text:
Mississippi State vs. Vanderbilt
College World Series: Game 8
Mississippi State Bulldogs vs. Vanderbilt Commodores
Jun 19 - 2:50 PM ET
Kevin Kugler, John Bishop
The College World Series is once again on the Westwood One NCAA Radio Network. Hear every game from Omaha right here at WestwoodOneSports.com!
CWS: Vanderbilt tops Michigan to capture second title in six seasons
OMAHA, NE – Vanderbilt are once again the champions of college baseball. The Commodores defeated Michigan 8-2 in Game 3 of the College World Series final on Wednesday night to capture a second title in six seasons.…
CWS: Vandy forces winner-take-all Wednesday night
OMAHA, NE – Kumar Rocker struck out 11 as Vanderbilt defeated Michigan 4-1 to force a decisive third game in the 2019 College World Series final. Kevin Kugler and Scott Graham had the call on Westwood One. Game Three is set for Wednesday. Westwood One's coverage will begin at 6:45pm…
CWS: Michigan takes Game One 7-4
OMAHA, NE – Michigan is a victory away from its first national championship in baseball since 1962 after defeating Vanderbilt 7-3 in the opening game of the best-of-three final series with a 7-4 win. Kevin Kugler and Scott Graham had the call on Westwood One. Game Two is set for…


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internal content audits, and how to build a domain level content strategy.
external references to give you higher visibility in the local search landscape.
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Finally, in module four, we'll discuss the human factor of SEO.
How do you establish and maintain relationships with your clients?
How do you manage expectations and track and report progress?
These are important questions that lie at the heart on the SEO.
It's about helping a client to achieve the goals they have set for their websites.


TrioVing and VingCard Elsafe have identified the areas to be included in an environmental product declaration (EPD) for mechanical products used in the construction sector. The declaration, prompted by customer requests, sums up and verifies the environmental impact of a single component, finished product or service.
The information asked for in the declaration is nothing less than the environmental impact through the product's whole life cycle, from extracting metal from the mine to taking care of the waste product. The declaration is based on the international ISO-14025 standard. TrioVing chose a door environment as its first product to declare, while VingCard Elsafe picked the Signature lock.
"Our experience is that the demands for standardized EPDs are increasing. Among our Norwegian customers we can mention Statsbygg, which is currently projecting a new government building in Oslo. They have stated that they will demand standardized environmental declarations for all material they will purchase," Kjersti Larsen concludes.


(CNN) — They were traveling to raise awareness about the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Instead, they encountered violence.
Eight people on an Ebola team were killed in southeastern Guinea, near the country's border with Liberia, a government spokesman said Thursday. Among them were health care workers and local journalists.
Residents in the small town of Womey threw stones at the Guinea Ebola team when they arrived earlier this week, forcing them to flee, spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said.
Some members of the group were able to safely reach the nearby town of Nzerekore, he said, while nine others went to find refuge around Womey.
Only one of the nine was found alive, hiding near the town.
The Guinean government has strongly condemned the killings and vowed to hunt down those responsible and bring them to justice. Camara said security forces have been deployed to support the ongoing investigation, and six people have been arrested in connection with the incident.
The fight against the spread of the Ebola virus "should be an opportunity for Guineans to set aside their differences and stand welded in this national effort," he said.
This is not the first time violence has flared in West Africa amid the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record.
There have been other reports of teams from Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Red Cross and local ministries of health being pelted with rocks as they try to enter areas affected by the virus, MSF's Dr. Marc Forget told CNN.
Earlier in the outbreak, a team from Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, had to stop working in Guinea because local residents believed they had brought the virus with them.
In August, Ebola patients were forced to flee a health care facility in Monrovia, Liberia, as it came under attack by armed assailants. No one was injured in the attack, but the men stole mattresses and equipment, Liberian National Police spokesman Sam Collins said.
The outbreak, primarily spreading in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, has killed more than 2,600 people. Health officials have said the number of Ebola cases is growing too fast — that they need more supplies, more health care workers and a better system to trace the virus.
President Obama recently announced that the United States will be sending troops and materials to build field hospitals, as well as additional health care workers and medical supplies to the region.
Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, the U.S. Army-Africa commander, will lead the U.S. military's response — officially called Operation United Assistance. He arrived in Monrovia two days ago with a 12-person assessment team, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Friday.
The assessment team will be "evaluating what our deployed U.S. military personnel will need in terms of support infrastructure to sustain the operations for up to six months or however long U.S. military assistance is required," Kirby said.
Both he and President Barack Obama have said the Department of Defense is prepared to devote up to $1 billion in resources to fight Ebola, saying it's a matter of national security.
And our fearless Prez is sending 3,000 Americans to that same kind of people. Why doesn't he go to help his people???


This Andy Griffith Show Picture is a great piece of TV memorabilia! This Andy Griffith Show lithograph is sure to put a smile on anyone's face. The limited edition collector print features Andy Taylor, Opie, Gomer Pyle, and Barney Fife fishing together. This is a valuable and attractive piece of television history, a must for any collector or fan of the show!
Availability: This Andy Griffith Show Picture Matted Lithograph takes approximately 1-2 business days to ship out plus transit time.


Wolf Ridge, the Protect Our Winters Foundation and Save the Poles have combined efforts to create this curriculum that enables a teacher to provide students with an awareness and knowledge of Climate Change, a subject that will be paramount in the lives of today's 11 and 12 year olds.
Full curriculum HERE, courtesy of Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center.
This entry was posted in Forest, Lakes, Native Plants, Nature News, Politics, Wildlife and tagged Environmental Learning, Minnesota climate change, Wolf Ridge. Bookmark the permalink.


Our Team has prepared 29 January 2019 Current Affair Questions quiz by collecting the latest happenings around the globe. All the Aspirants can enhance your knowledge on the Latest Current Affairs and General expertise by taking part in the Daily GK Quiz Test. Practice the latest GK Questions by participating in the General Knowledge, Current Affairs Test and sharpen your skills to be among the toppers Moreover, Follow our website esarkariresults.in and get Latest Current affairs practice tests and Gk Quiz Tests. This will be very helpful for candidates in their preparation of competitive exams. Take 29 January 2019 Current Affairs Quiz.
Naman Tanwar, who won gold at the Galym Zharylgapov Boxing Tournament, is related to which weight category?
Which bank has entered into an agreement with state-run National e-Governance Services Limited (NeSL) for utilizing the latter's Information Utility Services envisaged under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016?
Where is the head quarters of Bandhan Bank?
Where is the head quarters of Indus Ind Bank?
In which state all police stations will have social media accounts in the for communicating with people on a daily basis?
Who won the title of the Royal Cup golf tournament at the Phoenix Gold Golf and Country Club in Pattaya, Thailand?
Nyctibatrachus Mewasinghi belongs to which of the below given species?
he Union Government has launched which project at Ganga Gram Swachata Sammelan (GGSS-2017)?
Madrasas in Uttarakhand are planning to teach which subject to students?
The 2nd edition of Iranshah Udvada Utsav (IUU-2017) has started in which state?
Centre has infused how many crores capital in six weak public sector banks?
Who won the Ranji Trophy title for the first time by defeating Delhi in the final match?
The 2017 Good Governance Day (GGD) is celebrated on which date in India?


Apple's Beats brand today officially announced the new Powerbeats Pro Wireless Earphones, which, like the AirPods, are wire-free and come with a charging case and up to nine hours of listening time.
To get an ideal fit for most people, Apple tested more than 20 configurations to arrive at an "ergonomically angled housing" designed to nest "comfortably in the concha bowl of the ear with an off-axis nozzle." Apple says Powerbeats Pro are 23 percent smaller and 17 percent lighter than the Powerbeats 3.
There are physical controls on each earbud, with a dedicated volume buttons for adjusting the volume, and a button for answering and declining phone calls and changing the track that's currently playing. Like the AirPods, the Powerbeats Pro automatically detect when they're in your ears and can play/pause music accordingly.
The Powerbeats Pro come in their own clamshell-style charging case, which adds over 24 hours of combined playback with the nine hours of listening time that you get from each earbud. There's a 5-minute Fast Fuel feature that provides up to 1.5 hours of charging in five minutes.
Apple says the Powerbeats Pro use "Class 1 Bluetooth technology" for extended range and fewer dropouts, and the H1 chip that's in the second-generation AirPods is also in the Powerbeats Pro.


> An example would be HDFS, the Hadoop Distributed FS.
Last time I checked, it strongly encouraged marshaling into text.
fully interested in Java contortions.
folks would prefer a push model that updates everyone "at once."
are more "web 2.0 cool."


