry of judgment, that plaintiffs had moved to strike his answer. This seems to be inconsistent with the papers on file in connection with this matter. The defendant contends that at the outset of the suit his attorneys of record were Birrell & Larson, a firm consisting of the defendant and Theodore E. Larson; that this firm was dissolved on April 1, 1957 and that thereafter the defendant appeared pro se. There is no stipulation of substitution in the files of this Court indicating that the defendant was appearing pro se. The affidavit of defendant Birrell indicates that Mr. Glickman had acted for him on various occasions in the process of the litigation. The affidavit states: "* * * whenever plaintiff's counsel discussed the various adjournments aforementioned, they did it through the offices of Mr. Glickman, the attorney for defendant, Greater New York Industries, Inc." It then states: "* * * Whereas in all other instances plaintiffs' attorneys had communicated with Mr. Glickman with respect to adjournment and appearances of deponent for the purposes of examination, on this occasion they did not, although they knew that the firm of Birrell and Larson no longer *540 existed and no longer represented the deponent. * * *" The deposition of Mr. Glickman on file in this matter shows that he did communicate with Mr. Birrell and advise him of the adjourned date of the deposition, and that he also communicated with him by letter and told him that a motion had been made to strike out the answer for his failure to appear; and furthermore shows that defendant Birrell ignored this letter and did not communicate with Mr. Glickman with respect thereto. Defendant Birrell urges in his supporting affidavit that "[T]he default suffered by deponent arises from the fact that he had no notice of plaintiffs motion." The Court finds that this statement is unworthy of belief. The notice of motion to strike out the answer and for judgment by default shows on its face that it was served by mail on defendant Birrell by sending a copy thereof by mail to Birrell & Larson, 545 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. That such a firm was in existence is indicated by the fact that its listing still appears in the Manhattan Telephone Directory for 1957-1958 at this address and that defendant Birrell is listed in this telephone book as having an office at that address. It may be assumed that if this firm had been dissolved or had moved that arrangements would have been made by the defendant Birrell for the forwarding of mail addressed to him at that office. Furthermore, the deposition of Abraham N. Glickman shows that on September 6, 1957, this attorney wrote to Mr. Birrell at Doeskin Products, Inc., 41 East 42nd Street, New York City, advising him that a motion was to be made by the attorney for the plaintiffs to "strike out your answer in the above action for the reason that you failed to appear on the adjourned date for completion of the examination before trial," and in which the attorney asks the defendant Birrell, "When do you plan to come to New York City so that I can arrange for a date to complete this examination. Otherwise I will have no defense to the motion." The facts conclusively establish that defendant Birrell wilfully ignored the processes of the Court, failed to appear for the taking of his deposition at a time set, and failed to oppose a motion for the entry of a default judgment. The affidavit submitted on his behalf shows that he has now gone to Cuba and that he has never appeared for the completion of his deposition. This is not the only occasion upon which Birrell has wilfully disregarded the processes of the Court. The records of this Court show that Mr. Birrell has been charged with criminal contempt for failure to appear as a material witness in the case of Securities and Exchange Commission v. Swan-Finch Oil Corp., and that a warrant for his arrest has been issued by Judge Sugarman. Mr. Birrell has made no offer to appear in New York for the taking of his deposition. He has, however, in papers submitted on this motion, urged that the deposition be taken in Cuba, at his expense. The attorneys for plaintiffs have very properly pointed out that this would be impractical because of the large number of attorneys involved in this action and because of the fact that it will be necessary to confront Mr. Birrell with certain documents which are in New York and which could not be subpoenaed to Cuba. Under the circumstances the motion of the defendant Birrell is denied. However, the Court recognizes that it is undesirable to dispose of litigation on a mere default in appearance by one of the parties if some other procedure can be adopted. The Court, therefore, will be ready to reconsider its determination and to open the default upon proof that the defendant Birrell has appeared at this courthouse in New York, N. Y., for the taking of his deposition on or before December 10, 1957, and that his deposition has been taken and completed. The date to be fixed for the taking of the deposition could be determined between counsel. So ordered.

Upper and lower bounds of stochastic resonance and noise-induced synchronization in a bistable oscillator. This paper discusses concepts of stochastic resonance and noise-induced synchronization in a bistable oscillator subject to both periodic signal and noise. We demonstrate that stochastic resonance is not directly correlated with the matching of the signal frequency and the switching rate. The phenomena of stochastic resonance and noise-induced synchronization are the limiting cases of noise-induced transitions, and the spectral response heavily depends on the input signal-to-noise ratio. The lower and upper bounds of noise intensity allowing synchronization are found as functions of the system's parameters.

FYI. I thought you would like to know. Thanks. Lynn -----Original Message----- From: Forbish, Sherry Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 5:34 PM To: Blair, Lynn; Zadow, Raetta; Berger, Larry; Buchanan, John; Kowalke, Terry Subject: Joe's Grandchild, Ashley fyi: One of Joe's twin grandchildren (I believe the twins were born around September or October) is currently in the hospital (about the 4th day). Ashley is the baby who has had some breathing difficulty from time to time. She has had a viral infection and due to the shallow breathing, the doctor is keeping her in the hospital. The doctor had said that shallow breathing often progresses into SIDS. Felt all of you would like to be aware -- presently Joe and Ruby have the other grandchild with them. Will keep you informed but know Joe would appreciate your prayers.

Q: how to add images for pivot item header Am developing a simple app for learning pivot control in wp7. can we add images for pivot item instead of text in header(red mark area in bellow image ). is it possible to add images, please suggest me my xaml code is: <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Transparent"> <!--Pivot Control--> <controls:Pivot Title="MY APPLICATION" Name="mainPivot"> <!--Pivot item one--> <controls:PivotItem Header="item1"> <Grid> <Image Source="/SchoolList;component/Gallery/child.jpg"/> </Grid> </controls:PivotItem> <!--Pivot item two--> <controls:PivotItem Header="item2"> <Grid> <Image Source="/SchoolList;component/Gallery/class.jpg"/> </Grid> </controls:PivotItem> </controls:Pivot> </Grid> thanks in advance A: use this tip : <phone:Pivot> <phone:Pivot.HeaderTemplate> <DataTemplate> <Image Source="{Binding}" /> // important </DataTemplate> </phone:Pivot.HeaderTemplate> </phone:Pivot> and then set your Pivot Item header as <phone:PivotItem Header="path-to-image" > A: with the Idea of @toni petrina i added images to the HeaderTemplate to the pivot control using data binding. am implemented image gallery in my app using pivot with images in header template gives great look and feel Xaml code is : <controls:Pivot Title="Photo Gallery" Name="mainPivot" ItemsSource="{Binding PivotImages}"> <controls:Pivot.HeaderTemplate> <DataTemplate> <Image Name="play" Source="{Binding imgSrc}" Height="80" Width="120" Margin="0,10,0,0"/> </DataTemplate> </controls:Pivot.HeaderTemplate> <controls:Pivot.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <Grid> <Image Name="mainImage" Source="{Binding imgSrc}" /> </Grid> </DataTemplate> </controls:Pivot.ItemTemplate> </controls:Pivot> and i have created a simple class with one string property to save the images source and prepared a List and assigned to the pivot ItemsSource on page loaded event mainPivot.ItemsSource = items; // items is the list with image sources

News Spring 2013 President and Dean's lists revealed Posted May. 22, 2013 Kent State University at Trumbull today announced the names of those Kent State Trumbull students who have achieved academic recognition via either the President's or Dean's lists for the Spring 2013 semester. Each list is defined by the following criteria: President’s List: In recognition of an extremely high level of academic excellence, a President’s List is compiled each academic semester. To qualify, students must have a 4.000 GPA in the semester and must have completed 15 or more credit hours (all of which must have regular letter grades) by the end of that semester. Dean’s List (Full-Time Students): In recognition of academic excellence, a Dean’s List is compiled each academic semester. To qualify, students must have a minimum 3.400 GPA in the semester and must have completed 12 or more regular letter-graded credit hours by the end of that semester. Dean’s List (Part-Time Students): A Dean’s List for Part-Time Students is compiled after spring semester grades are issued. To qualify, students must have a minimum 3.400 GPA in 12 or more regular letter-graded hours taken during the previous summer, fall and spring semesters. Such students must have registered for fewer than 12 hours in each of the semesters under consideration. Questions or concerns regarding these lists should be directed to the Office of Enrollment Management & Student Services at 330-675-8860.

Meghalaya scored 294/5 on Day 1 of Ranji Trophy against Uttarakhand Shillong: A smashing century from guest/professional Punit Bisht took Meghalaya to 294/5 on the first day of their Ranji Trophy plate group match against Uttarakhand in Dehradun today. The innings of the Meghalaya wicketkeeper was absolutely crucial as Uttarakhand had taken three early wickets after winning the toss and opting to bowl first. Bisht, in the company of Yogesh Nagar (91), hit 154 runs, with 19 fours, to rescue Meghalaya’s first innings. Bisht and Nagar (pictured left) would go on to put on 194 for the fourth wicket before Nagar fell in the nineties just short of his century. Gurinder Singh then joined Bisht at the crease and the pair added another 58 runs before the centurion was finally dismissed by the hosts. At stumps Gurinder was not out on 22, with Abhay Negi not out on 7. Meanwhile, the Ranji Trophy plate group match between Meghalaya and Mizoram, originally scheduled to be played from December 22 to 25, has been rescheduled after the intervention by Meghalaya Cricket Association Honorary Secretary Naba Bhattacharjee, who pointed out matches should not be held on the holy occasion of Christmas. Accordingly, the BCCI has agreed to advance the match, which will now be held from December 20 to 23.

Federal Government College, Odogbolu Federal Government College Odogbolu is a federal owned secondary school located in Odogbolu town in Ogun State. The school was founded in January 1973 as one of the unity schools by the federal government. It has facilities for both day and boarding students. The principal is Mr. Akinpelu Amos Former students Fisayo Ajisola, television and film actress, model and singer Rotimi Babatunde, writer and playwright Olurotimi Badero, physician Amina Muhammed Bello, permanent secretary, Ministry of Women affairs and Social development Emamode Edosio, film maker and film director Ufuoma McDermott, film-maker, actor and former model Blessing Nwagba, politician Bayo Onanuga, Director-General, News Agency of Nigeria Adewale Tinubu, businessperson Twyse Ereme, comedian and social media influencer Patrick Chuka, Artist and Entrepreneur. References External links , the school's official website Category:1973 establishments in Nigeria Category:Boarding schools in Nigeria Category:Secondary schools in Ogun State Category:Educational institutions established in 1973

Q: Can Teysa, Orzhov Scion sacrifice itself and still use its 2nd ability? What happens if I sacrifice Teysa, Orzhov Scion along with two other "white and black" creatures (in order to remove another creature from the game) - do I still get my 2 spirit tokens from the other two sacrificed white and black creatures, even though Teysa as well was sacrificed at the same time? Or is it that when Teysa is sacrificed along with the other two, its 2nd ability doesn't count anymore? A: You will still get the 2 spirit tokens. This is because when creatures die (are put into the graveyard from the battlefield), the game checks what the state of things was just prior to the creatures leaving the battlefield to see if there is anything that needs to trigger. 603.6d Normally, objects that exist immediately after an event are checked to see if the event matched any trigger conditions. Continuous effects that exist at that time are used to determine what the trigger conditions are and what the objects involved in the event look like. However, some triggered abilities must be treated specially. Leaves-the-battlefield abilities, abilities that trigger when a permanent phases out, abilities that trigger when an object that all players can see is put into a hand or library, abilities that trigger specifically when an object becomes unattached, abilities that trigger when a player loses control of an object, and abilities that trigger when a player planeswalks away from a plane will trigger based on their existence, and the appearance of objects, prior to the event rather than afterward. The game has to "look back in time" to determine if these abilities trigger.

1. Field of Invention This invention generally relates to the electronic packages, particularly to flip chip packages, more particularly to flip chip joints and board to board solder joints formed by electroplated solder on the organic circuit boards. 2. Description of the Related Art Since the introduction of the flip chip technology by IBM in the early 1960s, the flip chip devices have been mounted on an expensive ceramic substrate where the thermal expansion mismatch between the silicon chip and the ceramic substrate is less critical. In comparison with wire bonding technology, the flip chip technology is better able to offer higher packaging density (lower device profile) and higher electrical performance (shorter possible leads and lower inductance). On this basis, the flip chip technology has been industrially practiced for the past 40 years using high-temperature solder (controlled-collapse chip connection, C4) on ceramic substrates. However, in recent years, driven by the demand of high-density, high-speed and low-cost semiconductor devices for the trend of miniaturization of modern electronic products, the flip chip devices mounted on a low-cost organic circuit board (e.g. printed circuit board or substrate) with an epoxy underfill to mitigate the thermal stress induced by the thermal expansion mismatch between the silicon chip and organic board structure have experienced an obviously explosive growth. This notable advent of low-temperature flip chip joints and organic-based circuit board has enabled the current industry to obtain inexpensive solutions for fabrication of flip chip devices. In the current low-cost flip chip technology, the top surface of the semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) chip has an array of electrical contact pads. The organic circuit board has also a corresponding grid of contacts. The low-temperature solder bumps or other conductive adhesive material are placed and properly aligned in between the chip and circuit board. The chip is flipped upside down and mounted on the circuit board, in which the solder bumps or conductive adhesive material provide electrical input/output (I/O) and mechanical interconnects between the chip and circuit board. For solder bump joints, an organic underfill encapsulant may be further dispensed into the gap between the chip and circuit board to constrain the thermal mismatch and lower the stress on the solder joints. In general, for achieving a flip chip assembly by solder joints, the metal bumps, such as solder bumps, gold bumps or copper bumps, are commonly pre-formed on the pad electrode surface of the chip, in which the bumps can be any shape, such as stud bumps, ball bumps, columnar bumps, or others. The corresponding solder bumps (or say presolder bumps), typically using a low-temperature solder, are also formed on the contact pads of the circuit board. At a reflow temperature, the chip is bonded to the circuit board by means of the solder joints. After dispensing of an underfill encapsulant, the flip chip device is thus constructed. The typical examples of the flip chip devices using solder joints are shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1 is an example of the typical flip chip devices with the use of metal bumps and presolder bumps. The metal bumps 101 are formed on the electrode pads 102 of the chip 103. The presolder bumps 104 made of low-temperature solder are formed on the contact pads 105 of the organic circuit board 106. The solder joints 107 are formed at a reflow temperature sufficient to melt and reflow the presolder bumps 104. After dispensing of an underfill encapsulant 107 into the gap between the chip 103 and circuit board 106, the flip chip device 100 is thus accomplished. FIG. 2 shows another example of the typical flip chip devices without using presolder bumps. The solder bumps 201 are formed on the electrode pads 202 of the chip 203. The chip 203 is bonded to the circuit board 204 at a reflow temperature, in which the solder joints 205 are formed at the contact pads 206. After dispensing of an underfill encapsulant 207 into the gap between the chip 203 and circuit board 204, the flip chip device 200 is thus accomplished. Currently, the most common method for formation of presolder bumps on the circuit board is the stencil printing method. Some prior proposals in relation to the stencil printing method can be referred to U.S. Pat. No. 5,203,075 (C. G. Angulas et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,492,266 (K. G. Hoebener et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,828,128 (Y. Higashiguchi et al.). Solder bumping technique for flip chip assemblies requires design considerations regarding both bump pitch and size miniaturization. According to practical experiences, the stencil printing will become infeasible once the bump pitch is decreased below ˜0.15 millimeter. In contrast, the solder bumps deposited by electroplating offers the ability to further reduce bump pitch down to below 0.15 millimeter. The prior proposals in relation to electroplate bumps on the circuit board for flip chip bonding can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,391,514 (T. P. Gall et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,480,835 (K. G. Hoebener et al.). Although eletroplate solder bumping on the circuit board offers finer bump pitch over stencil printing, it presents several challenges for initial implementation. For example, the solder mask layer should not be damaged during the fabrication process of solder bumps. Also, the plating and bump height uniformity should also be established. These issues were not detailed in either U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,391,514 or 5,480,835. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an electroplating process for fabricating solder bumps on an organic circuit board, which does not damage solder mask layers and offers good plating and bump height uniformity.

306 B.R. 683 (2004) In Noel T. HUGHES and Tracie Hughes, Debtors. No. 04-10061-DHW. United States Bankruptcy Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division. March 26, 2004. *684 Michael D. Brock, Enterprise, AL, for Debtors. Collier H. Espy, Jr., Dothan, AL, trustee. *685 ORDER OVERRULING TRUSTEE'S OBJECTION TO DEBTOR'S CLAIM OF HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION DWIGHT H. WILLIAMS, Bankruptcy Judge. On February 17, 2004, the trustee in this chapter 7 case, Collier H. Espy, Jr., filed an objection to the homestead exemption claimed by the debtor, Tracie Hughes.[1] The matter was set for hearing in Dothan, Alabama on March 10, 2004. The relevant facts are not in dispute. Tracie Hughes and her husband filed a chapter 7 petition on January 12, 2004. Tracie Hughes disclosed an ownership interest in a one-acre parcel of land located on Coffee County Road 623 near Enterprise, Alabama, which she valued at $5,544 (Schedule A). She claims $5,000 (Schedule C) of that value exempt under the Alabama homestead exemption statute, Ala.Code § 6-10-2 (1975).[2] The debtors actually reside in a mobile home located on land which they lease from a relative. The one-acre parcel claimed exempt by the debtor is contiguous to the leased property, and the debtors use the one-acre parcel for parking their vehicles and as a playground for their children. The trustee contends that exemption claim is improper because the debtor does not reside on the property claimed exempt. 11 U.S.C. § 522 creates exemptions for debtors who file for relief under title 11. Nevertheless, the statute permits the States to opt out of the federal exemptions and claim only those exemptions permitted by State law. See 11 U.S.C. § 522(b). Alabama has done just that. See Ala.Code § 6-10-11 (1975). Therefore, state law governs the propriety of this exemption claim. Exemption statutes should be liberally interpreted,[3] especially those involving the homestead: "The law looks with favor on the homestead, and homestead statutes are to be construed liberally in furtherance of the public policy they express." First Alabama Bank v. Renfro, 452 So.2d 464, 468 (Ala.1984).[4] *686 Under Alabama law, both ownership and occupancy are prerequisites to the "rightful claim of a homestead exemption." Beard v. Johnson, 87 Ala. 729, 6 So. 383, 383-84 (1889); Frazier v. Espalla, 220 Ala. 446, 125 So. 611, 612 (1929); Blum v. Carter, 63 Ala. 235 (1879). In the instant case, ownership is not at issue. The only issue is whether the debtor "occupied" the one-acre parcel in question. Protection under the homestead exemption statute is extended to property devoted to "use and occupancy as a home, a dwelling place." Blum v. Carter, 63 Ala. 235 (1879). "The Alabama exemption, protecting the interest of a person in his residence, applies because of the use to which the land is put, not because of the fixtures on it or the quality of the debtor's interest." In re Rester, 46 B.R. 194, 196 (S.D.Ala.1984) (emphasis added). In the instant case, the debtors use the property claimed exempt for homestead purposes — for parking their vehicles and as a playground for their children. There is no evidence of any use of the property inconsistent with homestead purposes. Under Alabama law, the presence of a dwelling house or mobile home on a tract of realty is not necessarily a prerequisite to an allowable homestead exemption claim. In Greer v. Altoona Warehouse Co., 246 Ala. 297, 20 So.2d 513, 515 (Ala.1945) it was held that a tract, separate from the residence, could be claimed under the homestead exemption if such tract were impressed with the character of a homestead by its use and occupation in connection with the residential tract. Similarly, the Alabama Supreme Court has found "that a disconnected tract, not contiguous to the tract upon which the dwelling is located, bona fide and habitually used as a part of it, may, by such use, become impressed with the homestead character notwithstanding its remoteness or separation from the mansion house." Sloan v. Fields, 221 Ala. 54, 127 So. 816 (Ala.1930) (citing Dicus v. Halls, 83 Ala. 159, 3 So. 239 (Ala.1887); Shubert v. Winston, 95 Ala. 514, 11 So. 200 (Ala.1892); Jaffrey v. McGough, 88 Ala. 648, 7 So. 333 (Ala.1890)). As in the case at bar, the Sloan claimant resided on leased property and claimed a homestead exemption in another tract in which he had an ownership interest. Unlike the case at bar, the tract claimed in Sloan was not even contiguous with the residential leased property. This authority convinces the court that it is the use to which the land is put more than the presence of a dwelling house and actual physical residence thereon which controls whether a homestead exemption claim is proper. The one-acre tract claimed sub judice has been impressed with the character of a homestead by the debtors' bona fide and habitual use of it for homestead purposes. The parking of personal vehicles thereon so as to permit egress and ingress from and to their mobile home and the use of the property as the children's playground are consistent with homestead purposes. The trustee has not alleged that the debtors use the property for anything other than homestead purposes, such as for commercial or investment objectives. Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the trustee's objection to the claim of Tracie Hughes to a homestead exemption in the above-referenced one-acre tract is OVERRULED. NOTES [1] The trustee's objection is timely under Fed. R. Bankr.Proc. 4003(b) in that the meeting of creditors in this case was held on February 12, 2004. [2] Section 6-10-2 provides: The homestead of every resident of this state, with the improvements and appurtenances, not exceeding in value $5,000 and in area 160 acres, shall be, to the extent of any interest he or she may have therein, whether a fee or less estate or whether held in common or in severalty, exempt from levy and sale under execution or other process for the collection of debts during his or her life and occupancy and, if he or she leaves surviving him or her a spouse and a minor child, or children, or either, during the life of the surviving spouse and minority of the child, or children, but the area of the homestead shall not be enlarged by reason of any encumbrance thereon or of the character of the estate or interest owned therein by him or her. When a husband and wife jointly own a homestead each is entitled to claim separately the exemption provided herein, to the same extent and value as an unmarried individual. For purposes of this section and Sections 6-10-38 and 6-10-40, a mobile home or similar dwelling if the principal place of residence of the individual claiming the exemption shall be deemed to be a homestead. [3] In re Avery, 514 So.2d 1380, 1382 (Ala.1987). [4] "Homestead laws are based upon a public policy which recognizes the value of securing to the householder a home for himself and family regardless of his financial condition. The preservation of the home is of paramount importance because there the family may be sheltered and preserved." Renfro, 452 So.2d at 468.

