In Austria and Hungary, Thales is market leader in the field of signalling and train control technology (ETCS).
In Bulgaria and Slovenia Thales is the first company to have implemented the ETCS Level 1 system in the country.
Main Line Rail is the main business of Thales in Austria. Customers at both the national and international levels can rely on extensive experience and unparalleled skills in the implementation of wide-ranging projects, including turn-key projects. Due to its innovation and international commitment, the team at the Vienna facility was awarded the status of a competence centre within the Group back in the mid-1990s. The products and systems in operation range from electronic interlocking systems over train control and traffic management systems, field elements, like point machines, axle counters and signals (LED) up to safety and security management systems, like check points, automatic signal controlled warning systems, access control systems and supervision systems.
In order to create the best solutions for its customers, Thales relies on long-term relationships. In 2016, Thales is to celebrate 25 years in the Hungarian market. All these years, Thales has been able to establish itself not only as the market leader in the field of signalling and train control technology, but has also, as a result of a strong Austrian-Hungarian cooperation, played a major role in creating the infrastructural and operational preconditions for rail transport to become more efficient and more attractive for both passengers and freight.
As a competence centre, Thales in Austria is also responsible for a technology platform for all forms of function-critical transport applications. This involves combining a wide range of hardware and software components with appropriate methods and instrumentation to establish safe and reliable real-time systems which are used in over 60 percent of all signalling technology solutions installed by Thales worldwide.
In addition, the success enjoyed with ERTMS/ETCS applications (European Rail Traffic Management System/European Train Control System) was key to the Vienna site being selected as a competence centre for ETCS Level 1 solutions.
The Thales site in Vienna has been selected as a competence centre for ETCS Level 1 solutions. As a full system provider, Thales offers ETCS Level 1 and ETCS Level 2 solutions both for transportation infrastructure as well as for rolling stock. Customers from Europe to Asia rely on Thales ETCS trackside and on-board solutions in order to increase the quality of railway transportation in their country. By modernising the railway infrastructure of several customers within Europe Thales contributes to the development of the Trans-European-Network and helps to remove operational barriers on the European railway infrastructure. In 2012 Thales underlined its leading role as ETCS supplier through signing one of Europe's most important ETCS projects in Slovenia.
Learn more about the Thales ETCS system.
Austria is the country with the highest density of electronic interlockings and Thales is market leader in supplying this technology in Austria. Furthermore, Thales Austria's electronic interlockings are in operation in Hungary, Bulgaria and Switzerland. The Thales system offers the highest level of safety (SIL4) and availability. It offers functions such as remote control, automatic train operation and integrated block functionality, as well as standardised interfaces to Radio Block Centres (for ETCS L2), SCWS (Signal Controlled Warning System) and other peripheral systems.
Learn more about Thales Route Control Systems.
Next to ETCS and electronic interlockings, the Austrian railways, as well as international customers, rely on the concept of Operation Management Centres (OMC). This solution combines a set of fully integrated modules, such as Automatic Train Route Setting, Automated Shunting and Customer Information, etc. Thales supports this concept by supplying OMCs for the Austrian railways and several other international customers. The Thales solution can be modified for urban as well as local railways and already proofed their functionality in both sectors. Productivity is increased through the highest level of automation with a maximum of operational safety.


text:
require 'spec_helper'

describe Chute::V2::Albums do
  include_context "init credentials"

  describe "methods" do

    describe ".all" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:all).with(0).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:all).with(1).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:all).with(2).arguments }
    end

    describe ".find" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:find).with(1).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:find).with(0).arguments }
    end

    describe ".geo_locate" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:geo_locate).with(4).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:geo_locate).with(5).arguments }
    end

    describe ".assets" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:assets).with(3).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:assets).with(4).arguments }
    end

    describe ".import" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:import).with(2).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:import).with(0).arguments }
    end

    describe ".create" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:create).with(1).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:create).with(2).arguments }
    end

    describe ".update" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:update).with(2).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:update).with(0).arguments }
    end

    describe ".delete" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:delete).with(1).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:delete).with(2).arguments }
    end

    describe ".stats" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:stats).with(1).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:stats).with(0).arguments }
    end

    describe ".add_assets" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:add_assets).with(2).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:add_assets).with(0).arguments }
    end
    describe ".remove_assets" do
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should respond_to(:remove_assets).with(2).arguments }
      it { Chute::V2::Albums.should_not respond_to(:remove_assets).with(0).arguments }
    end

  end

  describe "requests" do
    describe "GET Album List" do
      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_list', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should be able to list all albums" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.all
        response.data.should_not == nil

      end

      it "should contain pagination" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.all
        response.pagination.should_not ==nil
      end

    end

    describe "POST Album Create" do
      it "should be able to create an album" do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_create', record: :new_episodes
        album = Hash.new
        album[:name] = "some album #{Time.now.to_s}"
        album[:moderate_comments] = true
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.create(album)
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it 'should respect permission_view' do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/album_create_with_permission_view', record: :new_episodes
        album = Hash.new
        album[:name] = "some new album #{Time.now.to_s}"
        album[:permission_view] = 2
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.create(album)
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end
    end

    describe "GET Album by ID" do
      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_get', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should retrieve album by its id" do
        id = Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"}).data.id
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.find(id)
        response.data.id.should == id
      end
    end

    describe "PUT Album Update" do

      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_update', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should be able to update an album" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"})
        name = "Updated Album"
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.update(response.data.id, {name: name})
        response.data.name.should == name
      end
    end

    describe "DELETE Album" do

      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_delete', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should be able to delete an album" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"})
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.delete(response.data.id)
        response.success?.should == true
      end
    end

    describe "GET Album Stats" do
      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_stats', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should retrieve stats" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"})
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.stats(response.data.id)
      end
    end

    describe "POST add and remove Assets" do

      let(:id) { Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"}).data.id }
      let(:asset_ids) { [4342325, 4342324, 534543] }  # Non Existing assets (random)

      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_add_remove_assets', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should be able to add existing assets to existing album" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.add_assets(id, [71907823])
        response.should be_truthy
      end

      it "should be able to remove existing assets from existing album" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.remove_assets(id, asset_ids)
        response.should be_truthy
      end

    end

    describe "POST move and copy asset" do

      let(:id) { Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"}).data.id }
      let(:to_album) { Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"}).data.id }

      before do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_move_copy_asset', record: :new_episodes
      end
      after do
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should be able to move asset to another album" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.move_asset(id, 8765443, to_album)
        response.should be_truthy
      end

      it "should be able to copy asset to another album" do
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.copy_asset(id, 3452424, to_album)
        response.should be_truthy
      end

    end

    describe "POST to import Assets" do

      let(:id) { Chute::V2::Albums.create({name: "Created Album"}).data.id }

      it "should be able to import assets from instagram_id" do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_import_assets_from_instagram_id', record: :new_episodes
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.import_from_instagram(id, '428193445044210234_1895177')
        response.should be_truthy
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

      it "should be able to import assets from urls" do
        VCR.insert_cassette 'albums/albums_import_assets', record: :new_episodes
        response = Chute::V2::Albums.import(id, "http://instagram.com/p/aUxwpugsqp/")
        response.should be_truthy
        VCR.eject_cassette
      end

    end

  end

end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Calea zacatechichi is a shrub measuring 1-1,5 meter in height. It belongs to the Compositae (Sunflower family). The plant has many branches with oviform and opposite leaves (3-5 cm long and 2-4 cm wide). The leaves show serrated borders, acute endings and a short petiole. They are rugose and pubescent. The inflorescence is small and dense (comprising around 12 flowers each) with the pedicels shorter than the heads. The plant grows from Mexico to Costa Rica in dry savannas and canyons.