text:
Feniton, Honiton
SOLD BY ONLINE AUCTION BY STAGS - Parcel of trees and amenity land with timber former stable on the edge of the village. 2/3 acre (0.27 ha). Sale by online auction. Date 5pm Wednesday 13th October.
The land is tucked away with a right of way up a private drive shared with four houses, in the centre of Feniton Old Village not far from the church and village hall. In the newer part of the village, about half a mile, there is a small supermarket, well regarded CofE primary school and mainline rail station on the London Waterloo line.
To the south is Ottery St. Mary where there is a good range of day to day shops, doctors surgery and renowned The Kings School, whilst Colyton Grammar, one of the top schools in the country is also local, both with bus pick-ups nearby. There are also a plethora of excellent private schools in Exeter and the local area. The A30 gives fast access to the market town of Honiton, to the east and Exeter to the west. The south coast at Sidmouth (about 10 miles) is easily reached by car.
Accessed via a right of way past Feniton House, the former Rectory to the village, this tucked away parcel of land has an array of large specimen trees (some with TPO's) which have, in recent years, been left to natural and has lovely tucked away feel.
There is a timber former stable and a tree house, please do not enter either when viewing.
In all the land extends to 0.67 acres (0.27 ha)
DEVELOPMENT UPLIFT
As the land is on the edge of the village it will be sold with an uplift clause in case the land is developed for residential purposes within 20 years and the vendor will be due a 25% uplift of the increase in value. See legal pack for details.
Upon entering Feniton old village, pass the green triangle and as the road bears left, take the private drive on your right marked Feniton House. Longmeadows Lodge etc. Continue up the drive, past the houses and it continues into the land.
None connected.
With details in hand after calling Stags during normal working hours.
METHOD OF SALE
The property will be offered for sale by Online Traditional Auction. The auction end date will be 5pm on 13th October 2021. The vendor reserves the right to withdraw or alter the property for sale prior to the auction end date.
BUYERS & ADMINISTRATION FEE - ONLINE AUCTION
The successful purchaser(s) will be liable to pay the sum of £5,000. From this a buyer's fee of £2,400 (Inc. VAT) is retained by Stags/Bamboo Auctions as a contribution towards the online platform costs, and £2,600 is payable towards the purchase price.
An additional administration fee of £600 (Inc VAT) will be payable by the successful purchaser immediately after the auction. This will be separately invoiced by Stags.
Under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 it is a requirement for Estate Agents to perform due diligence checks on any person that intends to bid at auction. There will be a requirement for all bidders to register via the online sales site and complete the ID checks. There is no charge for registration.
DEFINITION OF AUCTION AND RESERVE
-Guide price is an indication of the seller's expectation.
-Reserve Price is a figure below which the auctioneer cannot sell the lot at auction.
-We expect the reserve will be set within the guide range or no more than 10% above a single figure guide.
-Guide prices may change at any time prior to the auction.
LEGAL PACK
Copies of the legal pack and special conditions of sale are available online to be downloaded, via the online auction tab on our website.. It is the purchaser's responsibility to make all necessary enquiries prior to the auction. Prospective purchasers are strongly advised to inspect the legal documentation and to consult legal advice prior to bidding.
SOLICITOR ACTING
Carinna Parsons of Berensens, 14 Holyrood Street Chard, Somerset TA20 2AH. law@berensons.co.uk 01460 494100
The completion date will be as dictated by the solicitor and included in the legal pack, likely to be 20 working days following exchange.
SPECIAL CONDITIONS OF SALE
Particulars, remarks and stipulations contained herein shall be deemed to form part of the special conditions of sale/auction information pack and in case of any inconsistencies the provision of the latter shall prevail. Special conditions of sale/auction information pack is available online. It is assumed that the Purchaser will have made all necessary enquiries prior to the auction.
Stags - Honiton Sales
Bank House, 66 High Street, Honiton, Devon, EX14 1PS

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In a tank it is necessary to check level of brake liquid at least, once a week. Its decrease below a minimum level is not allowed. At serviceable brake system brake liquid it is necessary to add each 10 000 km of run of the car to a maximum level. In case of faster fall of its level it is necessary to establish a place of depressurization of brake system and to eliminate it.
Brake liquid damages the varnished surface. At a dolivaniye of brake liquid not to allow hit it on a car body. Otherwise it is necessary to wash away immediately the poured liquid cold water.
2. To press a pedal of a brake of at least 20 times, there will be no yet a considerable resistance (a so-called firm pedal of a brake).
4. To wait, the hydraulic pump of ABS system will not stop yet.
5. To check level of brake liquid in a tank which should be between the signs "MIN" and "MAX".
Condition and tightness of pipelines of brake system it is necessary to check each 20 000 km of run of the car.


text:
April 1999 April 1999
Notes & Comments April 1999
On brand names in textbooks
Our schools may have trouble teaching children to read, write, and calculate effectively, but they seem to be doing a fine job of equipping them for trips to the mall or McDonalds. According to a front-page story in the the March 21 issue of The New York Times, many state-funded math textbooks routinely feature "a wide array of brand-name consumer products, from Nike and Gatorade to Disneyland and Topps baseball cards, many of which appeared in illustrations as well." As the story explained, "school districts are seen as prime targets by computer software publishers, fast-food chains, soft-drink bottlers and other corporations, which believe that brand loyalty begins at an early age."
No doubt it does. And what better way to ensure loyalty than to bombard an audience with the names and images of a particular brand. In one sixth-grade math textbook published by McGraw-Hill, students will find a word problem in which "Will is saving his allowance to buy a pair of Nike shoes that cost $68.25." Another problem pauses to inform them that "The best-selling packaged cookie in the world is the Oreo cookie," before proceeding to the matter at hand: "The diameter of an Oreo cookie is 1.75 inches. Express the diameter of an Oreo cookie as a fraction in simplest form."
The McGraw-Hill textbook is intended to turn word problems into real-life situations to better teach the principles of sixth-grade math. It is by no means clear whether students can actually solve the problems tacked on to these commercials. But after a semester of sixth-grade math, they will clearly know all about Nike sneakers, Nabisco cookies, and McDonalds hamburgers. Apparently the publisher received no payments from the companies whose products were featured in the McGraw-Hill textbook. One of the book's co-author's said that products were touted simply to make the math problems more "relevant" to students. But parents are understandably outraged that textbooks have been co-opted as a new outlet for corporate advertising. (They ought to be outraged, too, by such cynical appeals to "relevance"—a term that, whenever it is used in an educational context, ought to be considered guilty until proven innocent.)
As might have been predicted, it turns out that the insinuation of advertising into textbooks is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the corporate effort to turn public schools into training grounds for consumers-to-be. According to an Op-Ed piece by Steven Manning in the Times on March 24, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have "turned some schools into virtual sales agents for their products. Districts across the country have signed multimillion-dollar 'pouring rights' contracts, which give a soft-drink company exclusive permission to distribute its products in schools." Some schools even have sales quotas to meet in order to receive payments ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 per year.
Of course, this frenzy of hucksterism is taking place against the backdrop of a continued crisis in educational standards. More and more it seems, American schools are giving themselves up to a diet of PC social indoctrination abetted by blatant consumerism. Sixth-graders may know to use condoms after they take off their Nikes; exactly what else they know is a matter of conjecture. As Mr. Manning noted in his editorial, "unless more parents, teachers, and politicians start paying attention, consumerism may replace learning as the predominant value in American public education."
This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 17 Number 8, on page 2
Copyright © 2019 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com
staging.newcriterion.com/issues/1999/4/product-placement
Topics:Culture
E-mail Product placement


It's from this angle that I wanted to try the Pampered Toes™. I don't guess I'll ever train the anxiety out of my feet, but if I can stretch my little piggies, it should feel pretty good.
So does it? Kind of. I also had Neil try them for a slightly different perspective and to test the package claim that they're good for men or women.
"The problem comes after about five minutes. Being someone who doesn't like the feeling of things between his toes, I could not bear them on any longer and had to get them off.
The irritation went away quickly, he told me, but it's safe to say that although the Pampered Toes may have their therapeutic uses, that he'd have to really need them to use them again.
As for me, I'm not much of a flip-flop wearer, so I didn't have high hopes for comfort to begin with, but I am patient. The Pampered Toes can be fiddly to put on for the first time, but you get the hang of it and the next time you use them goes much more smoothly. The rubbery stuff they're made from collects dust like nobody's business, but I'm sure a rinse will fix that. I have smallish toes and found that I kept adjusting the depth of the 'tween toes parts to make sure they were shoved in as far as they could be. They're not uncomfortable, but you certainly know you are wearing them.
After ten minutes – the recommended time to give your toes "Spa Therapy" (and you must stay seated for this – don't walk in them) – my toes did feel stretched out, but also oddly violated. My pinky toes felt a little out of whack, and I found myself raising my feet and pressing my toes hard into a bend to get things back to 'normal'.


Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, identified six new genetic changes that increase the risk of developing Hodgkin lymphoma – one of the most common cancers in young adults.
Many of the DNA changes seemed to affect the function of the immune system, and three had previously been associated with autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or lupus.
The researchers stressed that the link did not mean people with autoimmune diseases are at increased risk of lymphoma, but did offer important genetic clues for understanding both lymphoma and autoimmune diseases better.
One of the genetic changes discovered increases the risk of Hodgkin lymphoma by more than a third and others by at least 15 per cent each – information that could point to new targeted drugs for the disease.
The study was published today (Friday) in Nature Communications and was funded by a wide range of organisations including Bloodwise, Cancer Research UK and the Lymphoma Research Trust.
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) analysed genetic data from 5,314 cases of Hodgkin lymphoma and 16,749 controls, from four different European studies.
The study is the largest of its kind for Hodgkin lymphoma. For most people, Hodgkin lymphoma can be successfully treated with first-line therapies – but there is a need for new treatments for those for whom first line treatment has failed.
The researchers identified six new single-letter changes in DNA that were linked to the development of Hodgkin lymphoma – and five of these affect the way a type of white blood cell, called B cells, develop.
Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer of the B cells – which are responsible for producing antibodies as a critical component of the immune system.
The study also picked out clear differences in genetic risk between two different subtypes of Hodgkin Lymphoma – nodular sclerosis Hodgkin Lymphoma (NSHL) and mixed cellularity Hodgkin Lymphoma (MCHL).
For example, a single-letter change located in DNA near the gene LPP increased the risk of NSHL by 37 per cent, but had little effect on the risk of developing MCHL.
"Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer of immune cells called B cells, and our study links the risk of the disease to changes in the genes that control how B cells develop.
"Interestingly, we found that some of the genetic changes we have linked to Hodgkin lymphoma have previously been associated with the risk of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
"It doesn't mean that if you develop an autoimmune disease you are at increased risk of lymphoma, but it does offer fascinating genetic clues to these diseases. The new information could point towards new ways of diagnosing, treating, or even helping to prevent Hodgkin lymphoma."
"Understanding the genetic changes that underpin cancer's development is crucial for all aspects of our quest to defeat cancer – to understand which patients are most at risk from different types of cancer, to improve diagnosis, and to develop treatments that are most likely to work for individual patients.
"This important new study sheds light on the DNA changes that can contribute to a person's risk of developing Hodgkin lymphoma, and offers clues as to how they might increase that risk, including the interesting link to the immune system. These findings could lead to new ways of managing the disease."
"Because of research, treatments for many people with Hodgkin lymphoma are now good, and around 80 per cent of all people affected survive in the long-term. Although this is good news, treatments can have long-term health effects, such as infertility and secondary cancers, so finding kinder treatments for Hodgkin lymphoma is important. We welcome this study, which sheds new light on how Hodgkin lymphoma develops."
For more information please contact Claire Hastings in the ICR press office on 020-7153-5380 or [email protected] For enquiries out of hours, please call 07595-963-613.


