Australia's Hard work birthday celebration is looking for a "contemporary method" to the cell blackspots program, announcing the government will have to use its Funds subsequent week to take a step clear of the usage of this system to "meet political priorities quite than neighborhood wishes".
"The blatant politicisation of this system has led many states to desert this system and leading to an underspend of AU$14 million for that rounds," Shadow Regional Communications Minister Stephen Jones mentioned on Friday.
Pointing to what he labelled a "scathing" document from the Australian Nationwide Audit Place of work (ANAO) at the cell blackspots program in addition to Victoria's abandonment of this system and criticisms through the Australian Pageant and Shopper Fee (ACCC), Jones mentioned High Minister Malcolm Turnbull's govt "will have to use this Tuesday's Funds to reform the cell blackspots program".
"The AU$220 million program has been plagued through delays, political interference, and doubtful choice making, which has attracted fierce grievance from unbiased companies," Jones mentioned.
The federal government had remaining month published which telcos shall be taking a slice of the AU$60 million investment below spherical 3 of the cell blackspots program, with Telstra being designated 89 places around the country, Optus 12, and Vodafone Australia one.
The government had in November opened the 3rd spherical of its cell blackspots program for soft, with 106 "precedence" places named as probabilities for the AU$60 million in investment to increase protection.
The 3rd spherical, introduced through High Minister Malcolm Turnbull within the lead-up to the 2016 federal election in Might 2016, completely focused a listing of recognized precedence places.
The announcement adopted accusations from Hard work that the federal government had selected essentially Coalition electorates for its earlier blackspot places, and ANAO's document announcing the Division of Communications had erred in its variety standards and talent to guage affect and value effectiveness.
The primary spherical of cell blackspot investment was once opened in December 2014, and the federal government introduced the second one spherical a yr later.
Optus is construction 114 new cell websites below spherical two of the Australian govt's cell blackspots program whilst Telstra is answerable for 148, down from the 429 it was once allotted below spherical one.
Vodafone Australia will construct out simply 4 cell base stations below spherical two after being answerable for 70 below spherical one.
Telstra has gained govt investment to construct out virtually 90 macro and small cellular websites throughout Australia, whilst Optus has been allotted 12 websites and Vodafone only one.
The Victorian govt has pulled its AU$11 million dedication to the government's cell blackspots program, opting as an alternative to construct its personal new cell towers throughout regional portions of the state.
The Australian govt has recognized 106 cell blackspot places throughout all states for AU$60 million in investment below its 'precedence' spherical, even though the Opposition has once more argued that the choice was once politically pushed.
The state's Minister for Innovation and the Virtual Financial system mentioned the Commonwealth's blackspot program chooses tower places in line with political pursuits quite than advantage.
Opposite to arguments made through Vodafone, Telstra has mentioned it's offering house for collocating carriers on its cell blackspot base stations at a reduced value.
Cellular units be offering comfort and versatility for the fashionable personnel – however additionally they deliver related dangers and fortify problems. This coverage establishes pointers to lend a hand make certain secure and productive mobility.


text:
El Torneig d'Istanbul 2016, oficialment conegut com a TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open 2016, és un esdeveniment de tennis masculí disputat sobre terra batuda que pertany a les sèries 250 de l'ATP. La segona edició del torneig es va celebrar entre el 25 d'abril i l'1 de maig del 2016 al Garanti Koza Arena d'Istanbul, Turquia.

El tennista argentí Diego Schwartzman va guanyar el primer títol individual del seu palmarès. També va disputar ambdues finals però no es va poder imposar en la final de dobles.

Quadre individual masculí

Caps de sèrie

Quadre

Quadre dobles masculins

Caps de sèrie

Quadre

Enllaços externs
 Web oficial

2016
ATP World Tour 2016

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Necessary to find an estimator's probability distribution before calculating its expectation? Where $X_{1}, X_{2}, \dots X_{n}$ is an iid distribution with pdf given by:
\begin{cases}
\frac{1}{\theta}x^{1-\theta} \qquad &\text{If $0 \leq x \leq 1$} \\[5 pt]
0 \qquad &Otherwise
\end{cases}
It can be shown using the M.L.E for estimator inference that $\theta$ is given by:
$$\theta = \frac{-1}{n} \sum_{i = 1}^{n} \ln(X_{i})$$
To take the expectation of this estimator, what's the next step? I believe that I need to find the underlying distribution for $\theta$, correct?