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Top 10 cities in Michigan and distance from Kiwanis' monument.
Top 10 cities in America and distance from Kiwanis' monument.


text:
Investing in Europe in the Face of Crisis and Uncertainty
November 1, 2012 in Audio, Equities, Europe, European Investing Summit, European Investing Summit 2012, Ideas
Guy Spier presented his in-depth investment thesis on investing in Europe in the face of crisis and uncertainty at European Investing Summit 2012.
The first live session at EIS 2012 was led by Guy Spier, Chief Executive Officer, Aquamarine Capital.
About the session: Guy Spier will frame the eurocrisis in historical perspective, provide a sense of how investors have reacted to past crises and uncertainties, what actions have led to poor or superior investment results, and address behavioral biases that lead investors to follow the herd during situations of uncertainty and crisis. You'll end up with an appreciation of the context for the ongoing crisis and the pitfalls to avoid in order to help you maintain perspective and a long-term orientation. Guy will also elaborate on the views expressed in the recent Times of London editorial he co-authored with Mohnish Pabrai, entitled "The Motown way to get Greece motoring." Guy will also reveal which European investment opportunities he finds most compelling.
About the instructor:
Guy Spier is a Zurich-based investor. In June 2007 he made headlines by bidding US$650,100 with Mohnish Pabrai for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett. Since 1997 he has managed Aquamarine Fund, an investment partnership inspired by, and styled after the original 1950′s Buffett partnerships. Prior to starting Aquamarine Fund, Spier worked as an investment banker in New York, and as a management consultant in London and Paris. Mr. Spier completed his MBA at the Harvard Business School, class of 1993, and holds a First Class degree in PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) from Oxford University. Upon graduating, he was co-awarded the George Webb Medley prize for the best performance in that year in Economics. While at Oxford he was a contemporary of David Cameron at Brasenose and attended economics tutorials with him. Spier is the CEO of the Spier family office. He also serves on the advisory board of Horasis, and is a co-host of TEDxZurich. Spier is a member of YPO, EO, Zurich Minds and the Latticework Club. Aquamarine has offices in New York, London and Zurich where Mr. Spier currently resides with his wife Lory and their three children, Eva, Isaac and Sarah.
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Intesa Sanpaolo: Resilient Italian Banking Leader at Deep Discount (TRANSCRIPT NOW AVAILABLE)
Henkel: Underappreciated Consumer Goods and Adhesives Leader
Q&A on Value Investing in Europe
Tags: Harvard, herd mentality, politics
People: Guy Spier
Companies: OPAP, Royal Bank of Scotland Group
About The Author: MOI Global Editorial Team
The MOI Global Editorial Team, led by John Mihaljevic, CFA, includes community builders, event organizers, writers, editors, research associates, security analysts, and fanatical member support advocates. Our sole purpose is to serve the members of MOI Global as well as we possibly can in order to help them learn, invest intelligently, and build lifelong friendships with like-minded people.
Who is MOI Global? In recent years, The Manual of Ideas has expanded to become more than simply "the very best investing newsletter on the planet" (Mohnish Pabrai). We are now a thriving global community of intelligent investors, connected through great ideas, thought-provoking interviews, online conferences, live member events, and much more.
Members of MOI Global enjoy complimentary access to a growing array of resources and content related to the art of intelligent investing. Members also enjoy preferential access to selected offline events as well as exclusive access to other events hosted by MOI Global, including the Zurich Project Summit, the Latticework Conference, and Ideaweek.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Formica aemula é uma espécie de formiga do gênero Formica, pertencente à subfamília Formicinae.

aemula

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Obama's Agenda & The Difference Between Tactics & Strategy
Nov. 25, 2008 , at 9:57 PM
By Nate Silver
There is, to say the least, a lot of jumping to conclusions about just which type of President Barack Obama is liable to be, by which I mean whether he'll govern from the left or the center. This speculation has been principally based on his cabinet appointments, a subject that people may be reading too much into. The initial Bush cabinet contained a number of people who could be described as moderate or center-right, including Colin Powell, Tommy Thompson, Norman Mineta, Christine Todd Whitman, Paul O'Neill and arguably Mitch Daniels and Ann Veneman. Obviously, this was balanced out to some degree by the Rumsfelds and the Ashcrofts, but it is not clear that Bush's 2001 cabinet was any more right-wing than Obama's 2009 cabinet is left-wing. Bush ran a very conservative government — but the authority came from the top down.
Most of this discussion, moreover, has dwelt in the realm of tactics, presentation and salesmanship rather than grand strategy. One can "govern from the center" and implement a number of liberal policies — by shifting the Overton Window a couple of panes at a time, and selling classically liberal policies as commonsensical and centrist. (Which, in the case of some major items like health care and clean energy, they already are). Likewise, as David Sirota notes, one can co-opt leftist rhetoric, enthusiasm and mindshare and implement a centrist agenda, as Bill Clinton arguably did.
In the case of Barack Obama, however, I would argue that there is not as much need to worry about tactics. If his campaign was any indication, Obama is not much of an outsourcer — he will dictate the tone of his administration. Moreover, we actually have quite a bit of information about what his longer-term goals are. This morning, I went to Obama's website and began transcribing essentially all the specific policy proposals that he was willing to commit to publicly — as you will see, there are dozens and dozens of them. I then began classifying these positions on a truncated political spectrum running from liberal/progressive to center-right, further dividing the policies into economics and taxation (green), other domestic policy (yellow) and foreign affairs (blue). Here is what I came up with:
Now, you're welcome to critique my characterizations of certain policies as 'progressive' versus 'centrist' (and I'm sure that many of you will), but a couple of key themes emerge:
1. In the realm of domestic policy, there are a surprising number of proposals — mostly buried within the fine print of Obama's website — that are more or less unapologetically progressive/liberal. These include things such as doubling public spending on science and after-school programs, banning racial profiling, expanding the use of non-traditional courts and detainment facilities for non-violent drug offenders, several different block grant programs targeted at inner cities, expanding AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, and a large array of protections for workers and consumers. While Obama also has a number of programs that have broader, centrist appeal — such as reforming No Child Left Behind or allowing the importation of prescription drugs from abroad — very few are incompatible with the progressive agenda, with just a couple of exceptions like Obama's advocacy for clean coal and charter schools. Obama's domestic program is, by and large, progressive and ambitious (probably overambitious).
2. In the realm of economic policy, there are also some explicitly progressive items, such as raising the minimum wage, investing $1 billion in anti-poverty jobs programs, and of course, reversing the Bush tax cut. There is also a heavy overlap, however, with what might be called libertarian paternalism: "smart" policies which incent good behavior through tax credits or choice architecture (a classic example is Obama's plan to enroll all employees in pension programs by default, until they elect to opt out). Obama's health care program, given its lack of a mandate, is also arguably an example of libertarian paternalism (although its incentives need to be better designed than in their current conception). A libertarian paternalist framework supplemented with a number of smaller-scale, piecemeal programs that tend more classically toward social welfare (such as heating assistance for lower-income families) would hardly be the worst place for progressives to end up, even if a bit less ideologically pure than the New Deal or the Great Society. One notable exception is free trade, where Obama is not really pretending to be anything other than centrist.
3. Lastly, in the realm of foreign policy, Obama is fairly circumspect, but where he shows his hand, tends fairly explicitly in the direction of the political center. The withdraw of troops from Iraq has been carefully hedged (at least it is now, if it wasn't during the primaries). Obama advocates national missile defense; he advocates increasing defense spending. Perhaps just as revealing are the things that Obama doesn't promise — there is no mention, for instance, of amending FISA. It would seem that when national security goals conflict with other ones in the Obama administration, national security goals will usually win.
Still, this can hardly be described as a centrist agenda (even though much of it should have significant appeal to moderates). The appropriate critique, rather, is that not very much of it may be realized, because portions of it would be rather expensive to enact. It seems to me that to implement a material portion of his domestic policy agenda, Obama needs TWO of the following three things to happen:
a. He needs to follow through with his promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts, and/or,
b. He needs to decrease rather than increase Pentagon spending, and/or,
c. He needs the economy to recover more quickly and more robustly than generally anticipated.
The fight over the Bush tax cuts, it seems to me, could be the fight of Obama's first year in office; there may be a massive intraparty fight at first (should the tax hikes be brought to the table?), followed potentially by an interparty fight. This is one place where partisans on all sides could have a lot of influence.
But in the longer term, the fight over the defense budget, which will probably trade off more or less explicitly with Obama's domestic policy prerogatives, could be the key flash point between progressives and the administration. In certain ways, an increase in defense spending seems incompatible with Obama's notion of a smarter, more aerodynamic government, particularly one that is able to restore American soft power in lieu of military spending, and/or is (eventually) able to end the conflict in Iraq. If progressives are looking for strategic rather than tactical (or ideological) fights, that may be the place to start.
Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight. @natesilver538
Barack Obama (548 posts) Ideology (57) Agenda (24) Federal Budget (24) Political Capital (21) National Security (12) Transition (12) Cabinet (11) Political Spectrum (8) Spending (7)