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Alaksandr Mikałajewicz Kurłowicz (biał. Аляксандр Мікалаевіч Курловіч; ros. Александр Николаевич Курлович, Aleksandr Nikołajewicz Kurłowicz; ur. 28 lipca 1961 w Grodnie, zm. 6 kwietnia 2018 tamże) – białoruski sztangista, dwukrotny medalista olimpijski (1988 i 1992).

Życiorys
Startował w kategorii superciężkiej (powyżej 108 i 110 kg). Brał udział w trzech igrzyskach (IO 88, IO 92, IO 96), na dwóch zdobywał złote medale. W 1988 zwyciężył w barwach ZSRR, w 1992 pod szyldem WNP. W 1996 reprezentował Białoruś (5. miejsce). Był medalistą mistrzostw świata, wywalczył złoto w 1987, 1989, 1991 oraz 1994, był drugi w 1983. Pobił dwanaście rekordów świata. Zwyciężał na mistrzostwach Europy w 1989 i 1990, był drugi w 1983.

Zmarł na zawał serca.

Przypisy

Białoruscy sztangiści
Radzieccy sztangiści
Radzieccy medaliści olimpijscy
Białoruscy olimpijczycy
Medaliści Letnich Igrzysk Olimpijskich 1988
Medaliści Letnich Igrzysk Olimpijskich 1992
Złoci medaliści olimpijscy Wspólnoty Niepodległych Państw
Ludzie urodzeni w Grodnie
Urodzeni w 1961
Zmarli w 2018
Uczestnicy Letnich Igrzysk Olimpijskich 1996

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Nation states vs. feral finance: the final battle?
The financial crisis has broadened the scope of the economic policy debate. Pressed by their respective public opinions, world leaders need new ideas, fast. Despite this, one might be surprised by the way German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicholas Sarkozy dusted off the idea of a levy on financial transactions. Nowadays journalists are calling it Robin Hood tax, but in the 90s it was called Tobin tax and it was part of the intellectual arsenal of the anti-globalization movement. Even then, it was old news: Nobel laureate James Tobin first proposed it in 1972 (the original formulation was aimed at transactions of foreign currency).
The idea is to tax sales of financial assets (equity and/or bonds and derivatives) with a low rate (0.01-0.05%). That's meant to be too low to discourage the migration of capital from low-yield to structurally higher yield assets (such as from equity in a stagnating company to equity in a highly profitable one), because such a shift happens only once, and the cost of the levy is quickly offset by the increased yields: this way, the market maintains its efficiency property. But such rate is high enough to discourage speculation, that is based on buying and quickly reselling the same assets.
The main practical problem with a Tobin tax is that, unless it is introduced everywhere at the same time, speculators can elude it simply moving to a financial market that does not levy it. In fact, some variants have been tried out in Sweden in the 80s. Results: low revenue, a sharp drop in transaction volume and eventual migration of many of the most active titles from the Stockolm to the London stock exchange. The tax was eventually abolished. So it does not work, right? Why bring it back into the debate?
It's not quite that simple. It (probably) does not work to stop speculation and generate fiscal revenue. But it could work well for a different goal: driving the more instability-generating fringes of the financial sector (the same ones that make money off that instability, as Nicholas Taleb reminds us) off the country. Their flight can be painful: these are wealthy taxpayers, who supposedly bring prosperity. But it also could be liberating, because the financial sector has become politically very powerful: this (1) makes it very difficult to make economic policy, because the super-rich veto any move that does not imply benefits for them (as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz reminds us); (2) enhances economic inequality, exasperating the non-super-wealthy 99% of the population; and finally (3) it is not even clear that having these rich guys around does bring much prosperity. They sure don't pay much taxes: Warren Buffett recently declared that his tax rate is lower than his cleaning lady's.
Are we looking at a cultural shift? Granted, the man in the street never trusted finance, and never understood it. But this is news to me: two world leaders of the standing of Merkel and Sarkozy aligning with people like tax expert and progressive blogger Richard Murphy – who applauded their joint proposal as "a welcome and overdue move […] if the feral banking economy is to be brought under control" (with the Guardian's blessing). Why, in the 90s Attac's militants campaigning for the Tobin tax during G8 meetings were treated as a disturbance by the police forces of those same states.
I am tempted to read this story as the final battle between two different organizing principles, nation states and global finance. Am I seeing ghosts?
This entry was posted in complexity economics and tagged complexity economics, finance, finanza, James Tobin, Joseph Stiglitz, Merkel, nation states, Richard Murphy, Robin Hood tax, Sarkozy, stati nazionali, Warren Buffett on 29 August 2011 by Alberto.


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House of the Dragon - King of the Narrow Sea - Review: A Political Arrangement or a Death Sentence
Posted by Chris Chedrawi at September 13, 2022 0 Comments
CW House of the Dragon Reviews
"For men, marriage might be a political arrangement. For women, it is like to be a death sentence."
Four episodes in, and one thing is clear: Rhaenyra needs to marry. The writers have made that clear every episode since the pilot, and a part of me is a little frustrated with how slow this plot is moving. Don't get me wrong, I want to cherish every single moment we have left with Milly Alcock's Rhaenyra because she was been absolutely exceptional in the role. However, the show's fascination with one storyline, which has had little to no development over the past four episodes, is frankly disappointing.
I'm all for substituting epic battle scenes for quieter, character-focused, political maneuverings, but the first 30 minutes of King of the Narrow Sea felt like a drag. Besides Alicent and Rhaenyra finally making amends of some sort, the episode focuses on building up Daemon and Rhaenyra's reunion, all of which is subjectively underdeveloped. Fresh off of his heroic adventures, killing the Crabfeeder without any help from King Viserys, Daemon's return fires off all kinds of sexual sparks between him and, yep his NIECE, Rhaenyra.
Let's get this out of the way: if you have seen, heard or read about Game of Thrones and, in particular, the Targaryens, you knew to expect incest on House of the Dragon. Personally, while I couldn't root for Cersei and Jaime for many reasons, including but not limited to the fact that they were brother-and-sister, I came in with an open mind for Rhaenyra and Daemon. However, their escapades at the brothel were brutal. Sure, the show intended for it to come off that way, but watching Rhaenyra almost beg for her uncle's attention was desperate and tough to watch, especially as Daemon leads her on before eventually ditching her completely. All of this rant to say: I was rooting for Daemon at one point, especially after watching his battle last week, but there was nothing to cheer or support about his actions in this week's episode. I'm sorry for all the Rhaenyra/Daemon shippers out there (which somehow exist), but this is a big nope from me. Kudos for Alcock and Matt Smith for their spectacular performances yet again: I was uneasy, uncomfortable, and grossed out completely.
The episode definitely improves drastically as it leaves the brothel with Rhaenyra ending up in Ser Criston Cole's arms. On one hand, this is devastating for Cole who has yet to learn that Rhaenyra was just frolicking with her uncle mere minutes earlier; on the other hand, this is a "coupling" that I can 100% get behind. King of the Narrow Sea isn't subtle in its transitions, especially as we watch a detached Alicent lie in bed with Viserys, but the revelation with the "special tea" being served to Rhaenyra fires up all kinds of possibilities. If she does get pregnant, it's likely that the child is Ser Criston Cole's but will be mistakened to be Daemon's, right? In either way, this is the kind of melodrama I expect and fully support on this show. Let's just hope we don't have to speculate for four more episodes, though.
Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention one of my favorite scenes and subplots this week: Rhaenyra planting the seeds in her father's head about his hand, the evil Otto Hightower, and his selfish maneuverings. In what is arguably his most impressive moments yet, King Viserys removes Otto from his position, declaring that he can no longer trust his Hand to act selflessly on the realm's behalf. It's a big, exciting moment for the show, which will undoubtedly bring in a lot of backstabbing, and I can't wait to see Viserys and Otto clash more in the future, especially seeing as how Alicent will likely be in the middle of all this chaos.
Additional Thoughts from the House of the Dragon:
- Rhaenyra lying on her mother's name is truly a moment. What a queen.
- "The truth does not matter, Rhaenyra. Only perception."
- Daemon asking Viserys to be wed to Rhaenyra just elevated my distaste for him as a character. Big nope.
- What did you think of this week's episode? Make sure to sound off in the comments below!


<meta name="DC.TERMS.bibliographicCitation" content="P Vázquez Sande, P Pineda-Martínez, T Fernández Lombao (2017): "Interactivity in the online press rooms of the Spanish regional parliaments: lights and shadows". Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 72, pp. 1.435 a 1.452.