I ask that question, only because a solution does not find this underlying distribution (or else is not explicit):

And what if I find $\theta$ to be $(1 - \bar{X})/\bar{X}$?
In that case, how would I find the underlying pmf of $\theta$?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


DEQ - What is MEECS?
MEECS stands for Michigan Environmental Education Curriculum Support. The goal of MEECS is to provide students in grades 3 through 9 with an opportunity to learn more about their environment through lessons in Science and Social Studies. The MEECS curriculum consists of seven different curriculum units; Air Quality, Climate Change, Ecosystems & Biodiversity, Energy Resources, Land Use, Land and Environment, and Water Quality. The units have been field tested by 120 teachers in nearly 200 Michigan classrooms. The units can be used individually, or used together by a school system as the basis of a multi-year environmental education curriculum.


1. Posted by capahaddock (Budding Member 2 posts) 4w Star this if you like it!
This is a review of my recent experience with ORONGAI AFRICA SAFARIS, out of Arusha, Tanzania.
I post it here in the hope that I can help others not to be cheated like I was.
Short story: cheats, crooks and unprofessional. Avoid this outfit like the plague. They offered us a price of 2150$/pp and three days before the trip they increased it in 650$/pp. Finally we were forced to pay 200$ extra and downgraded us from lodges to mobile tented camps.
Long story… It's a long review, but I wanted to give all the details. If you are thinking of dealing with this people, I strongly advice you read on.
In December 2018 we got a quote from Orongai for a 7-day safari in northern Tanzania: Ngorongoro, Ndutu and Serengueti, for 8 people, all lodges. From February 16th to 22nd 2019. The price was 2,150 $ per person, total 17,200 $. I will send the quotation to anybody interested. Park fees, All accommodations, all transportation, and all Taxes/VAT were explicitly included. All lodges were mid/upper level: Lake Duluti Lodge, Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge, Ndutu Safari Lodge and Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge.
The price was lower than others we had (first clue) and included a flight back from Serengeti's airstrip to Arusha the last day, which was the clincher: "Around midmorning join a scheduled flight from Seronera airstrip to Arusha airport." (sic). So, we agreed to this quotation: 2,150 $ pp.
In January 2018 we all paid a 30% (645 $ pp) by bank transfer. The remainder was to be paid on arrival in cash. The remainder was: 2,150 - 645= 1,505 $ per person, or 12,040 $ total. Two of us decided (stupidly, it turned out) to pay also our part of the remainder beforehand by transfer: 3,010 $ for two people. After this payment the remainder was: 12,040 – 3,010 = 9,030 $, for the other 6 people (who decided to pay their remainder on arrival).
On February 12th I received the following message from Martha, the person in charge of our trip: "just wanted to inform you that there is additional 650$ per person this is due to additional concetion fees at NDUTU area and Ngorongoro area that we're not there before. We apologize for the inconveniences coursed" (sic).
We considered not going, but we really wanted to do the safari, we had already paid 645$ each (or 2,150 $ some of us) plus the flights, a dear price for us, and we decided to go (another mistake). We contacted the lodges where we were supposed to stay to confirm the reservation. They confirmed it, but at least one of them called Orongai to tell them we were asking.
On arrival we had a very long and very unpleasant discussion with Martha, a guide called Asseri and another guide Freddy (who, unbeknownst to us, spoke a bit of Spanish, but much less than he thinks). We tried to convince them to honor their original offer, but reasoning with them was impossible. They denied evidence and the most basic logic stone-faced. It was like talking to a wall. They said for instance that the word "Total" next to the 17,200 $ didn't mean "all the money". They insisted that the remainder was 12,030 $, and not 9,030 $ as we said, because of the additional charges of 650 $ per person. Which doesn't even add up! If we had to pay an extra 650$ the remainder would be 14,230$. They further informed us that the flight back from Serengeti to Arusha was not included in the price, even if "All transportation" was explicitly included, because a flight is not "transportation"!
We called the Spanish embassy for advice. They put us in contact with a person in Arusha, who sometimes helped other Spaniards informally. He has more than 20 years of experience in the safari business himself. He was extremely, awfully kind. He tried to convince Orongai's people for maybe another hour. He couldn't.
Finally, we decided to take it to the "Tourist Police", an institution created to deal with cases like this. We went there, a concrete bungalow in the outskirts of Arusha, bare of any official look or sign that I could see, and met with an official, a guy just dressed in jeans and a polo. We spent there another 2 hours, repeating everything to him (Orongai's people speaking mostly in Swahili even if we repeatedly asked them not to). He initially seemed to lean to our side, but finally, probably tired of the whole thing, told all of us that this was not a criminal dispute and that we had to resolve the thing among ourselves. And left. So much for the Tourist Police. During this, we offered to pay 200 $/person over the agreed 2,150 $. Orongai rejected this.