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text:
Diplomatic Channel
Striking (in) State Railways BDZ: Let's Amputate Bulgaria!
Novinite Insider » SPECIAL REPORT | Author: Ivan Dikov |December 21, 2011, Wednesday // 16:24
This photo by BGNES depicting the Bulgarian railway strike - in which a stray dog overlooks the empty tracks at the Central Railway Station in Sofia - seems ominious for the future of the Bulgarian railways under the current reform plans.
What would you think of a doctor amputating the legs of a crash victim with 95% chance of walking again given the right treatment? I bet you'd say that doctor is a crazy butcher.
This simple metaphor sums up the situation of the tremendously indebted, mismanaged, and robbed Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) company.
BDZ workers started on Thursday, November 24, 2011, probably Bulgaria's largest railway strike since the 1920s. Their grievances boiled down to the government plan to lay off more than 2 000 of them, and to stop from operation 150 trains, with further criticism of Transport Ministry's intention to sell BDZ Freight Services – the one remotely profitable unit of the state company at present.
The strike ended 23 days later, on December 18, 2011, with the syndicates and BDZ management sealing a new collective labor contract. But both the Bulgarian government, and the unions missed the big picture – which is the need to save Bulgaria's railways, and make them a development tool.
Bulgarian railways workers rally, chanting and carrying posters that read: "Stop the genocide" and "GERB - impotent in governing, potent in police state." Photo by Sofia Photo Agency
Striking... Out
The Bulgarian railway strike quickly became a joke. The unions failed to organize a truly mass protest, blaming the state for pressuring the workers. The BDZ management, who were supposed to be the bad guys, and the syndicates, supposedly the good guys, blurred into the chaos which has decided the fate of the Bulgarian railways.
All that aside, discrepancies in strike data of the unions and the government have been quite entertaining. For example, after the first strike the syndicates claimed they stopped from operation 83% of the trains, while government data put the figure at 40%.
In one of the more tragicomic moments of contemporary Bulgarian history the Transport Ministry and the BDZ management kept publishing diverging data. God forbid that a state-owned firm and its parent, a government ministry, have the decency to compare their numbers to avoid looking stupid.
The mind boggles why BDZ's total debts are nearing BGN 800 M with such management gurus and dedicated administration in charge.
But the coolest part in the Bulgarian railway mess has been the reaction of BDZ: "The management of BDZ Holding EAD is stating again that it will not yield any ground from its position to carry out the necessary reforms."
Why the Bulgarian Railways Need Reforms
There are several major reasons the Bulgarian State Railways company is where it is, with its passengers feeling as if being in some of the least fortunate parts of the developing world, instead of in the EU. Or in a time capsule from the early Cold War (on the wrong side, judging by the trains' "interior design"), the major difference being that the likelihood of dying in a train fire in today's Bulgaria is much greater than in the 1950s.
Save for 50 Siemens Desiro trains bought after 2003 (and not fully paid for yet), the newest BDZ trains date back to the 1970s. Photo by BGNES
For all of that one needs to thank all those in charge of the Bulgarian Transport Ministry and the BDZ company in the past 20 years, whose activity apparently boiled down to the following:
First, total mismanagement. For example, nobody in the Bulgarian transport authorities ever got enough brains to figure out that some days you have more commuters than others. Thus, they would keep the same number of trains and railway cars every single day, the result being that you have to climb on top of people to get on a Bulgarian train on Fridays and Sundays, whereas the same trains go empty the rest of the week.
Second, wide-spread embezzlement of state assets combined with rampant theft on the lower levels allowing even the lowest ranking worker to steal "whatever they can get" (no, this is not your Facebook relationship status, this is actually some of the good old take-whatever-you-can-get-from-a-state-company human vice because of which communism didn't pan out).
Third, total failure to attract investment. Contrary to what those in charge would have you believe, decent investments could have been attracted, especially in 2001-2008, but nobody even bothered; every single Bulgarian government would write off BDZ by pouring only enough money to keep the crappy trains running for the impoverished provincial populace.
Fourth, no regard for the well-being of the entire Bulgarian nation – because, as our readers from around the world are well-aware, in self-respecting nations the railways are one of the crucial factors for economic development and trade.
An Epitome of Arrogance
Here is more to getting a better idea of why BDZ is the railway from hell.
Back in February 2008, nine innocent, decent people were charred to death in their sleep on the Sofia-Kardam train, two hours northeast of Sofia near the town of Cherven Bryag.
This night train travels a distance of 650 km in 11 hours (that actually is slightly more than the average BDZ speed of 47.5 km!), taking you from Sofia to some of the dilapidated parts of the EU.
What followed was a weird trial in which a train attendant and a lowest-level chief were sentenced, re-sentenced, acquitted, etc, and eventually in September 2011 the Supreme Appellate Court returned the case for further investigation, with the real culprits – the big bosses of the Bulgarian railways not even being investigated.
Rescue workers carry a charred body, one of the nine victims of the fire in the train traveling from the capital city of Sofia to the northern town of Kardam, February 2008. Photo by BGNES
As if that isn't enough, the arrogance of those in power in Bulgaria – in both 2008 and 2011 – went further. The Transport Ministry had a train spruced up, put the former minister on it, and invited the media on a two-hour trip to Cherven Bryag, the location of the train fire, to demonstrate how convenient and safe the Bulgarian railways are.
To this very day I struggle to fathom the ignorance of those journalists who got on that train and reported how nice it was with no respect whatsoever for the innocent victims' memories. Meanwhile, the incidence of train fires in Bulgaria has grown considerably.
And that's not the whole Bulgarian railway arrogance story. Since it announced the plan for layoffs BDZ has been keeping a bizarre count of how many workers have agreed to be laid off with a miserable severance package of six monthly salaries, and would publish these figures daily with weirdly perverted pride. This is how they do reforms: without any reason, direction, or national goals but by counting layoffs – 245, 410, 798, 955, 1078. They will probably scream out "Bingo!" when they hit 2 000!
And what about the eager message in every email sent by the BDZ press service: "Save the nature - go by train" (Which train? Where?)? Or the attempt of the BDZ management to ban the workers from striking because the new general train schedule entered into force in December?
These perversions is surpassed only by the statement of the reform-excited CEO of BDZ Yordan Nedev who described the company that he is in charge of as "trash" and "skin boil".
"We have a lot of meat to cut from the railways. The fewer people, the more responsibility... right now there are five people in charge of one and the same process. This was done on purpose so that there is no visibility, and everybody can do what they please in the company which right now is trash," he stated recently.
The irony is that Nedev would have a valid point if he hadn't caused a public scandal. Not that this really matters for the big picture.
The Big Picture: Cutting the Branch You're Sitting On
Against this backdrop, what is the management of the Bulgarian State Railways doing to rescue it? Simple: amputation instead treatment. No rational efforts. Cutting the branch you are sitting on. Doing away with the one single division of the Bulgarian State Railways that stands the chance of making the entire company profitable, boosting Bulgaria's regional development, and putting it on the transcontinental traffic map.
BDZ has been technically insolvent every single year since the end of communism, and probably since the 1940s.
In 2002, the Bulgarian railways were divided into two companies – BDZ, the passenger and freight operator (later divided into three subdivisions, including BDZ Passenger Services, BDZ Freight Services and a third unit for locomotives) and National Company "Railway Infrastructure" (NKZI). Each of those two has over 13 000 employees today.
(L-R) Finance Minister Djankov, Transport Minister Moskovski and PM Borisov; all three of them have been involved in major talks with syndicates over the fate of the BDZ railways. Photo by BGNES
The government and the management are now laying off 2 000 workers from BDZ, stopping from operation some 150 trains, and selling whatever they can for scrap. This is supposed to save the company some BGN 20 M annually, which are to be used to pay off BGN 100 M in debts over the next 5 years.
The next step is the privatization of BDZ Freight Services, which has been the one major source of income for BDZ in the past 20 years - a subdivision with high viability when it comes to transporting industrial goods, raw materials, fuel, etc, even with the outdated machinery of BDZ.
For the past 20 years, BDZ Freight Services would turn in a small profit time and again that would be poured into keeping the entire company afloat.
Even though it registered a loss of BGN 3.3 M in the first half of 2011, its loss is down by BGN 6.2 M year-on-year. At the same time, its revenues grew by BGN 29 M to reach BGN 86 M in the first six months of 2011; its losses also grew – from BGN 66.7 M in January-June 2010 to BGN 89.3 M in the same period of 2011.
In November 2011, the two CEOs of BDZ Freight Services Plamen Dzhurov and Ivaylo Ivanov stated their division was now generating a daily profit of BGN 500 000, stressing they had boosted its revenues by some 20% since they took over a year ago, and could increase them further by 30% over the next three months.
Transport Minister Moskovski himself recently said that BDZ Freight Services will end 2011 with a loss of BGN 4-5 M. This is a decent financial result that is not that hard to be improved.
All of this goes to suggest that with the right goal-setting and management BDZ Freight Services has the capacity to be the engine driving the Bulgarian railways towards solvency. One just wonders why the Bulgarian government is so eager to sell the most viable part of the troubled state company.
Interestingly, even though according to Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski, the assets of the BDZ Freight Services are worth some BGN 320 M, the estimates about the cash the government can make from this sale remain blurry.
This makes it all the easier to sell it for a dime to some foreign corporation or local oligarch who might be nice enough to provide some covert financial incentives for bureaucrats and politicians. Of course, whoever is in power will declare everything to be transparent – as has been the case with all privatization deals of Bulgaria's vast communist-era industry.
Bulgaria's Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski has promised to be "responsible" for the sale of BDZ Freight Services even though it remains unclear what his responsibility might entail. Photo by BGNES.
World Bank "Help"
Anyway, once the privatization happens, this should get the World Bank extremely excited, aroused, and enjoying other feelings with sexual connotation so that it will grant a "very favorable" loan for the Bulgarian railways which by that time will be reduced to the Sofia-Varna and Sofia-Burgas trains, and a couple of ticket counters.
The Cabinet of Boyko Borisov has firmly decided to go for the privatization of BDZ Freight Services, Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski assured on December 9.
"We are certainly going to sell BDZ Freight Services, and I am responsible for that. I am not worried in any way about the privatization topic," Moskovski said, refusing to comment on the rumors that the asking price for BDZ Freight Services - the company controlling more than 80% of the Bulgarian railway freight market - will be BGN 200 M.
"I don't wish to comment. I don't know what price BDZ Freight Services will be privatized at. The price is determined by the demand and the market. We have set sufficient high privatization criteria," he stressed.
"Based on their nominal value the assets of BDZ Freight Services are worth BGN 300 - 320 M. I can't say whether the market will "approve" of that, and which way the price will shift," Moskovski elaborated.
In his words, the sale of BDZ Freight Services is the only way to make enough cash to guarantee the long-anticipated BGN 460 M loan from the World Bank to for the ailing Bulgarian railways.
"The sale of BDZ Freight Services has two dimensions. If we sign an agreement with the World Bank, which will provide for a BGN 460 M loan, this will be a loan from the World Bank to the Bulgarian state, not to BDZ. The state is to grant it in some way to BDZ with the sanction of the European Commission. For that to happen, BDZ will have to provide a minimum funding of its own equaling at least 50% of the loan. There is nowhere else to get this money expect the sale of Freight Services," Moskovski declared.
He added that even if the World Bank does not grant the loan, the fresh inflow of cash from the sale of BDZ Freight Services is the only way for the railways to start overcoming its dire situation.
So even if the bliss of the World Bank loan doesn't shine on the Bulgarian railways, everybody will still live happily ever after since BDZ Freight Services will be liquidated. Of course, the money will sink quickly, and in a couple of years, Bulgaria won't have BDZ Freight Services, it won't really have BDZ Passenger Services, either, but whatever is left of the Bulgarian railways will still be accruing large losses because of the way they are run – and the people who run them.
BDZ Freight Services seems to have the potential to be profitable even with its outdated equipment. Photo by BGNES
Grappling with Inefficiency
What is the big deal, you would say – an inefficient business is bound to be optimized. Sure it is. But it mustn't be amputated to the extent of uselessness when 1) it has a potential to be sound; 2) it is no ordinary company whose ownership makes no difference; it's the railways of an entire nation, whose significance goes beyond a single balance sheet, all the way to regional development, international trade, transcontinental traffic, national security, if you please.
Railway freight services might easily be the key to a very serious boost to the country's GDP.
Take the railway link between Bulgaria's Port Varna on the Black Sea and Port Ruse on the Danube – which, in the absence of a canal (not counting the one in Romania), has the potential to be a major international trade route for all of Eurasia, especially with rail now catching up with ocean container trade in efficiency.
If Bulgaria managed to get even 5% of the Asia-Europe trade through this route, it will see a major economic upswing. But it can't. Because for that to happen, the Bulgarian governments should promote it, and they never had the brains, goodwill, or honesty to do so.
Because of the limitations of the Romanian Danube-Black Sea canal, the Bulgarian railway route Varna-Ruse could be very competitive to it. But here is a fun fact you didn't know: the Varna-Ruse railway was the first one in the Ottoman Empire – built in 1867. And it has hardly been modernized ever since.
There are at least half of dozen major intercontinental railway freight routes that can be developed in Bulgaria even going beyond the five Pan-European Transport Corridors.
Map of the new railway Silk Road. Bulgaria could be on its southern route - from China via Turkey. Map from railwaypro.com
As early as 2008 the Beijing-Hamburg railway "silk route" halved the time for shipping cargo by sea. The new 6 000-mile silk route crosses China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany – clearly an indication of the potential of the railways. Why is Bulgaria not the hub for similar trans-continental railway routes given its geographic location?
Because nobody in the Sofia government offices doesn't have the vision for this. Even after in October 2010 China formally invited Bulgaria to join together with Turkey a project for a high-speed railway connection from the Far East to Europe – Bulgaria's government has done little.
Bulgarians can only hope that somebody like China will drag their government into something that makes sense. Of course, by that time, an endless line of distinguished Transport Ministers and other pundits will have killed whatever might be left of the Bulgarian railways.
Whatever is left of the narrow-gauge railway to the Bulgarian Danube port of Oryahovo, which was shut down in 2002! Photo from Bulgarian online railway forum
What's the Opposite of Regional Development?
Take the former narrow gauge railway in Northern Bulgaria from the village of Zlatna Panega, with its large cement factory, via the town of Cherven Bryag, to Port Oryahovo on the Danube. Instead of extending it through the Balkan ridge, thus linking the Danube Oryahovo Ferry with the south, the Bulgarian authorities shut it down in 2002.
Some idiotic bureaucrat decided that it was unprofitable, and bammm! It's gone. Of course it was unprofitable the way it was mismanaged and left unfinished since the 1920s!
But however slow and outdated this line might have been, it was a major means of transportation and freight trade for much of Northwestern Bulgaria, the poorest EU region. Since the railway was shut, the local municipalities have become poorer and more depopulated. The only ones who got richer were several local bus firms.
But the "best part" is the fate of the actual rail tracks. They have been brutally dismantled not by the dignified transport authorities of the Republic of Bulgaria but by local gangs, often organized by Roma clans, who found an easy way of making bucks from scrap. A nice example of how government mismanagement and corruption brings lawlessness and dilapidation for entire regions. You can't make this stuff up!
What Is to Be Done: Act Globally!
The situation at the Bulgarian State Railways is disastrous. But that doesn't mean it should be amputated with rash solutions – unless those who are proposing them have some covert agenda (which is too often the case to be disregarded).
First, the dear World Bank officials who will read this article should explain to Bulgarians why the sale of BDZ Freight Services is one of their conditions for granting a loan for BDZ and how exactly the Bulgarian nation will prosper by eliminating its public railway freight carrier.
There is simply no reason the Bulgarian government should allow BDZ to go bankrupt other than the fiscal extremism of Finance Minister Simeon Djankov, a former World Bank operative himself.
Syndicate leader Petar Bunev (left) is pictured here during talks on Dec 1 with BDZ CEO Yordan Nedev (middle) and BDZ Board head Vladimir Vladimirov. Photo by BGNES
Djankov is a cool dude who keeps saying he "won't give" any more money to BDZ unless he sees "reforms". Boo! The BDZ Board and its chair Vladimir Vladimirov must have been scared to death by that. Which is why they are to make the mess even bigger while getting paid the combined total of the salaries in a medium-sized Bulgarian town - regardless of whether being in charge of a trans-continental company, or of a three-car train from the 1950s.
The additional spending of BGN 100-200 M won't kill the Bulgarian state budget, but failure to provide them could doom the railways. For example, the sum that BDZ owes German bank KfW for its 50 Siemens trains is not that great – EUR 24 M; and Moskovski got the Germans to agree to EUR 12 M for the time being. Raising the budget deficit by 0.1-0.2 percentage points will have a short-term effect. The elimination of BDZ Freight Services will have a long-term effect, and a disastrous one. It will be many times worse than the pornographic sale of the Bulgarian cigarette maker Bulgartabac to God (and some people) know who via the Russian bank VTB.
The Bulgarian government is only supposed to get BDZ through the current difficulties, while focusing on a major strategy to make Freight Services profitable through international trade and to optimize Passenger Services but without leaving entire regions with no transportation.
"Where is the profit of Freight Services to come from – there is no Kremikovtzi, there are no factories, the company is registering losses, not profits," Transport Minister Moskovski commented recently, referring to Kremikovtzi – the Bulgarian communist-era steel behemoth which has now been utterly pillaged after its botched privatization in 1999– an inadvertent reminder of what the fate of BDZ Freight Services will probably look like.
It's totally untrue that there are no factories in Bulgaria. It's only true that there might not be any if the railways are done away with. But the major point here is that the government seems to be thinking in a very limited way.
Why doesn't Bulgaria boost its own railway operator to run trans-continental routes? Why is it better to bestow the freight operator to someone instead of bidding for Silk Road transit? The only reasons for that I can think of are corruption and/or incompetence.
Minister Moskovski assured Bulgaria he will be responsible for the sale of BDZ Freight Services! Wow! What do I, Ivan, a citizen of the Republic, care that some minister whose name won't be remembered in a few months will be "responsible"? First, no official in Bulgaria will ever get sentenced for crime in office. And even if they did – the tremendous damage would have been done.
"Bulgaria, which way are you going without railways?", asks the banner of a protesting railway worker in Varna in March 2011. Photo by BGNES
Privatization is a terrible idea. Clearly, a business would be a lot more efficient if privatized because it will be run by private interests; but this will be for the benefit of the private interests, not for the benefit of the public, and certainly not for those God-forsaken regions of Bulgaria.
Staff optimization does appear necessary. In a 2010 interview Rumyana Mihaylova, HR head at BDZ Holding, said that since the division of the company in 2002, the administrative staff grew by 10%.
What Bulgaria needs is a special public body, including the state, but also NGOs, the media, and local authorities for overseeing the affairs of BDZ given its importance for the national economy. Getting municipalities involved would be crucial – in the case of the now gone Oryahovo railway – the local authorities asked the state to let them save and run the line but BDZ did not agree.
To be fair, Bulgaria's Borisov Cabinet has started to use EU money to modernize some railway lines. However, this has been too limited and not accompanied with major efforts to attract international freight traffic. A couple of modest attempts to bring more freight traffic to Bulgaria have been made in the past few years have been made – such as the ferry between Varna and Russia's Port Kavkaz. But such efforts need to increased hundredfold.
All the talk in Bulgaria has been about getting FDI. Not that we get much FDI as a result. But nobody ever thinks of attracting transit cargo and freight traffic which for such a small country could be a source of GDP boost as important as FDI and foreign tourists.
One wonders, is the amputation of the Bulgarian railways going to help attract foreign investors? Probably not. Not only because they won't be able to enjoy simple transportation services in large swaths of the country but also because - what self-respecting investor would go to a country that can't even maintain the basic infrastructure necessary for a nation's economic survival?
But who cares, let's sell all the rails for scrap, shall we! Lets amputate Bulgaria!
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Tags: Ivaylo Moskovski, Transport Minister, Bulgarian State Railways, Bulgarian Railways Company, BDZ, Bulgarian State Railroad Company, BDZ Freight Services, freight transportation, freight, privatizaiton, Privatization and post-Privatization Control Agency, Privatization Agency, syndicates, railway workers, Strike, World Bank, Siemens, KfW, Simeon Djankov, finance minister, syndicates, trade unions
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An Aberdeen man remains in a Fargo, N.D., hospital today with life-threatening injuries resulting from a Saturday accident involving a snowmobile and a van, according to the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
Michael Gross, 45, was driving a snowmobile when it and a van driven by Heather Elsen, 35, of Aberdeen, collided, said Sgt. Jeff Twite of the Highway Patrol. The accident was reported about 2:40 p.m. near the intersection of Eight Avenue Southwest and South 13th Street.
Twite said that charges might be pending, but declined further comment because the crash is still under investigation.
Elsen was northbound on 13th Avenue. As she made her way through the intersection, the snowmobile struck the side of the van, Twite said. He was not certain in which direction Gross was driving. As a result of the collision, Twite said, the van spun sideways into a snowbank.
Aside from Elsen, there were four passengers in the van, Twite said. He said they had minor injuries.