Texas State Highway Loop 494 Loop 494 is a state highway loop in the Greater Houston area of Texas. It is in length and is a former routing of US 59 in the area. Route description Loop 494 begins at I-69 / US 59 just south of the Harris–Montgomery county line. The route travels northward, paralleling the freeway to its west. It passes the community of Kingwood and the unincorporated area of Porter before reaching New Caney, where it has a brief concurrency with FM 1485. Shortly thereafter, it connects once again with I-69 / US 59, where the Loop 494 designation ends. History Loop 494 was designated on October 2, 1970 after US 59 was moved to the extension of the Eastex Freeway into Montgomery County. Major intersections References 494 Category:Transportation in Harris County, Texas Category:Transportation in Montgomery County, Texas Category:U.S. Route 59 Category:Transportation in Houston

Project description This is a pure-python replacement for notify-python, using python-dbus to communicate with the notifications server directly. It’s compatible with Python 2 and 3, and its callbacks can work with Gtk 3 or Qt 4 applications. To use it, first call notify2.init('app name'), then create and show notifications:

This invention relates to a flexible magnetic disc driving apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a construction of a double-face disc driving apparatus and is directed to provide a disc driving apparatus which is simple in construction and economical to produce and prolongs the service life of a flexible magnetic disc without damaging it. As typically exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 3,946,439, conventional double-face magnetic disc driving apparatuses generally have the construction in which a pair of heads supported by gimbal springs are allowed to oppose each other during rotation. According to this construction, however, the relative locating work of both heads to the flexible magnetic disc is not so easy and the timing adjustment of the face registration of both heads to the flexible magnetic disc is also difficult. Hence, the heads are most likely to damage the magnetic disc and thus to shorten its service life.

Spring Package Spring into savings with this hotel package. Rates start at $109 plus tax and include complimentary breakfast at Triple Crown Buffet. Stay select dates March 1 – April 30, 2018. Must book by March 31, 2018. Call (515) 957-3000 to book your room today! Must present a valid credit or debit card to reserve room. Offer valid for a standard room. Additional guest fees, restrictions, and blackout dates may apply. Rates are based upon availability, have no cash value, are non-transferable, and are not valid with any other offers or discounts. One breakfast voucher per guest per day(s) of stay. Voucher cannot be redeemed for cash. Gratuity and tax not included. Exclusions apply. Must present valid photo ID upon check-in. Prairie Meadows reserves the right to modify or cancel promotions at any time, for any reason, without prior notification. In the event of a mail, email, or print error, the offer(s) containing the errors will be voided. Prairie Meadows, in its discretion, without compensation, may replace or substitute the correct offer(s). Subject to all applicable regulations. We support responsible gaming. 800 BETS OFF.

Advent Voices During Advent, I find it heartening to remember the legacy of poets, prophets and saints as well as the testimony of my contemporaries. In fact, I've come to depend on them, on that great cloud of witnesses who've testified to God's strategy for redeeming humankind-through a baby, of all things. Yes, I rely on the planed and joined sentences of John Donne, George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins, of R.S. Thomas, C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot, of Flannery O'Connor, Frederick Buechner and John Updike-witnesses all to some aspect of a kingdom I otherwise might have missed. And Corrie ten Boom, whose name to type brings tears to my eyes. And Madeleine L'Engle and Joni Erickson Tada, David Wilkerson and Anne Lamott. With planks torn from their books have I constructed the shape of my faith; their courage and steadfastness and humility have bolstered the quiet fact of my own. Further, I do think that men may witness to this unfailing grace without knowing it, that women may sing the eternal mercy of God unawares. I find a hymn of praise where none was intended, and expect that God does too. If we who believe in the Christ child failed to praise, surely the rocks would break out in song, the trees would clap their hands. So then the words of poets may be heard as praise when their writers thought they were looking elsewhere. Resolved thus, one Christmas two decades ago I lifted lines from works by nine writers to compose a new poem that celebrates the nativity scene. Here, I hope, is no disservice to the originals; again, with or without knowing it, the work of these writers proves the power of the risen Word. The writers come from diverse times and places, as did those who knelt before the Christ-child. Our praise is polyglot, an upending of Babel and the secret of Pentecost. My poem, grabbing from hither and yon, affirms that many languages make up the congregation, and many voices compose the chorus of praise: Advent Voices A cold coming I have of it: with idle hands and head I sit In late December before the fire's gaze, Punished by crimes of which I would be quit. Reason, that viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captived and proves weak or untrue: (though I do not wish to wish these things) yet I feel If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come, see the oxen kneel, the camels refractory; warm-laid grave of a womb-life gray; manger, maiden's knee; Christ and his mother and all his hallows-" I should be glad (wavering in the twilight) I should go with him in the gloom, (wavering in the twilight between birth and dying) Hoping it might be so. And I thought about the Angel of the Lord- Gladys, with her skinny legs and her dirty sneakers Sticking out from under her robe, Yelling at all of us, Everywhere: "Hey! (Although I could not hope to turn again) Unto you (Brute beauty and valor and act) A child (Although I could not hope to turn) Is born!" (Oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle!) And the fire that breaks from thee then, And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned by cheeks And his heart moved in mine: And the true Joy of the long-dead child sang burning In the sun; And the mystery sings alive Still in the water and singing birds. And though the last lights off the black west went, Oh, morning at the brown brink eastward, springs- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with Ah! bright wings. Make no mistake: It was as His flesh: ours. Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle, And crushed by remonstrance. But set down This set down This: It was (you may say) satisfactory, And that has made all the difference. The voices here speaking of the Advent are T.S. Eliot, Alan Tate, John Donne, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Beverly Robinson, Dylan Thomas, John Updike, and Robert Frost. And mine, in a sense. Mark Wacome Stevick is a poet, playwright and an associate professor of creative writing. He and his wife, Kristina, live with their baby son, Wyn, in Salem, MA. (His poem here was first published in Christianity & Literature.) Gordon College is one of the nation's premier Christian colleges and located just north of Boston. We offer students extraordinary access to leading-edge opportunities for intellectual, professional, and leadership development to address the increasingly complex challenges of a global society. Gordon stands apart from other outstanding institutions in New England by combining an exceptional education with an informed Christian faith.

Q: SharePoint: How to set most users to read-only with broken permissions Imagine a MOSS 2007 farm with 1500 sites where the permissions are in bad shape with broken inheritance, permissions granted to individuals, etc.. How would someone go about making most of the farm read-only to most users without addressing each site individually? Assumptions: Two weeks left for planning Four hour window to apply permissions change Four weeks left until farm is completely decommissioned Cannot buy third-party tools A: Would site locks help on the issue? This is what happens when a backup is underway, you can use your imagination on finding off-hours to unlock and change the site accordingly.

Rustem Bulatov Rustem Talgatovich Bulatov (; 2 April 1974 – 31 May 2008) was a Russian professional footballer. Career Bulatov made his professional debut in the Soviet Second League B in 1991 for FC Rubin Kazan. He played 2 games in the UEFA Cup 2000–01 for PFC CSKA Moscow. Coaching career He worked as head coach of Torpedo SDYuSShOR Kaluga before his death. Death Bulatov died on 31 May 2008 after falling ill during a game (he was playing on a local amateur level at the time). Honors Russian Cup finalist: 2000. References Category:1974 births Category:Sportspeople from Kazan Category:2008 deaths Category:Soviet footballers Category:Russian footballers Category:Association football defenders Category:FC Rubin Kazan players Category:PFC CSKA Moscow players Category:Russian Premier League players Category:FC Kuban Krasnodar players Category:FC Tom Tomsk players Category:FC Anzhi Makhachkala players Category:Association football players who died while playing Category:FC Volgar Astrakhan players Category:Sport deaths in Russia Category:FC Kristall Smolensk players Category:FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg players Category:FC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk players

In round numbers, you can literally crank out about 100W for about 10 hours per day, so a good day's labor is 1 kiloWatt*hour (kWh), and you'd have to pay about $100 in wages for the crank-turner. (That seems to me like a reasonable amount of energy to expect from a home-size wind turbine, too.) From the grid, we currently pay about $0.15 (fifteen cents!) for that much energy. An "AA" alkaline battery, for which we pay $0.50-$1.00, is good for about 1 Watt*hour (or at least $500/kWh). My "5 kW" solar array, on a sunny day in December, is putting out about 10 kWh ($1.50), but put out a little more than 30 kWh ($4.50) on a sunny day in June. (Installed cost, with no energy storage, was about $15,000 in 2014, before subsidy incentives.)

Q: Do you need to call mysqli_stmt::close before you call mysqli::close? I'm not exactly sure why mysqli_stmt::close is needed. Is it enough to just call mysqli::close? Is it needed only when you want to execut multiple prepared statements? Or is it also needed if you execute just one? A: It all depends on the nature of your script. If it's a regular web-page, that runs for a fraction of second, neither stmt::close nor mysqli::close is ever needed - PHP will close all the resources automatically. While in a long-running PHP script it's good to close particular statements when you don't need them anymore, as every statement allocates some resources on the server that otherwise can be used by other connections.

This test video, completed way back in November 2000, is one of the very first 3D clips I ever produced. This clip shows an early version of the library scene. It was designed and rendered as a single room, before I had an accurate map of the show building. In this clip, the blacklight glow is still a work in progress. And you might also notice that there's no track on the floor! This .mov file is 1.1Mb in size and is 15 seconds long. As always, you'll need QuickTime to view this and all other video clips on the site.

Anatoliko, Thessaloniki Anatoliko () is a village and a community of the Delta municipality. Before the 2011 local government reform it was part of the municipality of Chalastra, of which it was a municipal district. The 2011 census recorded 2,589 inhabitants in the village. The community of Anatoliko covers an area of 22.966 km2. See also List of settlements in the Thessaloniki regional unit References Category:Populated places in Thessaloniki (regional unit)

Q: That hid Satoshi Nakamoto in your code I tried to find in the code puzzles from Satoshi Nakamoto and I may have found them. How do you think the meaning of these symbols? https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/chainparams.cpp#L110-L113 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_documentation magic values d9b4bef9 f9beb4d9 bed9b4f9 b4d9bef9 d9f9beb4 d9f9b4be Base64 online decoder http://base64.ru/ /------------------------------------- 罿֞罭罯罯渷枯罭罭罷ָ睷枷֞潭罿ָ罭罷 罀 罷 渀 港 罿֞ 渷 枀 枭 罭 罿ָ /------------------------------------- You can try iterating combinations of those numbers, you get Chinese or Korean letter I don't know what these letters mean. But one who knows the Chinese language, can touch the letters and create words I'd like to read the letter, and I will be glad if someone will try to solve it :) Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in cryptography, and I believe that as a true lover of cryptography it is encrypted message for fans to guess the puzzle as we are. A: I tried to find in the code puzzles from Satoshi Nakamoto and I may have found them. I don't think you have. I obviously don't know for sure, but let me explain why I think these numbers are (1) not a secret message and (2) why this does not matter. How do you think the meaning of these symbols? https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/chainparams.cpp#L110-L113 These 4 bytes are known as the network magic, and are common practice in binary formats and protocols, as a means for making sure you're talking to a peer that talks the same protocol. The original code by Bitcoin's creator even had a comment that explains the choice of these values: // The message start string is designed to be unlikely to occur in normal data. // The characters are rarely used upper ascii, not valid as UTF-8, and produce // a large 4-byte int at any alignment. static const char pchMessageStart[4] = { 0xf9, 0xbe, 0xb4, 0xd9 }; So they're just 4 arbitrary bytes chosen in such a way that they're unlikely to occur in text or as an encoding of common integers in typical protocols. Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in cryptography, and I believe that as a true lover of cryptography it is encrypted message for fans to guess the puzzle as we are. I think 4 bytes is way too little to encode any meaningful message. Furthermore, it does not matter. While Bitcoin's creator came up with all the right pieces to make a distributed digital currency work in practice, its largest innovation compared to previous attempts is the lack of trusted parties. No need to trust a central bank, or trust the people you're transacting with, or trust who came up with the idea. I'm sure you can come up with many patterns that fit whatever 4 bytes, if you really want to. That doesn't mean there is a meaning.

Today’s Comics Guide: May 29, 2011 • There’s less than three days left to vote in this year’s CBG Fan Awards. Have you picked your favorites of 2010 yet? The deadline is this Tuesday, May 31. A special thanks to creators encouraging their fans to get the vote out. (Brent Frankenhoff) • Have you checked out our Memorial Day ‘Weekend sale at Shop.Collect.com? The official online bookstore of CBG is offering an additional 20% off through tomorrow, May 30 by using promo code MEMORIAL2011 at checkout. (Brent Frankenhoff) Yesterday’s Panel Quiz Answer The first words said in comics by Woozie Winks were, “Ho hum!” He said them in Police Comics #13 (Nov 42). Today’s Panel Quiz Whose first lines in comics were, “We heard your summons! Use these objects to escape, Luthor! We’ll soon join you in your own time!”? Do you have a show coming up? Let us know! You can e-mail the information to showscalendar@krause.com or mail it to Show Calendars, Comics Buyer’s Guide, 700 E. State St., Iola, WI 54945.If you have a creator appearance scheduled, let us know by e-mail tobrent.frankenhoff@fwmedia.com. Question of the Week Which of this summer’s comics-related movies are you looking forward to? The best answer received to this week’s question (in our opinion) will receive one of the glossy wraparound covers from CBG #1000 that we just found in the archives while researching our 40th anniversary. So, c’mon, tell us your plans, share your memories, make us smile, and you could hold a piece of CBG history in your hand! Send us your answer in the “Leave a Reply” area below. Comics-Related Media • It’s not really about Hasbro’s action figures, but Turner Classic Movies has The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) at 8 p.m. E.T. as part of its Memorial Day war movie marathon. (It’s really about World War II war correspondent Ernie Pyle and stars Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum.)

762 F.2d 1022 *Wilderv.Lambert 84-7287 United States Court of Appeals,Eleventh Circuit. 5/6/85 M.D.Ala., 587 F.Supp. 1021 AFFIRMED 1 --------------- * Fed.R.App.P. 34(a); 11th Cir.R. 23.

Frequently Asked Questions How do I search for a Work Truck? Searching for a Work Truck is easy! Using the Vocational Carousel at the top of the site, search for a work-ready truck by first selecting the Body Type. Next, select any applicable chassis requirements (on the left side of the page). If you like, you can also narrow your search further by selecting your preferred Body Manufacturer and any potential add-ons (just scroll further down the left side of the page). Once you have completed your search, simply click on the title for any of the work-ready vehicles in the search results to see the enhanced Vehicle Details Page. Ok, I found the work truck I want - now what? That's great! If you are looking at the Vehicle Details Page of the truck you want, there are a few different ways to move forward: Click the "I'm Interested" orange button under the Pricing Info to enter your contact info and have one of our commercial sales team members contact you back with further details. CALL! - Dial the number at the top of the page to be connected to a member of our commercial sales team right away. I am new to work trucks. Once I have completed my search, how do I know which truck is for me? No problem. First, "Save" a few trucks for reference (found at the top of the Vehicle Detail Page, just above the Price Info). Doing this will build a history for our commercial sales team to review, and it will alert us to follow up with you. No time to wait? Great! Just call the number at the top of the page and one of our commercial sales team members can help you with the rest. Can I find a Used work truck here? Any used inventory we are currently promoting will be found by clicking "Used" at the top of the page. If you don't see it, call the number at the top of the page and be sure to ask... inventory can change very quickly!! "No work trucks matched your search..." - Really? I was sure there would be some available... Now what? Inventory changes rapidly. If you don't find what you are looking for, just contact us through the "Help Me Find This Work Truck" form, or call the number at the top of the page. Our commercial sales team has additional tools and resources to help you find exactly what you need! I looked up a stock number for a vehicle I was interested in a few days ago, and now it says "No work trucks matched your search. Let us know exactly what you're looking for and we'll help you find it." What happened? This vehicle has been sold. Fill out the form or give us a call and your Truck Pro will immediately go to work for you to find you the perfect work truck. Can I purchase a work truck directly from this site? Please be sure to contact us for any purchase-related inquiries by calling the number at the top of the page, filling out the "I'm Interested" form, or stopping by. Why don't the photos match the truck? We provide on-lot images for most/all of our vehicles, but it does take time to get them received, washed, and ready to sell. Library images will be used as place-holders to give an indication of what this truck would generally look like while we wait to process the live, on-lot images. Why is there a difference in the amount of body information provided? Some of our body manufacturers and upfitters provide much more thorough information than others - up to and including body data spec-sheets, body videos and more. If you have any questions about any of the work trucks or body styles, please call - our commercial sales team is here for you!

Relationships between colostrum production by primiparous sows and sow physiology around parturition. Relationships between hormonal and metabolic changes around parturition and colostrum yield and composition were investigated in 16 Landrace x Large White primiparous sows. Blood samples were taken daily from d 105 of pregnancy to d 2 postpartum (with d 0 being the day of parturition). Colostrum samples were taken at the onset of parturition (T0), and then 3, 6, and 24 h later (T3, T6, and T24, respectively). Colostrum yield was calculated from the beginning of parturition until 24 h later by adding colostrum intake of individual piglets, which was estimated from their BW gain. Colostrum yield averaged 3.22 +/- 0.34 kg. Four sows had very low colostrum production (1.10 +/- 0.12 kg; n = 4), whereas the others produced between 2.83 and 4.64 kg of colostrum (3.93 +/- 0.16 kg; n = 12). Compared with the high-colostrum-producing sows, the low-colostrum-producing sows tended (P < 0.1) to have greater plasma concentrations of progesterone during the 20-h prepartum and tended (P < 0.1) to have smaller plasma concentrations of prolactin 40 and 30 h before parturition. Sows with a low colostrum yield had greater plasma concentrations of glucose than sows with a high colostrum yield from d -9 to -2 (P < 0.05). At the onset of parturition, colostrum from low-producing sows had greater percentages (P < 0.01) of DM, lipids, and GE, but less (P < 0.05) lactose, than that from high-producing sows. The Na:K ratio in colostrum during the 6 h postpartum was greater (P < 0.01) in low-producing sows than in high-producing sows, indicating that cellular junctions between epithelial mammary cells were less tightly closed. Concentrations of IgG in colostrum varied greatly between sows and decreased by approximately 80% between T0 and T24. Within high-producing sows, concentrations of IgG in colostrum at T0, T3, and T6 were negatively correlated (P < 0.05) with lactose concentrations in colostrum at the same times and were positively correlated (P < 0.05) with plasma concentrations of IGF-I measured from d -9 to 0. In contrast, no correlation (P > 0.1) was found between IgG concentrations in colostrum at any time and prolactin, estradiol-17beta, progesterone, or cortisol. In conclusion, sows that produced a low yield of colostrum were characterized by a leaky mammary epithelium and reduced synthesis of lactose, related to delayed hormonal changes before parturition.