We went back to the hotel at around 11 pm. We were leaning to cancel the whole thing and leave. Mind you, in the middle of the night, without a car and without a hotel, because the lodge we were in, Lake Duluti Lodge, told us that we would have to pay our rooms ourselves (~ 300 $/room) because Orongai wouldn't pay if we canceled the safari. At this, Martha threatened us with legally/judicially demanding whole payment (her amount not ours), even if the safari didn't go ahead, because "it would be our decision to cancel".
After even more discussion, somebody suggested (I don't remember who) that if we paid the 9,030 $ we still owed, PLUS the 200 $/person we offered before AND they downgraded us to mobile tented camps, instead of lodges, we could go ahead. Tired of the whole thing, and worried of what a judicial process in Tanzania would entail, we agreed to this. They, then, made us sign a paper saying that these changes were our responsibility because we had not understood the original quotation correctly. Without this condition, they threatened again, the deal was off and they would sue us for full payment. Some of us signed, under duress obviously. So that you understand this downgrade, a mobile tented camp is a far cry from a permanent camp, let alone a lodge. Some permanent tented camps are really luxurious. The mobile tented camps are most definitely NOT luxurious. In some, the showers didn't even work, and didn't have enough power even to recharge the batteries/phones if we all tried at the same time.
A very suggestive thing happened at the Tourist Police. Martha, to convince us that 2,150 $/pp was an impossible price, listed in a piece of paper, from memory, the actual cost of each item: car rental, several park fees, lodge fees, food, water, everything. The total came exactly to 17,000 $. This shows that they know the cost of everything by heart, and that the quotation they gave us WAS NOT just a mistake they made, as we thought at some point. This clearly shows that this was a deliberate and, more importantly, practiced scheme to cheat clients. Mine is not the only story like this. Check the comments on Orongai in the web, many of the negative ones are from people with relatively "high level" safaris. The ones that may be amenable to pay extra when confronted with problems. Another suggestive detail is something our friend said. That, at least the Ndutu lodge (there is only the one) was almost certainly full by September already! That by December, when Orongai supposedly made the reservation, it would be utterly im-po-ssi-ble to get four double rooms there for mid-February. Possibly the others too. This makes me suspect that some reservations didn't exist. Instead, tented camps are easier to get at short notice. I sincerely believe that if we had paid the 650 $ extra, we would have still ended up either in lower-category lodges or in tented camps. Something that has happened to some clients of Orongai.
About the safari itself, one of the guides was nice (Freddy), the other (Asseri) wasn't at all. He never made any effort to place the car in a good position for the photos and barely spoke at all. Both were a bit risky drivers. Especially Asseri who frequently texted on his phone while driving, took photos or even video putting his full arm outside the window. Some of the seat belts were either broken or "repaired" with a knot. The lunch food was quite poor and always the same, including a piece of chicken so deeply fried as to be mummified. Almost inedible.
All said, what most vexed me, far beyond the extra cost and the downgrade, was that it half-ruined the whole trip. The preparations, the pre-travel excitement (one of the best things), were all erased in a flurry of worry and anger. A lot of the time while we were there talking about it… it all embittered an experience that should have been exhilarating and special. They robed us of that.
2. Posted by Peter (Admin 6672 posts) 4w 2 Star this if you like it!
Hi capahaddock, that does sound like a bad experience.
Can you please provide your full real name in your post and add a photo of yourself to your profile? Negative reviews like this can be posted by competitors and in order to trust them in any way, it is necessary to know who is actually posting this review.
If not, Travellerspoint ends up becoming liable for slander and that's not something I'm willing to wear for an anonymous review. So please - add some details about yourself that can be verified. I'll leave the post up for a day or two so you can add the extra detail.
3. Posted by capahaddock (Budding Member 2 posts) 4w Star this if you like it!
I can tell you that my name is Francisco de Castro. I live and work in the UK. Moreover, I can assure you that I'm not a competitor of Orongai trying to damage their reputation. Everything I wrote in my review is true. There were seven other people in the trip that can vouch for it. About puting my name in my profile I don't want to do that, much less my photo. I realize you don't have to believe me.
4. Posted by Mrsmith9080 (Budding Member 3 posts) 3w Star this if you like it!
5. Posted by 55vineyard (Budding Member 26 posts) 3w Star this if you like it!
Wow, that is terrible, pity you did not pay by credit card as you might have been able to dispute some of the charges through them.