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LSU Basketball Hosts Kentucky Tuesday; Pregame Ceremonies Begin at 5:45 PM
BATON ROUGE – Two nationally-ranked teams meet Tuesday night at 6 p.m. at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center when the No. 21 LSU Tigers host the No. 13/16 Kentucky Wildcats in the second Southeastern Conference contest for both teams.
LSU is 12-1 and 0-1 in the league, while Kentucky is 11-2 and 1-0 in the league. LSU is ranked No. 21 in both the AP media poll and Ferris Mowers coaches poll powered by USA Today Sports.
Prior to the game at 5:45 p.m., a ceremony will be held to name the court at the Maravich Center, Dale Brown Court. Coach Dale Brown, who coached at LSU for 25 years from 1972-97, will also be honored and speak to the crowd at halftime of the game.
The first 5,000 fans will receive a Dale Brown commemorative poster at the game.
In mid-September, the LSU Board of Supervisors voted to name the basketball floor at LSU "Dale Brown Court." Coach Brown won 448 games, four SEC championships with 13 NCAA appearances and taking the Tigers to two NCAA Final Fours in 1981 and 1986.
Brown was the national coach of the year in 1981 and his 448 victories trails only Adolph Rupp (875) and Billy Donavan (467) in wins at an SEC school. He remains second to Rupp (397) in SEC game victories with 238. He is one of seven coaches to have won at least four SEC championships.
The 86-year-old coach has 18 victories over Kentucky during his tenure and remains one of the winningest coaches against the Wildcats.
The game will lead off a basketball-football night of LSU sports on ESPN with Karl Ravech and Jay Bilas on the call courtside. Patrick Wright will be filling in for Chris Blair and will be joined by former LSU head coach John Brady on the affiliates of the LSU Sports Radio Network (Guaranty Media affiliate 100.7 The Tiger FM in Baton Rouge.
Tickets are still available for the game during the day at the LSU Athletics Ticket Office, online at LSUTix.net and beginning at 5 p.m. at the upper concourse ticket windows at the Maravich Center.
Kentucky won its opening SEC game on Dec. 29 at home against Missouri, 83-56, and the welcomed former coach Tubby Smith back to Rupp Arena, defeating his High Point team, 92-48. The Wildcats have won its last four games by 29, 35, 27 and 44 points.
Forward Oscar Tshiebwe averages 15.8 points and 15.2 points a game. The junior is the nation's leader in rebounds. Four other players are averaging in double figures with TyTy Washington Jr., averaging 14.0 points, Kellan Grady 11.8, Keion Brooks Jr. 11.3 and Sahvir Wheeler 10.3 points.
Tshiebwe came to Kentucky from West Virginia, Grady from Davidson and Wheeler from Georgia.
LSU has three players in double figures in scoring with Tari Eason averaging 15.8 points and 7.4 rebounds with Darius Days at 14.7 points and 8.0 rebounds. Xavier Pinson averages 11.0 points, 3.1 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game.
Coach Will Wade said in his press conference on Monday that Brandon Murray, who was held out of the loss against Auburn last week with a hamstring issue, is listed as a game-time decision. Justice Williams could again see playing time after playing 24 minutes and scoring seven points with three re bounds in his college debut.
This is the first of two games this week for LSU at home, as the Tigers will face Tennessee on Saturday at 5 p.m.
LSU Basketball Looks To Rebound At Tennessee


