text:
Home US Tech News US government sues against Nvidia-Arm's $ 40 billion chip deal
US government sues against Nvidia-Arm's $ 40 billion chip deal
""Tech News"" – Google News
The Federal Trade Commission sued Thursday to block the $ 40 billion purchase of chip designer Arm by graphics chip maker Nvidia, …
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued the $ 40 billion purchase of chip designer Arm by graphics chip maker Nvidia.
Nvidia Corp. based in Santa Clara, California, announced in September 2020 that it had acquired UK-based Arm Ltd. from Japanese tech giant Softbank to "create the world's leading computing company for the AI age".
However, the deal immediately raised concerns that Arm would sell its chip design licensing business model to hundreds of tech companies, including many of Nvidia's competitors.
Many of the smartphones in the world run on Arm's chip design, and it's a major supplier to companies like Apple and Samsung. It's also an innovator in chip technology that can power artificial intelligence for connected devices like medical sensors. Nvidia's chips are essential to computers and data centers, and the company says it has a wide range of competitors, from chip makers like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm to computer network provider Cisco, to tech giants Google and Amazon.
"The FTC is suing the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies," said Holly Vedova, director of the FTC Bureau of Competition, in a press release. "This proposed deal would skew Arm's incentives in the chip markets and allow the combined company to unfairly undermine Nvidia's rivals."
The deal would give the joint venture control over the technology competing firms need to develop their own chips, the FTC claimed. That would hurt competition in markets where Nvidia uses arm-based designs, the FTC says, including systems in cars that automate things like lane changes and prevent collisions, and data centers that are critical to cloud computing.
Regulators in the UK and the European Union have also started investigations into the transaction over competition concerns.
Nvidia said it will "continue to work to show that this transaction will benefit the industry and encourage competition." It said it would "vigorously contest" the FTC lawsuit.
The company added that it "has a duty to maintain Arm's open licensing model and to ensure that its intellectual property is available to all interested licensees, both now and in the future."
An Arm spokesman referred questions to Nvidia. A Softbank spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FTC said its four commissioners voted unanimously to file the complaint and a process is expected to begin in August 2022.
President Joe Biden has urged federal regulators to look more closely at mergers and anti-competitive behavior in US industry. He installed big tech critic Lina Khan as head of the FTC.
Copyright © 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written, or redistributed.
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Eagle Mountain neighbors fear man camping in ravine is watching, photographing them
By Andrew Adams | Posted - July 26, 2017 at 9:14 a.m.
(Mike DeBernardo, KSL TV)
10PM: Eagle Mountain neighbors fear man camping in ravine is watching, photographing them
Andrew Adams, KSL TV
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Homeowners expressed fear Tuesday about a man with camera equipment they say had been camping out in a ravine between their homes and a golf course.
"I looked out the window and I noticed someone pointing a camera up towards my house, and when he saw me, he hurried off," said Michelle, who requested her last name not be published because of security concerns.
Other neighbors in the area near Turnberry Road said the man had been seen regularly walking through the neighborhood and snapping photos around parks and pools with a camera and tripod in hand.
"With a lot of us having kids, it really makes us sick to our stomach," said Robert, another resident who asked to not include his last name.
The neighbors said their worries grew when they learned the man, later identified as Philip Boswell Case, is currently awaiting trial for seven second-degree felony charges of sexual exploitation of a minor.
The charges stem from a 2015 case in which prosecutors alleged Case had sold an external hard drive that contained child pornography and possessed a laptop that also contained "more than seven" images of child porn.
"We're terrified having this man walk around our neighborhood," Michelle said.
Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon said deputies responded to concerned calls from neighbors and warned Case that he wasn't to trespass on the golf course property.
According to Cannon, Case told deputies he had been taking pictures of wildlife.
Philip Boswell Case. Photo: KSL TV
While Cannon acknowledged the charges facing Case were "concerning," he said there was not much more deputies could do.
"There's nothing in and of itself that's illegal about taking pictures of adults or children or buildings or anything else," Cannon said. "We didn't have any information that would substantiate any other criminal charges that we might be able to do."
KSL's efforts to locate Case for comment were unsuccessful Tuesday.
Case has pleaded not guilty to the sexual exploitation charges against him. He has a court date set for Aug. 31.
Cannon encouraged neighbors to continue to be watchful and to call the sheriff's office about any additional suspicious behavior.
Neighbors said they wanted to continue to keep the neighborhood a "safe place."
"It's just hard to stand by and wait for something to happen," Michelle said. "We just feel threatened now, really."
Andrew Adams
COVID test lines shorter after reservation system installed

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


What is the Germanicos Bespoke Tailors difference, Aaron?
I think service is a big thing for me, number one. I teach business and sales for a living so I'm always looking for that when I come into a business. So I definitely look for services as the first thing. You can have the best product in the world but if you don't know what you're talking about and if I can't see the level of service then I'm not interested in the business. And then from that it goes on from the quality of products to ... everything's Bespoke. I mean they're not interested in a Bespoke tailor, it's a Bespoke service, so Bespoke conversations. It's tailoring everything to my needs, from my clothes right through to the impressions that I want to make.
How important is it to dress and look sharp in the business environment, Aaron?
I think that presentation is one of the most important things for any seller. I think that if you ... if you want to ... depends on the industry that you're in, but anyone that's in sales, you try and impress people. In the first couple of seconds somebody's making assumptions about you when they first meet you. Not to say that every single person has to have hugely expensive suits, but I think that there's got be a compromise between looking the part and let's face it, when you feel great, you know, when you look great and you feel great it affects what you do. So I think anyone that's in any influence or persuasion, whether it be entrepreneurs, business owners or sellers; they need to look their best and I think that having a Bespoke suit, it's miles above the rest.
Is a Bespoke Suit better than even the most expensive suit off the rack?
For me, there is not one suit I've ever purchased in the 40, 50 odd countries that I've been to which has ever come close to a tailored suit, let alone a tailored suit by Germanicos.
You present to thousands of people throughout the world, in different climates. How has your Germanicos Suits and Shirts held up?
If you look at the way that they test a car to see if that car's going to withstand the trials and tribulations of the road. I suppose I'm that subject when it comes to suits because I could be onstage for 15 hours in one day back to back to back and I could be walking off that the stage in front of thousands of people to a one on one meeting with a client. And the last thing I want to do is feel like I'm hot and sweaty in the suit and it's not breathing, I'm not looking great. So I put the Germanicos brand through a road test over the last few months, that I've changed my whole wardrobe for it and it's withstood being outside, being inside, being at VIP events, being in front of tens of thousands of people, and being one on one with the client. Influencing and persuading, so I would absolutely recommend it.
Do you have more confidence presenting in a Germanicos Bespoke Suit?
Looking good and presenting well and looking after myself has always been a big part of my whole life. And I think for me, I look at it is how do you feel when you get a new haircut or you get a new pair of shoes. I think getting a suit from Germanicos is like having a new haircut every day. I think when it comes to suiting every person gets to a point where they have to take the next step into Bespoke, and I think that if you're looking great and you're feeling great, it affects every part of your life. So the question becomes; how much is your confidence worth?


When both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive VR headsets both launched in 2016, they were supposed to set a new standard for virtual reality: high-resolution displays, motion tracking both the headset and controllers, and software finally good enough to provide a sense of immersion. They were a technological curiosity when they launched, but suffered the same lack of software as any other new hardware + software launch.
Recently, I got intrigued by videos of Beat Saber, and ended up borrowing a Rift from a friend to try it out. 2 years later, the hardware hasn't changed, so remains a clunky proposition with a large headset and thick wires that connect to a PC with a powerful GPU1. The software has matured a little since launch as well; there's an app store dedicated to the Rift, and SteamVR works with the Vive with added compatibility for other VR headsets. In its current state, though, I'm guessing it'll take at least another 2 years for this medium to reach any sort of mass-market appeal.
The biggest issue is still cost of entry. The two high-end headsets sell from $400 (the Rift after a couple of discounts) to $800 (the up-and-coming Vive Pro), and while that has left enough space on the low end for the likes of Google Daydream and Samsung VR, the overall experience—defined in large part by the sense of immersion from the sights and sounds—is noticeably worse. The standalone, GPU-less headsets just don't have the processing power to render the amount of pixels needed for interactions in games, so their primary use case is viewing 360° videos.
As a consequence of that high cost, there isn't very much software for VR, with what's available is much more expensive than more traditional apps and games while simultaneously requiring more developer work to create. The economics don't work in VR games' favor; there just isn't enough headsets, especially compared to other mainstream gaming devices like phones and PlayStations and even PCs, to sell games at lower costs and make up the difference in volume. Development has waned, and VR can easily fall into the chicken-and-egg conundrum which has trapped many a nascent technology, where the lack of a critical mass on neither the developer or user side dooms the industry to an insignificant niche.
Maybe such is the fate of this latest chapter in trying to fulfill the Snow Clash and Ready Player One sci-fi fantasy. Certainly this wasn't the first or last attempt to trick our senses into thinking we're elsewhere, and both clunkiness and cost of current headsets can be addressed via the ongoing march of hardware and continued miniaturization of computing, which in turn should fuel a healthier install base and better software. This is not happening in 2018.


text:
Q: HTML tags within XML I would like to use html tags in the XML file so in my xsd file, I have allowed the html formatting by:
        <xs:element name="description">
            <xs:complexType mixed="true">
                <xs:sequence>
                    <xs:any namespace="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
                            processContents="lax"
                            minOccurs="0"
                            maxOccurs="unbounded" />
                </xs:sequence>
            </xs:complexType>
        </xs:element>

and in my XML file
<description>

 This course is an introduction to the information technologies required for secure, practical information systems for electronic commerce.
Topics will be chosen from areas such as document representation (XML, DTDs, XML Schema, XSLT, CSS),

 security (encryption, public key, symmetric key,
PKI, authentication); kinds of attack and vulnerabilities, electronic trading (spontaneous, deliberative, auctions), electronic document management
(metadata, search, digital libraries, management and processing), recent developments and maturation of the area,
such as web application frameworks, web services, the semantic web , mobile commerce </description>

However, when I change it to HTML file, it does not show anything! (no p)
I could not put html tags in xsl file because I wanted to divide contents within the description tag (one element of XSD). If there is any novel way I would accept it.
At first, even
 did not work and I put
processContents="lax"
and it worked fine but still displaying one whole bunch of paragraph (so
 does not really work)
How can I make it work?