text:
Good riddance iTunes?
Time to redefine "2 Player" games.
Enough 3D already!
Content Wars
The "Post-PC" transition
A friend at work asked me which TV box I would recommend: Playstation; Xbox; AppleTV; GoogleTV; etc. I told him whereas there are some differences between these hardware choices, the real decision at this point is about the content that they provide.
The war over content has been around since the beginning of widespread distributed media. By the 19th century publishers were making business deals for releasing many forms of content: newspapers; books; or the new moving picture.
Film studios signed long term contracts with certain actors/actresses. Publishers contracted writers for their exclusive list of titles. This same exclusivity has continued through radio and TV.
It also existed between the technological presenter of the content and the studios. For many new forms of delivery hardware the relationship to the content has helped make or break the technology. One example of this struggle started with the sound delivery systems for "talky" films. Jump ahead a few decades and many of us remember the battle between Beta vs. VHS tapes, or more recently Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Much of the success of the winning technology was related to the content they could provide.
As the smart phone and tablet market grows we are faced with the same war over different hardware, and the content they provide.
A few years ago the NAB (National Assoc. of Broadcasters) conference focused on 'Convergence;' the melding of phone, internet, and entertainment technologies together. We now hold that in the palm of our hand. This year's convention was all about the content.
People are making hardware choices related to the content, Apps, etc. that are available. Tablets are emerging as a major content provider. The list of content providing Apps continues to grow in the Apple App Store.
Here's a quick list of some of these apps and the content supported by them:
Crackle(Sony Pictures Entertainment providing content from: Columbia pictures, Tri-Star, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics & more)
Netflix(Netflix Inc: TV and movies from many studios)
XFINITY TV(Comcast Interactive Media: watch shows from the cable provider's selection)
ABC Player (ABC Digital: The ABC lineup free at home)
HBO GO (Home Box Office Inc: for prior HBO subscribers)
Hulu Plus (Hulu, LLC providing content from: ABC, Fox, NBC)
WatchESPN (ESPN Inc. Access determined by your TV or Internet provider.)
Optimum for iPad (CSC Holdings. content for Cablevision iO Digital Cable subscriber)
Apple has built relationships with many TV, film and music studios and provides their content on its variety of devices. Even these business relations continue to evolve. When apple released its new AppleTV it was restricted to rental only. A few studios didn't support this, but their content remains in the App Store for purchase.
So back to the question at hand. If they haven't already, the companies providing TV boxes will be connecting these systems to other mobile devices very soon. To find the best TV box or mobile device for your interests you'll need to do some research on the content that each provides. I stopped paying for cable TV over a year ago. It's ironic, in this high-tech age I've returned back to 'broadcast' TV. With my $40 digital antenna I receive FREE HD programming from the old-school broadcasting stations: NBC, FOX, CBS, ABC, & PBS. Those channels and iTunes provide the content that I want at a much cheaper monthly price.
Content delivery that will continue to have growing pains for the next 10 years as hardware and content companies continue to negotiate. (I'm waiting for the live NFL app for the iPad!)
Currently companies are touting their hardware features to one up their competitors, but it will be the available content that determines the long term winner.
We are in the midst of a historical transition. The delivery system(s) are changing rapidly. The current TV battles are just another in a long series started 20 years ago: email, phone calls, newspapers, movies, books, magazines, games, etc. So I'm sorry to say there is no easy answers to the question: "Which TV box should I buy?" because the answer may change tomorrow.
2Play Games
2Play Tap
2Play® is a registered trademark
of Scott Stevens and 2Play Games, LLC
© 2015 2Play Games, LLC