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text:
Vietnam, Sri Lanka to facilitate bilateral business activities
Vietnam and Sri Lanka will provide favourable conditions for their enterprises to seek business and investment opportunities, senior diplomats have said.
VNA Tuesday, August 01, 2017 19:38
Sympathy to Sri Lanka over calamity losses
Thursday, June 01, 2017 19:14
Sri Lankan PM urges serious efforts to achieve 1bln USD trade value
Tuesday, April 18, 2017 19:14
Party chief vows to share development experience with Sri Lanka
Monday, April 17, 2017 20:58
President reiterates Vietnam's policy of valuing ties with Sri Lanka
Vietnam, Sri Lanka enhance multi-faceted cooperation
Deputy Foreign Minister Dang Dinh Quy (R) meets with Sri Lanka's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Vasantha Senanayake in Hanoi on August 1 (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam and Sri Lanka will provide favourable conditions for their enterprises to seek business and investment opportunities, senior diplomats have said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Dang Dinh Quy had a meeting in Hanoi on August 1 with Sri Lanka's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Vasantha Senanayake, who was on an official visit to Vietnam from July 31 to August 1.
They noted with satisfaction the progress in relations between the two countries, as well as between the two foreign ministries, especially after high-ranking visits, including an official trip to Vietnam by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last April.
The two sides agreed to increase mutual visits at all levels and people-to-people exchange. They will also work to soon organise the third political consultation at the deputy foreign ministerial level.
They agreed to discuss measures to raise bilateral trade to 1 billion USD in the near future as targeted by the two countries' leaders.
[Infographics: Vietnam–Sri Lanka traditional relations]
At the event, the officials exchanged views on regional and international issues of shared concern, adding that Vietnam and Sri Lanka will continue coordinating and supporting each other at regional and international forums.
The Sri Lankan side promised to actively consider support for Vietnam's candidacy for the post of UNESCO Director General in the 2017-2021 tenure and for a seat in the UN Security Council in 2020-2021.
On July 31, State Minister Vasantha Senanayake visited two foreign enterprises with investment projects in the northern city of Hai Phong.-VNA
Deputy Foreign Minister Dang Dinh Quy Sri Lanka's State Minister of Foreign Affairs Vasantha Senanayake Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Vietnam-Sri Lanka relations updated Vietnam news Vietnamplus Vietnam News Agency Related stories Sri Lanka Related stories Vietnam
Efforts will be accelerated in 2023 to implement tasks relevant to overseas Vietnamese (OV) affairs, said Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairman of the State Committee for OV Affairs Pham Quang Hieu.