A: Wrap the html content in CDATA tags:
<![CDATA[
stuff
]]>

From msdn:

When an XML parser encounters the initial <![CDATA[, it reports the content that follows as characters without attempting to interpret them as element or entity markup. Character references do not work within CDATA sections. When it encounters the concluding ]]>, the parser stops reporting and returns to normal parsing.

A: Using the minimal example you give, the XML validates against the XSD snippet you provide (after adding an xs:schema as a root element.)
example.xsd:
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
 <xs:element name="description">
    <xs:complexType mixed="true">
        <xs:sequence>
            <xs:any namespace="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
                processContents="lax"
                minOccurs="0"
                maxOccurs="unbounded" />
        </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
    </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

test.xml:
<description>

 This course is an introduction to the information technologies required for secure, practical information systems for electronic commerce.
Topics will be chosen from areas such as document representation (XML, DTDs, XML Schema, XSLT, CSS),

 security (encryption, public key, symmetric key,
PKI, authentication); kinds of attack and vulnerabilities, electronic trading (spontaneous, deliberative, auctions), electronic document management
(metadata, search, digital libraries, management and processing), recent developments and maturation of the area,
such as web application frameworks, web services, the semantic web , mobile commerce </description>

Validation:
$ xmllint --noout --schema example.xsd test.xml
test.xml validates

So I'm not sure what your problem is.
One problem that comes to mind is you might not be using xhtml. The HTML you include in the description element (or any HTML) must be valid xml (and hence xhtml, not the sloppy sgml-like html syntax), including making any xhtml named character entities (e.g.,  ) available to the schema validator. Pretty much any html you find on the web will absolutely not be valid xml.
If you want to make the html available to XML processors and validation, use an XHTML 1.0 xsd or (more flexibly) mix and match modules available from XHTML 1.1 and its XSDs.
If this is too much trouble for you and you are ok with treating your HTML content as a blob of text, just include it as text content and modify your xsd schema to expect xs:string or xs:normalizedString as the content of the description element.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
About Truffle Bar
Truffle Tips
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All have to know about the Truffle bar & restaurant Blog
Unsold truffles tell tale of broken $3.4 trillion food chain
Posted On 4 June 2020 20 June 2020 By Editorial Staff
truffle,
Every year, John Gregson sells his autumn and winter truffles, carefully sourced from places like Italy's Sibillini mountains and Teruel in eastern Spain, to restaurants for as much as 6,000 pounds ($7,400) a kilo. Not this year.
His biggest restaurant customers brought their shutters down during the coronavirus lockdown, and many may not be raising them anytime soon — if ever. The unprecedented disruption in the food chain, with worst-case estimates showing 80% of restaurants going bust in some parts of the world, is leaving people like Gregson grappling with an industry that may take years to untangle itself.
"Those orders came mostly from Michelin-star restaurants," said Gregson, head of U.K. wholesale deals at TruffleHunter Ltd. "It's now a question of whether those restaurants will be around come autumn and winter when those truffles come into season."
From truffles to cheeses and steaks to seafood, the providers of ingredients that go into everything from a pasta al tartufo to a London broil are confronting an existential crisis in the $3.4 trillion global food services industry. With demand evaporating almost overnight, suppliers have been forced to bin their produce or transform. Many now face the quandary of whether to hold out for a post-lockdown recovery or to move to a new business model, and perhaps even a new produce.
While images of farmers dumping milk, yellow squash and zucchinis have made their rounds across the globe, many suppliers are trying to find alternative buyers for their perishable produce. One thing is becoming clear: It may be a long while before they can command the premium prices high-end restaurants paid.
Anywhere between 25% to 80% of U.S. restaurants will go out of business due to the pandemic quarantine, estimates show. Similarly grim projections are also being made around the world.
"What you sell into restaurants is different to what you sell into grocers — there are premium cuts, there are expensive lobsters and all of that," said Nicholas Fereday, a consumer goods senior analyst at Rabobank in New York. "Finding markets for that will be a challenge in the same volume, because it's going to be a gradual return to restaurants."
Gregson said his company is pivoting to direct-to-consumer sales — which tend to be skewed toward processed products such as truffle oils and butters — as locked-down households look for ways to jazz up their homemade risottos.
Some restaurant owners are already testing ways to start opening their doors again. Cabotte, a sommelier-owned restaurant popular among London's financial circles, is hoping to reopen with a socially distanced dine-in experience in September, but expects to also diversify with both takeaway services and cooking sessions at nearby offices.
Still, drastically reduced table counts will make profitability hard in a sector already known for its sliver-thin margins. That will mean simplified menus with just core offerings, according to Will Beckett, the co-founder of steakhouse group Hawksmoor.
"Things that miss out will either be high-wastage, low-sales dishes or things that involve complicated movement around the kitchen," said Beckett, who expects to reduce his menu's offering of fish and less popular main courses. "It doesn't matter if we have four steaks or six steaks — there's still only one person on the grill — but maybe anything that involves a second person standing in the larder section. That's going to have to change."
Even if a restaurant can survive with small customer numbers, there's a chance some of their favorite producers didn't — or that they've diversified to other, less restaurant-orientated products.
"Some restaurant owners are going to be forced to reinvent their profession and find new ways of expressing themselves," said Eric Briffard, culinary arts program director at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. "Good cuisine goes hand in hand with good products, but products will be in decline."
Artisan producers, who tend to be beyond the reach of most retail customers, are particularly vulnerable since they cannot easily divert supplies to grocers. The U.K.'s Specialist Cheesemakers Association estimates around a third of its members' produce ends up in restaurants.
The lockdowns have led to tons of premium cheese going to waste, with soft cheeses that have short shelf-lives not surviving sales disruptions. Catherine Mead of Lynher Dairy — a maker of specialty cheeses in Truro, England — donated a quarter of her stock to charities, with another being sent to be ground into powder for cheese-flavored potato chips.
Where demand has endured, it's skewed to more well-known varieties such as hard cheddars, with niche produce typically favored by restaurants struggling to find a home. For Mead, that means a reliance on her showpiece yarg cheeses to drive sales, which she's now producing more of at the expense of less established recipes such as kern and stithians.
It's not just upmarket dairy products that face disruption: the sector as a whole is hugely reliant on the food service trade. Nowhere is this more evident than in the U.S., where around half of both cheese and butter goes to the food service sector.
Restaurant closures initially resulted in widespread dumping of milk, but as dairy farmers responded by cutting output, the U.S. Department of Agriculture stepped in to buy and some states started reopening, cheese prices started surging again, said Mary Ledman, a global dairy strategist at Rabobank. CME spot block cheddar cheese prices tumbled from $1.80 a pound in mid-March to about $1 in mid-April and have now rebounded to over $2.
"This is the largest price volatility I've seen in my more than 30-year career," she said.
Growers of staples like vegetables have had to rapidly alter their businesses. Natoora, a fresh produce company, noted a drop in the sales of fresh peas. "People are less keen on podding them and restaurants had a massive appreciation for the pea in a pod and used to buy these by the box load," said spokeswoman Poppy Royds.
Sean O'Neill, founder of the Good Earth Growers group in Cornwall, England, saw 95% of his business supplying baby vegetables and salads to restaurants disappear overnight. That's made him dig up and replant much of his crops with produce better suited to retail customers: out go the micro greens and edible flowers sought after by chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, and in come larger conventional vegetables such as beetroots and carrots.
Despite the upheaval, O'Neill is hopeful that the lockdown will lead to a change in consumer food habits, favoring organic producers like him.
"There is a creative opportunity for transformation for all of us," he said. "It's going to be interesting what dishes and flavors emerge, what new collaborations, what new ideas come out of it."
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Dog River Crier 134 Spring 2018Back issues of the Dog River Crier, the Society's newsletter, are now available as full-text PDF documents.
Click on the issue you want to view. Each issue will open in a new window.
Starting with issue #45, these are individually searchable. To search an issue so that the search term is highlighted, download the issue to your computer and open with Adobe Acrobat Reader, and then use the "Find" search box (Ctrl-F using your keyboard).
Check back often as we will continue to add more issues to this list!
All articles and photographs in the Crier are owned by the Northfield Historical Society and require permission for use.
Please contact us at dogrivercrier@gmail.com for permission to use anything published in the Crier.
On occasion the pdf may not load correctly. If that happens, simply close out of the document and re-open. If the pages appear blurry, just wait a second while they come into focus.