AN 84-YEAR-OLD ex-university official savagely attacked by four young punks during a walk in Wissahickon Valley Park earlier this week theorizes that the beating he endured was a cruel game of "get the old geezer." Jim Shea, a former vice president of university relations for Temple, from 1968 to 1983, walks up to five miles on Forbidden Drive, in Fairmount Park, three times a week, but that type of stamina wasn't enough to stave off the lowlifes who not only beat him bloody, but dealt a blow to one of the things he holds most dear - his pride. Shea was near the Valley Green Inn, on Forbidden Drive, in the Wissahickon Valley Park, about 1:15 p.m. Monday when he was hit from behind. "I felt a real something to the head, a real blow to the head from behind," he said. "It knocked me to the ground; that was the biggie." Shea said the four assailants continued to beat him for minutes while he was on the ground. He said they were black, appeared to be between 16 and 20, and three of them were wearing La Salle sweatshirts. Police and Shea said that at least one of the attackers used a rock to hit him, causing deep cuts above his eyes. They all kicked and punched him while he was on the ground, conscious the entire time. "There was only one I really saw well because he came back to kick me," Shea said. "The others spent a great deal of the time laughing." The real "stunner" to Shea is that they left without trying to take his wallet, keys or cellphone. "I think it was just to get the old geezer," Shea said. "They were some bad kids with rancid souls." He tried to walk back to the Valley Green Inn alone, dripping with blood, but a bicyclist came to his aid. Shea spent four hours at Chestnut Hill Hospital, getting stitches in his face - from his eyelid to his cheek - and treatment for two large scrapes on his leg and elbow. Shea also said two bones in his nose were broken. The attackers have not yet been caught, police said yesterday. Despite that, Shea said he plans to be back out walking on Forbidden Drive next week. "I hope to make myself do it," he said. "It's been a wonderful thing for me at my age." What kind of cowardly sub-human scum hits an 84-year-old man in the back of the head for no reason? These people are not human beings. They should be destroyed like the feral animals they are. As far as I am concerned they are no different than the wild animals that the police had to kill from that farm in Ohio, they pose a serious threat to all real human beings and they need to be removed via whatever means necessary. Honestly, life in prison is not enough for these creatures. Hesse Friday, October 21st, 2011, 04:02 AM Those damned sick-minded bloody lowlife jigaboos, hopefully the day will come that they will all be collected in a boat and sent back to Africa! The Hungry Hun Friday, October 21st, 2011, 04:52 AM Honestly, life in prison is not enough for these creatures. Ugh, just to think we pay taxes to keep Oingy-boingy's brothas like them alive in prison.... it angers me to no end. Prison is a luxury we can't afford and they don't deserve. When we take the inevitable Skadi Field Trip back to 1500 BCE to Jutland and tell the folks there; that in the future, your progeny will live across the ocean among black skinned criminals and have to pay hard earned gold to keep them alive even though they were murderers; they would be speechless, not just because the truth is too crazy to comprehend, but also because they won't be able to understand modern Germanic language. :~(

Hamitköy Hamitköy is an affluent northern suburb of North Nicosia in Cyprus. Hamitköy is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus, and, since 2008, it has been under the jurisdiction of the Nicosia Turkish Municipality. As of 2011, Hamitköy had a population of 5,338. Prior to its urbanisation, it was better known as Mandres () or Hamit Mandres (). References Category:Communities in Nicosia District Category:Populated places in Lefkoşa District Category:Suburbs of Nicosia

Q: Twitter login by WebView, android I need to create quick share with facebook and twitter. With facebook I worked before, so it easy for me, but twitter? I would like to have login by webview and later tweet directly from activity. Is it possible? And how retrive and store later user data from webview to login screen appear only once? A: refer https://github.com/ddewaele/AndroidTwitterSample to authenticate to Twitter. You can modify the AndroidTwitterSample activity, main.xml file to enter your tweet.