text:
Q: Loopwise expansion of effective action $\Gamma[\phi]$ My question is about the loopwise expansion of the effective action $\Gamma(\varphi)$ up to 1-loop contributions. I've understood well the results for both $Z[J]$ and $W[J]$ functionals loopwise expansions.
But then something is missing when I follow the path towards the expansion of the effective action.
Following this excerpt from Zinn-Justin's "Quantum field theory and critical phenomena":

I don't understand the statement:
"Therefore a correction of order $\hbar$ to the relation between $J(x)$ and $\varphi(x)$ will produce a change of order $\hbar^2$ to the r.h.s. of equation (6.47)"
Could someone please write down some more details?
My undestanding at this stage is that the relation between $J(x)$ and $\varphi$ is fixed by the stationarity of the (6.47) (as for any Legendre transformation). But then, how to proceed?

A: The problem is to evaluate $\Gamma[\phi]$ at fixed $\phi$ given an expansion of $W[J]$ in powers of $\hbar$, where $\Gamma[\phi]$ is the Legendre transform of $W[J]$.
By definition,
$$
\Gamma[\phi]=\sup_{J}\Big[\phi\cdot J-W[J]\Big].
$$
Suppose that the expression in the RHS attains its maximum at some $\hat{J}$. Then formally, we can expand $\phi\cdot J-W[J]$ about $\hat{J}$ to obtain
$$
\phi\cdot (\hat{J}+\delta J)-W[\hat{J}+\delta J]=\Gamma[\phi]+\phi\cdot\delta J-\frac{\delta W}{\delta J}\Big|_{\hat{J}}\cdot\delta J+\mathcal{O}(\delta J^2).
$$
Since a maximum is attained at $\hat{J}$, the linear term $(\phi-\delta_J W)\cdot\delta J$ vanishes for arbitrary $\delta J$, and we see that corrections start at order $\delta J^2$.
Now we return to the expansion in $\hbar$. If $W[J]$ has an expansion, then it is reasonable that $\hat J$ has an expansion too after solving $\delta_J W=\phi$. In fact, if $\hat J$ has an expansion in $\hbar$ then the zeroth order term must be the solution to $\delta_J W_0 = \phi$, where $W=W_0+\hbar W_1+\dots$. Hence, we can write $\hat J_0=\hat J-\hbar \delta\hat J$, where $\delta \hat J$ includes all higher order corrections.
From the above argument, evaluating $\phi\cdot J-W[J]$ at $\hat J_0$ will differ from the evaluation at $\hat J$ by terms of order $\hbar^2$. Hence, to order $\hbar$ we can use $\hat J_0$ in evaluating $\Gamma[\phi]$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Integral of an L_p function Let $p \ge 1$ and $f$ be a Lebesgue measurable function on $\mathbb R$ such that
$\int_{\mathbb R} |f(x)|^pdx < \infty$. Show that,
$$\int_{\mathbb R} |f(x)|^pdx =\int_0^{\infty}
pt^{p-1}\lambda(\{x : |f(x)| > t\})dt$$
where $\lambda$ denotes the Lebesgue measure.