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The skills Facebook demonstrated in building a social network don't map well to virtual reality.
Turning a software company into a hardware company is easier said than done, but Facebook's (NASDAQ:FB) attempt to add virtual reality (VR) to its social media empire may be a Herculean task. Tech companies simply aren't built to make strategic transitions like Facebook is trying to make, and there may be structural reasons it will fail in virtual reality.
We've seen similar stories before. IBM dominated early mainframe computers but gave up the personal computer (PC) to Microsoft and Intel because it wasn't able to adapt to the needs of the PC market. Microsoft dominated PC software but tried to shoehorn Windows onto mobile devices, eventually ceding the smartphone market to Apple. Today, we're watching Apple fall behind in artificial intelligence and virtual assistants to Amazon and Google. There's a cycle in technology, and just because a company dominates one era doesn't mean it'll dominate the next. It's Facebook's success with its social network that I think will make it tough for Facebook to make the transition to virtual reality, despite spotting the opportunity early.
One way to understand the uphill battle Facebook is taking on in virtual reality is to look at the skills required to succeed in each market. Below are a few of the key differences in Facebook.com and Oculus as businesses.
These differences are important, so I'll highlight how they can impact virtual reality one by one.
Developing hardware and software couldn't be more different, and succeeding in one doesn't mean a company can succeed in the other (see Microsoft Zune). For example, software can be tested in beta releases and can be changed and updated almost immediately based on new feedback. When a hardware design is set, it can be years before it's changed. Oculus Rift is a perfect example. The VR headset was launched more than two years ago, and there haven't been meaningful changes to the hardware design over that time frame.
An example of Facebook's inexperience in hardware showed up in March when Oculus Rifts around the world were knocked out because the company forgot to renew a security certificate. Oculus Rift literally shut down worldwide because of an administrative error, a mistake a company the size of Facebook shouldn't make.
One thing investors should always ask themselves when analyzing a company is: Who pays the bills?
At Facebook, the 2 billion people with Facebook accounts around the world aren't the ones who pay the company's bills; it's businesses who advertise on the social network who pay the bills. If you want to know why Facebook was careless with user data, you can go back to the fact that users don't pay the company, so it has an incentive to find ways to create value or monetize their data elsewhere.
In virtual reality, the user is the one paying the bills. If Oculus can't serve what users want from both an experience and a content perspective, then its opportunity will be limited. This is why the software issue I highlighted above is a black eye for Oculus.
There's also no network to attract customers in virtual reality. On Facebook.com, the fact that your friends are on the network makes you more likely to use the social network, which draws advertisers, and on and on. It's the network that's a big reason users will quickly forget the data Facebook shared with entities like Cambridge Analytica. There's no similar draw pulling customers into virtual reality or keeping them there.
I think one of the biggest challenges Facebook faces in virtual reality is getting headsets into customers' hands and getting them to try VR before they buy a setup. Consumers aren't going to adopt VR on the scale of tens of millions of devices if they've never tried it -- and this is where Facebook lacks a channel.
There's no free app on your desktop or mobile device like there was with Facebook.com, and reaching customers to try new technology is hard. Right now, the company is leaning on Best Buy as a key sales channel; it's one of the only places you can try an Oculus Rift headset before spending thousands of dollars on the headset and a VR-ready computer. I don't think this sales model will work long-term and will ultimately limit the opportunity for VR to a few million devices, which is what's sold today.
Customer service is another can of worms that Oculus hasn't figured out. Even Apple, for instance, was compelled to open stores in high-foot-traffic areas so potential customers could experience its products and so it could better serve its customers. Facebook doesn't have a similar channel. Once again, the needs of a software company don't map well to a hardware company.
According to Superdata, the virtual reality market is expected to grow from $2.2 billion in 2017 to $19.0 billion in 2021, so Facebook has a huge incentive to make Oculus an industry leader. But it's losing the battle to Sony right now. Sony has sold more than 2 million PlayStation VR headsets, which are selling at about 2.5 times the speed of Oculus Rift.
Facebook and Oculus hope the launch of Oculus Go will inspire a new round of VR adoptions, but the sales channel is still unclear, and Facebook's incentives may not line up with virtual reality consumers' needs. The best example of this might be Facebook Spaces, a virtual hangout for friends in VR. Facebook is trying to make virtual reality into a social network, but I have my doubts that customers want the same thing from both Facebook.com and Oculus. Hopefully, Facebook can see its weaknesses in time, but history has shown that tech companies have a hard time transitioning to a new technology paradigm -- and Facebook may already be making the same mistakes predecessors have.