(Nanowerk News) With a new technique to craft a spectrum of glowing dyes, chemists are no longer chasing rainbows.
Swapping out specific chemical building blocks in fluorescent molecules called rhodamines can generate nearly any color scientists desire - ROYGBIV and beyond, researchers report in the journal Nature Methods ("A general method to fine-tune fluorophores for live-cell and in vivo imaging").
Until about 20 years ago, scientists relied on chemical fluorescent dyes to make biological molecules visible. For peeking inside cells, staining organelles, and other imaging experiments, "chemistry was king," Lavis wrote in a July 13, 2017 perspective in the journal Biochemistry ("Chemistry Is Dead. Long Live Chemistry!"). And then, the king was kicked off the throne -- by a glowing green jellyfish protein called GFP.
In 1994, scientists reported the use of a genetic trick to tack GFP, the green fluorescent protein, onto other cellular proteins; it's like forcing the proteins to hold a glow stick. That trick gave researchers a simpler way to trace proteins' movements under a microscope - without using expensive synthetic dyes. The innovation blazed through the field of biological imaging. In 2007, scientists' mixing of GFP and two other fluorescent proteins let them paint mouse neurons a parade of vivid colors in a technique known as the "Brainbow." A year later, the discovery and development of GFP earned the Nobel Prize in chemistry for three scientists, including the late Roger Tsien, an HHMI investigator.
So researchers turned back to chemistry. Scientists had developed cutting-edge microscopes and new techniques to label cellular contents, Lavis says, but the dyes for marking molecules inside cells were still stuck in the nineteenth century. His team focused on rhodamines, because they're especially bright and cell-permeable - so they easily slip into cells and make them glow. But despite working with rhodamines for more than 100 years, chemists had created only a few dozen colors, and most were similar shades ranging from green to orange.
Until recently, making new rhodamines wasn't easy. Scientists still used techniques from the earliest days of chemistry, boiling chemical ingredients in sulfuric acid. This forces the molecules to link together in what's called a condensation reaction. Mixing in different building blocks can yield new and unusual dyes. But ingredients had to be tough enough to survive the boiling acid bath - which didn't leave a lot of options.
This kinder, gentler approach opened the door to a wide new world of dyes, and Lavis's team dove in. Four years later, they revealed the Janelia Fluor dyes, fluorescent molecules up to 50 times brighter than other dyes, and more stable too. The secret behind the Janelia Fluor dyes is a tiny square-shaped appendage called an azetidine ring - a structure made possible only by Lavis's new chemistry approach.
Scientists can use a variety of strategies to get the bright dye molecules onto the protein they want to study. Then, they can zero in on the lit-up protein, and watch it wiggle around and interact with other molecules - without the usual background fuzziness.
"For us, it was a total revolution in the field of single-molecule imaging," says molecular biologist Xavier Darzacq of the University of California, Berkeley. Before using the Janelia Fluor dyes, the fluorescent-tagged transcription factor proteins his team studied were too dim to capture in crisp images. Researchers had to hold the camera shutter open for 10 milliseconds to collect enough light. That's long enough for proteins to wander, so the image would come out blurry - like a photograph of a squirmy toddler. But the Janelia dyes are bright enough that his team can capture molecules in action in just a millisecond, Darzacq says. Such quick snapshots have allowed his team to do lab experiments he describes as "simply unthinkable a few years ago."
Now, Lavis's group has figured out how to fine-tune their fluorescent dyes, by tweaking rhodamines' structure even further. Rhodamines have a basic four-ringed design with groups of atoms protruding from different parts of the rings. In previous work, the scientists developed strategies for coarse tuning dyes - snip out an entire appendage here, and you can make a green dye. Pop in a silicon atom there, and you've got red. Lavis discovered that by carefully placing just a few new atoms in the dye structure, the color and chemical properties of the dyes could also be fine-tuned, allowing many shades of green from a single scaffold. It's like going from the classic eight pack of crayons to the jumbo box of 64.
In a separate paper, published August 9, 2017 in the journal ACS Central Science ("General Synthetic Method for Si-Fluoresceins and Si-Rhodamines"), the team described a way to modify the dye structure's bottom ring.
The dyes are synthesized in a single step with inexpensive ingredients, Lavis says. That makes the dyes cheaper than commercial alternatives - pennies per vial. The low cost has allowed his team share their work with scientists around the world. Lavis, Grimm, and colleagues have now shipped thousands of vials to hundreds of different labs.


text:
Home News Breaking news 84-year-old dies in farming accident, struck by falling tree while riding tractor in Peterborough County
84-year-old dies in farming accident, struck by falling tree while riding tractor in Peterborough County
on: May 05, 2021 In: Breaking news
ASPHODEL-NORWOOD TOWNSHIP — An 84-year-old tractor driver was struck by a falling tree and fatally injured April 30.
Peterborough County OPP and emergency crews responded to the farming accident on Asphodel 7th Line around 4 p.m.
According to police, the tractor remained in motion after the tree fell on the driver, entering a ditch. The victim was transported to a local hospital and succumbed to life-threatening injuries.
The involved section of road was closed for period as investigators documented the scene.
The identity of the deceased was not released pending notification of next of kin. The Peterborough Examiner has reported the victim as being male.
Police investigating death on Huron County farm
Prosperity in farm country: Even barn cats are going for $500 a pop!


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I provide a warm and safe environment in which we can work together to talk about difficult emotions and experiences confidentially. A typical session lasts 50 minutes and would involve one to one work on a weekly basis at the same time each week.
My approach is psychodynamic, that is we would explore how our current situation might be coloured by past experiences. By exploring such experiences we encourage a growing awareness of our ways of interacting with other people and our experience of ourselves. I aim to deliver this in a human and genuine manner, believing that this can assist the process of therapy.
I can also draw on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy training to address the present difficulties and how we might think of them in terms of how our thoughts, emotions and behaviours might effect each other.
Our work together can be short-term if required or longer term depending on the agreed purpose of therapy.
My training in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy was completed in 2014 at the University of Cumbria.
Since 2010 I have worked in both the NHS and charitable organisations as a psychotherapist in both short-term and longer term client work.
50-minute appointments are charged at £40. Sliding scale for fees are available in cases of financial difficulty.
There is no fee for cancelled appointments if cancelled with at least 24 hours notice.


text:
\section{INTRODUCTION}\label{sec:introduction}
Oysters are an essential species in marine ecosystems. They are filter feeders that clean the surrounding water and create habitat for the other species. However, oysters habitats have undergone significant drops both on national and global levels~\cite{beck2011oyster}. There are ongoing efforts to restore oysters habitats across the United States~\cite{mcfarland2018restoring,baggett2015guidelines,blomberg2018habitat,theuerkauf2019integrating}. A significant challenge is providing adequate and effective means for monitoring their progress. To improve the consistency and extensibility of monitoring of oyster habitat restoration projects, the authors in~\cite{baggett2015guidelines} used an expert group in designing and monitoring oyster reef projects to standardize monitoring metrics, units, and performance criteria for evaluation. They recommended monitoring a set of universal parameters including ``reef areal dimensions, reef height, oyster density, and oyster size-frequency distribution'' and environmental variables including water salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen~\cite{baggett2015guidelines}. Other oyster restoration projects also report monitoring these metrics and variables in part~\cite{mcfarland2018restoring,blomberg2018habitat,theuerkauf2019integrating}.

Currently, the measurement of the number of oysters and their physical dimensions for sampling is performed manually and, therefore, is restricted to small amounts, e.g., 100 oysters per sample site~\cite{mcfarland2018restoring}. Moreover, these measurements are not regularly available for small-size aqua/oyster farms. With advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, there is a promising potential to improve the monitoring process of oyster habitat restoration. Drone-like ROVs (Remotely Operated underwater Vehicles) with high maneuverability are getting more affordable and, with proper sensory devices, can be used for sampling. Moreover, computer vision algorithms can be developed to detect oysters and calculate their physical dimensions and properties. More specifically, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been widely used for object detection, and we use them as state-of-the-art for oyster detection. To get the number of oysters in a video, we count the identified oysters. However, to prevent recounting, the detected oysters need to be tracked in consecutive image frames. We use the KCF tracker from OpenCV for tracking the already identified oysters.

Our goal is to step toward monitoring and counting but in a way that would also benefit the oyster harvesting problem. We use an ROV for data collection and implement object detection and instance segmentation algorithms that can be later used for automated harvesting of oysters. However, we do not address oyster picking and harvesting in this paper. Here, we explain how we collected the videos of oysters in the Chesapeake bay and used them for training the oyster detection CNNs. Next, we explain how we tracked the detected oysters to count the oyster in a video. The organization of the rest of the paper is as follows. Section~\ref{sec:related} provides a related work for bottom habitat mapping and common object detection and segmentation algorithms used in precision agriculture. Section~\ref{sec:materials} discusses the object detection and counting algorithm. Section~\ref{sec:result} provides the results of our implementation and experiments.
\section{RELATED WORK}\label{sec:related}
Most of the related work for seafloor bottom mapping in subtidal waters is done using remote sonar sensing techniques followed by in situ sampling or underwater videography for ground-truthing~\cite{ojeda2004spatially}. However, sonar data sets have low resolutions, and obtaining data sets with high-quality data is expensive. Moreover, their process, interpretation, and visualization demand substantial effort. Some works~\cite{grizzle2008bottom} used the georeferenced optical data as the primary mapping tool. A significant problem of visual data is its interpretation~\cite{anderson2008acoustic}. Compared to the physical data, the visual data (i.e., photographs) are limited in terms of measuring the physical parameters (such as size) of samples~\cite{anderson2008acoustic}. However, with advancements in underwater robotics and image processing, the capabilities in obtaining and using optical data have much increased. For instance, recently, an approach for autonomous coral identification and counting~\cite{modasshir2018coral} and underwater 3D semantic mapping~\cite{modasshir2019autonomous} have presented. A similar approach can be adopted for the problem of oyster habitat mapping.

Generally, works for detection and tracking are categorized as Multi-Object Tracking (MOT), an active research topic in computer vision focusing on identifying and tracking objects of specific classes such as cars, animals, and pedestrians videos~\cite{ciaparrone2020deep}.
Usually, the objects are animated and have arbitrary trajectories, while here, the objects (oysters) are in-animated, and the camera is moving. Nonetheless, we can still employ MOT practices for our task. We employ tracking-by-detection, which includes three steps~\cite{papakis2020gcnnmatch}: detection of objects, tracking of the previously detected objects, and association of the tracked objects with the detected objects.

Deep learning methods for object detection can be categorized as one-stage and two-stage algorithms. One-stage algorithms such as YOLO~\cite{redmon2016you} SSD~\cite{liu2016ssd} and Fast R-CNN~\cite{girshick2015fast}  solve the object detection using a single network~\cite{redmon2016you} aiming for faster inference computation time while two-stage algorithms such as Faster-RCNN~\cite{ren2015faster} solve the problem in two stages, one for proposing candidate bounding boxes and one for later classifying them as foreground classes and background, aiming for higher inference precision. Mask-RCNN~\cite{he2017mask} is an extension of Faster R-CNN, which also segments the foreground classes using a CNN at the end parallel to the bounding boxing recognition branch. Mask R-CNN demonstrated that it has the highest precision for common datasets~\cite{wu2019detectron2}. In this work, the segmentation helps with generating the size maps of the oysters. Therefore, we used Mask R-CNN~\cite{he2017mask} for detecting oysters.