THE EPO and EPO-funded media are not a source of information but they are often the target of criticism or ridicule. Now that the EPO promotes monopolies on plants (to increase the number of granted patents, irrespective of the overall impact on society) we wish to highlight CEVA et al with their pro-GMO (i.e. patent monopoly) agenda, as covered in IP Watch the other day [1]. This is a fantastic example of the harms of patent maximalism — something that EPO-funded sites sure love and even take pride in. Let’s look at IAM ‘magazine’, based on the past few days’ articles. “It glorifies what the site profits from, but at whose expense?”“IP Hall of Fame” is a term like that’s being used by IAM right now. Like “Monopoly of fame” or “Protectionism of the year”, one has to be pretty brainwashed to really ‘dig’ into that. Then again, what can be expected from a site which targets ‘IP’ lawyers? It glorifies what the site profits from, but at whose expense? According to this article, the patent troll of Ericsson still attacks Android OEMs (impacting Linux, by extension). To quote: “The IPKat has been aware for some time that the Patents Court, in the person of Mr Justice Birss, has been devoting considerable time to a series of cases concerning mobile phone technology (Unwired Planet v Huawei and Samsung).” “BlackBerry, despite its embrace of Android, will quite likely troll other Android OEMs with patents.”According to IAM, BlackBerry is now acting somewhat like a troll, much as we foresaw and predicted. But IAM uses terms like “monetisation”, which are effectively euphemisms (how about “corporate foodchain” as a euphemism?). To quote: “When BlackBerry concluded a cross-licensing agreement with Cisco last June, with a provision for the Californian company to pay an on-going royalty, this blog stated that the deal could mark the start of the Canadian telecoms and wireless business becoming a major player in the patent monetisation space.” BlackBerry, despite its embrace of Android, will quite likely troll other Android OEMs with patents. Microsoft, according to this IAM report, is hoarding LG patents that it can later use to extort (or tax) Android devices more than it already does. To quote IAM, “20 US assets covering mobile telecoms assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC; also 44 assets on 9th April.” “…there is already patent trolling in China, but the opaque court system changes all the risk equations…” – James SalsmanThe euphemism “monetisation” again appeared in IAM around the same time, in relation to China’s SIPO. The lenient patent system in China (like USPTO in the US) could bring in the trolls; maybe that’s what what “monetisation” now means in IAM (if not NPE). As Jack Ellis put it, in order to sell the “monetisation” (trolls) agenda in China (shaming tactics): “Protectionist, biased, anti-foreigner: those are kinds of labels that are often attached to China’s IP enforcement system by rights holders from outside of the country.” As James Salsman ‏put it when asked, “there is already patent trolling in China, but the opaque court system changes all the risk equations [...] I lived in Shanghai working at @EFLabs where patents prevented pronunciation intelligibility remediation software improvements” (the latter, with context, can be found here). The bottom line is, the Web continues to be saturated with coverage about patent matters composed by people who profit from it. Some even receive money from patent offices. Therein exists a real, profound problem. Public interests are ignored at best and habitually trampled. It’s everyone’s ethical imperative to change that, or else very few people will hoard all the wealth and many productive human activities (such as sharing, trade, invention and manufacturing) will effectively be banned except when permitted by those few wealth hoarders. █ At issue, according to a joint press release (Via Campesina, Grain, and ETC Group), is the agenda, which they find unbalanced as it includes speakers from industry such as, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, CropLife International, and CEVA among others, which they say are promoting GMOs, while they found only one speaker openly critical of GMOs. As the EFF put it this week: “The Federal Circuit’s rule privileges patent owners over consumers, and helps ensure even less competition in the resale market. We hope the Supreme Court takes a hard look at this case, and restores consumers’ rights in products they purchase.” Worth noting is the fact that legal sites wrote like 10 times more articles than general news sites (or technology sites) about this case, e.g. [1, 2]. A lot of people don’t ‘get’ patents; neither do journalists. They’d use silly phrases like “invent patents” or “make patents”. The propaganda worked on them. “Here, the court held that this type of restriction is enforceable for Lexmark, but only because Lexmark’s product is covered by patent rights.” –Dennis CrouchHere is the best report we’ve found on this subject (so far). TechDirt, which has covered this subject for over a decade (going back to 2004 if not earlier), wrote: “if you fail to block competition with one kind, apparently you can try, try again with another kind — and eventually you’ll end up in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who will mess everything up and kill off the competition. Printer company Lexmark has been at war with alternative suppliers of ink for well over a decade. As you may be aware, printer ink is sold at a ridiculously high markup, such that one estimate (from over a decade ago) noted that in order to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with printer ink, it would cost you $5.9 billion (yes, with a “b”) at the checkout counter of your local office-supply retailer. The printer makers have notably taken a “give away cheap crappy printers at a low cost, and make it up in seriously overpricing the ink” strategy to their businesses. This kind of thing works great until someone tries to step in and sell competing ink.” Suffice to say, this case is about keeping the prices artificially high (higher by several orders of magnitude than the production cost). A response posted by Dennis Crouch said: “I was surprised at the en banc Federal Circuit’s decision in Lexmark to re-affirm Mallinckrodt — giving a seller power to block future resale and reuse of a patented product. My surprise is grounded in the longstanding tradition in American property law of promoting the free-flow of commerce by refusing to enforce servitudes that limit the alienation or use of goods. To be clear, courts have often enforced contracts between willing parties to this end, but those same courts have refused to allow restrictive covenants to cling to the good and bind any subsequent purchaser. Here, the court held that this type of restriction is enforceable for Lexmark, but only because Lexmark’s product is covered by patent rights.” “Remember that CAFC is responsible for many other equally tactless decisions.”It was not the first time that Crouch’s blog covered this case in recent days (we mentioned this a few times in last week’s posts). Basically, Lexmark twists and bends the law for price-fixing/price hikes. Other companies, such as HP, would no doubt benefit from this, at the expense of the public. To quote Crouch’s blog: “The presumptions are of some importance for those operating on the ground. Here, the US court will presume that foreign sales of a product do not exhaust the US patent right. Thus, an importer must obtain a release/license of those rights to avoid liability (assuming a valid and otherwise infringed patent). Of course, that license right may be implied based upon providing notice of the importation intent. In addition, depending upon the location of sale, UCC 2-312 (or its foreign equivalent) may create a presumption of license depending upon the situation.” When laws are being passed to protect the business models or large corporations at the expense of the public, are the laws at all legitimate? Should we not feel free to challenge them or better yet, engage in civil disobedience? Remember that CAFC is responsible for many other equally tactless decisions. It was also CAFC that got software patents started, not just in the US but in the whole world. In the past we showed evidence of institutional corruption inside CAFC. █ “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Summary: The Unitary Patent Court (UPC), the latest name of a decade-long effort to increase litigation, damages, injunctions, trolling etc. inside Europe, is being railroaded through the system like a Trojan horse, relying on public apathy (as the public does not know anything about its existence and the harsh reality) Amerikat (Ward) from IP Katcontinues her push for UPC as if it’s already a done deal (it’s not) and some “IP & Technology lawyer” promotes this UPC coup which European citizens never got to vote on. It’s not just women doing this, but it’s almost always patent lawyers, which is quite revealing, is it not? “ADR is also part of the new European #patent framework. Draft #UPC mediation rules now published,” the latter wrote. Benjamin Henrion (FFII) responded by saying: “Rules cannot be written by an administrative committee.” “…in the worst case, they will just copy/paste the rules and ask parliaments to rubberstamp.” –Benjamin Henrion (FFII)“Unitary Patent Court rules and laws cannot be made by an administrative committee,” he later added, “only by elected parliaments” (“don’t worry,” I said, “they can always just bribe some politicians to sign off the rules they pass to them for signing”). A pro-patents account then jumped in to say: “It is supposed to be monitored by EU Council whose members are supposed to be monitored by elected parliaments, monitored by people.” “When was the UPC ever monitored by people other than patent lawyers [and] other profiteers,” I responded, comparing them to foxes in the hen house. At this stage Henrion said “that’s stealing democracy. There are clear ECHR rulings on this.” “Well, it’s not like the patent lawyers always honestly cared about law,” I responded, “they game it!” That’s what they do for a living, that is what people pay them a lot of money for. As Henrion put it, “in the worst case, they will just copy/paste the rules and ask parliaments to rubberstamp.” Then, “patentlyGerman” (his occupation isn’t hard to guess) said: “The Munich local div of the #UPC will be housed in a boring, but centrally located building” (patent lawyers and propagandists say “will”, not “would”, as if UPC is already unstoppable and inevitable). “UPC is a Trojan horse that European citizens neither want nor need (at least those who even know it exists and understand what it’s for).”Thankfully, as some people come to realise, Spain is doing the right thing by rejecting the UPC, in spite of political blackmail. Show us anyone other than patent lawyers (or the EPO) promoting the UPC and we shall award with a prize. All we have here is a coup d’état. UPC is a Trojan horse that European citizens neither want nor need (at least those who even know it exists and understand what it’s for). UPC is a spit in the face of European democracy. It’s time for more sites (not sites of patent lawyers) to openly talk about it and properly inform the public. █ Contents I recently had a problem trying to install the NVIDIA driver for my machine. It seemed the latest driver had stopped supporting my graphics card, and after updating my kernel, I was out of a driver. The question, obviously, was “which card did I have?” But, I didn’t remember. If you have to name the chipset of your motherboard, specify the CPU in your box or get any other kind of hardware-related information, Linux provides several utilities to help you. In my case, I quickly could get the full ID of my graphics card, confirm that it really was getting a bit long in the tooth and decide that a newer one wasn’t such a bad idea. Kernel Space Kevin (age 32) holds a PhD in music and taught himself programming in his spare time. He completed the free Introduction to Linux course through edX and put that knowledge to use by automating some of his work with shell scripts, which, he says, has saved him an enormous amount of time. He hopes to become a Linux sys admin and move his music department to open source. It looks like renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman is on vacation, as Sasha Levin had the great pleasure of announcing earlier today, February 16, 2016, the general availability of the eighteenth maintenance release of Linux kernel 4.1 LTS. We reported earlier the release of Linux kernel 4.1.18 LTS for GNU/Linux operating system, as announced by Sasha Levin, but it looks like another kernel maintainer posted news on kernel mailing list about the release of Linux kernel 3.12.54 LTS. Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is an invitation-only, intimate event where the world’s leading technologists and business leaders come together to define how open source software projects are built, governed and sustained for market transformation or disruption. Open source software and collaborative development have come to dominate the way IT infrastructure today is built, but not all projects are created equal. This event aims to provide the neutral forum where project leaders, contributors and maintainers, as well as business and community experts, come together to share best practices and new ideas to support and manage the largest shared technologies of our time. Vulkan (spelled with a “k”, not a “c”) is a powerful new 3D graphics API from the Khronos Group, the same consortium that developed its spiritual predecessor, OpenGL, and other related standards. Like OpenGL, Vulkan targets high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications such as games and interactive media, but offers higher performance and lower CPU usage, much like Direct3D 12 and Metal. It is still awaiting release—some drivers and SDKs are still under development—but it promises to provide a variety of advantages over these other APIs once released. If you didn’t already do so, be sure to read my big Vulkan Linux write-up that covers details on drivers, demos / games / benchmarks, the Vulkan common loader, and much more. I’ve been working on that article for a number of days along with busy testing early Vulkan code and drivers. But if you’re short on time, here is the quick summary. As you may know, the first stable and mature version of the Vulkan 3D API (Application Programming Interface) has been released today, February 16, 2016, and now many open source projects are looking into implementing it in their software. Today sees the public release of Vulkan 1.0, the next-generation graphics API from the Khronos Group. As a member of Khronos, Collabora has been committed to improving EGL, OpenGL ES and OpenGL itself, and this continues with Vulkan. With lineage dating back to 1992, OpenGL has served the industry well for many years, establishing itself as the standard for accelerated graphics rendering from large-scale cloud render farms to devices as small as the Raspberry Pi. Through this time, the nature of both graphics hardware and software has changed dramatically, from simple fixed-function pipelines to fully-programmable general-purpose co-processors. After only three weeks of the announcement of the MPlayer 1.2 open-source video player software, the project’s development team today, February 16, 2016, unveiled the MPlayer 1.3 release. As reported by us yesterday, February 15, the FFmpeg 3.0 open-source multimedia framework made a surprise appearance and brought in a great number of new features, so the biggest new feature of MPlayer 1.3 is, of course, support for FFmpeg 3.0. Every hard disk, however large it may be, is filled up to capacity after some time. Then it’s about time to find out where all that disk space has gone, and to reclaim some of it. This is what KDirStat was all about. The original KDirStat was a KDE 3 application. Now, there is the brand-new QDirStat, based on the same code, but with most of it rewritten with newer technology based on the latest Qt 5. It no longer depends on KDE; rather, it’s now desktop agnostic, running just as well under GNOME, Xfce and all thoser other X11-based Linux/BSD desktops. I held off on commenting on the rumors and did hear things from a few of my sources who wish to remain anonymous. However, I’ve now heard enough information from multiple informants that I feel comfortable saying that Tomb Raider (2013) is in fact coming to Linux and will be here in the next few weeks. LunarG, Inc. today announced the release of the first Vulkan™ Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows® and Linux operating systems. The SDK includes the resources developers need to get started creating the next generation of 3D graphics applications. GNOME Desktop/GTK As you may have heard, Endless joined the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board last week. We appreciate all the kind words of welcome we have received and are looking forward to strengthening our ties with this community. This has been a coming for a bit, and I’m looking forward for us to contribute more over the coming year! [...] We can’t do this alone. We are looking for some great engineers to join our team. If this mission sounds great and you’re interested in working with us, let us know! We are looking for people who are passionate about bringing a great desktop to the rest of the world while developing some high-quality Free Software. The GNOME Project is about to come up with the first Beta build of the upcoming major release of the open source desktop environment for GNU/Linux operating systems, GNOME 3.20, so they’re updating most of the core apps and components. Chromebooks have been generated quite some buzz in the last couple of years. The main advantage for Chromebooks is that these are inexpensive laptops with modest hardware and are good looking as well. Chromebooks are based on Google’s web-oriented Chrome OS. While Chrome OS itself is based on the Linux kernel, it is not really the same experience as full desktop Linux. There are ways to install Linux on Chromebook, but I am not going to talk about those today. Instead, I am going to list four Linux distributions which are either meant for Chromebooks or they imitate the looks of Chrome OS. One thing that confuses some new Linux users is just how modular Linux can be, and on nearly every level. It turns out to be liberating in the end, but it can be overwhelming at first. That’s why it’s nice, sometimes, to come across a project that brings a bunch of modular technology and binds them together nice and neatly for users. In the world of digital audio workstations, the project that does this most profoundly is the Linux Multimedia Studio, better known as LMMS. Reviews Staying anonymous on the Internet might not necessarily mean the same as surfing the web safely but rather keeping yourself safe from prying eyes that may otherwise take advantage of the vulnerability of your system thereby exposing you and your data for whomever might just be up for the grabbing – especially some hacker snooping around for sensitive data to hoard (particularly if you’re being targeted) and use for otherwise evil purposes that can have some serious effects on the violated individual. New Releases Univention GmbH was pleased to announce on February 16, 2016, the general availability of the first point release of their stable Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 4.1 server-oriented GNU/Linux operating system based on Debian. PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family If you thought that this review would continue with the usual sections like keyboard setup, list of applications, network drive connectivity and so on, I must disappoint you. My time with PCLinuxOS KDE 2014.12 finished at that point. I see no reason to test a distribution that is so narrow-minded that it cannot allow users outside of the US to use it out of the box, and that does not bother with updating their core ISO image. There are plenty of distributions that work much better than PCLinuxOS. The big story today in Linux news was the release of the long awaited Vulkan graphics API. The news was carried by just about everyone. Elsewhere, blogger DarkDuck said PCLinuxOS is “the walking dead” and a critical vulnerability in glibc has experts warning to upgrade immediately. SUSE announced SUSECon today and Charles-H. Schulz blogged about the “unusual” LibreOffice 5.1 release on this The Document Foundation’s fourth birthday. Fedora Neville Cross is a Nicaraguan hotel manager who has a passion for technology. He has an Amateur Radio license, and was doing stuff with packet radio (ax.25 protocol) in 2008. That made him look for help in the local Linux community. As he used Red Hat Linux for a while in 2000, it was natural for him to take a look at Fedora. Instead of getting help, he got involved in the local FOSS community, especially in the Fedora local group. At that moment, others Linux distributions had strong support from the international community, but Fedora did not. So he took on the challenge to close the gap. That is how Cross originally showed up in Fedora landscape many years ago. Debian Family The FOSSASIA 2016 conference is taking place next month, 18-20 March at the Science Centre Singapore. The FOSSASIA community has also offered to host a MiniDebConf Singapore 2016 and pgDay Asia 2016. With sufficient interest from volunteers and participants, these events could do a lot to raise the profile of free software in the region. The open source ecosystem for mobile devices has grown larger with the announcement of a new Linux-based operating system for smartphones in the form of Maru OS, which is now open source. Maru is a Debian-based operating system that lets you run a complete desktop environment from a smartphone. By connecting it to an external display, you get what looks like a traditional, full-blown Debian GNU/Linux system, while still having access to your Android phone. Emmabuntüs is a desktop GNU/Linux distribution based on Xubuntu 12.04 and 14.04 LTS (Long Term Support) made specifically for refurbished computers destined for humanitarian organisationsand to promote the discovery of GNU/Linux by beginners, as well as to extend the lifespan of hardware and to reduce over consumption & waste in electronics. Emmabuntus 8 Beta is the first distro based on Debian in the memory of Ian Murdock, the founder of the Debian Project. Derivatives Canonical/Ubuntu FairPhone 2 is just one of the phones that are betting on Ubuntu Touch community ports, and it looks like the project is coming along. The ability to port Ubuntu Touch for various devices has been promoted by Canonical ever since the start of the project, more than three years ago but little has come of it. The community tries to make this happen, but it’s not like making Android run on other devices. It’s a complex problem that usually revolves around device drivers. The main problem that developers face when trying to make Ubuntu Touch run on various devices is the lack of driver support. We’ve seen many popular phones running Ubuntu over the years, but most projects stop when having to implement GSM or Bluetooth support. For example, one of the first phones to get Ubuntu Touch was a Samsung Galaxy S3, but nothing came of it. We are only a couple of months away from the next major release of the world’s most popular free operating system, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), and some of its neat new features are yet to be revealed. Canonical’s Dustin Kirkland writes today about one of the awesome things that will be implemented by default in the upcoming Linux-based distribution, ZFS, the robust file system that everyone talks about these days, which Canonical will bake directly into Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Łukasz Zemczak of Canonical informs us earlier about the latest work done by the Ubuntu Touch development team in preparation for the soon-to-be-released OTA software updates for Ubuntu-powered devices. If you’ve been reading the news lately, you may know that Google Security Team and Red Hat have disclosed a severe Glibc (GNU C Library) vulnerability, which could affect a huge number of devices and computers. Erle Robotics, which I mentioned in last week’s piece about the increasingly important role of Linux in robotics, supplies cheap components for DIY Raspberry Pi projects. I got in touch with the makers at Erle this week to come up with a great tutorial for our readers. Your Raspberry Pi’s mobility is usually restricted by the length of the power lead. Rather than limiting it to your desk or living room, however, you can use it for mobile projects as diverse as launching it into near-Earth orbit or monitoring and automating your garden. Of course, to do this you will need batteries, but adding battery power to your Raspberry Pi is simpler than you might have imagined. All that is required are six rechargeable AA batteries (or single-charge alkaline), a battery box with space for the batteries and a UBEC. The latter is a Universal Battery Elimination Circuit, a voltage regulator that will regulate the power supply and prevent damage to the Raspberry Pi, and can be bought for under £10. Gumstix has added a Raspberry Pi Compute Module baseboard design to its online DIY board dev tool, and is selling working units based on the design for $49. Back in November, Gumstix opened up its Geppetto online DIY design tool and quick-turn prototype manufacturing service to the development of carrier boards for third-party SBCs and COMs based on TI Sitara AM335x SoCs. Supported non-Gumstix processor boards initially included BeagleBoard.org’s BeagleBone Black single-board computer, as well as Critical Link’s MitySOM-335x, and DAVE’s Diva AM335x computer-on-modules. Phones Tizen Samsung’s strategy of making its initial Tizen smartphones fall under the budget category seems to be working out quite well, as a recent report from market research agency Strategy Analytics claims that Samsung sold over 3 million Tizen smartphones in 2015! While the numbers may look huge, Samsung’s very own android devices from the J series proved to be a problem for the sales of Tizen based Z3 and Z1 launched in India. Android Android initially followed the open-source model, but Google made restrictions to its key components. It’s implausible to debate its licensing nuances, but Android has become the dominant mobile ecosystem with relentless advertising and a rich app store (albeit with thousands of duplicates). When the BlackBerry 10 was launched, it was met with muted skepticism, but it went on to prove its mettle with rigorous compliance, top-notch certifications for regulated industries and a niche segment that BlackBerry called as prosumers. Having personally used various iterations of the BlackBerry 10 and their software, it is clear that these devices were designed to be productive from the word go without reliance on various applications. The annual Mobile World Congress trade show is less than a week away, which means we’re about to be introduced to some of the most exciting new smartphones that will be released this year. Well, perhaps “introduced” isn’t the best choice of words, since a long string of leaks has already revealed just about everything there is to know about the three biggest stars of the show. The smartphone maker Celkon has expanded its product portfolio with the launch budget Android tablet named CT11. The company has priced the tablet at Rs 2,999 and it is available for purchase via all retail stores and online via Amazon. On the specifications front, Celkon CT11 features a 7-inch WVGA display and runs on Android 4.4 KitKat operating system. The device is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core ARM Cortex A7 processor and its onboard storage accounts to 32GB which can be expanded further via microSD card. Samsung had an unexpected hit on its hands with the Edge display on the GS6 Edge and Edge+, but that was all because of how it looked; there was hardly any additional functionality tied to the curved screen. With the Android 6.0 update (and upcoming Galaxy S7 Edge, I’m sure), Samsung is adding some new features that make the Edge display more worthwhile. Last November, reports started circulating — stemming from a Wall Street Journal article — that Google would kill off its popular Chromebook lineup in favor of making the move entirely to Android by 2017. This maneuver made sense, given the flexibility of Android, something that’s so clearly absent from Google’s other operating system, Chrome OS. It also seemed plausible because of the recently announced, keyboard-equipped Pixel C tablet, which has been available for purchase since mid-December. Whether you’re a retailer or a restaurateur, a point-of-sale (POS) system can make a big difference in streamlining your business. However, the scope of POS is very broad with hundreds of different POS software packages and vendors. You can expect to invest a fair bit of time figuring out what will best fit your business. In our previous article, we had focused on The Network Platform for Network Functions Virtualization (OPNFV), mainly covering the virtual infrastructure and the corresponding manager that support Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). In this article, we will focus on open source options that are available for building different virtual network functions. The Open Networking Foundation on Tuesday introduced an update to its Atrium open source SDN stack, with added support for OpenDaylight and leaf-spine architecture. Atrium, released last year, is designed as a platform to give network operators a taste of open source SDN — “a vertical slice of something useful,” Dan Pitt, Open Networking Foundation executive director, tells Light Reading. Open source and SDN are fundamental to New IP networks. (See ONF Updates Atrium Open SDN Software.) My own understanding of open source has also significantly changed as concept of open source has evolved from one of idealism to practicality. Open source has transitioned from a bunch of hackers hidden away in basements preaching the gospel in niche forums, to an international pool of developers collaboratively creating projects in the open. As promised last year when the company introduced it, Pinterest today announced that it has released its Teletraan tool for deploying source code on GitHub under an open source Apache license. “Teletraan is designed to do one thing, deploy code,” Pinterest software engineer Baogang Song wrote in a blog post. “Not only does it support critical features such as zero downtime deploy, rollback, staging and continuous deploy, but it also has convenient features, such as displaying commit details, comparing different deploys, notifying deploy state changes through either email or chat room, displaying OpenTSDB metrics and more.” Events Today I’m going to give you a summary and my impressions of DevConf.cz 2016. For those of you, who still don’t know, DevConf.cz is a yearly conference for Linux and JBoss Community Developers, Admins and Linux users organized by Red Hat Czech Republic, the Fedora and JBoss Community. This was my first DevConf and I’m very happy that I got into it as a volunteer. Actually being a volunteer at a conference is the best way to experience it I got into working on it really early, shortly after joining Red Hat, in July I think. Having literally no idea who had worked on the graphic materials before, we started almost from scratch. First things first, covers for social media accounts were created: facebook, google+ and twitter. Looking at them now after all the work done, I see ways for improvement. Good thing we have started work on DevConf.cz 2017 early, and by early I mean already. Web Browsers Luckily Chrome and Firefox are completely automated. I had to do some trickery to get Chrome working, filed a bug, doesn’t sound like they’re interested in fixing it. I also had to do some trickery to get Firefox to work (I ended up using our marionette framework directly instead), there are some bugs, not much traction there either. Chrome Mozilla Today, the Internet is one of our most important global public resources. It’s open, free and essential to our daily lives. It’s where we chat, play, bank and shop. It’s also where we create, learn and organize. All of this is made possible by a set of core principles. Like the belief that individual security and privacy on the Internet is fundamental. Mozilla is devoted to standing up for these principles and keeping the Internet a global public resource. That means watching for threats. And recently, one of these threats to the open Internet has started to grow: efforts to undermine encryption. The foundation that really turned the way that we used to create and edit documents, presentations and all other office works in Linux. Today that foundation, The Document Foundation has turned 4. I congratulate the one team that started creating an amazing office suit, LibreOffice 4 years ago. The Document Foundation was officially registered in Berlin on February 17, 2012. Four years have gone by, and the project has grown to a size that nobody would have dared to dream at that time. Happy Birthday ! The Document Foundation just released LibreOffice 5.1 and I would like to share some personal views about it. First: give it a try, you will be impressed both by the performance and the changes in the user interface. You can then check the abridged release notes here and the full, canonical notes there. On Tuesday, IBM announced that it’s been working to make blockchain technology—which was refined and popularized by Bitcoin—easier for businesses to use for financial and non-financial purposes. Specifically, the company is launching what it’s calling “blockchain-as-a-service,” or a set of tools for “creating, deploying, running, and monitoring blockchain applications on the IBM Cloud.” Marius Strobl was happy to inform all fans of the FreeBSD operating system that they can now test drive the second Beta build of the upcoming FreeBSD 10.3 release, which should hit the streets in late March 2016. Public Services/Government While open source software and its adoption in government continue to grow, the push for open source is not as clear as for other government mandates. Though there is no requirement to use open source, there are clear indications that open source solutions should be given at least as much consideration — if not more — than proprietary systems. “We believe in using and contributing back to open source software as a way of making it easier for the government to share data, improve tools and services, and return value to taxpayers,” the White House recently posted on its developer-focused website. Openness/Sharing Callum Hay and Eric Portelance want to be Canada’s first open-source brewers. This spring, when they open Halo Brewery in Toronto’s trendy Junction Triangle neighbourhood, they plan to share all of their beer recipes with the public on their website, complete with ingredients and amounts, fermentation temperatures and water chemistry. It’s a concept that was met with puzzlement when they started asking investors for startup funds. “What about Coca-Cola?” the two were asked, again and again. “They don’t share their secret formula.” Open Hardware Doing good for the world is often the nature of an open source software or hardware project. Offering code and schematics to others free of charge and with a license that allows for reuse and modification is often done to help others. Knowing this, I was still surprised to learn about an incredible project that combines robotics and prosthetics. Open source hardware, also known as open hardware, is hardware built from design information that could be copyrighted or licensed. But, it is made available at no charge, according to a press release from the association. It empowers youth, helps them get hands-on experience, develops skill sets and promotes innovation. The association is looking at having a network on international experts too as part of the programme. Programming Our sutra for today expounds on the sayings of the masters Donald Knuth and Ken Thompson, who in their wisdom have observed “Premature optimization is the root of all evil” and “When in doubt, use brute force.” My main side project recently has been SRC, a simple version-control system for small projects. One of the constraints I was thinking about when I designed SRC was that the status command – the one that gives you a display saying which files have been modified since they were checked in – needs to be really fast. The popularity of Git and GitHub among Linux developers is well established. But what do developers think of them? And should GitHub really be synonymous with Git itself? A Linux redditor recently asked about this and got some very interesting answers. The Duke of Cambridge has said that Britain’s ability to work in partnership with other nations is the “bedrock of our security and prosperity”, in remarks that will prompt speculation that he is endorsing the UK’s continued membership of the EU. But Stephen, these foul people are a minority! Indeed they are. But I would contend that just one turd in a reservoir is enough to persuade one not to drink from it. 99.9% of the water may be excrement free, but that doesn’t help. With Twitter, for me at least, the tipping point has been reached and the pollution of the service is now just too much. Health/Nutrition Acting on a tip, agents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration paid a surprise visit to a cheese factory in rural Pennsylvania on a cold November day in 2012. They found what they were looking for: evidence that Castle Cheese Inc. was doctoring its 100 percent real parmesan with cut-rate substitutes and such fillers as wood pulp and distributing it to some of the country’s biggest grocery chains. A huge amount of software can be hijacked by hackers on the other side of the internet, thanks to a serious security vulnerability in the GNU C Library (glibc). The library is used by the vast majority of Linux distributions, meaning the vulnerability is widespread. Dating back to the release of glibc 2.9 in 2008, CVE-2015-7547 is a stack-based buffer overflow bug in the glibc DNS client-side resolver that opens the door to remote code execution when a particular library function is used. Software using the function can be exploited with attacker-controlled domain names, attacker-controlled DNS servers or man-in-the-middle attacks. At the moment, such ways to hack systems is very much limited to research. But, researchers feel that in not-so-distant future, hackers could use these techniques by making them more accessible and cheaper. The NSA is known to study metadata to identify terrorists under its SKYNET program. An expert has recently analyzed some leaked documents and pointed out multiple flaws in the machine learning algorithm used to determine the possibility of a person being a terrorist. As a result, it’s possible that NSA could’ve killed thousands of innocents misclassified as “terrorists”. Machine learning algorithms used by the U.S. National Security Agency to identify potential terrorists in Pakistan may be ineffective, because we just don’t have enough data to tell the signs of a terrorist, claims an investigation by Ars Technica UK. Between 2,500 and 4,000 so-called ‘extremists’ have been killed by drone strikes and kill squads in Pakistan since 2004. Maybe as early as 2007, the NSA has targeted terrorists based on metadata supplied by machine learning program named Skynet. I have no idea who would find naming Skynet a machine designed to list people for assassination a bright idea, but that’s besides the point. The real point is that the inner workings of this software, as revealed in part by Edward Snowden from his leaks, suggest that the program might be targeting innocent people. Researchers have taken a second look at the NSA SKYNET leaks, as well as the GCHQ data-mining problem book first published on Boing Boing, and concluded that the spy agencies have made elementary errors in their machine-learning techniques, which are used to identify candidates for remote assassination by drone. It’s popular, in media, to depict governments as vast machines that know exactly what they’re doing. The truth, though, is a government is just a group of people, with the same weaknesses and fallacies of people. The NSA is no different, whether it’s making AT&T do all the work or blatantly violating your privacy for laughs. And that would be fine if one of the NSA’s methods of blowing off work wasn’t using what amounts to a marketing algorithm to decide who’s getting killed by drone strikes. And it’s a badly engineered one, to boot. The short tweet includes only the word “America.” (with a period for emphasis) and a picture of a .45-caliber handgun engraved with his name: “Gov. Jeb Bush.” The black semiautomatic pistol is made by FN America, which has a manufacturing plant in Columbia, the capital of the next early state in primary voting. Gun rights have become a central tenet of the Republican campaign for president, with each candidate touting their record with the NRA and history of firearm ownership. [...] During World War II, the company was requisitioned by the Nazi military and its factories produced thousands of weapons for Axis troops, including pistols carried by Nazi officers and pilots. One model, the Browning-designed Hi-Power, was used by both the Allies and Axis powers during the war, with FN factories manufacturing a version of the popular handgun for the German military. Last week, presidential challenger Bernie Sanders attacked his rival Hillary Clinton live on US television for taking advice from Nixon-era Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whom he accused of paving the way for genocide with his bombing of Cambodia. [...] That was it. The three network evening newscasts, with a typical combined nightly viewership of 24 million, didn’t mention Kissinger. Nor did any of the Sunday morning talkshows. Even PBS NewsHour, whose Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff moderated the debate, never discussed the Kissinger exchange. The world’s two biggest crude producers have agreed not to increase oil output, according to Qatar’s energy minister, quoted by Bloomberg. OPEC members, such as Venezuela and Nigeria, have been calling for an emergency meeting of the cartel to discuss crude prices that have fallen over 70 percent since 2014. After meeting with Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said freezing output at January levels would be “adequate” however the country still wants to meet the demand of its customers. Saudi Arabia has insisted it won’t cut production unless major producers outside the cartel cooperate. Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak has said cooperation is possible if other producers joined in. Finance The book is all true in that what happens to that family, and in particular the main everyman character Earl, happened to millions of American families that believed the myths of growth, hard work and a sustainable middle class even as the super wealthy were pulling the money right out of their hands in front of their eyes. Ignore the rising waters, until you feel them up to your Katrina-like lips. At four locations spread around different parts of the city, homeless people will able to avail themselves of a 10-minute hot shower as well as private toilet and sink out of the trailer towed by a pickup truck. The project cost the city about $87,450 to give Catholic Charities the money to buy and outfit the trailer and run it for a year. A New Hampshire television news network owned by a former Republican candidate for Senate is working closely with conservative interest groups that are pressuring presidential candidates to take more aggressive positions on use of military force, entitlement reform, and tax cuts. Millions of workers in the US wake up every morning not knowing what time they will start work, how many hours they will be working, or if they will be working at all. On-call scheduling has always been a part of certain occupations, including firefighters and some doctors. In the past, higher salaries partly compensated for the uncertainties of being on-call. PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying Until Jeb Bush proved to be a remarkably inept candidate, it was long expected that the 2016 election would match the son of one former president and brother of another, against the wife of another former president. Further underscoring the dynastic dynamic was that their funding would come from the same sources, numerous powerful factions would have difficulty choosing which candidate would serve their agenda most faithfully, and, as is often true of aristocracies, the two extremely rich families have become very close friends. Activists have delivered over 1 million signatures to the White House demanding that Obama sign an executive order on dark money. A similar petition set up via the White House website’s system passed the 100,000 signatory threshold requiring the Obama administration to respond. Sanders recently described the U.S. incarceration rate, which is the highest in the world, as an “international embarrassment,” pledging to prioritize criminal justice reform under his presidency. More than 2.2 million people are behind bars in the nation, according to the latest Department of Justice figures. He recently decided to organise male-only meet ups in 165 cities across the world where his so-called followers could meet each other and probably share tips on – and this is a direct quote from his site – “sealing the deal”. He has protested time and time again that these gatherings were not pro-rape rallies but this explanation fell on deaf ears and was met with worldwide criticism with some social media users even sending him death threats. Anonymous, famous for their publicity stunts and governmental attacks, went as far as to track down his address and publish it online which I can only imagine led to a barrage of hate mail and harassment from the endless list of people he has offended during his online career. Reflejos (“Reflections”), a Cuban website that publishes blogs authored on the island, has again shut down the page operated by the anti-capitalist and independent Proyecto Arcoiris (“Rainbow Project”), which defends the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals in Cuba. [...] The punishment chosen, the official informed us, was shutting down the blog for a month. This makes me think they actually think very little of what they understand the revolution to be, as they feel that, in a month’s time, all wounds caused by this offense will have healed. Before, they had shut down the site for a week. After the next act of “insubordination,” it will be taken down completely. This past Friday, we published our response to an Australian lawyer, Stuart Gibson, who apparently works for a real law firm called Mills Oakley. I know that Gibson is a real lawyer, because he’s represented big famous clients in the press before, including this impressive TV appearance in which he is left “categorically denying” statements that his client appears to have made directly and then having to defend himself when the news anchor points out what his client has actually said. Anyway, Mr. Gibson did not appear to appreciate my blog post on Friday, and sent a series of short emails over the weekend, with increasing fervor, in which he insisted that I “get proper legal advice instead of publishing your utter dribble,” that my “legal theories” were “nonsensical” and finally demanded to know if I had “the guts” to face him in court. I, as you know, am not a lawyer — either in the US or Australia — and honestly had no idea that one was supposed to make legal decisions based on whether or not one had “the guts.” I had always assumed that this was the kind of thing that you need for bar brawls, rather than legal fights. But perhaps things are different down under. Either way, I did get “proper legal advice” (as I had before publishing my original post, but we’ll leave that aside), and given Gibson’s increasing email threats, our lawyer, the wonderful and well-regarded Paul Alan Levy from Public Citizen Litigation Group, has now responded to Gibson on our behalf. You can read it by following the link or embedded below. There was a moment in my childhood when I learned of the existence of a man named Dick Buttkiss that I realized perfection existed in tiny pockets of real life. I’m watching my 11-year-old son enjoy the same found humor through the realization that if he says “dictionary” very slowly, he can get away with saying “dick” in front of his mother. If you are the kind of person who enjoys a moment in the intellect-free zone that causes us to laugh when the phrase “that’s what she said” is added to nearly anything, then you may already be familiar with the cartoon figure Dickbutt, copyrighted by artist K.C. Green. After all, it includes two of the elemental ingredients, the veritable primary colors of the humor color wheel: male genitalia and a reference to the gluteus maximus. And while technical glitches happen, this is the same company that has waged war on companies trying to deliver a more innovative, efficient and modern TV viewing experience for decades. This behavior has included suing and whining about Aereo; suing to stop Dish’s Hopper ad-skipping technology (and ignoring editorial firewalls over at CNET to hurt said product in the press); whining about Netflix; suing Star Trek fans for expressing their fandom; and constantly threatening to bury over-the-air TV behind the cable paywall unless everybody does exactly what CBS wants. Privacy The super worm known as Stuxnet was but a cog in an active US war program in which hundreds of thousands of network implants and backdoors in Iran networks were actively maintained to facilitate a devastating barrage of hacking attacks, a documentary claims. Zero Days, due to screen at the Berlin Film Festival today, claims that Stuxnet was just one part of an operation called “Olympic Games” that is itself part of a wider effort dubbed “Nitro Zeus” that involves hundreds of US defence personnel. Nitro Zeus may also involve Israel, the film alleges. Reports from those who’ve seen or been briefed on the film suggest it alleges that Stuxnet’s authors attempted to keep the program covert by restricting the malware to infect only Iranian machines. A newly declassified report by the National Security Agency’s inspector general suggests that the government is receiving far less data from Americans’ international Internet communications than privacy advocates have long suspected. The EU’s network and information security agency Enisa has become the latest big-name institution to publicly support strong encryption and claim that any attempts to circumvent such systems by law enforcers will undermine industry and civil society. In a newly released paper, On the free use of cryptographic tools for (self) protection of EU citizens, the agency argued that cryptography provides the electronic equivalent of the “letter cover, the seal or rubber stamp and the signature.” And you’d be forgiven for believing that the court has now ordered Apple to do the impossible. After all, for well over a year, the DOJ has been arguing that the All Writs Act of 1789 can be used to force Apple to help unlock encrypted phones. And that’s an argument it has continued to make in multiple cases. We learned on Tuesday evening that a U.S. federal magistrate judge ordered Apple to backdoor an iPhone that was used by one of the perpetrators of the San Bernardino shootings in December. Apple is fighting the order which would compromise the security of all its users around the world. We are supporting Apple here because the government is doing more than simply asking for Apple’s assistance. For the first time, the government is requesting Apple write brand new code that eliminates key features of iPhone security—security features that protect us all. Essentially, the government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone. And once that master key is created, we’re certain that our government will ask for it again and again, for other phones, and turn this power against any software or device that has the audacity to offer strong security. Due to restrictions and localization of different internet services and sites like YouTube, Netflix, live sports etc., internet users like to use best free VPN services to access the content without any borders. So, keeping the user’s choices in view, fossBytes has come up with a list of the best free VPN services 2016. The New York ACLU has obtained documents from the NYPD — a feat on par with prying paperwork away from the FBI, CIA or NSA — showing the department has been deploying Stingrays without a warrant since 2008. This puts them on the same timeline (and with the same lack of legal paperwork) as the Baltimore Police Department, although the BPD was much more proactive with their deployments: over 4,300 since 2008, as compared to the NYPD’s relatively restrained 1,016. Hacking and computer exploitation by cyber spooks at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) threatens to “fundamentally weaken” the security of the internet, a legal expert with London-based campaigning group Privacy International (PI) has told IBTimes UK. Scarlet Kim, who previously worked for the International Criminal Court and as a fellow at the New York Civil Liberties Union, has hit out against the recent ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) that found intelligence agency spying – and computer hacking – to be perfectly legal. “This ruling sends a dangerous message to other governments that endangering all of our communications is acceptable behaviour,” said Kim. “It also legitimises the incredible privacy intrusions entailed by state hacking. It opens the door for other states to engage in broad hacking operations against their own citizens, as well as those that reside outside their borders. CIA boss John Brennan — perhaps still rattled from being put on the spot by Sen. Ron Wyden at a recent hearing — is now just saying whatever the hell he wants with little regard for facts. As has been noted here in several posts, the terrorist attacks in Paris had nothing to do with encryption (or the Snowden leaks), although many government officials (and the French government itself) were quick to demonize both. Almost immediately into the episode Stan addresses that he’s having computer issues at work, with it seeming like the logical move to bring Steve into the office to hook him up properly. This rather quickly turns into a whole CIA versus the NSA sort of thing, which is a welcome dynamic to add to all of this. This premise features a delightful educational film delineating the differences between the two organizations and their history. This ends up morphing into a great gag where the point of this film becomes more about Billy Bob Thornton, the film’s narrator. The joke only becomes stronger when we get the inverse of it later on from the opposite perspective, this time with George Takei narrating. In spite of the help that Steve is able to provide, Stan, in trademark Stan fashion, abandons Steve and his “Edward Sissyhands” handshake in favor of the cooler kids at the CIA, and in doing so ushers Steve right into the hands of the NSA in the process. Steve’s feeling mighty vengeful at his father — although not vengeful enough to ignore crucial Adobe updates, he’s not a monster after all — and so the rival agency seems like the perfect fit for him. Labour has written a letter to the home secretary, Theresa May, asking her to “reconsider” the current draft of the Investigatory Powers Bill (aka the new Snooper’s Charter). In the wake of three critical reports on the Bill, the letter wants her to “take into account” their conclusions and recommendations, and return to parliament with “a significantly revised and improved Bill.” Labour also says it is “essential that sufficient Parliamentary time is then set aside to enable full scrutiny.” Civil Rights We’ve talked a few times before about the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, a government office theoretically designed to keep money from flowing to and from scary people in scary countries or whatever. Its work typically amounts to keeping businesses from doing business-y things with people in places like North Korea and such. On the other hand, sometimes the folks at the OFAC get their knickers in a twist over a graphic novel about some of these scary people, so it’s not like these folks have a spotless record when it comes to keeping the proper targets in its collective sights. President Obama’s failure to prosecute Bush-era torturers created an impunity that has encouraged some Republican presidential candidates to tout new plans for more torture if they reach the White House, a grotesque example of “American exceptionalism,” as Nat Parry explains According to the psychologists who teamed up with the CIA to design, implement, and oversee the Agency’s post-9/11 torture program, torture is just politics. That’s what James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, CIA contractors who profited enormously from torture, told a federal court last month. Facing a lawsuit by three of their victims, the psychologists argued that courts can’t even hear claims of U.S. government torture — because judges can’t condemn torture “without implicitly questioning, and even condemning, U.S. policy on the war against al-Qa’ida.” In other words, Mitchell and Jessen argue torture is a political decision that the executive branch gets to make without any judicial oversight. The plan’s next step is already in motion. Last Friday, the local prefect announced that another 1,000 or so asylum seekers would be evicted imminently. This time, they will have approximately a week to clear a southern section of the camp. Internet/Net Neutrality The Internet has been a transformative technology for many people around the world, but not everyone. In fact, for about half of the people on our planet, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. Giving new meaning to the term “cloud computing” Google’s Project Loon is aiming to do something about that. Project Loon is targeted to provide high-speed Internet service to remote regions of the world via swarms of helium-filled balloons circling the globe on stratospheric winds. After a series of setbacks, the service is finally going to be tested by carriers this year. And, Google Google has started testing Project Loon in Sri Lanka, after making a deal for spectrum with the government. DRM This is a message that we at Defective By Design have been sounding off on for years. Finally, the folks in Washington are starting to listen. On December 29th, 2015, the United States Copyright Office put out a Notice and Request for Public Comment on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Congress asked them to study the effects of the anti-circumvention rules and the process of granting exemptions. This call for comment presents us with a rare opportunity to have our voice heard when they are finally paying attention. Intellectual Monopolies Copyrights Over the past few years it’s become clear that many users have been watching pirated content using unofficial and unsupported add-ons that frequently break, and they are installing add-on repositories whose trustworthiness is questionable, leaving themselves open to numerous security exploits. Lately there’s even been a move to install “builds,” which intentionally break Kodi and, much like viruses, are almost impossible to uninstall, but have the benefit of adding LOTS of untrustworthy repos full of add-ons that don’t work. Team Kodi maintains an officially neutral stance on what users do with their own software. Kodi is open source software, and as long as the GPL is followed, you are welcome to do with it as you like. So while we don’t love this use of Kodi, as long as you know what illegal and potentially dangerous things you are getting yourself into and accept the fact that the Team will not be providing you with any support, then you are welcome to do what you like. Sheila Drew, who has lived her life for more than eight decades, has now been accused of being an Internet pirate. To prove that, she has received two letters and a £600 bill as well. While she is denying the charges but the trolling war sees no end. Let’s wait for the whole result. Oh, the irony. First pointed out by Mathias Schindler, it appears that a copyright lecture about music copyright done by famed copyright expert and Harvard Law professor William Fisher has been taken down due to a copyright claim by Sony Music. Copyright infringement kills creativity. It’s killing artists and depriving future generations of a variety of works that — if they could even be made in this era of lawlessness — should rightfully be withheld from the public until long after the future generation is dead and next generation fully grown. So. They. Say. Kids, I’m sure you’ve heard about this “Deadpool,” the fourth-wall-breaking, foul-mouthed “superhero” currently raking in $$$ at the megaplexes. For years, it was a pet project passed back and forth between interested shepherds and less-interested studios. Everyone loved the idea but no one wanted to put their money behind it.