text:
Global calls to save Aceh forest
Nadya Natahadibrata
Jakarta / Sun, May 19, 2013 / 10:53 am
More than a million people worldwide have joined online calls for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to block the Aceh administration'€™s plan to open protected forests for commercial exploitation.
Rudi Putra, an Acehnese activist who won the 2013 Future for Nature Award, initiated an online petition on Avaaz.org on May 7, demanding the President step in to the plan. As of Saturday evening, the number of people who signed the petition, which is directed at the President, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan and Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah, had reached 1.2 million.
The petition was begun after a group of local environmental activists from Aceh signed an online petition on Change.org Indonesia against the draft spatial planning bylaw proposed by the Aceh administration, which put the province'€™s 1.2 million protected forests, home to numerous endangered species, at risk. More than 35,000 people have signed the petition.
'€œI live and work in the last place on Earth where endangered orangutans, rhinos, elephants and tigers still roam together, but it'€™ll be bulldozed to bits unless our President hears our call and steps in to save this unique habitat,'€ Rudi said on Avaaz.org, a global web movement that was launched in 2007.
Despite months of continuous protests, the Forestry Ministry is still on the way to approve the bylaw to convert protected forests into non-forest zones.
Data from the Coalition of Aceh Rainforest Movements said that the new spatial planning rules would allow the conversion of around 1.2 million hectares of Aceh'€™s existing 3.78 million hectares of protected forests into non-forest areas, production forests as well as roads.
However, the Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan has denied the accusation saying he has only allowed a conversion of 80,000 hectares of forests, from the initial proposal of 150,000 hectares, solely to improve the province'€™s infrastructure and boost its economy. He also said that the local administration had more authority to protect its forest than the central government, due to regional autonomy.
Deddy Ratih of Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said the petition that had grabbed the attention of global communities showed the ministry should take the public'€™s concern and aspirations into account before deciding to go ahead.
'€œThe ministry should clearly explain the purpose of the forest conversion and involve the public in the decision,'€ Deddy said.
'€œWe are not only talking about the conversion, but also the potential damage should they go on with the plan to construct a road network throughout Aceh'€™s protected forests.'€
Deddy regretted that the ministry still did not hear the public'€™s concern, even after the President decided to extend the forest moratorium, which prohibits issuance of new exploitation permits for primary forests and peatlands in conservation forests, protected forests and production forests.
'€œEspecially with the fact that the president extended the forest moratorium, the ministry should have had more awareness to protect the forest,'€ he said.
Change.org Indonesia co-founder Usman Hamid said that millions of support for Rudi'€™s petition shows the international community'€™s solidarity for the local online movement to demand that Governor Zaini drop the controversial bylaw.
'€œThe government should be open-minded and listen to public aspiration against the plan to convert Aceh'€™s protected forest for business purposes that will damage the earth and put Sumatran endangered species at risk,'€ Usman said.
Ian Bassin, campaign director at Avaaz, said that President Yudhoyono had to make a choice: leaving an important legacy to protect Indonesia'€™s natural resources or tainting his green track record by allowing the Aceh government to go on with its plan.
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BKPM matches SMEs with big firms to facilitate deals worth Rp 1.5t
Saudi Arabia reports sharp drop in executions in 2020
Sound of silence: Badminton resumes play with feeling of bleakness
'Baby Trump' blimp acquired by Museum of London