Various approaches have been applied for tracking and feature extraction~\cite{papakis2020gcnnmatch}. These include deep learning methods, correlation filters (CF), auto-encoders, spatial attention, motion extraction, and feature pyramids. CF-based trackers are among the computationally efficient yet robust trackers~\cite{henriques2014high}. We tried different trackers and chose KCF (Kernelized Correlation Filters) tracker~\cite{henriques2014high} due to its robustness and efficiency.
\begin{figure}[!t]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.99\textwidth]{img/process.pdf}
    \caption{Tracking by detection process}
    \label{fig:process}
\end{figure}
\section{METHODS}\label{sec:materials}
Three main steps required for counting the numbers of oysters in a video are detection, tracking, and association. We used Mask R-CNN for detection, KCF tracker for tracking, and pairwise matching of the detection and tracking bounding boxes based on Intersection over Union (IoU) for the association.
First, we detect the oysters in the current frame and specify their bounding boxes as described in Section~\ref{sec:network}. Next, we update the tracking bounding boxes from the previous frames described in Section~\ref{sec:tracking}. The final stage is pairwise matching between the newly detected bounding boxes and the updated tracking bounding boxes and associating new trackers for the non-matched oysters (Section~\ref{sec:association}). Figure~\ref{fig:process} provides an overview of these steps.
\subsection{Object Detection Network Structure}\label{sec:network}
For detecting the oysters, it is most suitable to choose the object detection architectures such as R-CNN (Regions with CNN features)~\cite{girshick2014rich}, Fast R-CNN~\cite{girshick2015fast}, Faster R-CNN~\cite{ren2015faster} and Mask R-CNN~\cite{he2017mask}. The input of these networks is the image, and the outputs are objects and their corresponding bounding boxes or masks of their instance segmentation in the image. R-CNN uses selective search algorithm to generate around 2k Region of Interests (RoIs), wraps them to a fixed square size, and finally runs them through a CNN. CNN is trained for classifying the images and predicting the boxing offset for the original RoIs. Generating the RoIs is computationally expensive and is the bottleneck of the R-CNN method. Fast R-CNN is an improvement of R-CNN. Similar to R-CNN, it calculates the RoIs first using the selective search algorithm. However, it first runs the entire image on a backbone CNN to get a high-resolution feature map corresponding to the whole image. It generates RoIs on the feature map of the image rather than the original image. It then uses pooling to reshape and unify the size of RoIs. The output of Fast R-CNN is similar to R-CNN. Faster R-CNN improves Fast R-CNN by using a separate network, Region Proposal Network (RPN), for proposing the RoIs from the output of the backbone CNN, feature map(s) of the image. It uses RoI pooling to reshape the proposals and then classify and predict the bounding boxes offset similar to Fast R-CNN. Mask R-CNN works similar to Faster R-CNN but extends it with another network for segmenting the RoIs.
Our goal is to be able to generate the size and frequency map of the Chesapeake Bay oysters. Therefore, we used Mask R-CNN that outputs instance segmentation of objects in addition to bounding boxes and classes. Figure~\ref{fig:network} shows the structure of this network.
Different CNNs such as VGGNet, ResNet and with different depths are being used as the backbone of Mask R-CNN. Moreover, Feature Pyramid Networks (FPN)~\cite{lin2017feature} are also being used as an extension to the backbone network. FPN builds a pyramid of feature maps with different sizes by making two series of layers (bottom-up and top-down) with lateral connections. Each feature map then goes through the rest of the network, i.e., RPN, classifier, bounding box regressor, and segmentation. The final segmentation is made by merging the masks outputted for all feature maps.
The modified versions of ResNets that extracted features from the final convolutional layer of the 4-th stage, called C4, were used in the original Faster-RCNN implementation. Another choice for the backbone network is  ResNet with dilations in 5-th stage~\cite{dai2017deformable}, which is called DC5.
In this work, we used ResNet50-C4, ResNet50-DC5, ResNet50-FPN, ResNet101-FPN, ResNet101-C4, and ResNet101-FPN as the backbone of the Mask R-CNN and compared the results.
\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=2.45in]{img/mask_rcnn.pdf}
    \caption{Mask R-CNN network structure}
    \label{fig:network}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Tracking}\label{sec:tracking}
The KCF tracker achieves efficient tracking by generating a matrix of cyclic shifts of the sample vector $\bm{x}=[x_1, x_2, \dots,  x_n]^T \in \mathbb{R}^n$. The cyclic shift of $\bm{x}$ is defined as $\bm{P}_x=[x_n, x_1, x_2, \dots,  x_{n-1}]$. Matrix of all cyclic shifts of $\bm{x}$, the circulant matrix, is defined as
\begin{equation}
\bm{X}=C(\bm{x})=
\begin{bmatrix}
x_1 & x_2 &  \dots & x_n\\
x_n & x_1 &  \dots & x_{n-1}\\
x_{n-1} & x_n  & \dots & x_{n-2}\\
\vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots\\
x_2 & x_3 &  \dots &  x_1
\end{bmatrix}.
\end{equation}
The KCF tracker uses the cyclic shift method for $(M\times N)$ image block $\bm{x}$ to train a filter $f(\bm{x})=\bm{\omega}\bm{\phi}(\bm{x})$, where $\bm{\phi}(\bm{x})$ is the mapping Fourier space. The training samples for $\bm{x}$ are all of the cyclic shifts $\bm{P}_i$ where $i \in \{0, \dots, M-1\}\times \{0, \dots, N-1\}$. The corresponding score $y_i \in [0, 1]$ for $\bm{P}_i$ is generated by a Gaussian function based on shift distance. The classifier for detection of the tracker is trained by minimizing the regressor error as~\cite{liuoverview}:
\begin{equation}
    w=\operatorname*{argmin}_w \sum_{i}{} (\bm{\omega}\bm{\phi}(\bm{x})-y_i)^2=\lambda \|w\|^2,
\end{equation}
where $\lambda \geq 0$ is the regularization parameter for the model's simplicity. The hypothesis is trained effectively by using fast Fourier transform.
In the Fourier domain, instead of a single grayscale channel feature input, the KCF algorithm can use multi-channel histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) features as input, simply by summing them over~\cite{henriques2014high}.
\subsection{Association}\label{sec:association}
As shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:process}, for each frame in the video sequence, the detected bounding boxes (of oysters) are compared with the tracked bounding boxes to add new trackers, update trackers or remove trackers. The bounding boxes are matched in pairs using their IoU values. For two bounding boxes, IoU is defined as the ratio of area of their overlap over the area of their union. We define the IoU overlap threshold of 0.2 for matching the boxes. If the IoU of a detected box with a tracking box is greater than the overlap threshold, we match them. Moreover, we add new tracking boxes for the non-matched detected boxes and update the matched tracking boxes. We keep track of any unmatched tracking box and remove it after a certain number of mismatches.
Each tracker is assigned a unique number, and the output frame is the updated bounding boxes. Thus the total number of oysters is the number of trackers assigned for the video sequence.

\section{EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS}\label{sec:result}
This section describes our underwater image acquisition, implementation and training of the Mask-RCNN network, and, finally, results for detection and tracking.
\subsection{Image Acquisition}
We conducted a preliminary study on the underwater machine vision of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, as shown in Fig~\ref{fig:daq}a. We mounted an led light and a waterproof camera on a long pipe and took underwater photos. Underwater illumination is a challenging problem and had a high impact on the quality of the collected video sequence. Next, we used a Remotely Operated underwater Vehicle (ROV) for taking underwater videos. Figure~\ref{fig:daq}(b) shows our underwater videography setup. The ROV is BlueRobotics BlueROV2~\cite{blue}, with two horizontal thrusters and four vertical thrusters providing six degrees of freedom, three translational (heave, sway, and surge) and three rotational (pitch, roll, and yaw). It is connected via a tether to a remote machine located on the ground or boat. An open-source software, QGroundControl (QGC)~\cite{qgc}, is installed on this machine as the graphic user interface (GUI) of ROV for sending commands to ROV and receiving camera and other sensory information on the ground station machine (remote machine). The ROV can be controlled autonomously or manually. Here, we control it manually by sending control commands to QGC using a wireless controller. A camera and two led lights are mounted in front of the ROV. The camera feed streams to the remote machine, and the operator uses it for the underwater navigation of the ROV.

\begin{figure}
\centering
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.35\textwidth]{img/field.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.51\textwidth]{img/setup.pdf}}
\caption{Data acquisition: (a) preliminary (b) by ROV}
\label{fig:daq}
\end{figure}

We equipped the ROV with an additional camera, a GoPro HERO7 Black, and led lights to view the seafloor. We set up this camera to store the videos locally and stream to the remote machine using FFmpeg software~\cite{ffmpeg} installed on the local machine. The images taken from the Chesapeake Bay have high turbidity, and the bottom is not visible without external lights. With our lighting setup, we could only see oysters within around three feet from the bottom, and thus we take images within that range. Figure~\ref{fig:turbidity} shows the images of the bay bottom for different heights from the Bay bottom.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.225\textwidth]{img/turbidity-025.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.225\textwidth]{img/turbidity-100.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.225\textwidth]{img/turbidity-120.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.225\textwidth]{img/turbidity-140.pdf}}
\caption[Different Views]{Images of an arbitrary location of the bay bottom but with different altitudes as the ROV moves toward the bottom from (a) to (d). Due to the high turbidity of the water, the bottom is only visible within around three feet.}
\label{fig:turbidity}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Oyster data set and Annotation}\label{subsec:annotation}
Images from the bay bottom recorded videos using our customized ROV were used for constructing the oyster data set. There are two main challenges for ground-truthing the live oysters in the images.
First, both live oysters and empty shells are lying down in the bay bottom. Live oysters have two valves (or shells) that are slightly open enough to ventilate or feed. Animal orientation is a significant factor for detecting live oysters. If animals are cup-side up, this orientation will mask whether they have two valves or one and how much the gaps are between two valves. Second, the oysters and shells are heavily covered in sediment, and the animal is heavily fouled with epibionts like bryozoa. Therefore, the actual color texture of oysters is not visible (Figure~\ref{fig:texture}). To overcome these challenges (without manipulating animals, which is out of scope of this article), we rely on two things. First, since we have the video data we can use it to analysis an image for ground truthing when necessary. Second, we assume that the object is an live oyster wherever its orientation is cup-side up.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.45\textwidth]{img/clean-r.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[]{\includegraphics[width=.45\textwidth]{img/slit-r.pdf}}
\caption[Different Textures]{Sample images of (a) washed oysters and shells after dredging and (b) oysters and shells underwater}
\label{fig:texture}
\end{figure}