(Yicai Global) Dec. 6 -- The southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen has eased restrictions on the purchase of electric cars to boost sales of battery electric vehicles, following in the footsteps of Beijing and Shanghai.
The annual license quota for standard cars in Shenzhen remains 80,000 while license caps on hybrid vehicles and BEVs have been removed to encourage consumers to buy new energy vehicles, according to new licensing regulations issued yesterday by the Shenzhen Municipality's Transport Commission. Also, an individual can apply to buy a BEV if only one car is under his or her name.
Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, and Guangzhou in Guangdong have relaxed license restrictions on BEVs, greatly helping the promotion of NEVs, especially battery-powered ones, in first-tier cities.
China's NEV market has achieved rapid growth despite lower subsidies this year. A total of 146,000 units were produced and 138,000 sold in October from a year earlier, up over 58 percent and 51 percent, respectively. From January to October, output and sales came in at 879,000 and 860,000, an increase of 70 percent and 75.6 percent, statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show.
The number of NEVs reached 2.2 million in September, according to the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security. Production and sales have maintained a high growth rate and the country is likely to achieve the goal of five million NEVs by 2020.
NEVs will take up 44 percent of sales in the light vehicle -- meaning passenger and pickup -- market in Europe, 41 percent in China, 34 percent in the US and 17 percent in Japan by 2030. Global NEV sales will reach 60 million by 2040 and China will be a leader in the electrification wave, long-term forecasts released by Bloomberg New Energy Finance in May suggest.


text:
Bruins Utilized Interesting Strategy In Preparation For Sergei Bobrovsky
by Abigail Adams on Wed, May 1, 2019 at 7:09PM
They say imitation can be the greatest form of flattery. If that's true, then Columbus Blue Jackets netminder Sergei Bobrovsky should feel honored by the Bruins.
Boston did plenty of preparation ahead of its best-of-seven series against Columbus, especially when it came to dealing with the skill set Bobrovsky brings to the table. But before squaring off against the team that upset the top-seeded Tampa Bay Lighting in a four-game sweep in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the B's wanted to make sure they could compete with one of Columbus' best players.
So, they called up Zane McIntyre to mimic Bobrovsky during practice.
But some aren't convinced that practicing with a stand-in actually works. Take Bruins lead goalie Tuukka Rask, for example.
"You can try (to mimic Bobrovsky), but I don't know if it'll do anything," he said, per The Athletic's Joe McDonald.
But former netminder Andrew Raycroft believes mimicking an opposing goalie can be a difference-maker. He would know, as he often took on that role throughout his lengthy NHL career.
"It helps shooters get used to the new look," he said. "Like a real-life shooter tutor."
But beating Bobrovsky is no simple task. He led the league in shutouts (nine) through the regular season and placed second in regular season wins (37) behind the Lightning's Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Jake DeBrusk, however, seems to think he's already solved the puzzle.
"Go upstairs," he said. "You've got to go under the bar and get him moving side-to-side. It's pretty cliché but it's very true. I've actually scored a couple of times on him and every time it's been upstairs. It's high blocker or high glove. And, you've got to get bodies in front of him."
We'll see if the Bruins truly have Bobrovsky figured out when they take on the Blue Jackets in Game 4 on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
Brad Marchand Explains What Compelled Him To Jab Scott Harrington In Head


text:
Virat Kohli steps down as India Test captain after losing South Africa series
Talismanic batter steps down after seven years in role
'I've left nothing out there,' says 33-year-old after 2-1 loss
India's Virat Kohli has stepped down as captain of the Test side following their 2-1 series defeat by South Africa, saying of his time in charge: "I've left nothing out there." On Friday, as his side lost by seven wickets in Cape Town, he conceded it had been "a tough one to take" after India had won last month's first Test.
The 33-year-old first led his country in red-ball cricket temporarily during the winter tour of Australia in 2014 before he permanently took the reins from MS Dhoni at the end of the series. Acknowledging his predecessor, Kohli said in a statement: "A big thank you to MS Dhoni who believed in me as captain and found me to be an able individual who could take Indian cricket forward."
Keegan Petersen steers South Africa to stunning Test series win over India
In the statement, posted on Twitter, he added: "It's been seven years of hard work, toil and relentless perseverance everyday to take the team in the right direction. I've done the job with absolute honesty and left nothing out there. Every thing has to come to a halt at some stage and for me as Test captain of India, it's now.
"There have been many ups and also some downs along the journey, but never has there been a lack of effort or lack of belief. I have always believed in giving my 120 percent in everything I do, and if I can't do that, I know it's not the right thing to do. I have absolute clarity in my heart and I cannot be dishonest to my team."
Kohli gave up the Twenty20 captaincy in September and was replaced as one-day international skipper in December, with Rohit Sharma taking over in both formats. Kohli led India in 68 Tests, winning 40 and losing 17. During his tenure they became the No 1 side in the ICC's Test rankings and finished runners-up to New Zealand in last June's World Test Championship final.
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The Board of Control for Cricket in India acknowledged the outgoing captain's contribution on Twitter, congratulating Kohli "for his admirable leadership qualities that took the Test team to unprecedented heights".
Kohli has played 99 Tests and scored 7,962 runs at an average of 50.39. He has struck 27 Test centuries but his last three-figure score in red-ball cricket for his country came in November 2019, 15 matches and 27 innings ago. He missed the second Test in South Africa and managed a top score of 79 during the series.


text:
Ariana Grande to get honorary citizenship of Manchester
Lars Brandle
Ariana Grande is in line to get honorary citizenship of Manchester.
The city council is proposing a new system to recognize outstanding contributions to the city, and Grande is tipped to be the first recipient.
Councillors have praised the U.S. singer's goodwill and strong spirit for arranging the One Love Manchester benefit concert less than two weeks after her May 22 concert in the city which was attacked by a suicide bomber, resulting in 22 deaths and many more injured.
Grande returned for the June 4 all-star concert at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground, which raised almost £3 million ($3.8 million) for victims of the Manchester Arena attack and its broadcast was the most-watched program on British television this year.
The pop singer was a near-constant presence on the stage of her fund-raiser, as she performed a number of sets, teamed up with Miley Cyrusand the Black Eyed Peas and provided some of the emotional highlights of the day, including a moving cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that brought tears to the faces of many of the 55,000 fans in attendance.
Under new proposals, honorary citizenship could be granted to those from outside Greater Manchester for the first time, according to the BBC. "This seems a fitting moment to update the way we recognise those who make noteworthy contributions to the life and success of our city," council leader Sir Richard Leese said.
He added, "We've all had cause to be incredibly proud of Manchester and the resilient and compassionate way in which the city, and all those associated with it, have responded to the terrible events of May 22 - with love and courage rather than hatred and fear." Grande, he said, had "exemplified this response."
The proposals will go before the council on July 12, the Corporation reports.
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Powder forging is a process in which unsintered, presintered, and sintered powder metallurgy preforms are hot formed in confined dies. This article provides information on the basic forms of powder forging and describes the material considerations, process considerations, and mechanical properties of powder forged (PF) steels. It reviews the parameters involved in quality assurance tests for PF parts. The article includes examples of PF components and highlights the reasons for selecting them over those made by competing forming methods.


Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is the most common chronic lung disease in childhood, related to prematurity, and the most common cause of pulmonary hypertension (PH) secondary to pulmonary disease in children. Moderate and severe BPD have a worse outcome and relate more frequently with PH. The prediction of moderate or severe BPD development in extremely premature newborns is vital to implement preventive strategies. Starting with the hypothesis that molecular biomarkers were better than clinical and echocardiographic factors, this study aims to explore the ability of clinical, echocardiographic and analytical variables to predict moderate or severe BPD in a cohort of extremely preterm infants.
We designed a prospective longitudinal study, in which we followed a cohort of preterm newborns (gestational age <28 weeks and weight ≤ 1250 grams). In these newborns we recorded weekly clinical and echocardiographic variables as well as blood and tracheal aspirate samples, to analyze molecular biomarkers (IL-6, IL-1, IP10, uric acid, HGF, endothelin-1, VEGF, CCL5). Variables and samples were collected since birth up to week 36 (postmenstrual age), time-point at which the diagnosis of BPD is established.
We included 50 patients with a median gestational age of 26 weeks (IQR 25–27) and weight of 871 g (SD 161,0) (range 590-1200g). Three patients were excluded due to an early death. Thirty-five patients (74.5%) developed BPD (mild n = 14, moderate n = 15, severe n = 6). We performed a logistic regression in order to identify risk factors for moderate or severe BPD. We compared two predictive models, one with two variables (mechanical ventilation and inter-ventricular septum flattening), and another-one with an additional molecular biomarker (ET-1).
The combination of clinical and echocardiographic variables is a valuable tool for determining the risk of BPD. We find the two variable model (mechanical ventilation and echocardiographic signs of PH) more practical for clinical and research purposes. Future research on BPD prediction should be oriented to explore the potential role of ET-1.
Copyright: © 2019 Alvarez-Fuente et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This study was funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Plan Estatal de I+D+i) (PI14/00219 and PI15/01100) and cofinanced by the European Development Regional Fund "A way to achieve Europe" (ERDF). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a severe chronic lung disease in childhood and one of the most frequent sequel of prematurity . The prevalence of BPD in very low birth weight infants (VLBWI) ranges between 15% and 50%, and is inversely related to birth weight and gestational age (GA) [2, 3].
BPD pathogenesis has evolved in the past decades from a lung lesion secondary to mechanical ventilation and elevated oxygen concentrations to a multi-factorial disease in which prenatal and postnatal factors are involved [4, 5]. The lungs of very low birth weight infants (VLBWI), at birth, undergoe a developmental arrest with decreased alveolarization and vascular growth . BPD is further complicated by pulmonary hypertension (PH) in 17–45% of patients, with recent evidence on the role of early PH as a marker of BPD development [6–8]. Moderate and severe BPD is associated with a worse outcome and with a higher rate of complications and PH .
BPD diagnosis is established at 36 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA) , which is too late to implement preventive strategies. Therefore, the search for predictive factors for early identification of infants at high risk of BPD is an important area of research. Considering that moderate and severe BPD carry a worse outcome and higher rate of PH , the identification of risk factors for these grades of BPD would be optimal. In order to initiate preventive strategies that can reduce the incidence of the worst grades of the disease.
Determining the risk of BPD provides prognostic information, identifies infants who could benefit from preventive strategies, and helps stratify infants for clinical trial enrollment. Diverse clinical risk factors (GA, birth weight, gender, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), ventilator settings, etc.) and molecular biomarkers (inflammatory pathways and vascular growth factors) have been studied in preterm infants as potential risk factors for BPD development and many prediction models have been developed [11–16]. Despite these efforts, no reliable and reproducible risk stratification model has been found that could be easily applicable in neonatal intensive care units.
Starting with the hypothesis that molecular biomarkers were better than clinical and echocardiographic factors, this study aims to explore the ability of clinical, echocardiographic and analytical variables to predict moderate or severe BPD in a cohort of extremely preterm infants.
The study was approved by the ethical committee of all participating hospitals (Hospital La Paz, Hospital Clinico (14/545-E), Hospital de Getafe, Hospital Puerta de Hierro and Complejo Hospitalario de Coruña (2015/001)). The hospital responsible was La Paz with the following approval number PI-1774. Written consent was obtained from all participants´ parents.
We designed a prospective multi-center cohort study that took place in the previously mentioned five Spanish hospitals. Extremely low gestational age newborns (ELGAN) of less than 28 weeks of gestation and birth weight under 1250 g, admitted to the participating hospitals during the study period were consecutively and prospectively recruited and followed from birth until 36 weeks of PMA, a time-point at which the diagnosis and severity of BPD was determined. Exclusion criteria were major congenital malformation, neurological lesion and mother with HIV.
Clinical, echocardiographic and analytical variables were registered at different time points (postnatal days 1, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28) and entered into an electronic online database (www.pulmescell.org).
To homogenize patient management, all participating centers applied the same standard care treatment protocols, although we are aware that there may be details that can vary from one center to another. Steroid administration protocol was the most important, due to the potential alteration of molecular biomarkers, which we aimed to analyze in this study. Therefore the protocol for administration of steroids was exactly the same in all hospitals, in which there were no variations among centers.
This study was part of a preliminary research performed before starting a clinical trial (phase I), which aims to explore safety of umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSC) in ELGAN. The aims of this preliminary biomarkers study were to find a combination of clinical, echocardiographic, and molecular biomarkers capable of selecting ELGAN at high risk of developing moderate or severe BPD. This information could be used in the design of trials testing preventive strategies, such as UC-MSC. We also aimed to explore the profile of the selected molecular biomarkers in a cohort of ELGAN, treated with standard therapies that could afterwards be compared to the biomarkers profile of the patients participating in the clinical trial, treated with UC-MSC.
A patient was considered to have BPD if he/she required supplemental oxygen for at least 28 days. Severity was established at 36 weeks PMA, according to the definition by Jobe and Bancalari (Table 1) . We did not include an oxygen reduction test to define BPD because it was not a standard procedure in all participating hospitals.
Table 1. BPD classification .
A complete echocardiography was performed to all patients at inclusion (day 1), to rule out congenital heart disease. At days 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28, we performed a complete echocardiographic study searching for PDA, atrial septal defect, pulmonary vein stenosis and PH. PH was defined in three grades (Table 2), if the patient had findings from two different PH grades, the highest grade was always assigned. The echocardiography protocol was discussed and agreed upon by the pediatric cardiologists working in the 5 participating hospitals, in order to reduce variability among the echocardiographic variables. Each cardiologist from each center had an investigator´s handbook with the images of the more subjective parameters in order to minimize possible bias. Other parameters that can be quantified, such as right atrium and right ventricle dilation, were compared with Zscore.
Table 2. Echocardiographic pulmonary hypertension evaluation.
Blood samples were collected at days 1, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28. Tracheal aspirate fluid was also collected at the same time-points, but only in intubated patients. The levels of IL-6, IL-1B, IP-10, CCL5 and endothelin-1 (ET-1) were analyzed in plasma, and IL-6, IL-1B, IP-10, CCL5 and uric acid were analyzed in tracheal aspirate, by commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA; R&D systems; Minneapolis, MN, USA), and uric acid levels were determined by the QuantiChromTM Uric Acid Assay Kit colorimetric assay (Bioassay Systems: DIUA-250). IL-6 and IL-1B have been previously described in association with BPD development [16, 17]. In addition we have tested new potential biomarkers in plasma and tracheal aspirate (IP-10, CCL5, ET-1 and uric acid) that could help predict the development of BPD [18–20].
Considering that we aimed to identify high risk patients (moderate or severe BPD), all patients were classified into two groups: 1) No BPD group: absence of BPD and mild BPD; 2) BPD group: moderate/severe BPD and death. A comparative analysis of the characteristics of both groups was performed.
Although we obtained biomarkers data at 6 different time-points, for early BPD prediction we analyzed only data on day 7, this will be discussed in detail later.
The results are presented as mean and standard deviation if normally distributed or as median and interquartile range if not normally distributed. Differences in discrete variables were tested with Chi-squared or Fisher test. To compare means, Student's t-test or ANOVA were used for normally distributed variables, and non-parametric tests if variables were not normally distributed. Correlations between quantitative variables were tested with Pearson or Spearman tests. A multivariate logistic regression, forward method, was performed to identify risk factors for BPD development by determining the odds ratio of both groups, no-BPD versus BPD, in relation to clinical, echocardiographic and analytic factors. All clinically relevant variables and those with a p-value <0.2 in the univariate model were included in the multivariate model. The sensitivity and specificity of the resulting models were evaluated by the AUC. A value of p<0.05 was considered significant. Stata version 14 was used for the statistical analysis.
Fifty ELGAN were included between November 2014 and November 2016 (recruitment flow chart is available in Fig 1).
Fig 1. Flow chart showing the patient recruitment.
Recruiting centers and recruitment periods are shown on the top row. Recruitment periods vary between hospitals due the existence of other studies recruiting the same type of patients. *One other study also aimed to recruit the same type of patients during this period. **During this two year period there were some interruptions in the recruitment due to circumstances not related with the study. ***It includes patients that did not meet inclusion criteria (3) and patients whose parents denied participation (11).
Three patients who died in the first four days of life were excluded of the analysis, considering that no data on day 7 was available.
Median gestational age was of 26 weeks (IQR 25–27). There were no patients with a gestational age under 24 weeks. In Spain, given the recommendations of the Spanish Neonatal Society, active resuscitation is performed over 24 weeks . Under 23 weeks is rarely performed and between 23 and 24 weeks other criteria are take in account, such as the parent´s choice . For this reason the number of preterm babies in Spain with a gestational age under 24 weeks is very low.
Mean birth weight was of 871 g (SD 161.0). All additional demographic characteristics, maternal and perinatal history, and patient outcomes are described in Table 2.
The global mortality in the study was of 20% (10 patients): 3 patients, died in the first 4 days; four after 28 days of life; and the other 3 patients died at 12, 15 and 25 days of life. These three patients had been on mechanical ventilation since birth, with persistent parenchymal lung disease and respiratory failure that could not be attributable to other neonatal morbidities, and therefore were considered to have high grade BPD (III (A)), a term recently proposed by Higgins et al .
The percentage of patients requiring mechanical ventilation (MV) for more than 7 days was significantly higher in the moderate/severe BPD group. Being on MV on day 7 was associated to the need of MV for a longer time (22.1 days (SD 9.95) versus 3.8 days (SD 5.26) (p<0.001)). Most notably, 81.8% of the patients who developed moderate or severe BPD were intubated at day 7, compared with 36% of the patients without BPD (p = 0.002).
When comparing analytical biomarkers between both groups, we observed a significant increase in the levels of IL-1B, IL-6, IP-10 and uric acid in tracheal aspirate of moderate and severe BPD patients; whereas no significant differences were observed among plasma biomarkers (Fig 2). ET-1 was observed to be lower, at day 7, in newborns who developed moderate or severe BPD (p = 0.085).