text:
Consumer markets and companies linked to habitat loss for rare species in Brazil's savannah
Overseas consumer markets could be responsible for more than half of the impact of expanding soy production on rare species in one of the world's most biodiverse regions, the Cerrado savannah in Brazil, according to a new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The paper, "Linking global drivers of agricultural trade to on-the-ground impacts on biodiversity" calculates the share of this impact that attributable to consumers in different countries around the world. More than half (55%) of the impact is attributed to food and other products that are consumed outside Brazil, with 22% attributed to consumption in China and 15% to consumption in the European Union.
"Our findings underline that local biodiversity loss is a global problem," said co-author Paz Durán of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity at Universidad Austral de Chile. "Although both companies and consumers are paying increasing attention to the environmental cost of products, the complex nature of international supply chains can result in connections between a product and its environmental footprint being lost."
Lead author Jonathan Green, from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York, says: "Our new method reveals specific links between consumer countries, traders, soy production and habitat loss. This kind of knowledge can be invaluable for helping companies and countries to source more sustainably and invest in less ecologically harmful agriculture."
The Cerrado is home to 5% of the world's species, but the wilderness is being converted rapidly, particularly for agriculture.
The international team of researchers looked at the impacts on more than 400 plant and animal species that are highly or exclusively dependent on Cerrado ecosystems (i.e. had at least 70% of the entire range within the Cerrado), as well as a handful of more "charismatic" non-endemic species, such as the Giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla).
The study found that 86% of the losses to the Giant anteater's range in the Cerrado occurred in Mato Grosso state, driven particularly by the consumption of products containing "embedded" soy (see below) in Brazil, China and the EU. However, species even more dependent on the Cerrado such as Kaempfer's woodpecker and the Blue-eyed ground dove (see below) are in an even more precarious situation.
The researchers also linked the impacts on Cerrado biodiversity to specific consumption patterns in consumer markets. The vast majority of soy reaches consumers "embedded" in other products – particularly in meat and dairy products from livestock given feed containing soy, which is favoured for its high protein content.
The new paper shows that in major European markets like Germany, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands, consumption of non-beef meat products (including pork, chicken and lamb) fed on Cerrado soy had a bigger impact on biodiversity than consumption of soy-fed beef products; around 30% of the impact was linked to "other meats", compared to 10–12% for beef. However, globally the shares were roughly equal (at 14% and 13%, respectively). (Note that these figures include all meat from livestock fed on Cerrado soy, whether raised inside or outside Brazil.)
The main scientific breakthrough described in the paper is linking a model of international financial flows with a detailed subnational-level model of soy production and trade developed by the Trase initiative in order to link deforestation to final consumption. This allowed the authors to estimate species-by-species losses of suitable habitat to derive a measure of biodiversity impact that accounts for species-specific differences in range sizes, sensitivities to land-use change and historical habitat loss.
Co-author Andrew Balmford of Cambridge University said: "The most exciting advance in bringing together these sophisticated datasets and models is the level of accountability it makes possible: we can now start to see exactly which businesses and consumers are harming threatened species, where, how, and in unprecedented detail."
Co-author and Trase Director Toby Gardner of SEI said: "These results show that it is possible to use existing datasets to see through the tangled web of global commerce, giving us the detailed information, we need to devise solutions. We hope this methodology will be extended to other agricultural commodities and ecosystems in the near future."
The research team include researchers from the UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Chile.
Read the open-access paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).


text:
Q: Jquery Sortable wit undefined number of lists I have a list that is being retrieved from the database.
The number of list is undefined since they are coming from the database.
These list can be dragged to other lists.
here is the code
<?php while(..condition..){ ?>
<ul id="test-list-sub<?=$x?>" class="connectedSortable2" style="padding-bottom:10px;">
  <li id="listItemSub_<?=$row['id']?>">

...content here...