To make the annotation process more convenient, we annotate the data set in two phases using the image annotation tool labelme~\cite{labelme2016} and another tool we made for converting to masks to labelme software format. First, we selected fifty sample images and generated mask images of the oysters. We used a pre-trained Mask R-CNN (described in Section~\ref{sec:network}) as an initial object detector network and trained it using these fifty images. Next, we selected another set of images and ran them through our initial object detector to get preliminary predictions of oysters. We used our tool for converting the predictions of the trained network to labelme file format. We reviewed and adjusted the generated annotations for making the ground truth mask images of live oysters. We combined all the images and annotated them for model training of the object detection networks. About sixty-five percent of the data set was used for training, and the rest was used for evaluating the performance of the trained networks. Figure~\ref{fig:masksample} shows a sample annotation of live oysters.
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{floatrow}
\subfloat[Image]{\includegraphics[width=.29\textwidth]{img/sample.pdf}}
\subfloat[Mask]{\includegraphics[width=.29\textwidth]{img/sample_mask.pdf}}\quad
\subfloat[Masked image]{\includegraphics[width=.29\textwidth]{img/sample_mask_image.pdf}}
\caption[Sample Annotation]{Sample annotation and labeling of an image in the data set}
\label{fig:masksample}
\end{floatrow}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\subfloat[Original image\label{fig:o1}]{\begin{sideways}\includegraphics[height=.24\textwidth]{img/2629.pdf}\end{sideways}}\hfill
\subfloat[Inferred image\label{fig:i1}]{\begin{sideways}\includegraphics[height=.24\textwidth]{img/2629-3-p.pdf}\end{sideways}}\hfill
\subfloat[Original image\label{fig:o2}]{\includegraphics[width=.24\textwidth]{img/498.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[Inferred image\label{fig:i2}]{\includegraphics[width=.24\textwidth]{img/498-3-p.pdf}}

\subfloat[Original image\label{fig:o3}]{\includegraphics[width=.24\textwidth]{img/503.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[Inferred image\label{fig:i3}]{\includegraphics[width=.24\textwidth]{img/503-3-p.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[Original image\label{fig:o4}]{\includegraphics[width=.24\textwidth]{img/661.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[Inferred image\label{fig:i4}]{\includegraphics[width=.24\textwidth]{img/661-3-p.pdf}}
\caption[Sample Output]{Sample inferred oysters}
\label{fig:infer}
\end{figure}
\subsection{Implementation and Pre-Trained Models}
Different implementations of Mask R-CNN are already available online. We used Detectron2~\cite{wu2019detectron2} that can be used as a library; trains fast, and has COCO data set~\cite{lin2014microsoft} pre-trained models available. COCO is one of the benchmark data sets for object detection and segmentation and has around 330k images (with more than 200k labeled) of 80 object categories. Since we have a small data set, we leveraged pre-trained models for transfer learning. We used the underlying convolution kernels of the COCO pre-trained networks for our network training, which capture low-level features common in most objects such as edges and angles and only trained for the high-level features special to the oysters. As discussed in Section~\ref{subsec:annotation}, we used 1290 instances of oysters, 827 instances for training, and the rest for validation.
\begin{table}[]
\resizebox{.8\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{@{}llllll@{}}
\toprule
 & Backbone       & $AP$ & $AP_{50}$ & $AP_{75}$ &  \\ \midrule
 & ResNet50-FPN    & 53.2 & 77.5 & 59.2 &  \\
 & ResNet50-DC5   & 55.0 & \textbf{81.8} & 63.3 &  \\
 & ResNet50-C4   & \textbf{55.9} & 80.3 & \textbf{64.1} &  \\
 & ResNet101-FPN   & 53.2 & 77.5 & 59.6 &  \\
 & ResNet101-DC5  & 53.4 & 78.8 & 60.1 &  \\
 & ResNet101-C4  & 51.6 & 76.8 & 58.7 &  \\
 \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
}
\caption{Instance segmentation mask $AP$ values}
\label{tab:AP}
\end{table}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\subfloat[sample 1]{\includegraphics[width=.315\textwidth]{img/counting-sample1.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[sample 2]{\includegraphics[width=.535\textwidth]{img/counting-sample2.pdf}}
\caption[Stitched Videos]{Stitched images of videos (generated via ODM~\cite{odm2020})}
\label{fig:odm}
\end{figure}
\begin{figure*} [th!]
\centering
\subfloat[first frame sample video 1]{\includegraphics[width=.489\textwidth]{img/c-sample1-first.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[last frame of sample video 1]{\includegraphics[width=.489\textwidth]{img/c-sample1-last.pdf}}

\subfloat[first frame sample video 2]{\includegraphics[width=.489\textwidth]{img/c-sample2-first.pdf}}\hfill
\subfloat[last frame sample video 2]{\includegraphics[width=.489\textwidth]{img/c-sample2-last.pdf}}
\caption[Stitched Videos]{The first and last frames of the sample videos. For each tracker bounding box, the number on the top row shows the tracker identification number. If the detection and tracker matches, the number on the second row shows the oyster inference percentage.}
\label{fig:counting}
\end{figure*}
\subsection{Detection Results}
All the training and evaluation have been executed on a single machine with CPU Intel Xeon E5-2680 2.4 GHz, 2 NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs, and 128GB memory. We trained our models for object detection and segmentation with six different backbones of ResNet50-C4, ResNet50-DC5, ResNet50-FPN, ResNet101-FPN, ResNet101-C4, and ResNet101-FPN.
\subsection{Evaluation of the Trained Mask R-CNN}
Average Precision ($AP$) over different IoU (Intersection of Union) thresholds are the common metrics used for object detection and segmentation algorithms~\cite{lin2014microsoft}.
For a detected object (here oyster), IoU is the ratio of the predicted object's overlap area and the annotated ground truth over their union area. It is used for detecting the number of true positives (TP), false positives (FP), and false negatives (FN). TP is the number of objects detected positive correctly, FP is the number of objects detected incorrectly, and FN is the number of missed objects. For example, if the IoU threshold is set to 50 percent, the predicted object is a true positive if IoU is greater than 0.5; otherwise, it is a false positive. If the object is not predicted, it is a false negative. Precision (P) is the ratio of TP over the number of the predicted objects, and recall is the ratio (R) of the number of TP over the number of ground truth objects. For an IoU threshold, if we plot the precision over recall curve, the area under the curve is the $AP$ for that threshold. In this work, we report mask $AP$ values to evaluate our trained model using the predicted masks.

Table~\ref{tab:AP} compares the different $AP$ values for the oyster segmentation of our trained models for the validation set. $AP_{50}$ and $AP_{75}$ are the average precision calculated for IoU thresholds of $0.50$ and $0.75$, respectively. $AP$ is the mean of $\{AP_{50}, \{AP_{55} \cdots AP_{95}\}$. The best $AP$ and $AP_{75}$ were achieved for the network with ResNet50-C4 backbone with the values of $55.9$ and $64.1$, respectively. The best $AP_{50}$ was achieved for ResNet50-DC5 backbone with a value of $81.8$. As mentioned in~\ref{subsec:annotation}, there two challenges for detecting live oysters, (a) animal orientation and (b) sediments on oysters. These two challenge heavily impact the performance of the Mask R-CNN network. For annotating the ground truth, we used the video sequence to inspect the previous and next images when it was challenging to distinguish live oysters from empty shells. If it is challenging for the annotator to distinguish between the live oysters and the reefs on the bottom, the same problem applies to the network which learns from those annotations. Nonetheless, looking at the inferred images of the oysters, the results seem promising. Our ultimate goal is to make an underwater robot capable of picking up (harvesting) oysters. Therefore, as long as the network can detect most of the live oysters, we can overlook the false positives.
Figure~\ref{fig:infer} shows samples of inferred oysters. Figure~\ref{fig:i1} shows instance segmentation of Fig.~\ref{fig:o1}. This image is taken from a relatively far distance, and due to turbidity, it is relatively more blurry. There are more false positives in the inferred image compared to the other images in Fig.~\ref{fig:infer}. However, the number of missed detected oysters (false negatives) is small (two oysters in the top left). Figure~\ref{fig:i2} showcases a moderately high performance of the network. There is no false positive in this image, but there is one false negative (the oyster beneath the oysters on the right). Figure~\ref{fig:i3} demonstrates a moderately average performance of the network. There are three false positives in this image (from the center to the right), and there is no false negative. Figure~\ref{fig:i3} illustrates a moderately high performance of the network. There is no false positive in this image but there one false negative (the oyster beneath the oysters on the right). Figure~\ref{fig:i4} depicts a relatively high performance of the network. There are three false positives in this image (right bottom), and there is no false negative.
\subsection{Tracking and Counting Implementation}
We used OpenCV~\cite{opencv} for implementing KCF tracker. We picked two sample videos to demonstrate our oyster counting method. To better demonstrate the results, we picked two short videos with 1000 and 300 frames (around 16 and 5 seconds for 59 fps) and used OpenDroneMap (ODM)~\cite{odm2020} to extract a single stitched image for each of these videos. Note that generating such images takes a much longer time than counting the oyster using our method. Figure~\ref{fig:odm} shows the stitched images. Figure~\ref{fig:counting} shows the first and last frames of the sample videos as well as the results of the proposed method. We count the oysters in a sample video ourselves manually and compare them with the results from implementing our method, as shown in Table~\ref{tab:count}. We also repeat these for another two sample video sequences without generating their stitched image. The results show an average accuracy of $79.8\%$. There are three main sources of error: (i) miss-classification of empty shells as oysters, (ii) recounting of oysters, which was reduced by tracking the unmatched tracking bounding boxes, and (iii) the oyster instances that the detection network missed.
\begin{table}[]
\resizebox{.9\columnwidth}{!}{%
\begin{tabular}{@{}llcc@{}}
\toprule
 &        & Tracking-by-detection & Manual counting \\ \midrule
 & sample 1    & 27 & 21  \\
 & sample 2   & 25 & 20 \\
 & sample 3   & 118 & 94 \\
 & sample 4   & 215 & 176 \\
 \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
}
\caption{Number of oysters in the sample videos}
\label{tab:count}
\end{table}
\section{CONCLUSION}\label{sec:conclusion}
Oysters are an essential species in marine ecosystems, and restoration of oyster habitats is vital. Our goal is to help to monitor oysters. In this work, we demonstrated how we customized a drone-like ROV, BlueRobotics BlueROV2, with a camera, GoPro HERO7 Black, for videography of the Chesapeake Bay bottom. Moreover, we annotated the visual data captured from the bay bottom to make an oyster data set. We chose the state-of-the-art CNN for target tracking and instance segmentation, Mask R-CNN, and employed detectron2 for training and evaluation of the oyster data set. We compared the results for different backbones in the network structure. Our trained networks' prediction results showed an Average Precision ($AP_{50}$) of 81.8 for our oyster data set. We also combined the detection CNN with an object tracker for counting the number of oysters in videos.
Target detection and instance segmentation of oysters is the first step towards making a robotic tool which environment-friendly and can harvest oysters more efficiently. The code is available online at \href{https://github.com/bsadr/oyster-detection}{GitHub/bsadr}~\cite{oysterd}.
\section*{ACKNOWLEDGMENT}
The authors wish to thank Mr. Bobby Leonard for providing his boat and giving us tours in his oyster lease for taking videos in the Chesapeake Bay. This work was supported in part by the Maryland Robotics Center postdoctoral fellowship program. This work was supported in part by USDA NIFA sustainable agriculture system program under award number 20206801231805.
\bibliographystyle{plain}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Easy to use, easy to love, the Clover Wood Daisy Cabinet Bed in Cherry is truly an instant guest bed or bed for small space living. Convert it from a handsome Credenza-style cabinet to comfy Queen sized bed in less than a minute. The Clover Wood Daisy Cabinet Bed Includes a gel-infused memory foam mattress, built-in dual Power/USB module and large rolling storage drawer. Less-expensive than wall beds and no installation to the wall required, the Clover Daisy Cabinet Bed can fit under a window and be moved around the room. When all closed up, it just takes 10 square feet of space. Constructed from solid hardwoods and given a distressed off-white finish called Buttercream, the Clover Wood Daisy Cabinet Bed is a perfect way to add stylish utility to any space.