Indonesia Morning Show Indonesia Morning Show is an Indonesian Breakfast television on NET. featuring a variety of recent updates, such as hard news, light news, & entertainment news. It broadcasts for 1,5 hours, from 06.00-07.30 WIB. Segments Indonesia Morning Show consists of 12 segments and 8 sub-segments: National News Politics Law and Criminal Business and Finance Social and Economy Culture Education Infotainment (taken from NET. program Entertainment News) Sports Newspaper review Traffic Report Weather Report Music Culinary with Karen Carlotta Health Interactive dialogue Today's History External links https://web.archive.org/web/20131112055151/http://www.netmedia.co.id/program/indonesia-morning-show#sthash.EdZjentf.dpuf Category:Indonesian television news programmes Category:2013 Indonesian television series debuts Category:2010s Indonesian television series Category:NET (Indonesian TV channel) shows

Ghetto Disclaimer Many of my post may be filled with typos, ignorant statements, untruths, bad English, & anything else that may make me appear to be uneducated. Please note: all of these things combined make my Blog the perfect one, because you know I have issues & I am not ashamed. With this said; enjoy, fuck mistakes & read between the lines! So to follow up to my “The Other Woman” post, this afternoon, I had my 1st appointment with Freedom to retighten my Brotherlocks. Well, to make this quick, my appointment was FABULOUS!!! First of all, it only took me 10 minutes to get to her house, second, it only took her 2½ to complete my entire head. When she was done tightening me up, she went through and clipped off all of my frizzies. When she was completely done, I was fucking awe of her speed and the quality of her service. I was like, I cannot believe that I was missing out on this, I mean, she did my hair literally in half the time! I actually like the way my locks felt afterward because they were still soft and had some movement/body. More often than not my locks were kinda stiff when “Pam the Silent” did them. When I left and called Suite Suzy to let her now I was on my way home, she tripped out and could not believe that it was so quick and we both laughed at that.2½ hours in her chair, I am calling “Can’t Call a Nigga Back” to cancel my future that appointment because I am sticking with Freedom. Freedom & I really hit it off I just think that our meeting months ago in Wholefoods was just meant to be. It's strange how time, space & Karma work (if you believe in this sort of thing). So after I got off the phone I called “Pam the Silent” to break the news about me leaving her for another woman. I got her voicemail and left a message for a call back. Fast-forward 8 hours later, “Pam the Silent” calls me back and I let her know that I was making a move to “Freedom” and told her why. I told her that while our hair relationship was on perma-hold for right now, our friendship would remain no matter what! She thanked me for that and thanked me for letting her no that I found another woman. She said that sometimes people leave her but they never say anything, they just all of the sudden stop showing up and she never knows why and not only that sometimes if she contacts them they will not respond. I suspect that this is an issue across the hair stylist/service continuum. Since I talked with “Pam the Silent”, I feel much better and at peace. Fast-forward 2 hours later, I am home after a quick outing in Detroit (post coming soon) and I wash my hair to be funky fresh for the week. I get out of the shower, towel dry my locks, shake my hair a little and look in the mirror, then I say, damn my hair looks fucking good, but you already knew that (I'm really not that cocky). Side note: Mid post, I stopped to watch the final episode of the Soprano’s and what a waste of time that was. One of the biggest shows of all time goes out without a bang, how disappointing! If you watched, what did you think?

Processes of this kind are employed on a large scale in the recovery of metals from ores. After the metals are brought into an aqueous solution, the required metal ions are then extracted from such solution. In addition, this process is also employed for the recovery of metals from waste streams originating, for instance, from the electroplating industry, catalyst processing and the like. Various materials have been used as organic extracting agents, such as thiobenzoylmethane dissolved in benzene or chloroform, together with a pyridine derivative, for extraction of nickel (See J. Inorg. Nucl. Chem. 31 (1969) p. 2612). For extraction of copper, nickel and cobalt, pyrophthalone or 5-nitropyrophthalone may be used (Russion Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 18 (1973) no. 8). In addition, a great number of other extracting agents are known which are based on .alpha.- or .beta.-hydroxyoxime compounds. One characteristic of these various extracting agents is that their use is, in most cases, expensive while a number of them exhibit undesirable, toxic properties. A general review of metal-extraction is given in Chemical Engineering, Aug. 30, 1976, pp. 86-94. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a less expensive extracting agent which is simple to employ and which is also relatively non-toxic. This invention has been developed by work of the above named inventors with the technical assistance of the Technical University at Eindhoven.

This fourth chapter of James is a "manual" on how to live in the last days. Please join with me in this devotional reading to learn how to apply the directives for living in light of the sure "promise" that Jesus is coming to call us up to be with Him, and the sure "prospect" that the Rapture will happen real soon, at any moment. Jesus said, one of the indications that His Second Coming is close is that there will be a time when you see "wars and rumors of wars", Matthew 24:6. James, the half brother of Jesus states that these wars come from the "lust that war in our members", within the soul of each of us, lost and saved. The "lusts" within each of us must be kept under control lest they take control of us. How wonderful that God gives us the "grace" to have a victory over these lusts. And please notice, God gives more "grace" to those of us who humble ourselves before the Lord and our fellow man, verses 6 & 10. Many scriptures, and especially in the book of Revelation, speak of the Devil in the last days. The Devil will do everything he can to destroy the Jewish people, he knows if he can get rid of the Jews, the Lord can't keep His promises to them and Satan becomes the "god". The Devil, also in the last days, will go after Christians, the true born-again believer, in the days before Jesus calls up to be with Him at the Rapture. James gives us the "how-to's" of what we must do to have victory over Satan, in verse 7. Notice we are not told to command the Devil to do anything. We are to "submit ourselves to God and resist the devil." Then, on the promise and the authority of God's Word, the devil will flee from us. To submit is to offer ourselves in full surrender to the Lord. This devotional reading for today is indeed an excellent "manual" for living in the last days. PRAYER THOT: Lord help me to submit myself totally to You so that the lust of the flesh don't control me and so that the Devil will have to flee from me.

Related Products This Octagon Bird Feeder is built with solid pressure treated wood and designed to compliment any 4 x 4 post mount. It has the convenient feature of a lift off roof knob that provides easy refill access. It is built to last handcrafted in Lancaster PA by skilled Amish craftsmen.

Lies held up death probe LIARS: Richard Green and Natalie Critchley at their daughters funeral last year Lia Green’s parents have been branded ‘liars’ by police after the tragic toddler’s mum was found guilty of child cruelty. The three-year-old died on August 30 last year after suffering severe internal injuries at the hands of her dad Richard Green, 23, of Harling Road, Ribbleton, Preston, who last month pleaded guilty to manslaughter. And yesterday a jury at Preston’s Sessions House took just two hours to find Natalie Critchley guilty of wilfully neglecting Lia. Critchley, 21, of Norris Street, Plungington, Preston, broke down as the unanimous verdict was returned. Speaking afterwards, Det Supt Andy Murphy said the couple had told a “concoction of lies”. He said: “Natalie Critchley failed in her duty as a mother - to care for and save from harm her little girl.” Detectives said the probe into the tot’s death was “particularly challenging” because they were hindered by the lies of her parents. Richard Green was described as “arrogant and unhelpful” in interview, while Natalie Critchley was portrayed as “self-obsessed”. Around 50 officers worked on the case from the Force Major Incident Team offices in Preston, where pictures of the pretty little girl are pinned on the wall, alongside mugshots of Green and Critchley. Det Supt Andy Murphy, senior investigating officer in the case, said: “The most complex thing about this investigation was not only that a three-year-old had died, and all the emotion that comes with that, but that her parents persistently lied. “Sadly, the person who knew the most about what happened is dead. “The most critical thing in dealing with the family was to establish were they grieving parents or suspects. “Their reaction was difficult to interpret, was it grief or were they guilty? “Both of them cried in their interviews, but you got the feeling they were selfish tears for themselves and their own discomfort of being in the police station.” After Green pleaded guilty to Lia’s manslaughter, Critchley’s charge was changed to one of child cruelty. Det Supt Murphy said: “We were seeking an explanation from both of them but what has been shown by Green’s plea is what they both told us was marred with lies and deceit. “It was a case of cutting through those lies and establishing the true facts, which has been difficult because they have just not assisted us. “The paediatrician explained to officers in some detail that the events Richard and Natalie were talking about just couldn’t have happened - it is impossible. “The way we established what had happened was through pathological evidence. “The paediatrician explained to officers in some detail the events that Richard and Natalie were talking about just couldn’t have happened, it is impossible. Lia couldn’t have sat up and wouldn’t have been hungry. “There is even some evidence that she was dead for longer than they said, though that is not conclusive. “Up to the trial the family were supportive of both of them, I suppose they were convinced by their lies and deceit.” He said he was pleased with the verdict but there were “no winners” in the case. He added: “Lia had her whole life ahead of her and the people who should have been protecting her have let her down in an unthinkable and unimaginable way.” The four women and eight men of the jury asked to hear Critchley and Green’s 999 call one last time before reaching their verdict. An hour later when her guilt was confirmed the mum dropped and shook her head and started to cry. The couple are expected to be sentenced on May 24. However, Critchley’s family insisted she was “innocent”. Her mum, Jackie Critchley said: “The injury happened when Natalie was at work and that’s all I know. “My daughter is innocent. We are going to fight for her because she has done nothing wrong.” A serious case review looking at the role of agencies including Social Services, who came into contact with the youngster before she died, will be launched to see if lessons can be learnt from Lia’s death. Nigel Burke, independent chairman of Lancashire Safeguarding Children Board, said: “I would like to send our sympathy and condolences to the families involved in this very sad case. “A serious case review has been commissioned into this child’s tragic death and it will be published in due course after we have been able to share its findings with family members.” Serious case reviews are usually carried out when a child dies and abuse or neglect is known or suspected to be a factor in the death. This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the Editor by clicking here. If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by clicking here. Lancashire Evening Post provides news, events and sport features from the Preston area. For the best up to date information relating to Preston and the surrounding areas visit us at Lancashire Evening Post regularly or bookmark this page. For you to enjoy all the features of this website Lancashire Evening Post requires permission to use cookies. Find Out More ▼ What is a Cookie? What is a Flash Cookie? Can I opt out of receiving Cookies? About our Cookies Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device. This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts. Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on. However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result. The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below: Revenue Science ► A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here. Google Ads ► Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here. Digital Analytics ► This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites. Dart for Publishers ► This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring. ComScore ► ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual. Local Targeting ► Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information. Grapeshot ► We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here. Subscriptions Online ► Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience. Add This ► Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.