text:
Oh Do Shut Up, Today In Suck
Hans von Spakovsky, Genius.
Haven't seen this guy over at The Corner yet. Let us see what he has for us, hmm?
Democrats complained endlessly about the supposed "politicization" of the Bush Justice Department. When asked about this at his confirmation hearing, Eric Holder piously pledged that his Justice Department would "serve justice" and "not the fleeting interests of any political party." America, he intoned, was "in dire need of a less political and more independent Justice Department."
But an e-mail and flyer recently circulated to Justice Department employees indicate Attorney General Holder has an interesting definition of what it means to be "less political." The flyer invites all employees to attend a speech in the main Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, it notes, all "supervisors are encouraged to grant official time to employees to attend this event."
And what pillar of the legal profession will be lecturing Justice employees to help them "serve justice" in a "less political" way? Why, none other than Donna Brazile, whose own website biography describes her as a "veteran Democratic political strategist" and a Vice Chairman at the Democratic National Committee. Brazile is marketed by more than one speaker's bureau at a cost ranging from $10,000 to $20,000. The flyer doesn't say how many taxpayer dollars are going to pay a Democratic political consultant to speak to career employees at the Justice Department (sounds like a good FOIA request). Good thing the Department is no longer politicized.
So, to sum up: stacking the office with loyal GOP hands, with selections overseen by a graduate of a Tier Twenty-Six law school that, oddly enough, is run by a preacher? These things happen. But a brown-bag lunch with a political operative will totally destroy the image of the DoJ and CANNOT BE TOLERATED.
Yeah. This guy totally should have been on the FEC.
11:00 am • Thursday • March 26, 2009
Test Your Reading Comprehension! Jaw Dropping
Speaking of the Corner (Which I refer to as "planet Corner" to illustrate how removed the place is from the lived reality of most Earthlings) did you know there's a guy blogging there named John Hood who's been headlining all his posts with a Rush lyric?
I thought you weren't allowed to do that after graduating from high school.
@Serolf Divad: Oh, you mean Rush the band. I was sitting here thinking "I didn't know Rush Limbaugh sang."
Crappy hair band.
@SanFranLefty:
As a citizen of Canada City, I'd might have to take exception to that but I don't like Rush.
Hansi is going with what is known as the "I know you are, but what am I" defense.
SanFranLefty / Serolf Divad: I'm sorry, we're going to have to go to a judge from Canuckistan on this one.
Paging ManchuCandidate — Manchu… Candidate. White courtesy phone, please.
Never mind. Manchu was on it before I could post.
Anyway — I don't mind Rush that much. They benefit greatly from my "Canadians get a free pass, in general" rule.
Sorry. I'm one of the few Canada City types who don't like Rush's music.
In Rush's defense, I think they'd take great exception to being called a "hair" band. They have hair, but the music they play is not "hair" band music. Nickleback is a "hair" band.
I personally prefer "The Tragically Hip."
@SanFranLefty: @chicago bureau: @ManchuCandidate:
Everybody loves "Tom Sawyer". Everybody. It's a law or something.
ManchuCandidate: Gordon Freaking Downie. All that needs to be said about that.
(Seriously: I had an internal debate. The Hip are coming in late May. I don't want to be tied in, however, should the Hawks make it to the conference finals, which would be a must-see event. Playing it by ear, then, hoping that tickets will still be around should the worst happen. I suspect that many Canadians have had such a quandry — Hip or hockey — on at least one instance.)
12:02 pm • Thursday • March 26, 2009
This guy is on par with that little shitbag Brad Schlozman. Both of them need to be jailed for the rest of their pathetic lives.
Hans. Hans. He looks rather familiar. Has anyone seen the palm of his right hand?
http://content7.flixster.com/photo/32/25/41/3225417_tml.jpg
@Tommmcatt the Wet Sprocket: Agreed. Rush is that band that you didn't really care for in h.s., couldn't understand the kids who did, but "Tom Sawyer" somehow managed to seep into the musical cortex anyway. Indeed, fuckyouverymuch for planting that tune in my head 'catt!!!
ADD: @chicago bureau: I'm taking Jr. to a minor league hockey "match" on Saturday. Bears vs. North Creighton or someone. I've only been to a couple of stick 'n puck fests, anything I need to know? Is it still a foul to "ice the puck" and "high stick" but acceptable to slam a guy up against the boards?
WaltTrombone
He's just bitter because he never got confirmed, even after 2 1/2 years. Let him keep suckling at the Heritage Foundation's teat. And that name? Yeah, I know he's a 1st generation guy born to immigrants, but he sounds like he's some sort of Prussian nobleman. Hans? Couldn't he change it to Hank, or Henry, and drop the "von?" Jeebus, even Bobby the Exorcist had the good sense to change his name, not that that makes him any less of a stiff…
flippin eck
@ManchuCandidate: Well played. I can't wait to see his fedora collapse as his face melts away when the Ark is opened.
@WaltTrombone: Piyush von Spakovsky, on the other hand, works pretty well.
I fucking hate Rush.
1. I was injured at a Rush concert when a guy passed out in front of me. Fortunately my instep was between his skull and the concrete floor. I limped for days afterward.
2. The local "rock" station in Albuquerque played Rush incessantly while I was in college when there were so many other vital and interesting bands around. (They used to play Melissa Etheredge, too, until she came out then – poof! – unperson.)
3. That same fucking Clear Channel station and the same fucking DJ still plays the same fucking music for guys who never got off the "smoke weed, drink beer and work at the oil change place or with the city sanitation department" track.
4. I hate Geddy Lee's voice.
5. I hate "Tom Sawyer" and everything else they've done.
@ManchuCandidate: Dokken, Stryper, Poison, Tesla, Warrant, etc. were your80s LA-Sunset Blvd hair metal bands. Motley Crue got in on it and blew everyone else away. Metallica were hated by the hair metal crowd and moved to San Francisco to pursue their art as influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal of the early 80s (ie Judas Priest) and went on to become one of the Big Four of American Thrash along with Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. Metallica and Nirvana killed hair metal in the early 90s with the release of "Metallica" aka "The Black Album" (w/"Enter Sandman", "Nothing Else Matters" and "Sad But True") and "Nevermind", respectively.
@ManchuCandidate:
Nice call!
Nabisco: Funny you should ask.
I have a season ticket to the Hawks. The two seats to my left are regulars. The seats to my right are a rotating cast of mostly tolerable people. Last night, however, was the one woman said the same idiotic things over, and over, and over again. As in requesting that a Hawk shoot the puck from the faceoff dot next to the goal. In his own end. 150 feet away. Or, "why do you keep playing around with the puck? Just shoot! How many times do I have to keep telling you?" (In this context: "playing around with the puck" is more commonly referred to as either "passing" or "evading a defender." Also: she was about four stories above the playing surface, so her long-winded, badly-drawn rants were not registering.)
Point being that there are plenty of clueless hockey fans out there. But you don't have to be!
And so, to your questions:
(1) Icing is still illegal (except of course during a penalty kill). Not only that, but (in many leagues) the team that ices the puck is now prohibited from changing their lines during the stoppage, which greatly decreases the strategic benefit of icing the puck (e.g., stopping an attacking team's momentum).
(2) High-sticking is still illegal and, in fact, more dangerous than your average clean hit into the boards. Doesn't have to be intentional — any stick above the chest (actually, the crossbar on the goal) that hits a player is routinely called. Double minor for anything worse than a paper cut. (Incidentally: people who say fighting is bad for hockey are loons. You got guys skating at high speeds, armed with sticks that are longer, and lighter, than baseball bats. You ban fighting, and you will get more stick fouls — and the rate of stick fouls committed by fourth-line tough guys against superstars will go up astronomically. Srsly.)
(3) Crashing a guy into the boards is still legal, and perfectly fine by me. (See discussion of fighting, supra.) But they have cracked down on checks from behind to a certain extent. It is especially emphasized in youth hockey (e.g. the "stop sign" badge you see directly below the back of the neck of youth hockey jerseys in recent years). The definition of "from behind" is fluid in practice, but lining a guy up for a blindside hit into the boards, directly from behind, is suspension-worthy for obvious reasons. They figured that out in the last few years (the hard way, unfortunately).
But also:
–> When watching hockey, try to see where the next pass is going to, and what the other players on the ice are doing to get to the puck. See the whole game, not just the guy with the puck.
–> Shooting for the sake of shooting is not as good as you would think. You think that a guy's got a clear shot to the goal, but watch for defenders blocking shots with their sticks (or diving onto the ice, even). Many shots die this way. Just like basketball: you have to find a lane.
–> Shots from the points are fine. But watch the front of the net. A large number of goals are deflections off of sticks in front, and not so much from the original shot itself. Good players will take the punishment up front in order to screen goalies and get deflections.
–> Watch for defensemen who think they are forwards. Dangerous guys, these. They try to pursue the puck in the offensive zone. If they are not careful, they get beat on a counterattack, opening up an odd-man rush. Infuriating.
–> After a fight, look towards the benches. Players from both teams will bang their sticks against the boards. And then usually they will repeat it once the fighting penalties are up. Hockey code.
1:22 pm • Thursday • March 26, 2009
@redmanlaw: Finally, at long last, I have found someone who completely shares my opinion of Rush. Yuck, yuck, and yuck.
@ManchuCandidate: Mr. SFL refers to Nickelback as "angst-ridden emotional dude rock" I HATE Nickelback. The lead singer sounds like he's taking a shit when he's singing. Rush is awesome in comparison.
@chicago bureau: Awesome! I was being mildly cheeky, but that is one heckuva primer. I grew up in 70s era Flyers-ville (Jesus Saves Souls, Bernie Parent Saves Goals), and played some street hockey, but can't fit another game into my Year of Sport.
@redmanlaw: You went to a Rush concert. I never went to a Rush concert.
@SanFranLefty: Nickelback blows. As do Coldplay, Flannelbutton and Aspergers A Go Go. I've heard good things about Wussy, however.
ADD: I did see Foreigner. Twice. *blushes*
@Prommie: You two would make a lot of enemies at DCist. Several of the more prolific commenters over there have been on a Rush-lyric-quoting kick for weeks. Most of the time I don't even notice that they're doing it.
@Nabisco: Before or after they went all pop and girly? You didn't take a date to see them play "I Want to Know What Love Is", did you?
Here's some Japanese technogoth artmetal to clear everyone's ears of the morning Rush.
Dir en Grey "Kodou"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Q6ZVQGs58
@Nabisco: Fucking Coldplay, a.k.a. World's Most Insufferable Band?
I do have an affection for Journey. And their new lead singer is good.
@mellbell: Rock and roll is sexual, not intellectual. Rush is for peoples who don't get allusions and references unless they are in all caps with a blinking neon underline and a loudspeaker screaming "literary reference, literary reference."
@SanFranLefty: Coldhead? Radioplay? That band?
Listen to "Flathead." Punk lives. Football punk.
I hate coldplay too. If I never hear "clocks" again I will be happy.
Ewalda
I've found a photo of Hans taken before Dr. Bosley planted some new hair on his head:
Aw, link thingee didn't work right. Anyway, try this: http://mix.fresqui.com/files/images/Heinrich_Himmler.jpg
@Ewalda: Eerie.
I believe this gentleman was the subject of an After School Special. Hey Spazzkoff! showed the danger of picking on dweebs in school, lest they become fucking idiots when they grow up.
Original Andrew
@redmanlaw:
I'd just like to add that "Fallen Angel" by Poison is the greatest hair-metal video OF ALL TIME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdlEMmAFfIM
My brother and I played air-geetar to this song more times than I can remember.
/end of line/
@Original Andrew:
Ironically, this video made me wanna hop on the next bus to Hell-LAy.
@Original Andrew: My old band No Punks aka Horrowshow went to LA to make it big in the early 80s while I stayed on in Albuquerque to get my shit together and finish college. They fucking starved. The made it back to ABQ, the girl guitar player went on tour with a bunch of strippers to make some coin after her proto-Manson singer/songwriter boyfriend burnt up her little inheritance buying gear and not working. The ego-tripping delusional singer went to Denver to make it big there. Same story.
I truly believed that crew was mentally ill (the bass player had been institutionalized for a while) but I played with them for the experience. The singer was always "on" – full make up, leather, hair, 24/7. I saw him once at a party. A headline of one of my stories was on the wall: "She died with a beer can in her hand" (with photo). Drunk as hell, he kept saying "I fucked up. I fucked up."
ADD: The dead girl would be about 37 now. She'll be forever 17.
"The biggest demon is metal is not Satan, but the one within ourselves."
@Tommmcatt the Wet Sprocket: *raises hand*
I used to be ok with the song but every time Geddy Watanabe (or whatever his name is) shows up at a Dbacks game, they play that damn song while showing him on the jumbotron. So now I associate it with other vastly overplayed songs at Sport events like the Pedophile's disco chant and that AC/DC song and the theme from the Osbornes ….
@Jamie Sommers: I mean really. Why the hell must all those songs be "hard" rock or country stuff? Where's the Motown or other R&B? It's not like I'm asking for fucking Celine Dion but fercryingoutloud, half the guys on the field are black. Shit, you don't even hear rap songs unless it's something the player picks out for his entrance theme or something (and that's only in baseball).
Man, this thread is making me really glad I don't listen to much music.
JNOV
12:14 am • Sunday • December 26, 2010
@Denis25LOGINOV: Go away.
1:41 am • Sunday • December 26, 2010
@Denis25LOGINOV: Haven't seen a bot make it through for awhile.