Our logistics operations were born out of our desire to maximize efficiency for the receiving and distribution of our own products in the New York Metropolitan area. As our space and capacity has increased, we began to offer our services to other building products distributors. Cargo arrives by rail or container, without the costly delays of traffic or tolls, and is held by us for release as required by the owner.
D&M operates a five acre rail reload operation in Maspeth, Queens under license from the New York and Atlantic Railroad. Services offered include stripping of flatcars and boxcars, outdoor and covered storage, and reload onto customer or end-user truck. Products handled include lumber, wood panels (plywood, OSB etc.), and gypsum board.


text:
The Motley Fool Canada » Investing » Could a U.S.-North Korea Breakthrough Sink Gold Stocks?
Could a U.S.-North Korea Breakthrough Sink Gold Stocks?
Ambrose O'Callaghan | April 24, 2018 | More on: AGI GG GOLD ABX AGI G
In the summer of 2017, the spat between the United States and North Korea took centre stage and proved a boon for precious metals prices. Geopolitical events have been a key mover not just for precious metals, but also for oil in recent weeks. Gold breached the key $1,350 threshold in early September. Prices have once again been influenced by geopolitical events in the wake of heightening tensions between the key powers involved in the Syrian Civil War.
However, prices have been subdued after North Korea announced that it would suspend its nuclear missile testing program. This was heralded as an early victory by U.S. president Donald Trump, who has signaled that North Korea is ready and willing to denuclearize. However, in statements to the Workers Party of Korea, Kim Jong-un has said that the tests are no longer needed, as North Korea had completed work on a viable nuclear deterrent.
The extent of North Korea's nuclear capabilities amount to guesswork at the current stage. Some analysts see recent ICBM tests as evidence that North Korea is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the entire U.S. mainland. Others have expressed skepticism over the range of North Korea's ICBMs.
In the eyes of South Korean and U.S. negotiators, the suspension of the missile program has the potential to pave the way for de-nuclearization and even a normalization of relations between North and South Korea. With NAFTA talks making significant progress, could a breakthrough agreement with North Korea bury gold this spring?
Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G)(NYSE:GG) stock has climbed 12.8% in 2018. However, the stock fell 0.88% on April 23. Gold production exceeded guidance in 2017, and Goldcorp has established itself as one of the best-performing gold miner equities on the TSX so far this year.
Alamos Gold Inc. (TSX:AGI)(NYSE:AGI) fell 1.29% on April 23, and shares have dropped 15.6% in 2018 so far. The stock has plunged 32% year over year. In 2017 Alamos gold produced a record 429,400 ounces of gold and reported record revenues of $542.8 million. The company marked the third consecutive year that guidance had been achieved.
Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX)(NYSE:ABX) is a Toronto-based company that is engaged in the production of gold and copper. Shares are down 8.8% in 2018 so far but have climbed 2.8% month over month. In the first quarter, Barrick reported net income of $158 million, which was down from $679 million in Q1 2017. However, adjusted earnings rose to $0.15 per share, which beat analyst expectations.
Barrick has scaled back production and made an effort to dramatically cut down its debt load. Higher prices allowed the company to make up ground in spite a 20% drop in gold production in the first quarter, as revenues fell 10% year over year to $1.79 billion.
Easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula could generate downward pressure for gold ahead of what is usually a slow period in the summer months. This means gold equities are likely to be a gamble for investors as we look ahead to the month of May.
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Sinister Minister – Brown, plum shaped cherries. At full ripeness in the heat the color will be brownish red with possibly dark greenish shoulders on the outside and maroon on the inside. If ripened in cooler conditions, or not fully ripe, there will be areas of greenish color, both outside and in the gel and flesh. A selection from the "Keyes" group, this is a good producer of pretty cherries that have a full tomato flavor with a great hint of sweetness. Medium size plant loads up and keeps producing until frost. Great in salads or for fresh eating. One of those that are so good that not many make it from the garden to the house. Great eye appeal.


Last week the candidates for the Bennelong byelection were released. In the lead up to the election on 16 December 2017, read about the party representatives, their policies and vision for roads and transport in Mac Park.
Traditionally a safe Liberal seat the announcement of Kristina Keneally as the Labour candidate, has turned the upcoming Bennelong byelection into a closely watched race.
Latest polls suggest it will be a close contest between the two main parties with a recent poll conducted by ReachTel suggesting that Alexander holds a slight margin in the two-party preferred at 53% over Keneally at 47% following the first week of campaigning.
According to the ReachTel poll the most important issues to voters in the Bennelong electorate are 'Heath' and the 'Cost of Living' with 'Roads and Transport' coming in fifth spot above the environment and power prices.
Alexander has always been a strong advocate for transport crusading for fast rail links between cities as a means of tackling housing affordability.
Why is bennelong having a byelection ?
The byelection was forced by the resignation of Liberal John Alexander, who discovered he was British through his father. Alexander has since renounced his British citizenship and is standing again for the electoral seat.
It will be a close outcome on December 16 - so remember to let your local member know the issues that are important to you.


Protect ALL, But With Exceptions?
Do you have 100's or even thousands of WordPress Posts or Pages? Trying to protect them ALL in one shot? Hmm, but maybe you want to make a few exceptions; i.e., maybe not really all of them?
A common mistake when you attempt to protect all Posts or all Pages, is to use s2Member's Post/Page Restriction Options. While this does make it quite easy to protect everything, because the instructions here show that you can simply type the special keyword all to protect everything; it does not allow for any exceptions to be made now or in the future. For that reason, please try to avoid using the all keyword when there are in fact exceptions to the rule.
Here we can say that any Post with a certain tag will be protected. This makes it easy for us to protect content in ways that allow for greater flexibility. For instance, if you protect the tag members only (just an example tag), then you simply add this tag to ALL Posts that should be protected, but then exclude those few exceptions that should not be protected, by simply not giving some Posts the protected tag.
Adding tags to lots of Posts at once is easy if you use the built-in Bulk Editing tools provided by WordPress. Screenshot example below.
See also: Custom Bulk Edit plugin.


I've been looking into some trimmers the last few weeks and I've almost decided to buy the Worx Gt mostly because its battery powered and a decent price.
Does anyone here have any direct experience using the worx gt?
Hi! I don't have experience with it, but my friend has it, it says it is OK for the money and he is pretty satisfied with it. I have also read that it is a good trimmer, but depending on the model, the battery is good or could be better.