Development of a selective enrichment broth supplemented with bacteriological charcoal and a high concentration of polymyxin B for the detection of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli in chicken carcass rinses. A new Campylobacter-selective enrichment broth supplemented with bacteriological charcoal and a high concentration of polymyxin B was developed (charcoal-cefoperazone-polymyxin B-deoxycholate broth; CCPD broth). We compared the ability of CCPD broth to detect Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli in chicken carcass rinses to that of modified Bolton (mBolton) broth. Eighty whole chickens were purchased from retailers and rinsed with 400 mL buffered peptone water. The rinsed samples were enriched with 2× blood-free mBolton enrichment broth or 2× CCPD broth at 42 °C for 48 h and then streaked onto modified charcoal-cefoperazone-deoxycholate agar (mCCDA). The Campylobacter isolation rate was significantly higher in CCPD broth than in mBolton broth (CCPD broth, 61 out of 80; mBolton broth, 34 out of 80; p<0.05). Moreover, the selectivity of CCPD broth agar was also superior to that of mBolton broth when comparing the number of contaminated mCCDA plates (CCPD broth, 16 out of 80; mBolton broth, 58 out of 80; p<0.05) and the growth index of competing flora (CCPD broth, 1.4; mBolton broth, 2.9; p<0.05).

Q: Comparing two collections for equality irrespective of the order of items in them I would like to compare two collections (in C#), but I'm not sure of the best way to implement this efficiently. I've read the other thread about Enumerable.SequenceEqual, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. In my case, two collections would be equal if they both contain the same items (no matter the order). Example: collection1 = {1, 2, 3, 4}; collection2 = {2, 4, 1, 3}; collection1 == collection2; // true What I usually do is to loop through each item of one collection and see if it exists in the other collection, then loop through each item of the other collection and see if it exists in the first collection. (I start by comparing the lengths). if (collection1.Count != collection2.Count) return false; // the collections are not equal foreach (Item item in collection1) { if (!collection2.Contains(item)) return false; // the collections are not equal } foreach (Item item in collection2) { if (!collection1.Contains(item)) return false; // the collections are not equal } return true; // the collections are equal However, this is not entirely correct, and it's probably not the most efficient way to do compare two collections for equality. An example I can think of that would be wrong is: collection1 = {1, 2, 3, 3, 4} collection2 = {1, 2, 2, 3, 4} Which would be equal with my implementation. Should I just count the number of times each item is found and make sure the counts are equal in both collections? The examples are in some sort of C# (let's call it pseudo-C#), but give your answer in whatever language you wish, it does not matter. Note: I used integers in the examples for simplicity, but I want to be able to use reference-type objects too (they do not behave correctly as keys because only the reference of the object is compared, not the content). A: It turns out Microsoft already has this covered in its testing framework: CollectionAssert.AreEquivalent Remarks Two collections are equivalent if they have the same elements in the same quantity, but in any order. Elements are equal if their values are equal, not if they refer to the same object. Using reflector, I modified the code behind AreEquivalent() to create a corresponding equality comparer. It is more complete than existing answers, since it takes nulls into account, implements IEqualityComparer and has some efficiency and edge case checks. plus, it's Microsoft :) public class MultiSetComparer<T> : IEqualityComparer<IEnumerable<T>> { private readonly IEqualityComparer<T> m_comparer; public MultiSetComparer(IEqualityComparer<T> comparer = null) { m_comparer = comparer ?? EqualityComparer<T>.Default; } public bool Equals(IEnumerable<T> first, IEnumerable<T> second) { if (first == null) return second == null; if (second == null) return false; if (ReferenceEquals(first, second)) return true; if (first is ICollection<T> firstCollection && second is ICollection<T> secondCollection) { if (firstCollection.Count != secondCollection.Count) return false; if (firstCollection.Count == 0) return true; } return !HaveMismatchedElement(first, second); } private bool HaveMismatchedElement(IEnumerable<T> first, IEnumerable<T> second) { int firstNullCount; int secondNullCount; var firstElementCounts = GetElementCounts(first, out firstNullCount); var secondElementCounts = GetElementCounts(second, out secondNullCount); if (firstNullCount != secondNullCount || firstElementCounts.Count != secondElementCounts.Count) return true; foreach (var kvp in firstElementCounts) { var firstElementCount = kvp.Value; int secondElementCount; secondElementCounts.TryGetValue(kvp.Key, out secondElementCount); if (firstElementCount != secondElementCount) return true; } return false; } private Dictionary<T, int> GetElementCounts(IEnumerable<T> enumerable, out int nullCount) { var dictionary = new Dictionary<T, int>(m_comparer); nullCount = 0; foreach (T element in enumerable) { if (element == null) { nullCount++; } else { int num; dictionary.TryGetValue(element, out num); num++; dictionary[element] = num; } } return dictionary; } public int GetHashCode(IEnumerable<T> enumerable) { if (enumerable == null) throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(enumerable)); int hash = 17; foreach (T val in enumerable.OrderBy(x => x)) hash = hash * 23 + (val?.GetHashCode() ?? 42); return hash; } } Sample usage: var set = new HashSet<IEnumerable<int>>(new[] {new[]{1,2,3}}, new MultiSetComparer<int>()); Console.WriteLine(set.Contains(new [] {3,2,1})); //true Console.WriteLine(set.Contains(new [] {1, 2, 3, 3})); //false Or if you just want to compare two collections directly: var comp = new MultiSetComparer<string>(); Console.WriteLine(comp.Equals(new[] {"a","b","c"}, new[] {"a","c","b"})); //true Console.WriteLine(comp.Equals(new[] {"a","b","c"}, new[] {"a","b"})); //false Finally, you can use your an equality comparer of your choice: var strcomp = new MultiSetComparer<string>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase); Console.WriteLine(strcomp.Equals(new[] {"a", "b"}, new []{"B", "A"})); //true A: A simple and fairly efficient solution is to sort both collections and then compare them for equality: bool equal = collection1.OrderBy(i => i).SequenceEqual( collection2.OrderBy(i => i)); This algorithm is O(N*logN), while your solution above is O(N^2). If the collections have certain properties, you may be able to implement a faster solution. For example, if both of your collections are hash sets, they cannot contain duplicates. Also, checking whether a hash set contains some element is very fast. In that case an algorithm similar to yours would likely be fastest. A: Create a Dictionary "dict" and then for each member in the first collection, do dict[member]++; Then, loop over the second collection in the same way, but for each member do dict[member]--. At the end, loop over all of the members in the dictionary: private bool SetEqual (List<int> left, List<int> right) { if (left.Count != right.Count) return false; Dictionary<int, int> dict = new Dictionary<int, int>(); foreach (int member in left) { if (dict.ContainsKey(member) == false) dict[member] = 1; else dict[member]++; } foreach (int member in right) { if (dict.ContainsKey(member) == false) return false; else dict[member]--; } foreach (KeyValuePair<int, int> kvp in dict) { if (kvp.Value != 0) return false; } return true; } Edit: As far as I can tell this is on the same order as the most efficient algorithm. This algorithm is O(N), assuming that the Dictionary uses O(1) lookups.

Q: Dynamic td not resize when show In the following code clicking the checkbox un-hides a new row in the table, but the cells in that row are not sized the same as those in the first row - how do I ensure the second row has same sized cells? function test() { if((document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.contains("tr-withe")) && (document.getElementById("notch").classList.contains("boxNotchNot")) ) { document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.remove('tr-withe'); document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.add('boxTR'); document.getElementById("notch").classList.remove("boxNotchNot"); document.getElementById("notch").classList.add('boxNotchInLine'); } else { document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.remove('boxTR'); document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.add('tr-withe'); document.getElementById("notch").classList.remove("boxNotchInLine"); document.getElementById("notch").classList.add('boxNotchNot'); } } .boxTR { display: block; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; background-color: #E6E6E6; } .boxNotchInLine { border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; background-color: #E6E6E6; display: block; width: inherit; } .boxNotchNot { display: none; } table { border-spacing: 0; table-layout: fixed; width: auto; } th, td { text-align: center; } .tr-withe { background-color: #E6E6E6 } .tr-black{ background-color:#DBDBDB } <form action=""> <table id="testT"> <tr id="valDesc" class="tr-withe"> <td> ciao </td> <td> <input type="text"/> </td> <td> ciao2 </td> <td> ciao3 </td> <td> ciao4 </td> </tr> <tr id="notch" class="boxNotchNot"> <td> test </td> <td > test1 </td> <td > test2 </td> <td > test3 </td> <td > test4 </td> </tr> </table> <input type="checkbox" value="" onclick="test()"/> </form> A: You're killing the table sizing with the block display. Comment out in your CSS display: block and it will work fine: function test() { if((document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.contains("tr-withe")) && (document.getElementById("notch").classList.contains("boxNotchNot")) ) { document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.remove('tr-withe'); document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.add('boxTR'); document.getElementById("notch").classList.remove("boxNotchNot"); document.getElementById("notch").classList.add('boxNotchInLine'); } else { document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.remove('boxTR'); document.getElementById("valDesc").classList.add('tr-withe'); document.getElementById("notch").classList.remove("boxNotchInLine"); document.getElementById("notch").classList.add('boxNotchNot'); } } .boxTR { !display: block; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; background-color: #E6E6E6; } .boxNotchInLine { border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; background-color: #E6E6E6; !display: block; width: inherit; } .boxNotchNot { display: none; } table { border-spacing: 0; table-layout: fixed; width: auto; } th, td { text-align: center; } .tr-withe { background-color: #E6E6E6 } .tr-black{ background-color:#DBDBDB } <form action=""> <table id="testT"> <tr id="valDesc" class="tr-withe"> <td> ciao </td> <td> <input type="text"/> </td> <td> ciao2 </td> <td> ciao3 </td> <td> ciao4 </td> </tr> <tr id="notch" class="boxNotchNot"> <td> test </td> <td style='background-color: red;'> test1 </td> <td > test2 </td> <td > test3 </td> <td > test4 </td> </tr> </table> <input type="checkbox" value="" onclick="test()"/> </form>

Evaluation of variation in genes of the arylhydrocarbon receptor pathway for an association with multiple sclerosis. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) contributes to immune regulation in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Analysis of selected polymorphisms in AhR pathway genes in 805 MS patients and 1023 controls revealed a modest association of a CYP1B1 polymorphism with secondary progressive MS that became more pronounced in combination with other SNPs in the pathway, suggesting interactive effects. Additionally, first evidence for an interaction with smoking was found, but due to small sample sizes statistical significance was only nominal. Confirmation of these results in independent cohorts is recommended, since targeting the AhR constitutes a therapeutic option for autoimmune diseases.

<?php /** * Tests for the WC_Customer_Data_Store_Custom_Table class. * * @package WooCommerce_Custom_Orders_Table * @author Liquid Web */ class CustomerDataStoreTest extends TestCase { /** * @testWith ["some-value", "wc-some-value"] * ["wc-some-value", "wc-some-value"] */ public function test_prefix_wc_status( $value, $expected ) { $this->assertSame( $expected, WC_Customer_Data_Store_Custom_Table::prefix_wc_status( $value ) ); } }

/* ** Taiga ** Copyright (C) 2010-2020, Eren Okka ** ** This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify ** it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by ** the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or ** (at your option) any later version. ** ** This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, ** but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of ** MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the ** GNU General Public License for more details. ** ** You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License ** along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. */ #include <regex> #include <semaver.hpp> #include "track/recognition.h" #include "base/file.h" #include "base/format.h" #include "base/log.h" #include "sync/service.h" #include "taiga/path.h" #include "taiga/settings.h" #include "taiga/version.h" namespace track::recognition { class Relation { public: using int_pair_t = std::pair<int, int>; void AddRange(int id, int_pair_t r1, int_pair_t r2); bool FindRange(int episode_number, int_pair_t& result) const; private: struct Range { int id; int_pair_t r0; int_pair_t r1; }; std::vector<Range> ranges_; }; std::map<int, Relation> relations; //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// void Relation::AddRange(int id, int_pair_t r1, int_pair_t r2) { ranges_.push_back({id, r1, r2}); } bool Relation::FindRange(int episode_number, int_pair_t& result) const { for (const auto& it : ranges_) { int distance = episode_number - it.r0.first; if (distance >= 0) { if (it.r0.second - episode_number >= 0) { int destination = it.r1.first; if (it.r1.first != it.r1.second) destination += distance; if (destination <= it.r1.second) { result.first = it.id; result.second = destination; return true; } } } } return false; } //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// static bool ParseRule(const std::wstring& rule) { constexpr auto id_pattern = L"((?:\\d+|[?~])(?:\\|(?:\\d+|[?~]))*)"; constexpr auto episode_pattern = L"(\\d+)(?:-(\\d+|\\?))?"; static const std::wregex pattern( L"{0}:{1} -> {0}:{1}(!)?"_format(id_pattern, episode_pattern)); std::match_results<std::wstring::const_iterator> match_results; if (!std::regex_match(rule, match_results, pattern)) return false; auto get_id = [&](size_t index) { std::vector<std::wstring> ids; Split(match_results[index].str(), L"|", ids); switch (sync::GetCurrentServiceId()) { case sync::ServiceId::MyAnimeList: return ids.size() > 0 ? ToInt(ids.at(0)) : 0; case sync::ServiceId::Kitsu: return ids.size() > 1 ? ToInt(ids.at(1)) : 0; case sync::ServiceId::AniList: return ids.size() > 2 ? ToInt(ids.at(2)) : 0; default: return 0; } }; auto get_range = [&](size_t first, size_t second) { std::pair<int, int> range; range.first = ToInt(match_results[first].str()); if (match_results[second].matched) { if (IsNumericString(match_results[second].str())) { range.second = ToInt(match_results[second].str()); } else { range.second = INT_MAX; } } else { range.second = range.first; } return range; }; const int id0 = get_id(1); if (id0) { const auto r0 = get_range(2, 3); int id1 = get_id(4); if (!id1) id1 = id0; const auto r1 = get_range(5, 6); relations[id0].AddRange(id1, r0, r1); if (match_results[7].matched) relations[id1].AddRange(id1, r0, r1); } return true; } bool Engine::ReadRelations() { std::wstring path = taiga::GetPath(taiga::Path::DatabaseAnimeRelations); std::string document; if (!ReadFromFile(path, document)) { LOGW(L"Could not read anime relations data."); taiga::settings.SetRecognitionRelationsLastModified(std::wstring{}); return false; } return ReadRelations(document); } bool Engine::ReadRelations(const std::string& document) { relations.clear(); std::vector<std::wstring> lines; Split(StrToWstr(document), L"\n", lines); enum class FileSection { Unknown, Meta, Rules, }; auto current_section = FileSection::Unknown; for (auto& line : lines) { Trim(line, L"\r "); if (line.empty()) continue; if (line.front() == L'#') // comment continue; if (StartsWith(line, L"::")) { auto section = line.substr(2); if (section == L"meta") { current_section = FileSection::Meta; } else if (section == L"rules") { current_section = FileSection::Rules; } else { current_section = FileSection::Unknown; } continue; } switch (current_section) { case FileSection::Meta: { TrimLeft(line, L"- "); static const std::wregex pattern(L"([a-z_]+): (.+)"); std::match_results<std::wstring::const_iterator> match_results; if (std::regex_match(line, match_results, pattern)) { auto name = match_results[1].str(); auto value = match_results[2].str(); if (name == L"version") { const semaver::Version version(WstrToStr(value)); if (version > taiga::version()) LOGD(L"Anime relations version is larger than application version."); } else if (name == L"last_modified") { taiga::settings.SetRecognitionRelationsLastModified(value); } } break; } case FileSection::Rules: { TrimLeft(line, L"- "); if (!ParseRule(line)) LOGW(L"Could not parse rule: {}", line); break; } } } return !relations.empty(); } //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// bool Engine::SearchEpisodeRedirection( int id, const std::pair<int, int>& range, int& destination_id, std::pair<int, int>& destination_range) const { auto it = relations.find(id); if (it == relations.end()) return false; const auto& relation = it->second; std::pair<std::pair<int, int>, std::pair<int, int>> results; if (!relation.FindRange(range.first, results.first)) return false; if (range.first != range.second) { if (!relation.FindRange(range.second, results.second)) return false; if (results.first.first != results.second.first) return false; } destination_id = results.first.first; destination_range.first = results.first.second; destination_range.second = results.second.second; return true; } } // namespace track::recognition

Engineering Master has a unique approach of devising test series, which enables you to get good rank. It consists of two test patterns, to facilitate your preparation: Classroom Practice Program CQPP ie Conventional Question Practice Program Classroom Practice Program is devised for those students who require a bit of conceptual clarity on certain topics. In this program you will be provided with a booklet containing two set of questions, each involving all the concepts on which question will be asked in the exam, in such a way that by practicing these questions only, again-and-again, you can be sure of solving all questions asked in the exam. One set of questions will be discussed in the class, and you can raise your doubts and get it clarified in class itself. The second set will be for you to practice, at home. Once you have solved the questions, there will be a test on these topics. You can also avail of the CQPP Program if you have taken admission in the Classroom Practice Program. In the CQPP Program you will be provided with a schedule of tests. The schedule will have new topics as well as revision topics. In each test, question will be asked based on certain important topics, and after one or two tests the topics that have already been covered, will again be asked. This facilitates you to keep revising topics and carry the whole subjects together, which is central to this exam.

Rabu, 01 Februari 2012 Accessory brand ‘J. Estina‘ has unveiled the first shot from their 2012 Spring/Summer collection featuring their main models, Girls’ Generation (SNSD). Dressed in this season’s trend colors of peach, dusk orange, and ivory, the girls have transformed into beautiful modern princesses. The members are so pretty in fact, that it’s hard to take your eyes off them to focus on the true stars of the shot — J.Estina’s bags and purses. Of course, it’s clever marketing when you consider the impact these girls have on consumers. Sales have reportedly shot through the roof thanks to this flawless combination of Girls’ Generation’s ‘princess’ look with the brand’s glamorous image. Girls’ Generation will be releasing a making-of video showing other fashion styles and looks that fans can look forward to.