A. Levels of biomarkers in plasma of BPD (moderate/severe BPD or death) patients compared with no-BPD patients (no BPD or mild BPD) at day 7 of life. B. Comparison of the levels of biomarkers in bronchoalveolar lavage of intubated patients between the BPD and no-BPD group, at day 7 of life.
After performing a univariate analysis (Table 3), we included variables with p<0.2 in the multivariate analysis (Table 4).
Table 3. General description of all patients and comparison of both study groups (no-BPD vs BPD).
Table 4. Predictors of moderate or severe BPD (variables included in the multivariate analysis).
When analyzing echocardiographic variables, in the univariate analysis, we observed that patients with PDA or with PH at day 7 had a greater risk of moderate or severe BPD. In the multivariate analysis only interventricular septum (IVS) flattening, as indirect sign of PH, was significant and therefore included in the model. All other echocardiographic variables such as atrial septum defect, right ventricle dilatation or left ventricle ejection fraction, were not related with moderate or severe BPD outcome.
Among these results (Table 4) we observe that, on day 7, the combination of being on MV and having echocardiographic signs of PH, interventricular septum (IVS) flattening (septum types I-II or higher), can predict moderate or severe BPD with a sensitivity of 61.5% and specificity of 85% (AUC 0.773). The addition of plasma ET-1 increased the sensitivity to 63.6% and specificity up to 94.4% (AUC 0.861). An increase in ET-1 levels was associated with a decrease in BPD risk, although it did not reach statistical significance probably due to the small sample size.
Our study shows that a very simple predictive model composed of 2 variables (MV and echocardiographic signs of PH), is able to predict moderate or severe BPD, with a reasonable sensibility and specificity. We also found that the addition of plasma ET-1 (a pathway not yet well explored in BPD), to that model, improved the predictive value.
Early BPD diagnosis has been a recurrent research goal for the past decades. Numerous studies have analyzed clinical and analytical biomarkers to identify the optimal BPD prediction strategy [17, 23, 24]. Unfortunately, no single biomarker or combination of biomarkers with a good predictive value has been found. A great number of predictive models using clinical variables have been developed, but none has been able to determine which high-risk patients will eventually develop BPD [13, 14, 24]. Most predictive models agree on a number of BPD risk factors, such as birth weight, GA, chorioamnionitis, preeclampsia, respiratory parameters, etc. . These known risk factors increase neonatologists' awareness of the potential risk of BPD in selected patients, but are still not able to identify only patients with high risk of moderate or severe BPD and tend to overestimate this risk. This makes it difficult to implement early interventions for selected patients who will, with high probability, develop the worst grades of the disease.
Another issue under discussion is the optimal time-point for risk determination of BPD. Some models have tried to stratify the risk in the first week of life or even at birth, considering mostly prenatal factors . We consider that day 7 is an optimal time-point in the patients' course to determine the risk of moderate or severe BPD. Many ELGAN can have a favorable evolution during the first days of life but can deteriorate afterwards, due to postnatal factors (MV, PDA, infections etc.) . During the first week of life the lung is starting to deteriorate but there is still a healing potential in the lung tissue . Therefore day 7 is a good time-point to start preventive therapies. Afterwards, the lung damage will perpetuate and the lesions might not be reversible, especially when they have evolved to fibrotic stages [22, 25]. In addition, when having in mind regenerative medicine as preventive treatment for BPD, this will require several days for preparation (up to a week). Therefore we should know in advance which patients are at risk of moderate or severe BPD in order to have time to prepare and initiate the therapy in the first two weeks of life .
After exploring clinical, echocardiographic and analytical variables, alone and in combination, we establish that the combination of MV dependency; echocardiographic signs of PH (IVS flattening); and the elevation of certain biomarkers on day 7 of life can predict the risk of developing moderate or severe BPD.
MV is a harmful factor responsible for lung injury . Although there have been great improvements in pulmonary care towards more protective ventilatory strategies, time on MV continues to be the main risk factor for BPD . BPD has been related to the administration of high oxygen concentrations and to elevated airway pressures [23, 24]. However, MV itself is an independent risk factor for BPD, regardless of ventilatory settings, considering that the risk of lung infection and inflammation are also increased. In our cohort, not only did patients who were on MV for more time have a greater risk of BPD, but we defined a cut-off point beyond which MV itself becomes a risk factor for BPD. We estimated that above 7 days of life, ELGAN on MV have a 27-fold increased risk of moderate or severe BPD (Table 4). Similar results were described by Laughon et al. who consider that the two main risk factors for BPD are GA and MV .
An echocardiographic study on day 7 of life established that patients with PDA or with PH at that time-point had a greater risk of moderate or severe BPD. Therefore, to increase the predictive power of MV as a risk factor, we selected the echocardiographic parameter of IVS flattening . Patients with IVS types I-II or higher (indirect sign of PH) have a 3.6-times greater risk of developing moderate or severe BPD (Table 4). With these two parameters (MV and IVS flattening) on day 7 of life, we can predict moderate or severe BPD with a sensitivity of 61.5% and specificity of 85% (AUC 0.773). Recently, it has been described that the presence of established PH on echocardiography between the 3rd and 14th day of life is associated with decreased in-hospital survival and moderate-to-severe BPD, which reinforces the importance of PH as a predictive factor [8, 27].
We also analyzed plasma and tracheal aspirate levels of biomarkers associated with the development of MV-induced lung injury, BPD and/or PH. Inflammatory biomarkers, like IL-1B and IL-6, are associated with a worst outcome in patients with PH or adult respiratory distress syndrome [28, 29]. Circulating levels of IP-10 correlate with pulmonary hemodynamics in patients with PH and may underlie the recently uncovered link between interferon and PH . Uric acid, produced at large amounts from injured tissue, is released in the lung as response to mechanical ventilation; it triggers lung inflammation and fibrosis and induces pulmonary endothelial dysfunction [18–20]. Although no significant differences were found on day 7 in the circulating levels of these biomarkers, our results suggest that the levels of IL-1Β, IL-6, IP-10 and uric acid are increased in tracheal aspirates following lung injury and could be related with the latter outcome of BPD (Fig 1). IP-10, uric acid and CCL5 are associated with lung disease and pulmonary hypertension. After testing the relationship of these molecules with BPD prediction, we observed that IP-10 and uric acid are potentially related with the development of moderate or severe BPD (Fig 1). CCL5 did not reach statistical significance (Fig 1). The absence of correlation that we observe between tracheal aspirate and blood levels of these biomarkers, can be due to a local increase of these molecules. However, because these samples were only available in intubated patients, the small number of samples included in our study not only precludes drawing any firm conclusion but disqualify these variables to be introduced in the regression model.
ET-1 is a peptide with vasoconstriction properties secreted by endothelial cells. In animal models, ET-1 is increased in PH and plays an important role in the progression to lung fibrosis . Kuo et al. observed higher levels of tracheal ET-1 in respiratory distress syndrome but no differences the ET-1 levels in relation to BPD . Andersson et al. explored ET-1 levels in a group of preterm infants and observed that high levels of ET-1 in the airways related with less severe respiratory distress in the early postnatal period . They postulate that ET-1, in addition to a pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic effect, stimulates the secretion of surfactant in the lung, which can improve lung development in the long term . Although the pathogenic role of ET-1 in BPD is unclear and higher levels of ET-1 were expected in the moderate/severe BPD group, in our patients, we observed that lower levels of ET-1 in plasma were a risk factor, increasing the predictive value for the diagnosis of moderate or severe BPD. A plausible explanation would be the one suggested by Andersson et al. who consider that ET-1 stimulates the production of alveolar surfactant in the preterm lung . This would result in an improved lung development in patients with early high levels of ET-1 and an adverse outcome in those with low plasma levels. In addition, ET-1 would also increase once BPD and fibrosis are established. However, the role of ET-1 in the premature lung needs further research, and our results regarding plasma ET-1 levels will have to be confirmed and validated in a larger sample.
When comparing the two models (MV+IVS with MV+IVS+ET-1), we achieved a small increase in sensitivity and specificity with the addition of ET-1 to the model. Although the low levels of ET-1 in high risk moderate/severe BPD patients is one of the most interesting findings of this research we consider the use of the two-variable model (MV + IVS) more feasible in the clinical setting. The role of ET-1 in BPD is not completely understood and further research should be performed before using it in the clinical practice. Also the determination of ET-1 still requires special laboratory determination techniques, which makes it hard to use ET-1 on a daily bases.
Early BPD diagnosis is one of the main goals of neonatologists. Knowing which patients are at greater risk of developing BPD in the first week of life can make a difference in the outcome of moderate or severe BPD, by applying preventive strategies. Therefore, for the neonatologist it is very important to detect, at the patient's bedside, high risk patients. With the model we propose, if the patient is on mechanical ventilation on day 7 of life, and he/she has indirect signs of pulmonary hypertension , this patient should be considered a high risk patient in which preventive strategies should be applied. It is a very simple model and very easy to achieve at neonatal intensive care units.
The findings of this study can be used to guide the design of clinical trials testing preventive strategies for BPD, such as regenerative therapies. For this goal it is important to identify only patients at risk of moderate and severe BPD, who have the worst outcomes and can benefit from preventive strategies.
The strengths of this study are its prospective nature in a population of babies at the highest risk of developing BPD (ELGAN) and the possibility it offers of determining the risk of BPD at a very early stage and at the patient's bedside by a simple method: assessing the need for MV on day 7 and performing a routine echocardiographic evaluation on that day. In addition, this study is the first to explore the role of plasma ET-1 levels as a biomarker for predicting BPD in ELGAN.
The main limitation of the study is the small number of patients, which allows us to explore these novel molecular biomarkers but not to achieve conclusions on the role of ET-1 in BPD. Another limitation is the decreased number of tracheal aspirate samples, considering that tracheal aspirates were obtained only from intubated patients.
In summary, the combination of clinical and echocardiographic variables is a valuable tool for determining the risk of moderate or severe BPD. Future research on BPD prediction should be oriented to explore the potential role of ET-1, and also of miRNA determinations, which could be useful not only for BPD prediction, but also to elucidate pathogenic mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets in BPD.
1. Fanaroff AA, Stoll BJ, Wright LL, Carlo W, Ehrenkrantz RA, Stark ARet al. Trends in neonatal morbidity and mortality for very low birth weight infants. Am J ObstetGynecol 2007;196(14):147.e1–147.e8.
19. Moreno L, Martínez-Ramas A, Barreira B, Pandolfi R, De Olaiz Navarro B, Morales-Cano D et al. Monosodium urate crystals stimulate IL-6 production via TAK1 and induce pulmonary vascular dysfunction. European Respiratory Journal 2017;46: PA584.
21. Zeballos Sarrato G, Salguero Garcia E, Aguayo Maldonado J, Gomez Robles C, Thio Lluc M, Iriondo Sanz, et al. Changes in the international recommendations on neonatal stabilization and resuscitation (2015). An Pediatr (Barc). 2017 Jan;86(1):51.e1–51.e9.
23. Rivera L, Siddaiah R, Oji-Mmuo C, Silveyra GR, Silveyra P. Biomarkers for bronchopulmonary dysplasia in the preterm infant. Frontiers in Pediatrics 2016;31:4–33.