<?php $x++; } //end while ?>

Javascript
for(var y=0; y<<?=$x?>; y++){

    $("#test-list-sub"+y).sortable({
      handle : '.handle',
      connectWith: ".connectedSortable2",
      update : function () {
          var order = $("#test-list-sub"+y).sortable('serialize');
          alert(order);
        //$("#info2").load("process-sortable.php?"+order+"&panel=2");
      }
    });

}

This process works but the problem is when i try to get the list items i get
[Object][object] but when i try to change the
var order = $("#test-list-sub"+y).sortable('serialize');

to
var order = $("#test-list-sub0").sortable('serialize'); //or any number 0-number of lists

I get the value. It seems that the 'value y' being passed in the 'update' part of sortable is the last value of y. What should i do to get the value from the list?

A: Found the answer
$('.connectedSortable2').each(function() {
        var pid = $(this).attr('id').split('_')[1];
        $("#test-list-sub_"+pid).sortable({
          handle : '.handle',
          connectWith: ".connectedSortable2",
          update : function () {
              var order = $("#test-list-sub_"+pid).sortable('serialize');
              alert(order);
            //$("#info2").load("process-sortable.php?"+order+"&panel=2");
          }
        });
    });

I used the each function to get them. Since they are having the same class.
Answer is from jquery sortable > nested uls


text:
Our Mission and History – Dubuque Farmers Market
Dubuque Farmers Market
Iowa's Oldest Farmers' Market
Location + Hours + FAQ
Market Tips
Vendor Map
Searchable Product Listing
Market Money
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Buy Fresh, Buy Local
Musicians & Performers
The Dubuque Farmers' Market is the oldest Farmers' Market in the state of Iowa. Farmers' Market was originally held in the City Hall building. When the building was first opened in 1858, farmers backed their wagons up to the long windows on the northern and southern sides of the building and unloaded their produce into stalls inside the building.
In December 1879 with the remodeling of the building, the market was eliminated from the building and the space used for offices. The market continued outside, sprawling over many city blocks at that time.
The market was briefly discontinued in the early 1970s due to declining attendance. It was reinvigorated by then Mayor C. Robert Justmann who encouraged arts and crafts to be added to the traditional display of produce from gardens and area farmers.
Dubuque Main Street was assigned management of the Dubuque Farmers' Market in the mid-1990s. Since then the market has grown dramatically, with 2017 ending with more than 140 registered vendors, the most recorded in more than 30 years. A resurgence of interest in local foods has no doubt helped the market to grow.
Due to our expansion, we have attracted family programming (Kids @ Market) and a match for SNAP recipients that use their card at our Market Money Booth (Double Up Food Bucks)!
Historical Information provided by Encyclopedia Dubuque.
Since the mid-1990s, Dubuque Main Street has managed the Dubuque Farmers' Market.
About Dubuque Main Street:
Dubuque Main Street is THE 501(c)3 dedicated to the ongoing development of Downtown Dubuque while preserving historic integrity and making downtown the place to live, work and play. Our four point approach guides our mission through Design, Organization, Promotions, and Economic Development. Our public/private partnerships maintain the historic integrity through our building improvements and design, while attracting new businesses and residents. With many working parts downtown, we collaborate to provide organization and structure that delivers accountable results. Through our organization's leadership, working with volunteers, business owners, partnering organizations and committees we promote downtown events as well as host many cultural events including a Winter Live Music Crawl, Dubuque… and All That Jazz, Architecture Days, Puttzin' Around Downtown, Fall Into Art and more. Each of these popular events attracts visitors to our downtown neighborhoods. It all adds up to create a sustainable working foundation and plays an integral role in the local economy.
Visit our website HERE!
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