All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information file. Introduction {#sec005} ============ Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complicated autoimmune disease which can affect almost all systems and organs. Skin, muscle skeletal system, hematological system and kidney are most frequently involved systems in Chinese patients \[[@pone.0225516.ref001]\]. Thrombocytopenia (TP) is a common hematological disorder in patients with SLE. The prevalence is estimated to range from 10% to 40% according to published literatures \[[@pone.0225516.ref002]--[@pone.0225516.ref005]\]. The association between thrombocytopenia and characteristics of SLE patients has been investigated in several studies. Thrombocytopenia has been shown to be associated with other severe clinical manifestations and poor prognosis in patients with SLE \[[@pone.0225516.ref006]--[@pone.0225516.ref008]\]. However, multicenter data regarding thrombocytopenia in Chinese SLE patients are limited. Chinese SLE Treatment and Research group (CSTAR), which is supported by Chinese National Key Technology Research and Development Program, developed the first on-line registry of Chinese patients with SLE. This registry has described major clinical characteristics and related manifestations in Chinese patients, such as pulmonary arterial hypertension and serositis \[[@pone.0225516.ref009]--[@pone.0225516.ref010]\]. It also provides the opportunity to investigate the epidemiological and clinical features of patients with SLE-related thrombocytopenia. Methods {#sec006} ======= Patient recruitment {#sec007} ------------------- Based on the CSTAR online registry, the study was conducted at 104 high-rank rheumatology centers in 30 provinces across China. As the leading center, Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) takes substantial responsibilities for the training, communication and funding for the registry. This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH), which was the leading research center. Most centers accepted Ethics Committees (EC) from PUMCH as the leading site, some approved by their own EC, included Beijing Tongren Hospital, the General Hospital of Tianjing Medical University, and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical College. Written informed consents were provided by all patients before their enrollments into the CSTAR registry. Between April 2009 and February 2010, the CSTAR registry recruited 2104 Chinese SLE patients who fulfilled the 1997 SLE classification criteria revised by the ACR \[[@pone.0225516.ref011]\]. Definition of thrombocytopenia {#sec008} ------------------------------ Lupus-related thrombocytopenia was defined as the platelet count less than 100,000/mm^3^ at baseline. The diagnosis was made only if other causes, such as primary hematological disorders, viral infection and drug-induced thrombocytopenia, were excluded by the physicians at enrollment. Patients with thrombocytopenia were further categorized as having mild or severe thrombocytopenia. The same definition of severe thrombocytopenia as the LUMINA cohort \[[@pone.0225516.ref006]\] (platelet count less than 50,000/mm^3^) was used in this study. The recruitment and exclusion processes were shown in [Fig 1](#pone.0225516.g001){ref-type="fig"}. {#pone.0225516.g001} Data collection {#sec009} --------------- All CSTAR centers used the same protocol-directed methods to provide uniform evaluations and to record the patients' data. Investigators received training on diagnosis confirmation, disease activity evaluation, data input and data quality control. In this 6-year longitudinal study, demographic, clinical and laboratory data were collected. Systemic involvements, including neuropsychiatric SLE, vasculitis, arthritis, myositis, lupus nephritis, mucocutaneous lesions, pleuritic and fever, were defined according to the SLE Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) \[[@pone.0225516.ref012]\]. Laboratory data included white blood cell counts, complement levels and autoantibodies. Antinuclear antibodies (ANA), anti-double-stranded (ds)DNA, anti-Smith (Sm), anti-SSA/Ro, anti-SSB/La, anti-ribonucleoprotein (RNP), anti-ribosomal (anti-r) RNP and anti-phospholipid antibodies were measured in all patients at local laboratories. SLE disease activity was evaluated in all patients by SLEDAI. Damage was measured with the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index (SDI) \[[@pone.0225516.ref013]\] at the last visit. Mortality was recorded within six years. Data were collected between April 2009 and March 2016. The authors did not have access to information that could identify individual participants during or after data collection. Statistical analysis {#sec010} -------------------- A case-control approach was used to compare parameters between patients with and without thrombocytopenia, and between patients with severe thrombocytopenia and mild thrombocytopenia (platelet count less than 100,000/mm^3^ but great than or equal to 50,000/mm^3^). All analyses were conducted using the SPSS 19.0 statistical package (SPSS, Chicago, USA). Variables were described using counts and/or percentages or medians and ranges. Student's t test was used to compare quantitative data. Chi-squared test was used for the comparison of categorical data between the two groups. Variables with P values \<0.05 in the univariate analyses were further investigated using multivariate binary logistic regression analysis. Mortality was compared between patients with and without thrombocytopenia, and between patients with severe thrombocytopenia and mild thrombocytopenia, respectively, using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox regression. P values \<0.05 were considered to be statistically significant. Results {#sec011} ======= Patients and demographics {#sec012} ------------------------- From April 2009 to February 2010, 2104 Chinese patients with SLE who fulfilled four or more of the 1997 ACR revised SLE classification criteria were registered into the CSTAR cohort. Of these patients, 342 (16.3%) had thrombocytopenia at baseline. In patients with thrombocytopenia, mean (SD) platelet count was 78.8 (65.1) ×10^9^/mm^3^, mean (SD) age at onset was 30.5 (12.1) years, age at diagnosis was 32.0 (12.4) years. The mean (SD) disease duration was 41.5 (64.6) months. As shown in [Table 1](#pone.0225516.t001){ref-type="table"}, there was no significant difference in age, gender or disease duration between patients with thrombocytopenia and those without. 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t001 ###### Demographic and clinical features of patients with or without thrombocytopenia. {#pone.0225516.t001g} *Thrombocytopenia* *P value* ------------------------------ -------------------- -------------- ------------- Platelet count (1,000/mm^3^) 78.8±65.1 206.1±76.5 Sex, female 311 (90.9%) 1603 (91.0%) 0.981 Age at onset (years) 30.5±12.1 29.4±12.3 0.150 Age at diagnosis (years) 32.0±12.4 30.5±12.5 0.056 Disease duration (months) 41.5±64.6 42.1±57.7 0.874 NPSLE 29 (8.5%) 89 (5.1%) **0.012** Vasculitis 36 (10.5%) 107 (6.1%) **0.003** Arthritis 95 (27.8%) 537 (30.5%) 0.319 Myositis 13 (3.8%) 35 (2.0%) **0.040** Lupus nephritis 195 (57.0%) 654 (37.1%) **\<0.001** Mucocutaneous involvement 195 (57.0%) 893 (50.7%) **0.032** Pleuritis 48 (14.0%) 149 (8.5%) **\<0.001** Fever 99 (28.9%) 352 (20.0%) **\<0.001** NPSLE: neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus. Clinical manifestations {#sec013} ----------------------- The clinical manifestations are shown in [Table 1](#pone.0225516.t001){ref-type="table"}. In univariate analysis, the prevalence of neurological involvement, vasculitis, myositis, nephritis, mucocutaneous involvement, pleuritic and fever were significantly higher in patients with thrombocytopenia than those without (P\<0.05). Laboratory findings {#sec014} ------------------- As shown in [Table 2](#pone.0225516.t002){ref-type="table"}, the prevalence of leukocytopenia and hypocomplementemia were significantly higher in patients with thrombocytopenia in univariate analysis. 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t002 ###### Laboratory findings of patients with or without thrombocytopenia. {#pone.0225516.t002g} *Thrombocytopenia* *P value* -------------------- -------------------- ----------------- ------------- Leukocytopenia 152 (44.4%) 352 (20.0%) **\<0.001** Hypocomplementemia 280 (81.9%) 1119 (63.5%) **\<0.001** ANA 334 (97.7%) 1730 (98.2%) 0.517 Anti-dsDNA 95 (27.8%) 519 (29.5%) 0.532 Anti-Sm 65 (19.0%) 284 (16.1%) 0.189 Anti-RNP 29 (8.5%) 160 (9.1%) 0.722 Anti-SSA/Ro 93 (27.2%) 407 (23.1%) 0.104 Anti-SSB/La 40 (11.7%) 184 (10.4%) 0.492 Anti-rRNP 41/165 (24.8%) 212/847 (25.0%) 0.959 APL 88/175 (50.3%) 326/760 (42.9%) 0.076 ANA: anti-nuclear antibodies; anti-dsDNA: anti-double-stranded DNA; anti-RNP: anti-ribonucleoprotein; anti-rRNP: anti-ribosomal RNP; anti-Sm: anti-Smith; APL: anti-phospholipid. SLE disease activity {#sec015} -------------------- SLEDAI was significantly higher in thrombocytopenia group than in non-thrombocytopenia group (13.2±7.5 vs. 9.0±6.7, p\<0.001). Multivariate analysis {#sec016} --------------------- Multivariate analysis revealed that leukocytopenia, lupus nephritis, hypocomplementemia and elevated SLEDAI were independent related factors of thrombocytopenia in patients with SLE (all p\<0.05), as shown in [Table 3](#pone.0225516.t003){ref-type="table"}. 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t003 ###### Multivariable analysis on related factors of thrombocytopenia in SLE. {#pone.0225516.t003g} *Odds ratio (95% CI)* *P value* --------------------------- ----------------------- ------------- NPSLE 1.155 (0.697--1.914) 0.577 Vasculitis 1.157 (0.730--1.832) 0.535 Myositis 1.281 (0.637--2.575) 0.487 Lupus nephritis 1.539 (1.121--2.111) **0.008** Mucocutaneous involvement 0.831 (0.633--1.092) 0.185 Pleuritis 1.041 (0.709--1.527) 0.838 Fever 1.034 (0.775--1.380) 0.821 Leukocytopenia 2.644 (2.035--3.435) **\<0.001** Hypocomplementemia 1.497 (1.077--2.082) **0.016** SLEDAI 1.318 (1.069--1.624) **0.010** NPSLE: neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus; SLEDAI: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index. Prognosis {#sec017} --------- Of 2104 patients, 1494 had long-term follow-up data. No difference in damage at last visit was observed between thrombocytopenia (n = 226) and non-thrombocytopenia (n = 1268) group (0.36±0.66 vs. 0.30±0.60, p = 0.168). The 6-year survival of patients with thrombocytopenia was significantly lower than patients without thrombocytopenia (88.2% vs. 95.5%, p\<0.001, as shown in [Fig 2](#pone.0225516.g002){ref-type="fig"}). In multivariate Cox regression ([Table 4](#pone.0225516.t004){ref-type="table"}), thrombocytopenia, sex, age of onset, disease duration, baseline damage and factors related with TP (nephritis, leukocytopenia, hypocomplementemia and SLEDAI) were analyzed. Male sex, older age of onset, and nephritis at baseline were revealed to be risk factors of mortality. {#pone.0225516.g002} 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t004 ###### Multivariate Cox regression on risk factors of mortality in patients with SLE. {#pone.0225516.t004g} *P value* *RR* *95% CI of RR* -------------------- ----------- ------- ---------------- ------- Sex (male) **0.003** 3.491 1.521 8.013 Age of onset **0.001** 1.042 1.017 1.069 Disease duration 0.476 1.027 .954 1.106 Lupus nephritis **0.019** 3.096 1.204 7.962 Leukocytopenia 0.224 1.683 0.728 3.891 Hypocomplementemia 0.285 0.622 0.260 1.485 SLEDAI 0.741 0.989 0.924 1.058 Baseline damage 0.139 1.872 0.815 4.301 Thrombocytopenia 0.517 1.346 0.548 3.306 RR: relative risk; CI: confidence interval; SLEDAI: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index. Comparison of patients with severe and mild thrombocytopenia {#sec018} ------------------------------------------------------------ As shown in [Table 5](#pone.0225516.t005){ref-type="table"}, 95 patients (27.8%) had severe thrombocytopenia. Of these patients, 87 (91.6%) were female. Their mean (SD) platelet count was 23.4 (14.2) ×10^9^/mm^3^, mean (SD) age at onset was 31.9 (12.2) years, age at diagnosis was 33.5(12.2) years. Their mean (SD) disease duration was 60.9 (80.8) months, which was obviously longer than patients with mild thrombocytopenia. There was no significant difference in age or gender between patients with severe or mild thrombocytopenia. The prevalence of nephritis and mucocutaneous involvement were significantly lower in patients with severe thrombocytopenia than patients with mild thrombocytopenia (P\<0.05). 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t005 ###### Demographic and clinical features of patients with mild or severe thrombocytopenia. {#pone.0225516.t005g} *Thrombocytopenia* *P value* ------------------------------ -------------------- ------------- ----------- Platelet count (1,000/mm^3^) 23.4±14.2 74.6±14.1 Sex, female 87 (91.6%) 224 (90.7%) 0.797 Age at onset (years) 31.9±12.2 30.0±12.2 0.219 Age at diagnosis (years) 33.5±12.2 31.5±12.5 0.172 Disease duration (months) 60.9±80.8 34.0±55.6 **0.005** NPSLE 8 (8.4%) 21 (8.5%) 0.981 Vasculitis 9 (9.5%) 27 (10.9%) 0.694 Arthritis 24 (25.3%) 71 (28.7%) 0.520 Myositis 1 (1.1%) 12 (4.9%) 0.183 Lupus nephritis 46 (48.4%) 149 (60.3%) **0.046** Mucocutaneous involvement 44 (46.3%) 151 (61.1%) **0.013** Pleuritis 11 (11.6%) 37 (15.0%) 0.417 Fever 21 (22.1%) 78 (31.6%) 0.084 NPSLE: neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus. As shown in [Table 6](#pone.0225516.t006){ref-type="table"}, the prevalence of leukocytopenia, hypocomplementemia, positive anti-dsDNA and anti-rRNP antibodies were significantly lower in patients with severe thrombocytopenia in univariate analysis (P\<0.05). 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t006 ###### Laboratory findings of patients with mild or severe thrombocytopenia. {#pone.0225516.t006g} *Thrombocytopenia* *P value* -------------------- -------------------- ---------------- ------------- Leukocytopenia 30 (31.6%) 122 (49.4%) **0.003** Hypocomplementemia 69 (72.6%) 211 (85.4%) **0.006** ANA 91 (95.8%) 243 (98.4%) 0.307 Anti-dsDNA 12 (12.6%) 83 (33.6%) **\<0.001** Anti-Sm 13 (13.7%) 52 (21.1%) 0.120 Anti-RNP 8 (8.4%) 21 (8.5%) 0.981 Anti-SSA/Ro 25 (26.3%) 68 (27.5%) 0.821 Anti-SSB/La 12 (12.6%) 28 (11.3%) 0.738 Anti-rRNP 3/39 (7.7%) 38/128 (29.7%) **0.005** APL 26/50(52.0%) 62/125 (49.6%) 0.774 ANA: anti-nuclear antibodies; anti-dsDNA: anti-double-stranded DNA; anti-RNP: anti-ribonucleoprotein; anti-rRNP: anti-ribosomal RNP; anti-Sm: anti-Smith; APL: anti-phospholipid. SLEDAI was significantly lower in severe thrombocytopenia group than in mild thrombocytopenia group (11.2±7.5 vs. 14.0±7.4, p = 0.002). Baseline SDI was significantly lower in severe thrombocytopenia group than in mild thrombocytopenia group (0.08±0.32 vs. 14.0±7.4, p = 0.002). As shown in [Table 7](#pone.0225516.t007){ref-type="table"}, further multivariate analysis revealed that long disease duration was an independent risk factor of severe thrombocytopenia. Anti-rRNP was an independent protective factor of severe thrombocytopenia in patients with SLE. 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t007 ###### Multivariable analysis on related factors of severe thrombocytopenia in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. {#pone.0225516.t007g} *Odds ratio (95% CI)* *P value* --------------------------- ----------------------- ----------- Disease duration (months) 1.006 (1.000--1.012) **0.041** Lupus nephritis 0.590 (0.202--1.703) 0.335 Mucocutaneous involvement 0.967 (0.368--2.539) 0.945 Leukocytopenia 0.923 (0.352--2.419) 0.871 Hypocomplementemia 0.561 (0.194--1.626) 0.287 Anti-dsDNA 0.348 (0.092--1.316) 0.120 Anti-rRNP 0.208 (0.054--0.802) **0.023** SLEDAI 0.950 (0.855--1.056) 0.343 anti-dsDNA: anti-double-stranded DNA; anti-RNP: anti-ribonucleoprotein; anti-rRNP: anti-ribosomal RNP. No difference in SDI at last visit was observed between patients with severe thrombocytopenia (n = 66) and mild thrombocytopenia (n = 160) (0.21±0.57 vs. 0.34±0.60, p = 0.141). The 6-year survival showed no difference between patients with severe and mild thrombocytopenia (88.3% vs. 87.8%, p = 0.947, as shown in [Fig 3](#pone.0225516.g003){ref-type="fig"}). In multivariate Cox regression ([Table 8](#pone.0225516.t008){ref-type="table"}), severe or mild thrombocytopenia, sex, age of onset, disease duration, baseline damage and factors related with TP (nephritis, leukocytopenia, hypocomplementemia and SLEDAI) were analyzed. Only long disease duration was revealed to be a risk factor of mortality. {#pone.0225516.g003} 10.1371/journal.pone.0225516.t008 ###### Multivariate Cox regression on risk factors of mortality in patients with SLE-related TP. {#pone.0225516.t008g} *P value* *RR* *95% CI of RR* -------------------- ----------- ------- ---------------- ------- Sex (male) 0.294 2.017 0.543 7.487 Age of onset 0.170 1.026 0.989 1.064 Disease duration **0.025** 1.006 1.001 1.011 Lupus nephritis 0.531 0.734 0.279 1.931 Leukocytopenia 0.338 0.632 0.247 1.615 Hypocomplementemia 0.128 0.483 0.189 1.233 SLEDAI 0.539 1.023 0.952 1.099 Baseline damage 0.330 1.636 0.608 4.407 Thrombocytopenia 0.484 0.702 0.260 1.894 RR: relative risk; CI: confidence interval; SLEDAI: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index. Discussion {#sec019} ========== This study is a longitudinal observational study on the prevalence and clinical characteristics of SLE-related thrombocytopenia in Chinese patients with SLE. The results showed that leukocytopenia, lupus nephritis, hypocomplementemia and elevated SLEDAI were independently associated with thrombocytopenia. The 6-year survival of patients with thrombocytopenia was significantly lower than those without. Long disease duration was an independent risk factor of severe thrombocytopenia, while anti-rRNP was an independent protective factor of severe thrombocytopenia. Of 2104 patients with SLE, 342 patients (16.3%) were diagnosed with thrombocytopenia. The prevalence is consistent with data from a Latin American cohort \[[@pone.0225516.ref005]\] and a US cohort \[[@pone.0225516.ref006]\]. Patients with thrombocytopenia tended to be younger in previous reports \[[@pone.0225516.ref006],[@pone.0225516.ref014]\], but in our study there is no difference in age, gender or disease duration between patients with and without thrombocytopenia. In clinical practice, we found that patients with thrombocytopenia often have active disease and other organ involvements. Results of the study approved this clinical experience. The SLE disease activity was assessed with SLEDAI, which was significantly higher in thrombocytopenia group in both univariable and multivariable analyses, indicating that patients with thrombocytopenia had more active disease. Univariable analysis revealed patients with thrombocytopenia tended to have more serious disease manifestations, including neuropsychiatric SLE, vasculitis, myositis, nephritis, mucocutaneous involvements, pleuritis, fever and leukocytopenia. Lupus nephritis and leukocytopenia were shown to be independently risk factors of thrombocytopenia in multivariable analysis. As we know, hypocomplementemia indicates active SLE, and is associated with lupus nephritis. Therefore, it is stand to reason that hypocomplementemia and lupus nephritis were revealed as independent risk factors of thrombocytopenia in this study. Thrombocytopenia is often accompanied by other hematologic disorders in clinical practice. In a Latin American cohort, SLE-related thrombocytopenia was found to be associated with previous thrombocytopenia and autoimmune hemolytic anemia \[[@pone.0225516.ref005]\]. In our study we found leukocytopenia was a strong predictor of thrombocytopenia in patients with SLE. The result is in accordance with clinical experience. The association between APL and thrombocytopenia has been reported in the literatures \[[@pone.0225516.ref005]--[@pone.0225516.ref006],[@pone.0225516.ref015]--[@pone.0225516.ref016]\]. In this study, the association between APL and thrombocytopenia was not proved, but some tendency was observed (p = 0.076). As we know, thrombocytopenia secondary to SLE occurs in several clinical situations, including immunologic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), etc. Theoretically, some of the conditions are not related to APL. We infer this is the reason that the incidences of APL showed no disparity in the thrombocytopenia and non-thrombocytopenia groups in our study. Further analysis of the characteristics of populations with different causes of SLE--related thrombocytopenia may provide more details. The associations between thrombocytopenia and other autoantibodies, such as anti-dsDNA, anti-Sm, anti-SSA and anti-RNP antibodies, have been variably reported in the literatures \[[@pone.0225516.ref005]--[@pone.0225516.ref006],[@pone.0225516.ref014],[@pone.0225516.ref017]\]. These associations were not observed in our data. The differences were probably due to distinct ethnic groups and varied disease stages in different cohorts. As for prognosis, Kaplan-Meire survival analysis showed that patients with thrombocytopenia had a significantly lower long-term survival, indicating patients with SLE-related thrombocytopenia has a worse prognosis. In multivariate Cox regression analysis, thrombocytopenia was not found to be an independent prognostic factor. Since some of the known confounders, such as poverty and cumulative steroid dose, were not included in our study, the conclusion is to be clarified in further studies. At the last visit, thrombocytopenia was not associated with damage accrual in our cohort. Similar results were observed in the LUMINA cohort \[[@pone.0225516.ref006]\] and the GLADEL cohort \[[@pone.0225516.ref005]\]. It was a limitation that bleeding events were not recorded in our study. By adding these data in future follow-ups in CSTAR cohort, we would have more information for understanding the relationship between thrombocytopenia and the prognosis of SLE. When comparing the different characteristics of severe and mild thrombocytopenia, we found that severe thrombocytopenia tended to occur in patients with longer disease duration. In univariate analysis, lupus nephritis, mucocutaneous involvement, leukocytopenia, hypocomplementemia, anti-dsDNA antibody, anti-ribosome RNP antibody and elevated SLEDAI appeared to be protective for the patients against severe thrombocytopenia. Moreover, none of the clinical or laboratory factors showed higher incidence in patients with severe thrombocytopenia. Since hypocomplementemia, positive anti-dsDNA antibody and elevated SLEDAI indicate active SLE, we can infer that severe thrombocytopenia was inclined to occur in patients with relatively low disease activity. Fernández et al found disease activity measured by the SLAM-R score was associated with thrombocytopenia, but not with severe thrombocytopenia (platelet count\<50,000/mm^3^) \[[@pone.0225516.ref006]\], which were very consistent with the results in our study. It is widely accepted that anti-rRNP is related to neuropsychiatric involvement. Thus, the protective effect of lupus nephritis, mucocutaneous involvement, leukocytopenia and positive anti-rRNP observed in this study indicated that severe thrombocytopenia tended to occur in patients with few other organ involvements. In multivariable logistic analysis, the protective relationship was observed in anti-rRNP, suggesting that patients with negative anti-rRNP should be intensively monitored of developing severe thrombocytopenia. More observations are needed to confirm the relationship between severe thrombocytopenia and anti-rRNP or organ involvements. When analyzing the prognosis, both mortality and damage at last visit were not different in patients with mild or severe thrombocytopenia, indicating the possible similar disease outcome in the two populations. In multivariate Cox regression in patients with SLE-related thrombocytopenia, severe thrombocytopenia was not an independent risk factor of mortality comparing to mild thrombocytopenia. Long disease duration was revealed to be a risk factor of mortality, indicating that patients with thrombocytopenia and long term SLE need to be carefully monitored. In LUMINA cohort, severe thrombocytopenia (compared with all the SLE patients with platelet count≥50,000/mm^3^, not with patients with mild thrombocytopenia) was found to be independently associated with damage accrual at the last visit, which was not observed in our study (data not shown). More observations are needed in future studies to confirm whether severe thrombocytopenia is associated with damage accrual. The study has some limitations. First, the definition of thrombocytopenia in our study was based on short-term results of platelet count at baseline. Characteristics of patients with refractory thrombocytopenia was not investigated. Second, we did not have data regarding autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) and actual etiology of thrombocytopenia (i.e., antiphospholipid syndrome, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, immune thrombocytopenic purpura) in this study, since they were not included in the CSTAR cohort. Third, antiplatelet antibodies were not tested in this study, since the test were not available in some centers. In conclusion, this study is a report of SLE-related thrombocytopenia with so far the largest sample size. We described the prevalence and clinical features of thrombocytopenia in patients from 30 provinces across China. Data indicated that thrombocytopenia was a common manifestation of SLE, and was associated with leukocytopenia, lupus nephritis and high disease activity. Severe thrombocytopenia tended to occur in long-term and relatively quiet SLE, which has few other systemic involvement and low disease activity. Long disease duration was an independent risk factor of mortality in patients with thrombocytopenia. Patients with SLE-related thrombocytopenia has a decreased survival rate. Supporting information {#sec020} ====================== ###### STROBE_checklist. (DOCX) ###### Click here for additional data file. ###### Minimal Anonymized Data. (XLSX) ###### Click here for additional data file. We would like to thank CSTAR co-authors as following for assistance with the collections of cases. \^ CSTAR co-authors: Lead author: Dr. X Zeng, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, email: <zengxfpumc@163.com> Peking Union Medical College Hospital: Hongmei Song, Xuejun Zeng, Wen Zhang, Xiaomei Leng, Qingjun Wu, Jinmei Su, Qun Shi, Xin You, Wenjie Zheng, Ying Jiang, Dong Xu, You Hou, Min Shen, Hua Chen, Xiaodan Gan, Chaojun Hu, Suxian Liu.The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School: Lingyun Sun.Anhui Provincial Hospital: Xiangpei Li, Xiaomei Li.The Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College: Changhao Xie.The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University: Xiuyan Yang.The Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University: Xiaofeng Li, Jinli Ru.Beijing Hospital Affiliated to the Ministry of Health of PRC: Cibo Huang, Bei Lai.China-Japan Friendship Hospital Affiliated to the Ministry of Health of PRC: Donghai Wu.Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital,Capital Medical University:Yi Zheng, Xiaohong Wen.Xuanwu Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University: Xiaoxia Li.Beijing Friendship Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University: Ting Duan.Beijing Children Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University: Caifeng Li.Capital Institute of Pediatrics: Fengqi Wu.Chinese People\'s Liberation Army General Hospital: Feng Huang, Jian Zhu.Changhai Hospital Affiliated to the Second Military Medical University: Dongbao Zhao.Changzheng Hospital Affiliated to the Second Military Medical University: Huji Xu.Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University: Hejian Zou, Haomin Qiu.The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University: Jianhua Xu, Li Mu.Qilu Hospital of Shandong University: Xingfu Li.The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine: Huaxiang Wu.The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University: Jieruo Gu, Ou Jin.The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical College: Yi Tao.Guangdong Provincial People\'s Hospital: Xiao Zhang, Guangfu Dong.Xiangya Hospital, Central South University: Xiaoxia Zuo, Yisha Li.The First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University: Zhiyi Zhang, Yifang Mei.The First Hospital of China Medical University: Weiguo Xiao, Hongfeng Zhang.Xijing Hospital Affiliated to the Fourth Military Medical University: Ping Zhu, Zhenbiao Wu.The Second Hospital of Lanzhou University: Yi Wang.West China Hospital Affiliated to Sichuan University: Yi Liu.The Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College: Guohua Yuan.Sichun Provincial People's Hospital: Bin Zhou.The People\'s Hospital of Xinjiang Autonomous Region: Lijun Wu.Jiangsu Provincial People\'s Hospital: Miaojia Zhang.The First Affiliated Hospital of Zheng zhou University: Shengyun Liu.Shengjing Hospital Affiliated to China Medical University: Ning Zhang.The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College: Qingyu Zeng.Tianjin First Central Hospital: Wencheng Qi, Feng Han.The Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College: Zhijun Li, Changhao Xie.Peking University First Hospital: Zhuoli Zhang, Yu Wang.Peking University Shougang Hospital: Shuling Han.Beijing Jishuitan Hospital: Hui Song, Shumin Yan.Fuxing Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University: Wen Luo, Peilin Li.Beijing Shunyi Hospital: Xiaomin Liu.Peking University Third Hospital: Xiangyuan Liu, Xiaoli Deng.South-West Hospital Affiliated to Third military Medical University: Yongfei Fang.The First People\'s Hospital of Foshan: Guoqiang Chen.Fujian Provincial Hospital: He Lin.The Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University: Ling Lin.Fuzhou General Hospital of Nanjing Military Region: Yinong Li.Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University: Lindi Jiang, Lili Ma.The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University: Cheng Zhao, Zhanrui Chen.The People's Hospital of Guangxi Autonomous Region: Jinying Lin.The Affiliated Hospital of Guiyang Medical College: Long Li.The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University: Yinhuan Zhao.Hainan Provincial People's Hospital: Feng Zhan, Shudian Lin.Hebei Provincial People's Hospital: Fengxiao Zhang, Yonglong Yan.Bethune International Peace Hospital: Zhenbin Li.Henan Provincial People's Hospital: Fengmin Shao, Wei Liu.The First Hospital of Qiqihar: Xiaowei Gong.Tongji Hospital Affiliated to Tongji Medical School of Huazhong University of Science and Technology: Shaoxian Hu.Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital: Youlian Wang.No.202 Hospital of People's Liberation Army: Yiping Lin, Lin Guo.The Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical College: Hongbin Li.Nanfang Hospital Affiliated to Southern Medical University: Min Yang.The General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University: Yi Gong, Hong Zhu.The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University Medical College: Jibo Wang.The Fourth People's Hospital of Shenzhen Affiliated to Guangdong Medical College: Zhizhong Ye, Zhihua Yin.The General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University: Lu Gong.Beijing Tongren Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University: Zhengang Wang, Li Cui.The Second People's Hospital of Wuxi: Tianli Ren.The People's Hospital of Wuxi: Yaohong Zou.The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University: Jinwei Chen, Ni Mao.The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province: Qin Li.The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine: Jin Lin.SunYat-sen Memorial Hospital, SunYat-sen University: Lie Dai, Baiyu Zhang.The First People's Hospital of Changzhou: Min Wu, Wen Xie.The Affiliated Orthopaedic Hospital of Shandong Linyi People's Hospital: Zhenchun Zhang.Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital: Zhenhua Ying.The First Affiliated Hospital of Baotou Medical College: Yongfu Wang.The Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University: Zhanyun Da, Genkai Guo.The First Affiliated Hospital of Suzhou University: Zhiwei Chen.Beijing Shijitan Hospital: Miansong Zhao.ShandongYantaiYuhuangding Hospital: Weiling Yuan.The General Hospital of Daqing Oilfield: Xiangjie Bi.First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College of Xi'anJiaotong University: Lan He, Dan Pu.Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, China: Yuanchao Zhang, Limin Zhang.Ji'nan University 2nd Clinical Medicine College, Shenzhen People's Hospital: Dongzhou Liu, Xiaoping Hong.No.285 Hospital of People's Liberation Army: Zhu Chen.The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University: Xiumei Liu, Yiqun Hao.Kailuan Hospital Affiliated to North China Coal Medical College: Liufu Cui.Peking University Shenzhen Hospital: Qingwen Wang, Yi-Sheng Zhu.The First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University: Junmin Chen.The First Hospital of Ningbo: Xiafei Xi.Shanxi Provincial People\'s Hospital: Lihua Fang.The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University: Hongtao Jin, Huifang Guo.The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College: Xiaochun Zhu.The Third Affiliated Hospital of Hebei Medical University: Ping Wei.The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University: Li Wei.Qingdao Municipal Hospital: Houheng Su.Wuhan Union Hospital Affiliated to Tongji Medical School of Huazhong University of Science and Technology: Lingxun Shen.No. 264 Hospital of People\'s Liberation Army: Jinli Ru, Xiaoxiang Xie.Zhongda Hospital Affiliated to Southeast University: Meimei Wang.The Central Hospital of Sichuan Mianyang: Jing Yang, yu zhang.The Seventh People's Hospital of Shenyang: Zhen Wang, Tienan Li. [^1]: **Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. [^2]: ¶ Membership of the CSTAR co-authors is provided in the Acknowledgments.