Season 1 - (Garurumon #18) "Digimon Digital Monsters"
The animated Digimon series is built on characters first used in Bandai hand-held LCD toys from June 1997. The story is set in a digital world, presenting on-going adventures of the young heroes and assorted digital monsters. Digimon has aired in Japan on Fuji Television Network since March 1999.
From the very first episode it captured top share of all Fox Kids programming and was off to an extremely strong start as number two (after "Pokemon") boy's animated program on all networks. The rivalry with "Pokemon" has continued ever since, with the shows constantly trading places at the top. The fourth production of the Digimon series will be released this summer.
The toys are now available at more than 7,000 retail outlets throughout the country, including Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and K-Mart, making America's children smile. The Digimon target age group is 4 to 10 years old, substantially broader than the 4 to 6 year-old core group for Power Rangers.
The number of characters available as action figures in the US is overwhelmingly more than in Japan. Figure collections are more popular in America, and action figures other than the main characters sell for the sake of the collection.
Notify me of updates to Season 1 - (Garurumon #18) "Digimon Digital Monsters"


The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is changing the way MOT training is carried out as part of its on going aim to modernise the MOT scheme.
The changes are aimed at improving overall road and vehicle safety by increasing professionalism through the introduction of nationally-recognised qualifications and a wider variety of training options.
From June 2016, following a successful pilot and final ministerial sign off, anyone who wants to become a MOT Tester or an Authorised Examiner/ Designated Manager will need to achieve a qualification to apply for their licence.
Applicants will be able to nominate themselves to attend a qualifying course, instead of having to be nominated by their parent garage as is currently the case. It is hoped this will help to attract a wider range of applicants to the industry.
In addition, DVSA will replace the currently suspended MOT Tester refresher course with MOT annual training and a multiple choice online test assessment.
All MOT Testers must complete their MOT annual training and pass an annual assessment between the start of April and March of the following year.
Anyone who wants to become a MOT Tester or an Authorised Examiner/ Designated Manager will need to achieve these qualifications to apply for their licence in England, Wales and Scotland.
Learners who achieve this qualification will be able to apply for a licence to become a MOT Tester.
Understand Test centre quality systems and quality audits.
Learners who achieve this qualification will be able to apply for a licence to become an Authorised Examiner (AE)/Authorised Examiner Designated Manager (AEDM).


text:
Q: DNS issue on localhost I'm trying to run an MVC project in Visual Studio 2013 locally using iis express as the project option.
This refuses to start in Chrome and IE, but will work with Firefox. I am in a corporate environment and cannot access my internet settings for IE (which are also used by Chrome).
Browsing to http://localhost:50418/home in IE just times out, except for sometimes where it redirects to a completely different web application on another ip address.
I have tried replacing localhost with 127.0.0.1 and also with my computer name, but neither of those options has worked.
Any ideas of things I could check?

A: Check your proxy configurations in IE, Chrome uses it. Add localhost as exception to make sure this connection won't go to your corporate proxy.


text:
Q: Split function in python to saperate string from comma how to use split to separete 'g5s,12-04-2019' from comma.
I search for result if a='g5s,12-04-2019' then after split b = 'g5s' and c='12-04-1=2019'

A: str.split() to the rescue:
a='g5s,12-04-2019'
b, c = a.split(",")

A: You should use the x.split() and pass the comma as input argument, like this x.split(","). It means the input argument is the separator.
The split method returns a list which contain the elements separately. You you can unpack them one by one. Like this: b, c = a.split(",")
Code:
a = "g5s,12-04-2019"
print("a={a}".format(a=a))
b, c = a.split(",")
print("b={b}, c={c}".format(b=b, c=c))

Output:
>>> python3 test.py
a=g5s,12-04-2019
b=g5s, c=12-04-2019

FYI:
The docstring of the split method.

S.split(sep=None, maxsplit=-1) -> list of strings
    Return a list of the words in S, using sep as the
    delimiter string.  If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit
    splits are done. If sep is not specified or is None, any
    whitespace string is a separator and empty strings are
    removed from the result.


It's certainly a respectable number when compared to the proportion of women who earned bachelor's degrees in computer science during the 2012-2013 school year: 14 percent, according to the Computer Research Association. It's also nearly double the 22 percent that entered the school during that same period.
Click here to search research jobs.
The last time that a class of first-year computer science majors came close to including 40 percent women was in 2000, during the first dot-com boom, the school said. That happened after CMU expanded its admissions criteria and launched an outreach program to encourage more female high school students to apply. But that increase dropped along with interest in computer science nationally after the tech bubble popped.
CMU's announcement comes weeks after Google put a spotlight on tech diversity by revealing the make-up of its workforce: The company said that just 30 percent of its employees are women, 3 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. In technical roles, 17 percent are women.
For comparison's sake, women make up 47 percent of American workers overall, and represent 20 percent of all software developers. The tech industry says its lack of diversity reflects the pool of available talent, and points out that it's undertaken a number of efforts to encourage more women and minorities to pursue STEM degrees.


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More Subpoenas Issued In LIRR Disability Benefits Scandal
The subpoena hammer continues to come down as after the office of NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo confirmed that 5 doctors were subpoenaed, word has come out that 4 insurance companies are being subpoenaed. Frank Eltman of the Associated Press filed this brief report:
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office has confirmed it is issuing subpoenas to five doctors involved in the review process for Long Island Rail Road disability claims.
Cuomo is leading one of four separate investigations into revelations that more than 90 percent of Long Island Rail Road retirees have been granted disability payments by an obscure federal board, allowing them to collect huge payments every year.
Subpoenas also have been issued to four insurance companies that sold LIRR employees private disability policies.
Reviews also have been started by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and the inspectors general of the Railroad Retirement Board and the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the LIRR's parent agency.


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Biografia
Figlio di Sarah Graham e Thomas Sumner, quest'ultimo era un sostenitore del liberalismo e della temperanza, trasmettendo ai figli i valori di sobrietà, autonomia e responsabilità personale.

Diplomatosi a Hartford, si iscrisse all'Università di Yale, dove si laureò nel 1863.
Sacerdote della Chiesa episcopale dal 1869 al 1872, a partire da quell'anno fu professore di scienze politiche e sociali a Yale. Tra il 1873 e il 1876 fu consigliere comunale a New Haven e tra il 1908 e il 1909 fu presidente dell'associazione statunitense di sociologia, ritirandosi dalla vita accademica alla fine di quell'anno.

Pensiero
Iniziatore dell'indirizzo di ricerca empirica e induttiva sul comportamento umano, la sua impostazione epistemologica lo condusse a evidenziare la natura evolutiva dei costumi e a rifiutare il concetto di ingegneria sociale.

Antimperialista e ardente liberale, si oppose con forza al socialismo e allo statalismo e, ammirando le idee di Herbert Spencer, si fece sostenitore dello spencerismo.