Whether you've been involved with Farrington for awhile or will be joining us for the first time, we'd love to celebrate with you!
Join us for snacks and beverages while we hear from our youth staff about their summer experiences learning and leading during our Nature Linc Summer Program.
We will honor the decade long commitment to Farrington by one of our Trustees, Brooks Mostue.
We'd love to have your company as we celebrate the completion of another successful summer!


text:
Erin Mills Lodge says Goodbye to a Pair of Dedicated Leaders
When Erin Mills Lodge became part of the larger Schlegel Villages family in 2016, it brought along a core team of people who'd grown close through many years of service and dedication to the people of Mississauga. The small, family-like home said goodbye to two of those people in late-November... Read more
Aspen Lake's Barry Hickling Joins Ontario Association of Residents' Councils
Almost immediately after Barry Hickling moved into his first long-term care home, he took an interest in the idea of residents' council. Throughout his life, he's been an advocate supporting neighbours in his community who, for any number of reasons, have a quiet voice when speaking for themselves... Read more
Efficiency Creates time for Chantal Hurst, and that Time Creates Space for Relationships
Chantal Hurst values efficiency in her work. "I'm a Zoomer," she says with a laugh. In the past two years as a dietary team member with The Village at St. Clair, she's figured out how to maximize her time in the meal set-up and clean-up in all the village neighbourhoods, and she is always on the... Read more
Pinehaven Nursing Home: A True Community Comes Together
Barry and George are sitting across from each other in the bright lounge of Pinehaven Nursing Home in Waterloo. They're waiting patiently for the morning's service to begin. Though they are from different corners of the world, the opportunity to worship was always important to both of them... Read more
The Gift of Conversation Turned to Poetry
Mary Geauvreau walked into the general store just off Main Street in The Village of Aspen Lake one late autumn day to be greeted by Sue Marier, the new volunteer who'd been running the store for a couple of months. Mary is one of the residents at Aspen Lake who received a personalized poem written... Read more
Celebrating the Strength of Community as St. Clair marks 5th Anniversary
Main Street in The Village at St. Clair smells of popcorn on a random Wednesday at the end of November and music belts out as a small core of residents sing and dance along. People float in and out and the familiar tones seem to spark interest in them all. Some are neighbours (residents) who can't... Read more
Appreciation for a Resident Volunteer at Taunton Mills
Etta Gore is from northern Ontario where Black Spruce and Tamarack trees cover the ancient rock formations of the Canadian Shield. It's the type of place where one must he somewhat hardened to handle the elements and the distances, while at the same time compassionate and kind, for people look out... Read more
Meaningful Relationships are the Core of Contentment for Bev Saynor
Bev Saynor has been on her own for nearly 20 years, yet she still chokes up when she speaks of her husband. He was lost to cancer in 2000 after a four-year struggle, but Bev managed to carry on – it's simply what must be done. She lived in a condo in Mississauga's north end for a number of years... Read more
Schlegel Villages Remembers
Town Halls and Squares and gathering spaces on every neighbourhood of The Villages were transformed into sacred sites of Remembrance on Nov. 11, just as cities and towns across Canada stood silent to honour the selfless service of hundreds of thousands of Canadians over the decades. Resident... Read more
'Little amounts of Light Compared to its Darkness': Schlegel Villages Residents Remember War
Harry Malcomson was an army cook stationed in British Columbia at the end of the Second World War. His specialty was soup, he says, and in the general mess hall he served countless iterations of it to hundreds of soldiers, many of whom were returning home from their time as Prisoners of War in the... Read more


I have used this approach in other public health campaigns including World Antibiotic Awareness Week most recently (13-19 November 2017), and data extracted ready for analysis for World Diabetes Day (14 November 2017). Obtaining a complete extract is not a straightforward process, with access to Twitter rather like a garden hose on full blast with a bunch of people dancing about around it – sometimes people step on the hose and the flow reduces to a trickle; other times it's like a geyser catching everyone. During busy periods – eg the start of a campaign, or the flurry of activity that comes with celebrity endorsement – it is sometimes only possible to access a few minutes of tweets, which makes social network analysis of limited use. I have back up options that can provide social network analysis but are a little more fiddly to use for the "top tweets" analysis (eg TAGS tool).
The following statistics show impressive international reach: mainly in Europe for EuroTestWeek, but interest elsewhere too; wider reach for the HIVTestWeek campaign. The summary of top content (Storify pages) shows greater diversity of posts for the EuroTestWeek campaign; for HIVTestWeek many of the top posts featured the posters, with their clear and striking images of individuals representing different test groups. There was some further testing using accessory hashtags (eg TestTreatPrevent and Time2Test but most of these tweets also included either the EuroTestWeek or HIVTestWeek so are included in the analysis presented below).
4) Top tweets analysis (via Storify) I initially tried to run a combined analysis of both hashtags to produce an ongoing summary here.
In fact it has proved simpler to look at the campaigns separately.
This is a quick summary – full data are available at the links above and I would be interested to hear what colleagues discover in further analysis. Hopefully this information will be of interest ahead of World AIDS Day on Friday 1 December. I will be attempting a similar analysis of that campaign, but the sheer scale (9,000 tweets per hour in the extract I was able to obtain last year) will mean that I will be resorting to different approaches to capture a full record of tweets.
Dr Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian, originally posted 18 November 2017, completed 29 November.
Featured image is from HIV Prevention England website.
Notes: i) "Tweets" here = tweets, replies and retweets, though full "FollowTheHashtag" report provides breakdown under these three headings).
iii) Likely to be a considerable overestimate – see earlier blog.


text:
J-Lo and Marc Anthony Set to Co-Headline Concert Tour
July 25, 2007 TicketInsider
J-Lo and Marc Anthony are set to Co-Headline a Concert Tour this fall. Jennifer Lopez will launch her first ever concert tour in Atlantic...
J-Lo and Marc Anthony are set to Co-Headline a Concert Tour this fall.
Jennifer Lopez will launch her first ever concert tour in Atlantic City on September 29. J-Lo will co-headline the tour with her husband Marc Anthony.
The couple plans to perform one set each then a third set together. English and Spanish language songs will be interwoven in to the sets. Currently, the couple plans to hit the US and Canada. Additional tour dates are expected to be release early next week.
J-Lo and Anthony are also costarring in the upcoming biopic "El Cantante," set to hit movie theatres in August. The soundtrack for the movie is out now with a new album from J-Lo set to drop in September.


Very nice renderings and color!
They all look Exceptional !!! Thanks Chazcron!
My local dealers don't know NUTTIN. Watch for dealers sending technicians to Bowling Green that'll be the first clue that it's on the way.
Thank you Chazcron. Even one with its door partially open.
I would like to see some of those colors available but I doubt they will be.
Elkart Lake Blue Metallic was just introduced. The cost to develop a color that gets painted on SMC panels that our Corvettes have, is considerable, so highly likely that both Shadow Gray Metallic and Elkart Lake Blue would be a first year ME colors.


So we are supposed to have our first hard frost of the season tonight. The blah starts early. Sigh. Winter is just so dull and brown around here. Maybe we will get some snow to give it some character now and then. In the meantime, here is a wildflower image that I shot back in May. This is a Fringed Puccoon or Frilly Puccoon. It's flowers are fairly small and grow low to the ground.


text:
Coral reefs face yet another threat: island rats depleting their poop supply
Invading rodents are mucking up the food chain.
Jan A. Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams/The Conversation
Coral reef ecosystem.stockphoto-graf
Elegant science can arise from ugly facts. This is the thought that springs first to mind as we read a new study in Nature about how a single invasive species—the black rat Rattus rattus—can not just deeply impact the landscape it overruns, but fundamentally alter the wider marine realm that surrounds it.
The elegance springs from the exploitation of chance patterns of invasion. The researchers behind the study, led by marine biologist Nick Graham of Lancaster University, looked at the Chagos Archipelago, a remote group of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. Some of the small islands that make up the archipelago are rat-infested and some are rat-free, a result of different patterns of human habitation in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Chagos lie almost halfway between India and Madagascar. Sovereignty is disputed between the U.K. and Mauritius.mohonu
Graham and colleagues found that the difference between the islands is now startling and has no need to be teased apart by sophisticated statistical techniques. Those islands with rats have something like one or two seabirds per hectare (107,639 square feet), while those without rats have 1,000 or more in the same area.
On rat-free islands, the seabirds range far and wide across the oceans to feed, and then deposit much of the resulting nitrogen and phosphorus-rich excrement on their home island. These nutrients are then washed into the shallow waters of the surrounding coral reef lagoons, where they support a complex food web that ultimately maintains large fish stocks. The fish in turn then graze the reefs and keep a healthy balance between seaweed and the island-building corals.
Next to the rat-infested islands, however, the researchers showed the fish populations are smaller, grow more slowly and eat less than half as much seaweed. These reefs, therefore, are more prone to be smothered by seaweed, and to have less healthy corals.
Red-footed booby, common in the Chagos.UK FCO, CC BY-SA
This general phenomenon is not new. On the Chagos Islands it is a few centuries old, but elsewhere it can range back thousands of years—humans have long been migrating, taking rats and other fellow invaders such as pigs, rabbits, and cats with them to cause comparable ecological havoc.
The trick here, as the authors underlined, has not been in finding evidence of human impact, for that is now nigh-well pervasive, but in finding some examples of something approaching a natural baseline—those islands that are still rat-free—which can allow the scale of that impact to be assessed.
Accelerated invasions
Given this history, the Chagos Archipelago story is not, technically, part of the Anthropocene—for the current best estimate for a beginning of this putative, still informal, geological epoch is somewhere in the mid-20th century. But it does illuminate the extent of—and the likely fallout from—the yet greater changes associated with more recent human impacts, when the scale and speed of biological invasions continued and indeed accelerated.
Since the mid-20th century, most of the lakes and waterways of North America, for instance, have been the scene of a blitzkrieg by the zebra mussel, a native shellfish of Asia. The invasive zebra mussels of the River Thames of London, meanwhile, have seen their short-lived grip on the river pried from them by the yet more prolific Asian clam which, in the space of little more than a decade, has become a dominant species in the river.
San Francisco was once known for hippies with flowers in their hair, but its surrounding bay is also home to some less benign visitors, including vast numbers of the Amur River clam from across the Pacific, and the shipworm (actually a burrowing mollusk), which on its arrival managed to bore its way through numerous wooden piers and wharfs. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in the East African savannah, there are a plethora of invading plants including the aptly named "devil weed" and "famine weed," which spreads rapidly and can wipe out entire harvests.
Teasing out the ecological ripple effects of these newer and more numerous examples of the Anthropocene will be harder than in the finely-worked Chagos Islands study of Nick Graham and co. The natural ecological baseline is now yet more distant, while other effects—from pollution, urbanization, agriculture, and climate change—are also intensifying. Amid a thickening tangle of environmental forcing factors, it is becoming harder to precisely link cause and effect.
It is clear, though, that the Earth system is now on a new trajectory, of the Anthropocene, following the relative stability of the Holocene. This new story of rats and reefs underlines how far-reaching these changes are likely to be.
Jan A. Zalasiewicz is a Senior Lecturer in Palaeobiology and Mark Williams is a Professor of Palaeobiology at University of Leicester. This article was originally featured on The Conversation.