Q: What should I use for localDataCenter in Cassandra-Driver 4.x When I was using cassandra-driver version 3.x everything worked fine. Now that I have upgraded I get the following message... Error: ArgumentError: 'localDataCenter' is not defined in Client options and also was not specified in constructor. At least one is required. My client declaration looks like this... const client = new Client({ contactPoints: this.servers, keyspace: "keyspace", authProvider, sslOptions, pooling: { coreConnectionsPerHost: { [distance.local]: 1, [distance.remote]: 1 } }, // TODO: Needed because in spite of the documentation provided by DataStax the default value is not 0 socketOptions: { readTimeout: 0 } }); What should I use for the localDataCenter property? A: To find your datacenter name, check in your node's cassandra-rackdc.properties file: $ cat cassandra-rackdc.properties dc=HoldYourFire rack=force10 Or, run a nodetool status: $ bin/nodetool status Datacenter: HoldYourFire ======================== Status=Up/Down |/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving -- Address Load Tokens Owns Host ID Rack UN 172.0.0.1 575.64 KiB 16 ? 5c5cfc93-2e61-472e-b69b-a4fc40f94876 force10 UN 172.0.0.2 575.64 KiB 16 ? 4f040fef-5a6c-4be1-ba13-c9edbeaff6e1 force10 UN 172.0.0.3 575.64 KiB 16 ? 96626294-0ea1-4775-a08e-45661dc84cfa force10 If you have multiple data centers, you should pick the same one that your application is deployed in.

The present invention is an improvement on U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,023 by Steven Ravagni, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,023 is hereby incorporated by reference. 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to devices and methods for teaching a student to play a fretted or non-fretted stringed instrument. More particularly, the present invention is directed to devices for teaching a student note or chord names, and proper finger placement to play individual notes, chords or scales, on a fretted or non-fretted stringed instrument, and to an improved method for teaching a student of a stringed instrument to read music. It also pertains to the art of composing, translation, and scoring music as original composition or derived from recordings, sheet music, and the like. 2. Description of the Prior Art U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,023 by Ravagni et al, is a passive guitar finger guide composed of autogenously adhesive (clinging plastic) thin sheet stock with the fingering positions printed on the one surface. The present invention replaces the fixed printed indicia of 023 with dynamic indicia under control of a computer or other memory containing logic-machine. The indicia are luminous lamp devices such as LED""s and electro-luminescent devices, or non-luminous devices such as liquid crystal displays and electro-optical shutters over reflective ink, dye, or paint spots. Both fretted and non-fretted stringed instruments, including but not limited to guitars, ukuleles, banjos, balalaikas, dulcimers, sitars, violins, violas, and cellos, comprise the following parts: a sound box or board having a sound hole or xe2x80x9cfxe2x80x9d holes, a neck and fingerboard, a nut, a head and tuning pegs, strings, and a bridge. Instruments such as violins, violas and cellos also have a tailpiece which anchors the strings. On a stringed instrument, the strings extend from the tailpiece, or bridge if no tailpiece is present, to the tuning pegs, and are raised above the fingerboard by the bridge and nut. The fingerboard of a fretted instrument, such as a guitar or banjo, has raised, longitudinally transverse bars called xe2x80x9cfretsxe2x80x9d positioned at spaced intervals along the length of the fingerboard. The fingerboard of a non-fretted instrument, such as a violin, viola or cello, is flat and smooth, having no frets. In play, the tone of a particular string of a fretted or non-fretted stringed instrument is changed by changing the length of the string. When a string is depressed against the fingerboard between two frets, the depressed string contacts the frets on either side of the point of depression to change the harmonic vibration of the string, and thus change the tone of the string. The length of the string is changed on non-fretted instruments by finger pressure along the length of the string, placing the string in contact with the fingerboard. On either a fretted or non-fretted stringed instrument, different notes are sounded by strumming, glancing, picking, or bowing the strings with one hand, or a bow or like instrument, while the fingers of the other hand depress the strings against the fingerboard. Strumming, glancing, picking, or bowing a single string will create a single note. Strumming or bowing several strings simultaneously or in rapid succession so that several notes are sounded in unison, creates a chord. Generally, to play a chord, several strings must be depressed at various positions along the neck. An xe2x80x9copen stringxe2x80x9d (a string which has not been depressed) may also form part of a chord. Chords may be played on both fretted and non-fretted stringed instruments. When learning to play a stringed instrument, a student must learn at what point along the length of the fingerboard the string must be depressed to play a particular note, and a student must learn to read music so that he or she recognizes the written note. Particularly in the case of fretted instruments, a student must also learn which notes comprise a particular chord, learn the names of the chords, and, preferably, learn to read the written notes comprising the chords. Thus, a beginning student must learn a significant amount of information, including the parts of the instrument, note names, note locations on the fingerboard, and the construction of written music, and must expend a significant amount of time and effort before the student can obtain satisfaction from his or her efforts. To encourage the beginning stringed instrument student and accelerate the process of learning to play notes, chords and scales, and learning how to read music, a variety of teaching devices have been employed. However, many of these devices have significant shortcomings, making them ineffective or unappealing to use. Ravagni""s 023 patent reviews several prior art teaching aids of the fixed indicia type. Dynamic or lighted indicia are the subject of several other patents. Representative of this genera are U.S. Pat. No, 5,408,914 by Frederick Breitweiser et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,191,348 by Steven Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,266,735 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,005 by John R Shaffer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,509 John F Graham, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,505 by Gair Linhart. All except the Linhart patent show indicators and wiring built into the instrument. That is, the instrument is specially constructed or physically modified at the factory for installation of the indicating system before delivery to the musician. This raises the cost, makes the instrument xe2x80x9cspecial purposexe2x80x9d and suggests limited production runs., short product life and repair implications thereby raising the cost of ownership. Furthermore, cutting or modifying the standard design for an instrument may compromise the strength and/or sound quality expected from an instrument The Linhart patent discloses that the indicator lights are removably attached by hook-and-loop fasteners (Velcro). Even these require one part of the fastening system to be fixedly attached to the instrument, likely by adhesive which may or may not leave marring or residue when removed. The present invention is installed by the musician without nails, pins, adhesives, or cutting, and when removed, the instrument is completely restored to its original condition. Thus the present invention can be used on valuable, heirloom, historic, or showpiece musical instruments. Further, the same instrument may be used for learning and after its mastery. It is an object of the invention to provide a removable chord and note display without requiring attachment devices, adhesives, or modification to the instrument or mar the finish of the instrument. It is a further object of the invention to dynamically indicate the locations of finger positioning for playing notes, chords, or melodies on a stringed instrument. It is a further object of the invention to provide a static display of the fingering positions for playing notes and chords in any usable key on a stringed instrument. It is a further object of the invention to analyze a performance of music, translate it to the subject stringed instrument, and dynamically indicate the finger locations. It is a further object of the invention to dynamically produce a display and record a music staff with notes of a performance of music. It is a further object of the invention to re-play the record of music.

Where the two acts lack originality, they compromise in musicianship; VANIISH in particular is well aligned with fellow '80s-inspired dark wave act Wax Idols, albeit playing with three of its members lined up in an untouchable wall -- this metaphor applies musically as well as visually -- and where drummer Nick Ott borrows heavily and consistently from "Atrocity Exhibition," he does it skillfully and gracefully. Be Forest, meanwhile, bodes well for the continuation of the current shoegaze revival and could easily open for Ride's reunion tour if the stars were aligned for such (though they did open for Slowdive in Padova last summer, which is just as fitting). In promotion of 2014's stunning Earthbeat, the young band played a dazzling set that was cool and collected, breezy and controlled. Erica Terenzi, who came from the Moe Tucker/Frankie Rose school of drumming, switched places with guitarist Nicola Lampredi toward show's end, demonstrating that the pair are extremely interchangeable in skill and energy, and the set concluded as consistently as it had begun. For the real stuff, though: Now that lyrics have been posted, is it possible that Earthbeat was lyrically inspired by the Twilight series? See below for samples: Captured Heart:I would like to fall in love, and then have a broken heart it’s better you run away from me ‘Cause all my life I have been dead inside Lost Boy:I want to know if you can change your life and not betray your own soul I just want to know but i don't care who you are. I want to know if you can see the beauty and don't hide your eyes I don't want to know how did you get here. I don't care what you have lived I don't care how old you are Hideaway:Everyone is gone with their fangs You are alone and you've nothing left to lose How can it feel this wrong baby? How do you feel? They don't know who you are Nobody knows Sparkle (obviously about Edward, from the perspective of Bella):My feet are covered under soft roots Tonight is the last one, he tells me Don't cry for me: I am not here. I'm not sleeping. I am a thousand winds that blow. I'm a sparkle in the snow. If you can hide in the fog and fend off the dust can you see this endless joy? It's the power of the life Don't cry for me: I am not there. and then i leave

Randomized, controlled, multicenter clinical trial, in which subjects randomized to one group will have active intervention, while subjects randomized to the control group will be closely monitored and offered treatment at the earliest sign of Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM). Type I or IDDM arises in genetically predisposed individuals as a consequence of immune mediated destruction of the pancreatic islet insulin secreting beta-cells. The onset of clinical symptoms of diabetes represents the end point of a chronic progressive decline in beta-cell function, and it appears only when the majority of beta-cells have been lost. Since IDDM develops insidiously, often years after the induction of the pathogenic immune-mediated destructive process, it can be predicted using immunological markers and tests of insulin secretion. The Diabetes Prevention Trial of Type-1 Diabetes (DPT1) has been designed to test whether intervention during the prodromal period of the disease can delay its clinical onset.

Higham Ferrers railway station Higham Ferrers is a former railway station on a Midland Railway branch line from Wellingborough. It served the market town of Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, England. The station was opened by the Midland Railway on 1 May 1894, and was named Higham Ferrers. It was renamed Higham Ferrers and Irthlingborough on 1 July 1902, but reverted to its original name on 1 October 1910. It was closed by British Railways on 15 June 1959. The line was closed in 1969, and the station has since been demolished and the track lifted. It is the eventual aim of the Heritage Rushden, Higham & Wellingborough Railway to reopen the line to Higham Ferrers from its base at Rushden station. See also List of closed railway stations in Britain References External links Disused stations Category:Disused railway stations in Northamptonshire Category:Rushden Category:Railway stations closed in 1959 Category:Former Midland Railway stations Category:Railway stations opened in 1894

Sometimes There is No Blood: Domestic Violence and Rape in Rural Sri Lanka Sri Lanka as signatory to the CEDAW is obliged to ensure that the rights of women are protected and promoted. Yet, this study of the national legal framework clearly highlights that "the law" continues to discriminate against women in many aspects. Where violence against women is concerned, the lack of specific domestic violence legislation and the law on rape, which leaves unprotected certain groups such as young Muslim women between the ages of 12 and 16, are just some of the legal provisions which need to be amended/repealed.