Opere

Note

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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IAF's C-130J Super Hercules plane crashes near Gwalior
A file photo of India's first US-built military transport aircraft 'C130J'
NEW DELHI (PTI): In a major setback to the Indian Air Force, a US-made C-130J Super Hercules Special Operations transport aircraft on Friday crashed near Gwalior after taking off from Agra air base.
The fate of the crew is not yet known, IAF officials said.
"One C-130J aircraft crashed 72 miles (115 km) west of Gwalior air base. The aircraft was airborne from Agra at 1000 hours for a routine flying training mission. A Court of Inquiry has been ordered to investigate into the cause of the accident," an IAF spokesperson said here.
Police in Jaipur said senior officials, including Superintendent of Police, Karauli, have rushed to the spot of the crash along Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh border.
India had recently inducted six C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, which were bought from the US at the cost of around Rs 6000 crore (USD 1.1 billion) four years ago.
The home base of the 77 squadron 'Veiled Vipers' operating the aircraft is Hindan in Ghaziabad near here.
The aircraft were recently landed on the Daulat Beg Oldie air field near China border and have helped in boosting IAF's capability to airlift troops closer to the borders in times of emergency.
IAF C-130J Super Hercules Crash


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Title 14 - Aeronautics and SpaceCHAPTER I - FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (CONTINUED)SUBCHAPTER G - AIR CARRIERS AND OPERATORS FOR COMPENSATION OR HIRE: CERTIFICATION AND OPERATIONSPART 135 - OPERATING REQUIREMENTS: COMMUTER AND ON DEMAND OPERATIONS AND RULES GOVERNING PERSONS ON BOARD SUCH AIRCRAFT
Subpart A - General
§ 135.1 Applicability
14 C.F.R. § 135.1
(a) This part prescribes rules governing -
(1) The commuter or on-demand operations of each person who holds or is required to hold an Air Carrier Certificate or Operating Certificate under part 119 of this chapter.
(2) Each person employed or used by a certificate holder conducting operations under this part including the maintenance, preventative maintenance and alteration of an aircraft.
(3) The transportation of mail by aircraft conducted under a postal service contract awarded under 39 U.S.C. 5402c.
(4) Each person who applies for provisional approval of an Advanced Qualification Program curriculum, curriculum segment, or portion of a curriculum segment under subpart Y of part 121 of this chapter of 14 CFR part 121 and each person employed or used by an air carrier or commercial operator under this part to perform training, qualification, or evaluation functions under an Advanced Qualification Program under subpart Y of part 121 of this chapter of 14 CFR part 121.
(5) Nonstop Commercial Air Tour flights conducted for compensation or hire in accordance with § 119.1(e)(2) of this chapter that begin and end at the same airport and are conducted within a 25-statute-mile radius of that airport; provided further that these operations must comply only with the drug and alcohol testing requirements in §§ 120.31, 120.33, 120.35, 120.37, and 120.39 of this chapter; and with the provisions of part 136, subpart A, and § 91.147 of this chapter by September 11, 2007.
(6) Each person who is on board an aircraft being operated under this part.
(7) Each person who is an applicant for an Air Carrier Certificate or an Operating Certificate under 119 of this chapter, when conducting proving tests.
(8) Commercial Air tours conducted by holders of operations specifications issued under this part must comply with the provisions of part 136, Subpart A of this chapter by September 11, 2007.
(9) Helicopter air ambulance operations as defined in § 135.601(b)(1).
(b) [Reserved]
(c) An operator who does not hold a part 119 certificate and who operates under the provisions of § 91.147 of this chapter is permitted to use a person who is otherwise authorized to perform aircraft maintenance or preventive maintenance duties and who is not subject to anti-drug and alcohol misuse prevent programs to perform -
(1) Aircraft maintenance or preventive maintenance on the operator's aircraft if the operator would otherwise be required to transport the aircraft more than 50 nautical miles further than the repair point closest to operator's principal place of operation to obtain these services; or
(2) Emergency repairs on the operator's aircraft if the aircraft cannot be safely operated to a location where an employee subject to FAA-approved programs can perform the repairs.
[Doc. No. 16097, 43 FR 46783, Oct. 10, 1978]
For Federal Register citations affecting § 135.1, see the List of CFR Sections Affected, which appears in the Finding Aids section of the printed volume and at www.govinfo.gov.
§ 135.2 Compliance schedule for operators that transition to part 121 of this chapter; certain new entrant operators


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Home Obituaries Page 4577
JoAnne V. Picard
TORRINGTON - JoAnne V. Picard, 78, of 184 Roberts St., Torrington, passed away suddenly Feb. 7, 2021, at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital. Her loving husband...
Edward Mahoney
WATERBURY - Edward Mahoney, 83, died Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, at Regal Care at Waterbury. Edward was born Feb. 12, 1937, in Waterbury, and...
TORRINGTON - Services for John Roy, 72, of Torrington, will be 10 a.m. Friday, March 5, at Our Lady of Hope Church in Harwinton....
Therese R. Sataline
CHESHIRE - Therese Reckmack Sataline, widow of Dr. Lee R. Sataline and nearly a lifelong resident of Cheshire, died on March 2, 2021, in...
Frank N. Petrone
TERRYVILLE - Frank N. Petrone, 60, of Terryville, died March 6, 2021. Calling hours will be 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 13, 2021,...
Charmara K. Bush
DANBURY - Charmara Kathleen Bush, 33, of Waterbury, formerly of Danbury, born Oct. 16, 1987, in Danbury; a devoted mother, beloved sister, niece and...
Marie A. Pietroniro
CHESHIRE - Marie A. Pietroniro, 94, passed away Wednesday, March 17, 2021, in her home surrounded by her loving family. She was the...
Salvatore R. Boiano
WATERBURY - Salvatore Rocco Boiano, 92, entered into the eternal gates of heaven on Thursday, March 25, 2021. He was the loving husband of...
Norman F. Olmstead
GOODYEAR, Ariz. - Norman Fredrick Olmstead was born in Woodland, Maine, March 13, 1934, to Ollis and Martha (St. Peter) Olmstead. He passed away...
Barbara Sanders
NAUGATUCK - Barbara Sanders, 62, passed away at Saint Mary's Hospital on March 14, 2021. Daughter of the late Harold and Dorothy Sanders, she worked...
1...4,5764,5774,578...4,606Page 4,577 of 4,606
HEARING AID SPECIALIST
H.J. BUSHKA & SONS
ANNIE'S OIL
CORTINA TILE & MARBLE


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MOSTLY FILM: Jakarta The Unstoppable Sex Machine
Everywhere Is Monsters: Pick Of The Year 2014
This is the fourth year in a row that she's done this. You've got the idea by now, surely? £3.99 plus postage and packing from lulu.com, buy now for possible delivery in time for Christmas.
Hmmm. Needs more text.
We're at that point in the year where I realise that I really should do more book reviews for this site. Because the last four posts in the Books section here, in chronological order, are as follows: Living For The Weekend: A 2012 Diary By The BBG, Living For The Weekend: A 2013 Diary By The BBG, Living For The Weekend: A 2014 Diary By The BBG and Living For The Weekend: A 2015 Diary By The BBG. Whatever happened to the classics?
Still, in my opinion, the whole Living For The Weekend concept is a classic in its own right. Three years ago, The Belated Birthday Girl declared herself fed up with the diaries available in the shops, and decided to publish one that met her needs better. Specifically, she wanted one which gave you a decent amount of space to write in all the cool plans you have for the weekend, rather than just compressing Saturday and Sunday into a tiny corner of the page. After a few days spent sweating over a Microsoft Word template, she came up with the first Living For The Weekend diary, and made it available to the world via my publishers at lulu.com (while taking the opportunity to grab a copy for herself, of course).
Her 2015 diary is the fourth in the series (the other three are still available, now with a generous 15% discount), and keeps the same feature list as in previous years. It's a 17.48 by 10.8 cm paperback, conveniently sized to fit into a trendily baggy trouser pocket. Its 120 pages feature a week on each two-page spread, with the boring old working week crammed onto the left hand page and the sexy sexy weekend sprawled luxuriously across the right. You also get space for notes, calendars for three separate years, and a bit at the back where you can glue in the transport map of your choice.
The BBG also likes to set herself a project in the back pages of these diaries: this year, it's to visit a dozen small venues she's never been to before. Whether it's music, theatre, comedy or whatever, the small capacity performance space appears to be under threat these days - recently, for example, the sudden closure of Islington's Buffalo Bar was announced, as a result of their new landlords turning out to be complete bastards. (The mighty Ed Harcourt is playing one of Buffalo Bar's final gigs on December 18th: he did a similar service for the Bull and Gate last year, giving him the air of a kindly priest administering the last rites to dying music venues.) As you can see, halls of this size need our support in these difficult times, so she's included a two-page spread to log them as you visit.
Living For The Weekend: 2015 Diary is out now. Please buy lots of them. Thank you.
Posted on December 10, 2014 in Books | Permalink | Comments (0)


← What Color Should I Paint My House if I'll Be Moving Soon?
Don't get Dad another tie for Father's Day! Give Dad a give that he can enjoy year after year – everyday. What is that gift?
Every Dad has a room he calls his own whether it's the den, living room, library, media room, man cave or even if he's lucky enough to have a home office. Where ever Dad's space is, offer him the gift of color by repainting his room.
What color does Dad like? Well I can tell you that there's a 90% change it's going to be some type of blue. So, here's the top ten blue's that Sherwin Williams has and I'm 100% sure Dad will like at least one of these.
He just wants to relax!
So go to your nearest Sherwin Williams store and pick up the paint chips that I have listed here. Put them in a little box or envelope along with a Father's Day card and surprise him with the gift of color! Tell him to pick his favorite blue and start painting! Every time he walks into his office, or den or living room – he'll think of you and the special gift of color that you gave him!
This entry was posted in Best Of, Blue, Color, Paint Color, Paint colors, Sherwin Williams and tagged best blues, best sherwin williams blues, blue, color, dad, fathers day, sherwin williams blues. Bookmark the permalink.