We took an early morning train from the Prien station, near Bernau. Our first stop was Salzburg, Austria. The train then headed onward past idealic Alpine mountain villages in the Austrian Alps, along emerald green rivers and waterfalls, verdant meadows and other villages, some that were in the clouds. Truly quite spectacular. We both got a little sleepy but I tried to not shut my eyes not wanting to miss any of the grand scenery. At one point, a number of passengers got off. It was at Bad Hofgastein, which looked like a ski village (sans snow). We changed trains near the Slovenian border at Villach.
We arrived in Lubljana in the pouring rain. Diane waited at a bus stop with our baggage while I checked a few places for rooms. They were booked. We ended up finding a nice youth hostel (H2Ostel) right along the Lubljanica River, very near the old city center. Lubljana sits on a site that has been inhabited since the Celts and the Romans. There are beautiful bridges along the Ljubljanica River. One of the bridges is the Triple Bridge, or Tromostovje, that consists of a main bridge and two parallel bridges originally intended for pedestrians. There's also the Shoemakers' Bridge that once was a gathering place for the city's cobblers. Very noticible is all the construction that's going on and the beautification projects. You really get the feel that this city is on the upswing in trying to attract tourists and their money.
In the morning we took the funnicula up to the castle. It was a scenic ride up but the castle itself was not much since they mostly they are busy restoring it. There are lots of sidewalk cafes along the river, ice cream venodors, bars, restaurants and shops. We noticed that at 5-6pm, they are all pretty much empty. But by 8pm things start picking up. Here, people only start going out later in the evening, much like in Italy or Spain.
We booked a tour for Thursday to the Adriatic port town of Piran, which included a visit to a castle and a cave. Our tour guide was Sabina, a young Slovenian woman who spoke good English with an easy going personality. We were picked up with a large van - a total of five of us. Good group. Our first stop was the 700 year old Predjamski castle. It is a dramatic castle shoe-horned into a limestone cave. The story goes that the man who built, Erasmus Leuger, stabbed a relative of the emperor. He then fled and along the way started robbing many of the wealthy. At that point, the emperor (one of the Habsburg's) got the governor of Trieste to have him arrested. It took a year to capture him because the castle was pretty secure. But the job was finally done when they were able to cannonball Erasmus as he was sitting on the toilet. As always, a servent had betrayed the master.
Our next stop was the Skocjanske Jame (Caves). After we started going into the cave, it looked like some of the others we had seen with the typical limestone columns of stalegtities and stalegmites. But after we entered the second large chamber we started hearing the roar of water. It was an underground river. At first we saw a bit of the river from afar. But a few minutes later, the roaring river in this cavernous space was fully evident. It was a Lord of the Rings setting. We walked on a bridge and looked nearly 500 feet below to the roaring river. Our guide told us that the river entered the cave just up ahead and went underground all the way through Croatia and part of Italy to dump into the Adriatic Sea about 75 miles from where we stood.
After coming out of the cave, we had to walk quite a ways back up. But the views continued to be spectacular. It was an awesome experience, comparable to that of the Grand Canyon.
On our way to Piran, our tour guide told us that the road we were on was once known as the Amber Road. It was built by the Romans almost 2000 years ago. Before that, this area was occupied by the Celtic tribes.
Piran was a typical Italian or French quaint Mediteranean harbor town. Very charming. Diane and I walked all through the small cobble stone streets and ended up at the church of St. Georg, which had a panaromic view of the entire harbor area. After a bit more walking, we finished our tour at a local pub, sitting down with a glass of the local red wine, Refosk.
Earlier on we had tried Terano, which is the same grape that's used to make the Refosk, but is grown in a red clay soil about 30 miles north east. The Refosk tasted a little fruitier with more body and structure, which may be because of the warmer climate. I did enjoy the Refosk more. Undoubtedly this will require more research.
Tomorrow we're off to the town of Bled. It has a story book castle on an island in the middle of a lake. Stand-by.


Digital strategy creation requires some steps like customer personas, customer journeys, content and service mappings,… etc. And, each of these items are very important components of having a realistic digital strategy.
Digital strategy creation requires some prerequisites like customer personas, customer journey mappings,… etc. And, each of these items are very important components of having a realistic digital strategy.
Let' s focus on customer journeys and their importance in digital marketing strategy creation process. Customer journeys simply tell us where are our customers today (Point A) and where they should be in the future (Point B). And, all the efforts behind your digital marketing strategy are basically to identify what are the right things to do to move your customers from Point A to Point B.
So, knowing your exact road map will make the things easier and clear while planning and executing the next steps including content mappings, digital tactics planning and executions, …etc.
And, customer journeys are also pre-requisites of digital tactics planning and execution process. Once you' ll have your customer journey in place, then, you can start content & service mappings on top of the journey and can identify the digital tactics around each step.
Customer journeys are natural parts of the digital marketing strategy creation process. Without having a customer journey means you may not have clear understanding of the marketing objectives or not able to reflect them in your digital marketing strategy properly.
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is for Goslings! Cute Goslings! Cute mummy geese and their cute fluffy, plump little babies!
Mummy goose – Flo(rence) – was hatched, last year, in an incubator at home (from eggs bought on the internet). She spent her first summer in the garden, with us. Over the past nine months or so, she's become completely accustomed to a much less 'civilized' environment on the croft and along the shore in Eriskay.
A few weeks ago, Flo set up a nest on a very slightly raised (and therefore drier) patch amongst tall rushes – a well concealed (and sheltered) spot. Incubation takes 35 days. Five weeks on a nest – just imagine it! Bert has to stay nearby to protect Flo, and that limits how much food he can find. But poor old Flo will only have occasional short breaks off her nest – to stretch her legs, find some water to drink, and a something to eat. (Most days I take grain to her – which she takes from my hand.) After five weeks she's weakened by hunger, thirst and numbness: her legs and webbed feet have turned pale from being tucked under her body so much, and she walks unsteadily.
There were eight eggs under her, and during today the first two goslings hatched – those you see here. there's a third egg 'pipping' too. Another day and hatching may be done, and another day after that the goslings will be fluffed and plumped up and Flo and Bert will take them out into the world, searching out food (mostly just grass), water, shelter from the elements, and safety from predators.
We have six geese – three couples, and their goslings. We allow them to live a nearly natural life. We give the adults – most days – a small ration of grain ; but that's mainly to encourage them to seek us out if they are really hungry or ill. Most days, most of the geese will present themselves at the croft store, at the time of the morning when they know I'm most likely to be there. But some may disappear for a few days, in winter because they have to search so far for food, or in summer for the very opposite reason – because they have an abundance of food.
Geese do have such personality, and I find them to be less trouble, less work, and easier to handle than chickens.
They're also good to eat.
They are cute, for sure! And I love that they pair up for life . . .
J > Claire, if you have an incubator, buy hatching eggs on ebay. Raising the goslings will make them utterly adorable, friendly to you … and you won't want to despatch them! So, if you do want to eat your own geese, buy young adult geese – preferably a pair that have already produced goslings, so are proven – and let them do the hatching and raising. You will then feel less emotionally involved with their goslings when the time comes.
We haven't raised geese, but Canadian geese come to nest on our pond, and today we found at least 10 goslings, all yellow and fluffy. Do you like having geese as a "farm" animal?
I enjoyed this post. I have never had geese so I learned bunches from you. Those babies are adorable!!!