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Green Speak
Apr '18
Architecture and Interior Design project by Phil Kean Design Group, Long Island
The client desired a warm and relaxed modern home located in Long Island's rural wine country on the Peconic River. The design embraced mid-century modern architectural inspirations of Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Rudolph, Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra to create this 13,579 sq. ft. modern classic.
"We wanted to create a modern home that offered a warm and inviting setting with the use of woods and natural materials. We also used a lot of glass and windows to bring the outside and inside together," Phil said. He combined traditional architectural characteristics with modern details, producing what he calls a "modern slant on traditional style."
The use of natural materials, neutral colors and lighting details create a harmonious and tranquil atmosphere. Kean simplified the palette and kept his building materials consistent to facilitate the circulation from inside to outside. The quartz ledgestone wraps from the home's façade to its interiors, creating exterior and interior architectural definition. A grid pattern of walnut and coral stone plays off the linear architectural details of the interior columns.
Other architectural details include floating ceilings, art niches, wall and ceiling recessed architectural lighting, reflecting staircase, etc.
This inquiry is for:*
SELECT INQUIRY*General InfoMarketing InquiryVendor Inquiry
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"We wanted to create a modern home that offered a warm and inviting setting with the use of woods and natural materials. We also used a lot of glass and windows to bring the outside and inside together."


HCM City (VNA) - More than 1,000 new cases of urinary bladder cancer are diagnosed in Vietnam every year, according to HCM City's Binh Dan Hospital.
Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Phuc Cam Hoang, the hospital's deputy director, said that around half of the patients die due to the disease.
On March 5, a 69-old-year man from the city's district 3 was brought to the hospital after having had blood in his urine and intermittent abdominal pains two weeks.
Doctors found he had three tumors in the bladder. They then decided to use en bloc resection technique to remove the tumor in one piece as an alternative to traditional techniques to help reduce the chances of recurrence.
Hoang said the hospital last year admitted 1,873 bladder cancer patients, many in advanced stages with a high risk of having the whole bladder removed and severe health problems.
The cancer does not have any specific symptoms and are the same as infections in the bladder or kidney or kidney stones: blood in urine, Hoang said.
Patients with bladder cancer are often between 50 and 60. But Hoang said the hospital also admits many people aged 30-40.


Chop up garlic & onion and start to sauté with water and a little bit of coconut oil on medium-low heat while cutting brussels sprouts in half.
Add brussels sprouts to the pan and sauté until soft. Add a heaping tablespoon of coconut oil while cooking and more water if necessary.
At the end I like to raise the heat to high for a minute or so to make them a bit crispy.
These are amazing on their own but for more texture & flavor top with pumpkin seeds, sea salt & pepper and my favorite, cultured veggies.
I say for 2 people because we eat these in one sitting, for normal people who don't inhale brussels sprouts, it may stretch to 4 people!


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With 'Ifigenia,' SF company unearths an 18th century gem
Joshua Kosman	December 1, 2018Updated: December 3, 2018, 9:41 am
Soprano Aura Veruni sings the title role in Giovanni Porta's "Ifigenia in Aulide." Photo: Teresa Tam Studios
It takes a pretty deep dive into the archives to even find the operas of the 18th century Venetian composer Giovanni Porta, let alone bring one to a modern-day stage. Yet the intrepid musical explorers of Bay Area company Ars Minerva have done both and pulled off the feat with impressive panache.
"Ifigenia in Aulide," which opened a two-performance run at San Francisco's ODC Theater on Friday, Nov. 30, had its premiere in Munich in 1738, and in all likelihood was never heard of again. That's not a reflection of its artistic merits so much as the vicissitudes of musical taste — operas in the 18th and 19th century were plentiful and quickly disposable, like the formulaic movies of the studio period, and the notion of a permanent repertory was still far in the future.
So any unfamiliar opera from the era is apt to feel a little out of place in the contemporary world, removed from the stylistic language and theatrical conventions that gave it shape. Porta's contemporaries — Handel above all — have taught us how to hear this music, and Handel tends to overshadow everyone within a 100-mile radius.
That makes it all the more remarkable that Friday's performance, with a cast of strong singers and a small, scrappy string ensemble, led from the harpsichord by conductor Derek Tam, could present such a powerful case for this unknown piece. Porta may not have been one of the greats of his day, but the writing here is lithe and imaginative, and the production presented it in the best possible light.
The usual caveats apply. Like any Baroque opera, "Ifigenia" proceeds in a rigid alternation of recitative — the conversational, relatively faceless vocal style that carries the dramatic action forward — and florid arias that give vent to a character's emotional state. And even with some cuts, the 3½-hour run time can be a challenge for a contemporary listener.
Nikola Printz is a forceful Agamemnon in Giovanni Porta's "Ifigenia in Aulide." Photo: Teresa Tam Studios
But there's a theatrical vividness to much of the score that carried the proceedings along, as well as some striking moments that come as a welcome surprise. In the third and final act, for instance, Porta brings three characters on stage for a genuine vocal trio — a texture so out of the ordinary for a Baroque opera that it almost sounds like a visitor from the lush musical world of Richard Strauss.
The libretto for "Ifigenia," drawn from Euripides, was a popular one in its day (characteristically, it was set to music by a number of composers). It finds the Greeks on their way to Troy, stymied by the lack of wind for their fleet, an obstacle that can be overcome, according to the best priestly intelligence-gathering, only if Agamemnon will sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the gods.
There are romantic entanglements as well, of course — this one loves that one, who only loves the other one — but the emotional core of the piece is in the struggles of the royal family. This is the beginning of Clytemnestra's rage toward Agamemnon, which will eventually erupt into murder in other plays and operas.
But the plot, which can be hard to follow under the best of circumstances, is less pressing than the opportunity for vocal display, and this is where the Ars Minerva company largely shone. Soprano Aura Veruni gave a vivid, tonally rich performance as Ifigenia. She was well matched by the robust, expansively scaled Agamemnon of mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, who sang strongly throughout before unleashing the truly big guns in her torrential Act 3 aria, and the bright-toned Clytemnestra of soprano Shawnette Sulker.
But the star of the evening was the young San Francisco soprano Cara Gabrielson in a role (Elisena) that has no counterpart in Euripides. Gabrielson gave a performance of remarkable grandeur and precision, singing with vibrant color and a beautifully modulated range of expressive techniques; her every contribution to the proceedings was reason to sit up and take notice.
The company's founding artistic director, Céline Ricci, not only sang the role of Achilles, deploying her wizardly coloratura to great effect, but also staged the piece in resourceful and bare-bones fashion. The design scheme, which presented the Greeks as some kind of purple-green race of Klingon cousins, neither helped nor hindered the production.
Ultimately, the point of this exhumation project, which has been the stock-in-trade of Ars Minerva for its several years of existence, is not to discover forgotten masterpieces; we're well supplied with those. Rather, it is to pull the camera back to include a fuller view of the musical past, in all its range and complexity. That's a task that the current production handles admirably.
"Ifigenia in Aulide": 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1. $25-$250. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., S.F. 415-643-6739. www.arsminerva.org


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News • Supply chain • Technology Media Telecoms
Hublot's watch warranties added to LVMH's AURA blockchain network
Luxury watchmaker Hublot partnered with tech company KerQuest to implement an electronic passport and warranty system for all its watches. The new technology aims to fight counterfeits and make the process of initiating a warranty simpler. The e-warranty is registered on the AURA luxury blockchain network. The solution is compatible with all Hublot's pieces produced since the start of 2020.
KerQuest has developed a solution that enables the recognition of objects through smartphone photos, much like passport facial recognition. Due to each Hublot watch's unique material make-up and leveraging artificial intelligence, the technology is used to recognize each watch and certify its authenticity.
Every piece is quite literally photographed as it comes out of production. Then, when the watch is sold, the point of sale uses Hublot's e-warranty application to take a picture of the face of the watch. The photo is sent to a server that processes it and activates the warranty if the piece is authentic.
If someone wants to buy a watch, Hublot's e-warranty app enables the verification of a piece's authenticity and the retrieval of its warranty status.
As mentioned, Hublot's e-warranty will be registered on the AURA blockchain. The project was initiated by luxury conglomerate LVMH to fight the counterfeiting of luxury brands and has been live for more than a year. Hublot is part of the LVMH group.
In 2016, the OECD estimated that counterfeit goods were worth 2.5% of global imports, and closer to 5% in Europe. Furthermore, in 2018 luxury brands lost $30.3 billion worth of sales to counterfeits online alone. AURA's blockchain network enables consumers to trace the history and authenticity of luxury goods. Its model enables participating brands such as Hublot to choose to emphasize tracing authenticity or customer loyalty through its features.
ConsenSys developed AURA and Microsoft is the hosting partner.
With such a large market in need of anti-counterfeiting solutions, other initiatives have emerged. Arianne is a notable blockchain project for end-to-end traceability and proof of authenticity of products. It runs a luxury consortium that includes one of Hublot's competitors, Breitling, as part of its network.
Meanwhile, Everledger launched DNA tagging to prevent counterfeiting of leather luxury products in 2018. And last year, Mastercard helped to develop a blockchain-based traceability solution for high-end clothing. More recently, PwC and blockchain firm Luxochain launched a platform for verifying the authenticity of luxury products called Virgo.
Image Copyright: BalkansCat / BigStock Photo
anti-counterfeit AURA Hublot luxury LVMH watch
Hyundai uses blockchain to verify authentic car parts
Blockchain used to prove when Scotch whisky was distilled
Major semiconductor firm Infineon launches blockchain hardware security solution
Breitling expands blockchain digital passports to all watches
Everledger, JD.com unveil blockchain anti-counterfeit solution for Chinese online diamond sales
ECB research confirms impact of CBDC on foreign economies


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class Bug < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user
  has_many :comments

  enum status: {unread: 0, in_process: 1, done: 2}

  validates :title, :body, presence: true
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub