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The Climate Emergency Warning from Extreme Weather
Air Date: Week of July 30, 2021
Early climate models may have underestimated the timing of the emergence of extreme weather events like heat waves and floods. This summer's severe flooding events in parts of Europe, China, and the United States are a wake-up call as policy makers, scientists, and citizens consider the urgent need for climate adaptation and mitigation. (Photo: Ryan Johnson, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
As a slew of extreme weather events hits the headlines, the evidence of climate disruption is undeniable. Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University and author of The New Climate War warns we are headed for dangerous thresholds of climate disruptions beyond the reach of adaptation to cope. He joins host Steve Curwood to talk about the links between extreme weather and human-forced climate change, why sea level rise could be counted in the dozens of feet by 2100, and how an unchecked climate emergency imperils human civilization.
CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood.
Extreme, record breaking, weather is happening around the world. Thousand-year floods are drowning Europe and Asia. And exceptional drought and unprecedented heat has been broiling western North America, sparking wildfires and degrading air quality for thousands of miles. Climate disruption is making such events much more likely. That according to new research published in Nature Climate Change that calculates heat waves that shatter temperature records by 10 degrees Fahrenheit are up to seven times more likely over the next three decades, and even more likely in the years beyond. That's under a scenario in which too little is done to curb emissions. And as the world prepares for the UN climate summit in Glasgow Scotland in November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, is finishing up its latest report on climate science, impacts, and ways to respond. Michael Mann is an atmospheric science professor at Penn State University who has worked on similar studies and has contributed to IPCC reports. Welcome back to Living on Earth, Michael!
MANN: Thanks, Steve, it's great to be with you.
CURWOOD: Now, you and others have recently published studies saying that we are in for some record-shattering heat becoming far more frequent, why and how?
MANN: Well, you know, at some level, it's pretty basic: you warm up the planet, you're going to get more frequent and intense heat waves. And that's what we've seen. Now, this latest study uses climate models to try to estimate just how frequent these sort of record-breaking heat extremes, like we've seen recently, how frequent they're likely to become. And one of the things that they show is that when you have a period of rapid warming, then you're more likely to see records broken by very large amounts. Again, it's perhaps somewhat intuitive, but they have nonetheless demonstrated this rigorously using climate model simulations.
CURWOOD: Well, yeah, so tell me, I mean, about this extreme weather we're seeing right now. I mean, we have of course, the record heat in the Northwest. Oh, but maybe it is raging drought in the West? Or is it raging fires in the West? Or is it thousand-year floods in, in Europe and China? In essence, what's going on? Why suddenly, does Mother Nature seem to be really focusing on this climate disruption thing?
MANN: Yeah, well, you know, what's happening -- you know, it feels like it's all accelerating. But in fact, what's really happening here is that the signal now is becoming large enough that we can see it play out in real time. You know, a decade ago or more, we sort of had to tease out of the data, the impacts of climate change, you sort of really had to squint to see them in the data; today, you no longer have to do that. The impacts have become, again, so profound, that we can see that these weather events, these extreme weather events that are playing out right now across the Northern Hemisphere this summer, have no precedent as far back as we have records. Now, this study, this recent study that, you know, argues that we're likely to see even more and more record shattering weather extremes. Ironically, that study makes use of climate models that don't completely capture some of the dynamics in the real world that are responsible for some of the events that we are seeing. This Pacific Northwest heat dome, for example; part of what was going on is that the jet stream has slowed down, something that's predicted to happen as we warm the planet. And weather systems tend to get stuck in place, and they grow in amplitude, and they grow in magnitude. And this is actually an effect that my co authors and I have been studying over the past few years. And it has to do with one of the subtle impacts about climate change and how it changes the behavior of the jet stream. And this particular impact is not well captured in current generation climate models. It involves processes that aren't very well captured by the models. So the models, if anything, are actually underestimating the impact that climate change is already having on these extreme weather events. And the reason that we see, you know, huge floods in one place, wildfires and heat waves in another, is because the entire jet stream that circles the entire hemisphere has been impacted by climate change, in a way that leads to more intense and more persistent extreme weather events on both sides of the spectrum.
CURWOOD: Michael, sometimes people point out that nature tends to move in quantum leaps. You know, one day you have a caterpillar, another you have a moth; if you're talking physics, you know, an electron's on a p level, another day, it's on an s. So how much does this affect what's going on, what we're seeing in terms of climate disruption, because, as humans, we think of things, you know, gradually changing rather than having quantum leaps. Which are we headed for, do you think?
The upcoming sixth IPCC report will include updated projections and commentary on extreme weather events and sea level rise. When it comes to IPCC reports, premature leaks are common, but cherry-picking the data before the reports are finalized can warp the public perception of the climate crisis. (Photo: Yves Nevens, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
MANN: Yeah, well, it's, you know, an interesting choice of words to bring quantum mechanics into the conversation. And of course, my background originally was in theoretical physics, and I once studied quantum mechanics. But ironically, this behavior that I'm describing about the jet stream where it gets locked into place, and these wiggles become larger, and so the high and low pressure centers that are associated with these extreme weather events become deeper. It turns out that, to actually solve the physics of that problem, you end up using the same mathematics that was developed in the early 20th century to solve certain problems in quantum mechanics. So it turns out, the mathematics of waves that describes the behavior of matter at the smallest scale, is relevant to extreme weather events that are happening at the planetary scale. But you know, you've underscored something else which is very important here, which is our perception. Our perception does have thresholds, and impacts have thresholds. You know, at a certain point a flood is so bad that it breaks the dams, it rises over the levees. And so there are these thresholds, where when an event becomes extreme enough, it becomes so hot, for example, that human beings simply can't be outside without suffering severe health impacts. As these events become more extreme, we start to exceed some of these sort of societal and sort of behavioral thresholds. And so all of a sudden, we're talking not just about an extreme heat wave, but a deadly heat wave. All of a sudden, we're not just talking about a terrible flooding event, but the worst flooding event that China has ever seen. And it feels like we've gone through some sort of threshold in the way climate change is proceeding. But it turns out, even if climate change proceeds smoothly, the impacts and the responses to it can go through these abrupt thresholds. And that's one of the things that we fear, because there are potential climate tipping points that we worry about, like when the ice sheets give way, and the collapse of the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheet becomes unstoppable. That's a threshold, and then, you know, we are subject to meters of sea level rise, and there's nothing we can do about it anymore. There are these potential tipping points that we are nearing. But there are also tipping points in our ability to adapt to the changes that we're witnessing, in our adaptive capacity and in our resilience, and that's something that we really have to worry about.
CURWOOD: Folks sometimes like to point out that the human impact on the climate and understanding it is an experiment that's never been done before, and we're gathering the data in real time. So we are facing surprises, surely, right, Michael?
MANN: Yeah, and unfortunately, they're not going to be welcome surprises. The surprises that are in store are some of the extreme weather events we've seen this summer, where some of the scientists who have been studying this stuff for years, say, "I never actually thought I would see anything like this, you know, I studied this on paper, I studied this in climate model simulations." But all of a sudden, we are witnessing the profound impacts of the warming of the planet. There is, you know, no question that we are dealing with a whole new level of threat. And you know, it's, it's right when people call the climate change problem a crisis or an emergency; well, it's reached that level. And it's reached that level, in part, because what we've never seen before, is, you know, a population of nearly 8 billion people on the face of the planet, competing for this diminishing food and water and space. And so the impacts of climate change really test our capacity as a civilization to continue to operate, when the conditions upon which our societal infrastructure have been built, and are based on suddenly no longer apply. If we allow the warming to proceed, then we will exceed our adaptive capacity as a civilization. So that is a potential future, societal collapse is a potential future. But it is not yet guaranteed as our future, there is still time to make sure that that isn't our future. But we have to decarbonize our economy now, rapidly. We've got to bring global carbon emissions down by 50% within the decade, if we are to have any chance of averting that one and a half degrees Celsius, nearly three degree Fahrenheit danger level.
CURWOOD: You outline what we should consider in terms of mitigation, that is reducing emissions. But what's to be done, what can be done in terms of adaptation? What do we already need to do?
MANN; Yeah, so we need to be careful that adaptation isn't used as a crutch for, you know, downplaying the importance of mitigation, of reducing carbon emissions. And there are some politicians who love to talk about resilience and adaptation, and hate to talk about mitigation. Because the fossil fuel industry doesn't want to hear about mitigation. They don't want to hear about decarbonization. They would rather say, look, we just have to adapt to the changes that are coming. And look, there is a certain amount of climate change that's already baked in. We're seeing it. We're already there. Dangerous climate change has now arrived. In the very best scenario, we're dealing with a new normal, where we have to fundamentally adapt our infrastructure to deal with these heightened threats. And we're seeing that right now. And especially those, you know, who have the least resources, the poor, folks in low income communities have the least resilience, the least resources, they're the ones who are seeing the greatest impacts. And so when we put it all onto adaptation, we're putting it on the poorest and those with the least resources. So yes, we need to provide resources, especially to those frontline communities, so that they can deal with the impacts that we are already dealing with. And likely things will get somewhat worse, but we can prevent the worst impacts from playing out. And that means there has to really be an emphasis on mitigation, because no amount of adaptation is going to allow us to flourish as a civilization in the face of an additional half a degree, one degree Celsius warming of the planet. Dangerous climate change has arrived. If we continue down this road, it will become not just dangerous, but truly catastrophic and disastrous to human civilization. That's one future; that's, that doesn't have to be our future. That's why we need to be so focused on action right now going into this major climate conference later this year, where there's a real opportunity now to act before it's too late.
Michael Mann and Living on Earth Host Steve Curwood in 2019. (Photo: Bobby Bascomb)
CURWOOD: Over the years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the science panel, has been criticized because it's tended to underestimate, its projections have not been borne out by the data, that generally we've, we're moving faster in the direction of disrupting the climate. So why has that happened so many times with the IPCC process, in your view? And what do you think will happen with this one?
MANN: I think there are a couple different things going on at the same time. And sometimes we conflate them, but they're distinct. One of them is what my friend and colleague Naomi Orekes of Harvard University describes as "the path of least drama." Scientists just intrinsically, don't want to be out ahead of the data, when they are targets by climate change deniers, and conservative politicians, and right wing media outlets that will go after scientists who make audacious and bold claims, and alert the public to the dangers of continued fossil fuel burning. That's very inconvenient to the fossil fuel interests. And so, you know, as I found out myself when we published the hockey stick more than two decades ago, if you do work and you communicate findings that are a threat to the fossil fuel industry, there's a target on your back. In addition to that is the simple fact that our models are imperfect. Our ice sheet models, we've learned over the last decade or so that there's some important processes that we see playing out in Mother Nature: cracks forming at the surface of the ice sheets, allowing water, meltwater to penetrate to the bottom of the ice and lubricate it so it can slide more quickly into the ocean. Or, the ice shelves disintegrate, and when they do, that inland ice now starts to flow faster. So these are very dynamic processes that we've only really started to really understand and appreciate. And so they weren't in the models a decade or so ago. And now when we put them into the models, lo and behold, we find that the ice sheets can collapse faster, that sea level can rise faster. I think we're seeing something similar with extreme weather events as we start to put more realism into our atmospheric models. And so this isn't in any way sort of a conscious effort on the part of scientists to downplay the impacts. The very act of scientific consensus itself is a conservative process, because you're looking for sort of the lowest common denominator of what a very large number of scientists can all agree upon. And I think we see all of that playing out here. And we should be cognizant of that, because it impacts our ability to assess the risk from what we're hearing.
CURWOOD: Speaking of sea level, by the way, from what you understand from the models that are out there, and maybe some projections of how they might be tweaked. What are we looking at in terms of sea level, say, by 2050 and by 2100, with what we know today?
MANN: Yeah, so let's talk about 2100: three IPCC reports, we were talking about feet, a foot, maybe two feet. Two IPCC reports, we were talking about a meter, three feet. One IPCC report, we're talking about two meters, six to eight feet. Those numbers are trending up, and they're trending up in a disturbing way. And so increasingly, we are coming to the conclusion that large parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet could become unstable, given even modest additional warming. And that puts us now in the domain not just of feet or meters, but tens of meters: 10 meters, possibly, by the end of this century.
CURWOOD: You're talking about a 30 foot rise in sea level by 2100, possible?
MANN: Yeah, you're talking about not just New York City having to worry about storm surges with storms like Superstorm Sandy, you're starting to worry about permanent immersion of New York City. You're no longer talking about adaptation, about levees, about dams. You're talking about managed retreat. Moving huge population centers of millions and millions of people away from the coastline, where we're now competing for less and less space, because our coastlines are becoming inundated, major cities have to retreat inward, and larger and larger parts of the tropics are becoming unlivably hot. That's a prescription for all sorts of conflict and national security concerns. It's why some of our leading national security experts have said that climate change constitutes the greatest security threat we face in the years ahead, because all of a sudden now a rising global population is competing for less food and space and water. And so this is a very real concern. And again, in a worst case scenario, we're looking at the potential collapse of civilization as we know it. In the best case scenario, we're looking at a livable planet, for us and for future generations. So let's focus on that scenario, because it's one that's still within our grasp. But it demands that we act now, and that we hold our politicians accountable for acting now, because we can't wait.
CURWOOD: Okay, and so that as much as 10 meter rise in sea level is baked into the system now, or we have a shot by slowing, getting rid of carbon and related type emissions, of never getting to that 10 meter, that 30 foot rise in sea level?
MANN: So, we don't know, with confidence, just how much sea level rise we're committed to at this point, just how much of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet are likely to go at this point. What is certainly true is if we ramp down our carbon emissions, surface temperatures stabilize pretty quickly, and so we begin the healing. But we may not be able to stop the collapse of large parts of the ice sheets, we may be able to slow that down. And if we can slow that down, even by decades, it gives us far more time to adapt our infrastructure, move our population centers, but we can't rule out 20 or more feet of sea level rise already being baked in at this point. The hope is that if it is baked in, it unfolds over timescales of a century or two, and most of the models indicate that scenario. But as I've said, increasingly, as we put more realism into the models, we find that these things can happen faster than we thought.
CURWOOD: Michael Mann is a Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Penn State University. His new book is called The New Climate War. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today.
MANN: Thanks, Steve, always great to be talking with you.
Check out Michael Mann's book, The New Climate War
The Guardian | 'Record-shattering' heat becoming much more likely, says climate study
The Guardian | How many years until we must act on climate? Zero, say these climate thinkers
NPR | How Climate Change Is Responsible For More Extreme Weather Events Worldwide
Living on Earth's interview with Michael Mann about The New Climate War


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RS 32:402.1
§402.1. Driver education; required
A. No application for a license for the operation of a motor vehicle shall be received from any person making application for the first time unless there is also submitted with the application, on a form approved by the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, written evidence of the successful completion by the applicant of one of the following:
(1)(a) A "driver education course" for any person under the age of eighteen, which shall consist of not less than eight hours of actual driving instruction and thirty hours of classroom instruction. A person shall not be allowed to receive more than four hours of actual driving instruction on any single calendar day. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, shall establish rules and regulations to administer and define the requirements of the course. The rules and regulations established by the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, shall provide for instruction relative to trailer safety, to the economic effects of littering, to accessible parking and access aisles, and to appropriate driver conduct when stopped by a law enforcement officer. Oversight review of these rules shall be conducted by the House and Senate committees on transportation, highways and public works in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act.
(b) Upon completion of the required supervised driving practice pursuant to R.S.
32:405.1 and 407, a properly licensed and contracted third-party tester may administer the on-road driving skills test to the student. Upon successful completion, such third-party tester shall provide the student with a department approved certificate of successful completion in a sealed envelope to be delivered to the department.
(2) A "prelicensing training course" from any person eighteen years or older if a driver education course is not completed. The prelicensing training course shall consist of a minimum of six hours of classroom instruction and a minimum of eight hours of actual driving instruction. A person shall not be allowed to receive more than four hours of actual driving instruction on any single calendar day. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, shall establish rules and regulations to administer and define the requirements of the course. Oversight review of these rules shall be conducted by the House and Senate committees on transportation, highways and public works in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. The rules shall provide for:
(a) Licensing or contractual requirements for third-party training schools and high school instructors.
(b) Course content and presentation, including content relative to trailer safety, to the economic effects of littering, to accessible parking and access aisles, and to appropriate driver conduct when stopped by a law enforcement officer.
(c) Instructor qualifications and certification.
(d) Classroom size and facilities.
(e) Certificates of completion.
(f) Required records and reporting.
(g) Penalties for noncompliance of the mandatory instructional and driving requirements and penalties for the falsification of documents and certificates.
(h) Repealed by Acts 2011, No. 294, §6.
(3)(a), (b) Repealed by Acts 2011, No. 294, §6.
(c) Repealed by Acts 2017, No. 334, §2.
B. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, shall establish a portion of the "driver education course" and "prelicensing training course" relative to the economic and adverse effects of littering in conjunction with Keep Louisiana Beautiful, Inc.
C. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, shall establish and implement a portion of the "driver education course" and "prelicensing training course" relative to managing a routine traffic stop. The department shall establish rules and regulations to administer and define the requirements within the course. The curriculum shall be developed considering the actions of officers, the drivers and occupants, the number of occupants, the time and reason for the stop, the location of the stop, and any other circumstance surrounding the stop. At a minimum, the course shall include the following:
(1) Instruction concerning law enforcement procedures for traffic stops.
(2) Instruction on the importance of officers, drivers, and passengers maintaining integrity and respect during traffic stops.
(3) Demonstrations of appropriate interactions with law enforcement.
(4) Demonstrations of the proper actions to be taken during traffic stops.
D. No person under the age of fifteen shall be allowed to enroll or participate in the driving experience portion of any driver education course or driver training program. A person, no sooner than ninety days prior to his fifteenth birthday and who is in, at a minimum, grade eight, shall be permitted to participate in the classroom instruction component of a driver education course or driving program.
E.(1) Any person who is at least of age to participate in the classroom instruction portion of a driver education course, driver training program, or a prelicensing training course shall apply to the department for a Class "E" temporary instructional permit prior to the administration of the knowledge test. The application for a Class "E" temporary instructional permit shall be in accordance with R.S. 32:409.1 and 410. The fee for a Class "E" temporary instructional permit shall be the same as the fee for a Class "E" driver's license. The Class "E" temporary instructional permit issued pursuant to this Section shall contain a highly visible distinctive color or restriction code that clearly indicates the permit has been issued for the purpose of on-road driving skills instruction with a Department of Public Safety and Corrections certified driving instructor.
(2) A person shall be required to possess a Class "E" temporary instructional permit in order to participate in the administration of the knowledge test, operate a motor vehicle during on-road driving skills instruction, or participate in the administration of an on-road driving skills test.
(3) A person with a Class "E" temporary instructional permit required by this Subsection is permitted to operate a motor vehicle on the public highways and streets of this state only when the permit holder is accompanied by an instructor of driver education and traffic safety, and while actually operating a motor vehicle during the behind-the-wheel instruction or during the administration of the skills test.
(4) The holder of a Class "E" temporary instructional permit required by this Subsection shall be in possession of the permit during the period of its validity and such permit shall be presented for examination when so requested by any law enforcement officer or representative of the department.
(5) Upon successful completion of a driver education course, driver training program, or prelicensing training course and the knowledge test, a person who is ineligible for a permanent license pursuant to R.S. 32:407, shall surrender a Class "E" temporary instructional permit issued pursuant to this Subsection to the department and apply for the issuance of a learner's license. The department shall not charge a fee for a learner's license issued in connection with the surrender of a Class "E" temporary instructional permit.
(6) Upon successful completion of a driver education course, driver training program, or prelicensing training course, and the knowledge and on-road driving skills test, a person who is eligible for a permanent license pursuant to R.S. 32:407, shall surrender their Class "E" temporary instructional permit issued pursuant to this Section to the department and apply for the issuance of a permanent license. The department shall not charge a fee for a license issued in connection with the surrender of a Class "E" temporary instructional permit.
(7) The Class "E" temporary instructional permit issued pursuant to this Subsection shall not be required for any person to enroll in a driver education course, driver training program, or prelicensing course administered in conjunction with a National Guard Youth Challenge Program. A person enrolled in a driver education course, driver training program, or prelicensing course administered in conjunction with a National Guard Youth Challenge Program may operate a motor vehicle on the public highways of this state without a Class "E" temporary instructional permit provided that such person is accompanied by an instructor of driver education and safety.
(8)(a) In the event that the person applying for the temporary instructional permit has or has had his driving privileges suspended pursuant to R.S. 32:661 et seq., and the person is required to have an ignition interlock as a condition of reinstatement, then the temporary instructional permit may be issued for purposes of operating a motor vehicle during the behind-the-wheel portion of the driver education program or while administering the road skills test without an ignition interlock device being required.
(b)(i) If the driving school instructor suspects that the person is impaired at the time he presents himself for the behind-the-wheel training or the administration of the road skills test, the driving school instructor shall not conduct the behind-the-wheel instruction or administer the road skills test, and the driving school instructor shall promptly report the incident to the office of motor vehicles.
(ii) The office of motor vehicles shall promulgate such rules as are necessary to implement the provisions of this Subparagraph.
(c) Neither the driving school instructor, nor the driving school utilizing the driving school instructor shall be liable in any manner to any person who is denied behind-the-wheel training pursuant to Subparagraph (b) of this Paragraph, except for any partial refund attributable to the behind-the-wheel portion of the training or the road skills test.
F.(1) A driver education provider licensed pursuant to R.S. 40:1461 may provide all or part of the six-hour classroom instruction portion of an approved prelicensing training course required by Paragraph (A)(2) of this Section for persons eighteen or older by an alternative method of instruction that does not require students to be present in a traditional classroom if the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, approves the alternative method. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, may approve the alternative method only if both of the following conditions are met:
(a) The alternative method includes testing and security measures that the department determines are at least as secure as the measures available in the traditional classroom setting.
(b) The six-hour classroom instruction portion of the prelicensing training course for persons eighteen years of age or older that is required by Paragraph (A)(2) of this Section with the use of the alternative method satisfies any other requirement applicable to a prelicensing training course in which the classroom instruction is taught to students in the traditional classroom setting.
(2) No portion of the thirty-hour classroom instruction of the driver education course, required by Paragraph (A)(1) of this Section for persons under the age of eighteen shall be provided by an alternative method of instruction that does not require students to be present in a traditional classroom.
(3) The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, public safety services, may establish rules and regulations as determined necessary to define the requirements for alternative methods of instruction for the prelicensing training course, which rules shall be subject to oversight review by the House and Senate committees on transportation, highways, and public works.
Added by Acts 1968, No. 273, §7. Acts 1992, No. 246, §1, eff. July 1, 1993; Acts 1992, No. 382, §1, eff. July 1, 1993; Acts 1992, No. 1009, §1, eff. July 1, 1993; Acts 1993, No. 225, §1, eff. July 1, 1993; Acts 1997, No. 725, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1998; Acts 1998, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 80, §2; Acts 2003, No. 312, §2; Acts 2004, No. 216, §2; Acts 2004, No. 439, §1; Acts 2008, No. 768, §2, eff. Jan. 1, 2009; Acts 2009, No. 275, §2, eff. Jan. 1, 2010; Acts 2010, No. 227, §1; Acts 2011, No. 294, §§2, 6; Acts 2011, No. 307, §1; Acts 2011, No. 317, §3, eff. Jan. 1, 2012; Acts 2012, No. 475, §1; Acts 2015, No. 369, §1; Acts 2016, No. 317, §1; Acts 2016, No. 336, §1; Acts 2017, No. 286, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2018; Acts 2017, No. 334, §§1, 2; Acts 2017, No. 343, §1; Acts 2019, No. 295, §1; Acts 2020, No. 223, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2021.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Professor David Weiss Granted Faculty Knights Award
On May 24, the NJCU athletics department virtually hosted their annual Gothic Awards ceremony in which athletes are recognized for their hard work and success throughout the year. In addition to athletes, however, a handful of faculty members and students were given awards via the athletic department's social media pages prior to the virtual event.
Mind Your Own Business course
The NJCU, Institute for Dispute Resolution has a program, named "Connecting Bridges and Borders". Connection with this program the University has a course " Mind Your Own Business". As finals season approaches in the world of undergraduate studies, so do Professor Weiss's unique opportunities for bright business students to showcase their strengths in a way […]
The World Economic Forum is fifty this year
The editor of eCCO Magazine would like to draw readers' attention to the information, published by the World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum is fifty this year.
Advertising & Public Relations Industry Uses Advanced Technologies To Track Users For Targeted Advertising
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Pitch Competitions at New Jersey City University
The Institute for Dispute Resolution through its Entrepreneurship and Innovation NJCU – Jersey City Connect Project in partnership with Professor David Weiss' Entrepreneurship and Global Business classes at NJCU will be hosting two pitch competitions showcasing brilliant young entrepreneurs and innovators.
Building the Future of Global Business: Enhancing Growth and Investment Through Mediation
The Institute for Dispute Resolution will be hosting a live digital event on September 17, 2020, "Building the Future of Global Business: Enhancing Growth and Investment Through Mediation."
Connecting Effective Communication and Business
This week marks the kickoff of a brand new season of the Institute for Dispute Resolution's "Connecting Bridges and Borders" podcast series. The IDR is honored to have the extremely accomplished Thomas Barat sit down with Professor Weiss to outline some ways in which businesses can work to increase cross-border communication.
New Digital Finance Strategy for Europe
The editor of eCCO Magazine would like to draw readers' attention to the European Commission's Consultation on a New Digital Finance Strategy for Europe, published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
Conference on the Future of Europe – Council agrees its position
European Council Press Release presented: Member states want the Conference on the Future of Europe to get citizens involved in a wide-ranging debate on Europe's future in the coming decade and beyond, including in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meeting at the level of ambassadors, they agreed the Council's position on the arrangements for […]
B2B Journalist Ethics: An ASBPE Guide to Best Practices
ASBPE Guide to Best Practices Introduction Business-to-business (B2B) publications, online and in print, exist to serve their audiences in the specialized fields they cover, while being financially viable businesses themselves. To provide the publication's service effectively, editors must maintain editorial excellence and the trust of the communities they serve. These goals are accomplished through constant […]


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Who we are FCPF Capacity Building Project Tebtebba Bulletin AIWN focal points take stock of their potentials towards sustaining actions for indigenous women empowerment
Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Capacity Building on REDD+ for Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples
IN EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC AND SOUTH ASIA REGIONS PROJECT
(P153585, FCPF Grant No. TF0A3570)
THIRD PROGRESS REPORT
This Capacity Building Project (CBP) for forest-dependent indigenous peoples funded under Phase two of the Readiness Fund of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and managed by the World Bank (WB) is being implemented from October 31, 2016 to October 31, 2018.
Its objective is to provide forest-dependent indigenous peoples with information, knowledge, and awareness on REDD+ to enhance their understanding on REDD+, and to enable them to engage more meaningfully in the implementation of REDD+ readiness activities. The aim is to support activities that empower and enable these stakeholder groups, to enhance and influence REDD+ development outcomes, and also to strengthen mechanisms for inclusion, accountability, and participation. It is being implemented through the WB's "Procedures for Small Recipient-Executed Trust Fund Grants".
The project development objective (PDO) is to strengthen: (i) the knowledge of targeted forest-dependent indigenous peoples on REDD+ Readiness at the national level and (ii) knowledge exchange at the regional level.
COUNTRIES OF IMPLEMENTATION
This project has a total budget of US$490,750. The project beneficiaries are forest-dependent IPs and their representative organizations and institutions in the ten FCPF eligible countries in Asia and the Pacific, namely Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam which are eligible to participate in regional learning and exchange activities (Component 2). Of these ten countries, six (6) countries are eligible to participate in national-level activities (Component 1), namely Bhutan, Fiji, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Vietnam.
Download full report here.
SECOND PROGRESS REPORT
This project has a total budget of US$490,750. The project beneficiaries are forest-dependent IPs and their representative organizations and institutions in the ten FCPF eligible countries in Asia and the Pacific, namely Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam which are eligible to participate in regional learning and exchange activities (Component 2). Of these ten countries, six (6) countries are eligible to participate in national-level activities (Component 1), namely Bhutan, Fiji, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Vietnam.
Vanuatu Foresters Association (VFA) Approved Proposal
Forest Carbon Partnership Facility-Capacity Building on REDD+ for Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) and South Asia Region (SAR) Project (FCPF-CBP)
Sub-Project Title: Building the capacity of the Vanuatu indigenous forests dependent population to be aware of REDD+ and how they could adjust their socio-economic activities in order to enhance the carbon stocks and simultaneously adapt to impacts of climate change.
Vanuatu is a Y-shaped archipelago which lies in the western Pacific Ocean in the middle of a triangle formed by the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Fiji. The archipelago stretches approximately 1,400 km from north to south between the latitudes of 13 and 21° S and longitudes of 166 and 172° E and comprises more than 80 islands, 67 of which are inhabited, and 12 of which are considered major in terms of land area. The islands are of volcanic origin along with coral atolls.
Vanuatu's total land area is about 12,190 km of which 36% has forest cover (>10m tree height), 43% is lower woody and mangrove vegetation and 21% in other land uses. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers an estimated area of 680,000 km2 and the country shares maritime borders with New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji.
The Vanuatu constitution states that all land and resources on the land belongs to the indigenous custom owners and their descendants and custom rules are the basis for the ownership and use of land and resources on that land. The landowners have the sole ownership of their land and are in the first place responsible for management decisions. Land cannot be alienated, but can be leased from the landholders for fixed periods and for agreed purposes. In the field natural features such as creeks and ridges normally mark traditional land boundaries of the various clan lots. Indigenous people are inseparable from their land as it provides them their basic needs such as water, food, shelter, fuel
wood, building materials as well as commercial benefits derived from sale of forest products. Most parts of Vanuatu land is inherited through patrilineal system but there are few areas that used matrilineal.
Vanuatu is one of the 57 so called small island developing states (SIDS) recognizes by the United Nations that the tropical islands are at risk of being severely affected by the current and anticipated impacts of climate variability and change, including both extreme events and gradual environmental changes. Already Vanuatu is struggling with the environmental problems such as land degradation, biodiversity losses, and coastal and marine pollution caused, inter alia, by population growth and urbanization as in addition to the common development challenges such as smallness, remoteness, and proneness to natural disasters.
Download complete proposal here.
FIRST PROGRESS REPORT
This Capacity Building Project (CBP) is being funded under Phase two of the Readiness Fund of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) being managed by the World Bank (WB). The CBP has two components, one for forest-dependent indigenous peoples and another for Southern Civil Society Organizations and Local Communities. Its objective is to provide forest-dependent indigenous peoples, and Southern CSOs and local communities with information, knowledge, and awareness on REDD+ to enhance their understanding on REDD+, and to enable them to engage more meaningfully in the implementation of REDD+ readiness activities. The aim is to support activities that empower and enable these stakeholder groups, to enhance and influence REDD+ development outcomes, and also to strengthen mechanisms for inclusion, accountability, and participation. It is being implemented through the WB's "Procedures for Small Recipient-Executed Trust Fund Grants".
Tebtebba Foundation (Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education) was chosen as the Recipient for the East Asia-Pacific and South Asia region. The project beneficiaries are forest-dependent IPs and their representative organizations and institutions in the ten FCPF eligible countries in Asia and the Pacific, namely Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam which are eligible to participate in regional learning and exchange activities (Component 2). Of these ten countries, six (6) countries are eligible to participate in national-level activities (Component 1), namely Bhutan, Fiji, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Vietnam. This is the first progress report prepared for the project, covering the period of project effectiveness (October 31, 2016) to June 30, 2017.
This project with a total budget of US$490,750 is being implemented in FCPF countries in East Asia, the Pacific and South Asia Regions, which are Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Vanuatu and Vietnam. Of these countries, only six (6) are eligible for funding support under Component 1 (national level capacity building), namely: Bhutan, Fiji, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Vietnam following eligibility criteria as detailed in the Operational Manual (OM).
Project Complaints Processing and Resolution
Indigenous peoples and other interested stakeholders may raise some feedback or complaints on the sub-grant/consultancies' award decisions, governance of the project and other issues specific to the project.
Feedbacks or complaints must be sent to the PMT in writing, duly signed by the complainant/s, including contact details through email ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ), fax (+63 74 4439459) or courier (please address email to Ms. Helen Valdez, Tebtebba PMTL, No. 1 Roman Ayson Rd., Baguio City 2600, Philippines).
The PMT will be fully responsible for recording, referring and tracking the complaint. It should acknowledge receipt of complaint within 5 working days upon receipt.
The PMT undertakes an initial discussion with the complainant and propose a response within 15 working days upon receipt of the complaint. If the complainant agrees, the proposed action is implemented.
In case the complainant does not agree on the proposed action of the PMT, the PMT will compose a Grievance Committee composed of two (2) representatives of the Management Committee of Tebtebba and two (2) members of the RSC.
When applicable, one of the members of the RSC to sit in the Grievance Committee shall be from the same country where the feedback/complaint originated.
Resolutions or outcomes of complaints received shall be properly documented.
World Bank conducts supervision mission for FCPF Capacity Building Project
FCPF Capacity Building Report (Phase One)
Tebtebba and RSC select 6 proposals for consideration; Approves four
FCPF Capacity Building on REDD+ for Forest-Dependent Indigenous Peoples in East Asia and Pacific (EAP) and South Asia Region (SAR)


text:
package com.intellij.openapi.vcs.checkin;

import com.intellij.openapi.util.Getter;
import com.intellij.openapi.util.TextRange;
import com.intellij.util.PairConsumer;
import com.intellij.util.containers.Convertor;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * @author irengrig
 *         Date: 2/18/11
 *         Time: 12:04 AM
 *
 *         keeps state (position in areas) between invocations
 */
public class StepIntersection<Data, Area> {
  private final Convertor<Data,TextRange> myDataConvertor;
  private final Convertor<Area,TextRange> myAreasConvertor;
  private TextRange myDataRange;
  private TextRange myAreaRange;
  private Data myCurData;
  private Iterator<Data> myDataIterator;
  private int myAreaIndex;
  private Area myCurArea;
  private final List<Area> myAreas;
  private final HackSearch<Data,Area,TextRange> myHackSearch;
  // EA-28497, EA-26379
  private final Getter<String> myDebugDocumentTextGetter;

  public StepIntersection(Convertor<Data, TextRange> dataConvertor,
                          Convertor<Area, TextRange> areasConvertor,
                          final List<Area> areas,
                          Getter<String> debugDocumentTextGetter) {
    myAreas = areas;
    myDebugDocumentTextGetter = debugDocumentTextGetter;
    myAreaIndex = 0;
    myDataConvertor = dataConvertor;
    myAreasConvertor = areasConvertor;
    myHackSearch = new HackSearch<>(myDataConvertor, myAreasConvertor,
                                    (o1, o2) -> o1.intersects(o2) ? 0 : o1.getStartOffset() < o2.getStartOffset() ? -1 : 1);
  }

  public void resetIndex() {
    myAreaIndex = 0;
  }

  public List<Data> process(final Iterable<Data> data) {
    final List<Data> result = new ArrayList<>();
    process(data, (data1, area) -> result.add(data1));
    return result;
  }

  public void process(final Iterable<Data> data, final PairConsumer<Data, Area> consumer) {
    myDataIterator = data.iterator();

    if (! myDataIterator.hasNext() || noMoreAreas()) return;
    dataStep();
    initArea();
    while (! noMoreAreas()) {
      final boolean intersects = myAreaRange.intersects(myDataRange);
      if (intersects) {
        consumer.consume(myCurData, myCurArea);
      }
      // take next
      if (! myDataIterator.hasNext() && noMoreAreas()) break;
      if (! myDataIterator.hasNext()) {
        areaStep();
        continue;
      }
      if (noMoreAreas()) {
        dataStep();
        continue;
      }
      if (myDataRange.getEndOffset() < myAreaRange.getEndOffset()) {
        dataStep();
      } else {
        areaStep();
      }
    }
  }

  private boolean noMoreAreas() {
    return (myAreaIndex >= myAreas.size());
  }

  private void initArea() {
    myAreaIndex = 0;
    myCurArea = myAreas.get(myAreaIndex);
    myAreaRange = myAreasConvertor.convert(myCurArea);
  }

  private void areaStep() {
    // a hack here
    final int idx = myHackSearch.search(myAreas.subList(myAreaIndex + 1, myAreas.size()), myCurData);
    myAreaIndex = myAreaIndex + 1 + idx;
    if (myAreaIndex >= myAreas.size()) {
      return;
    }
    /*assert myAreaRange == null || myAreaRange.getEndOffset() < myAreasConvertor.convert(myAreas.get(myAreaIndex)).getStartOffset() :
      "Area ranges intersect: first: " + myAreaRange + ", second: " + myAreasConvertor.convert(myAreas.get(myAreaIndex)) + ", text: '" +
      myDebugDocumentTextGetter.get() + "'";*/
    myCurArea = myAreas.get(myAreaIndex);
    myAreaRange = myAreasConvertor.convert(myCurArea);
  }

  private void dataStep() {
    myCurData = myDataIterator.next();
    /*assert myDataRange == null || myDataRange.getEndOffset() < myDataConvertor.convert(myCurData).getStartOffset() :
      "Data ranges intersect: first: " + myDataRange + ", second: " + myDataConvertor.convert(myCurData) + ", text: '" +
      myDebugDocumentTextGetter.get() + "'";*/
    myDataRange = myDataConvertor.convert(myCurData);
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


i can't be sure of the path that 2013 will lead me, but i am confident i am moving. there are nuances that have reshaped my vision and my plans. i have shifted my daily routine towards working with opioid replacement clients specifically. as i meet the individuals who populate my caseload, i am struck by the cacophonous nature of their presentations. self-esteem, heartache, balance, finance, loneliness, secrets, fear, misinformation, prejudice, stigma, education, comfort are just some of the challenges i would love to address.
i find myself poised at a turning point. i am moving. it is like a dream. i have only a few dreams i remember. most dreams drift out into space just as they drifted in- without warning and without fanfare. but there are dreams that linger. they leave an impression. they imprint. they tattoo. they scar. they become a part of me. they shape my thoughts.
although the dreams i remember are few, they are remarkable none-the-less. there are dreams i have when i am awake however, that really provide most of the inspiration for my life. i don't have to be asleep to receive messages and thoughts from the source. i am graced with inspiration on a routine basis. my brain has been fine-tuned to precision and continues to produce ideas and solutions with enviable rhythm. pictures, words, and music are all grist for the mill. my dreams are my life. i am very thankful for this.
This entry was posted in 2nd stage recovery, gratitude, nicolas jaar, poetry, thanksgiving.


text:
Social deduction game set in Magic: The Gathering universe, Ravnica Inquisition, to be released this June
By Sean Anthony
Nobody expects Ravnica Inquisition, a new social deduction game from Wizkids set in the Magic: The Gathering plane where players must either help or hinder Nicol Bolas on his quest to conquer Ravnica. For 5-10 players, everyone will receive a role card to indicate their loyalty and color-coded guild cards which will allow players to assign a leader each turn.
At the beginning of the game, players will close their eyes and the Agents of Bolas will be instructed to open their eyes and acknowledge each other. After they close their eyes again, all players will open their eyes and play begins. Each round, players will elect a Leader based on the color indicated on that round's Leader card. The elected Leader then draws a Targeting card and performs their color's ability, targeting a player of the color indicated by the drawn card.
Play continues until the last card has been drawn, in which case the Final Round begins. Players will decide who should be killed and the players who were elected Leader during the previous rounds will vote. The player with the most votes is killed. If at least two Agents of Bolas are dead, the Gatewatch Loyalists win! Otherwise, the Agents of Bolas win.
Magic: The Gathering: Ravnica Inquisition will include a rulebook, 10 role cards, 10 guild cards, 5 color leader cards, 5 targeting cards, ablaze marker, ultimate price marker, notepad, and a pencil. It will be released this June for $14.99. For more information, visit the Wizkids website.
Related Articles: Magic: The Gathering: Ravnica Inquisition, Tabletop
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text:
NaPLeS: a natural products likeness scorer—web application and database
Maria Sorokina ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9359-71491 &
Christoph Steinbeck ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6966-08141
Journal of Cheminformatics volume 11, Article number: 55 (2019) Cite this article
Natural products (NPs), often also referred to as secondary metabolites, are small molecules synthesised by living organisms. Natural products are of interest due to their bioactivity and in this context as starting points for the development of drugs and other bioactive synthetic products. In order to select compounds from virtual libraries, Ertl et al. developed a natural product likeness score which was later published as an open data, open source implementation. Here we present NaPLeS, an easily portable, containerised, open source web application based on open data to compute natural product likeness scores for chemical libraries.
Natural products (NPs), often also referred to as secondary metabolites, are small molecules synthesised by living organisms. Natural products are of particular interest due to their bioactivity as they were optimised during evolution to have effective interactions with biological receptors. They are therefore considered as valuable starting points for the development of drugs and other bioactive synthetic products. In this context the evaluation of the compound NP-likeness is an important asset in the selection and optimisation of NP-like drugs and synthetic bioactive compounds. In 2008, Ertl and co-workers suggested a natural product (NP) likeness score, which, for a given molecule, is its similarity to the structure space covered by NPs compared to the structure space covered by synthetic molecules (SM). Such a score could be used to prioritise compounds from virtual libraries. Later, Jayaseelan and co-authors presented a purely open data, open source version of the NP-likeness scorer [1, 2]. Here we present an easily portable, containerised, open source web application based on open data to compute natural product likeness scores for chemical libraries.
The NP-likeness software suite NaPLeS consists of a web application that allows to compute the NP-likeness score online, of an easy to install local scorer to compute NP-likeness for big datasets and a MySQL database containing a large number of NPs from diverse public databases with pre-computed NP-likeness scores and other metrics. The web application is available at http://naples.naturalproducts.net and the source code can be obtained from GitHub (github.com/mSorok/NPdatabaseFiller and github.com/mSorok/NPlsWeb), the data and the data processor is available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2652372) and the NaPLeS web application is downloadable also on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2652356). To the best of our knowledge, such a portable web application for private and public use is not yet available and this work therefore constitutes a significant improvement over the state of the art.
The implementation of the NP-likeness scorer web application and database is in two parts: the scorer training and the creation of the database and the development of the web application that connects on this database.
The NP-likeness score is based on the sum of the frequency of their fragments among NPs and SMs. Here the fragments are represented by atom signatures that are canonical circular descriptors of an atom's environment in the molecule. The NP-likeness score is computed for each atom in a molecule represented as a directed acyclic graph, where every node is an atom and the edges are bonds between them. The levels of neighbourhood of an atom in a molecule is the height of the signature of that atom and determines the overall size of the fragment. In the present study atom signatures of height 2 were calculated. This height provides a better structural accuracy compared to height 1, and is not excessively large as height 3, which avoids over-training. A molecular signature is the sum of all its atom signatures.
The training data was extracted and combined from several public and open databases: for natural products, it was integrated from ZINC, ChEBI [3], ChEMBL [4], PubChem [5], the Traditional Chinese Medicine DataBase (TCMDB [6]), NPAtlas [7], AfroDB [8], SANCDB [9], NuBBE [10], HIT [11], NPACT [12], StreptomeDB [13], UNPD [14], the manually curated data used for the study published in 2012 [2] and some other datasets not associated with any database or publication such as UEFS (accessed through ZINC). Datasets from companies, SelleckChem [15] and InterBioScreen [16], synthesising and selling the compounds were also used as they openly provide reliable molecular structures for natural products. The Super Natural II database [17] was excluded from the training dataset, due to uncertainty about its data quality and provenance (e.g. this database lists dodecahedrane, which is not an NP), but NP-likeness scores were computed for molecules stored in it and are displayed on the web application and in the MySQL database. Synthetic molecules were randomly selected from the ZINC database excluding all natural products, metabolites and other biogenic molecules. In total, the training set consists of 364,807 natural products and 489,780 synthetic molecules.
Cheminformatic processing in NaPLeS is realised with the Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) [18]. First, each molecule undergoes a curation process. The stereochemistry is removed from all molecules due to a big variation in databases of stereochemistry presence and depiction. This step is particularly important to avoid fragment redundancy. The molecule is then checked for disconnected parts and only the biggest one is kept for further curation. Molecules smaller than 6 atoms and containing non-organic atoms (allowed atoms: C, H, N, O, P, S, Cl, F, As, Se, Br, I, B, Na, Si, K, Fe) are discarded as suggested by Ertl et al. [1]. Then, redundant molecules between databases are eliminated based on their structural identity using their InChI. Next, linear and circular sugar moieties are removed from all molecules to omit moieties that are less distinctive due to their repetitive and redundant nature, albeit commonly present in NPs.
Atom signatures [19] (fragments) of height 2 are calculated for each molecule. For each fragment, its frequency among natural products compared to synthetic molecules is computed with Eq. 1, where NPi is the number of occurrences of the fragment i in natural products, SMi the number of occurrences of the fragment i in synthetic molecules, NPt is the total number of natural products and SMt is the total number of synthetic molecules. If the fragment is present several times in one molecule, its occurrence is counted accordingly (e.g. if the fragment occurs three times in one molecule, the total number of occurrences of this fragment in the corresponding molecule category will be increased by 3). The NP-likeness score of a molecule corresponds to the sum of frequencies of fragments in this molecule, corrected by its size (Eq. 2).
$$Frag_{i} = { \log }\left[ {\frac{{NP_{i} }}{{SM_{i} }}*\frac{{SM_{t} }}{{NP_{t} }}} \right]$$
$$NPls = \frac{{\mathop \sum \nolimits_{i = 0}^{N} Frag_{i} }}{N}$$
NP-likeness database
The MySQL 5.8 Docker image is used to store the molecules, molecular fragments and the corresponding scores. The table 'ori_molecule' contains the information about the molecules from the public databases uploaded for the NP-likeness scorer training. Each molecule is described by the identifier from its original database, a SMILES, an InChIKey, the submission date, its original (i.e. source) database and its status (natural product, synthetic molecule or biogenic). In this table molecules can be redundant. The 'molecule' table contains unique fully connected molecules that are at least 6 atoms large and do not contain non-organic atoms (for definition, see above). Each molecule is associated with a unique identifier, its structural information (SMILES), whether it is a NP or not, if it contains sugar moieties, the NP-likeness scores computed for the molecule with and without the sugar moieties and various parameters such as the heavy and total atom counts (with and without the sugars), the number of rings, the number of repeated fragments (if 0 all fragments that constitute the molecule are found only once in it) and the number of predominant heavy atoms (carbons, oxygens and nitrogens). The tables 'fragment_with_sugar' and 'fragment_without_sugar' contain the atom signature of each fragment (SMILES-like notation), a unique fragment numerical identifier, the atom signature height (currently only the height 2 is stored) and the relative frequency of fragments in natural products computed with the Eq. 1. The table 'molecule_fragment_cpd' stores the relations between the fragment and molecule identifiers, whether it concerns fragments computed with sugar removal or not, and the number of occurrences of the fragment in the molecule. Two additional tables are required for the web application to run correctly: 'user_uploaded_molecule' and 'user_uploaded_molecule_fragment_cpd' that temporarily store the molecules submitted by the web application user and the information computed for them.
Database filler
The code for the training described in the previous section is available in the NPdatabaseFiller application. This is an application containerised with Docker, running with Spring Boot and a MySQL database. The communication between the Java code and the MySQL database is handled by the Hibernate Object Relational Mapping (ORM).
NPdatabaseFiller uses the previously described training data and fills the MySQL database used by the NaPLeS web application. It can also be used as a stand-alone application to compute NP-likeness scores locally for a large number of molecules or to recreate the NP-likeness database from scratch.
Three execution options for NPdatabaseFiller are available and can be selected by editing the docker-compose.yml file of the application. It is (a) possible to compute the NP-likeness scores from scratch for all submitted molecules. For this, it is necessary to provide molecular files with an appropriate format and an equivalent number of natural products and synthetic molecules for the training. To (b) compute the NP-likeness scores for one molecular file, without updating the whole database, and to (c) update the scores of all fragments in the database and the NP-likeness scores for all molecules present in the database. The last option is useful in case where a number of new molecules has been inserted in the database and the user wants to use them to re-train the scorer. A schematic presentation of the workflow is shown in Fig. 1a.
NaPLeS workflow schema. a NaPLeS training workflow schema. b NaPLeS query trough the web application
The NaPLeS web application was developed with the Spring Boot framework and is composed of two Docker containers: the back- and the front-end build on an openjdk:8u171-slim image, and the database in a MySQL 5.8 container described in the previous section. The web application allows to compute the NP-likeness scores for submitted molecules from a big number of molecular fragments in a reasonable time (5 to 10 s for molecules with up to 20 heavy atoms, up to 20 s for molecules with more than 60 heavy atoms). The back-end is written in Java 8 using Spring Boot framework and relying on the Hibernate ORM for the communication with the MySQL database, and Thymeleaf as server-side Java template engine to serve dynamic content to the front-end.
Submission of molecules to compute their NP-likeness scores is possible in three ways: uploading a file in SDF, MOL or SMI (SMILES) format for a maximum of 200 molecules, pasting a SMILES string or drawing a molecule in the chemical editor. This threshold is defined only for the public instance of NaPLeS to allow a pleasant user experience and avoid long waiting times. It can be overwritten in a locally installed or cloud instance.
The molecular editor is using the OpenChemLib JavaScript libraries (https://github.com/cheminfo/openchemlib-js). The submitted molecules have their sugar moieties removed, then are fragmented in atom signatures, the scores of the matched fragments are retrieved, summed and normalised by the size of the molecule. The computed NP-likeness scores are reported in a results table with some additional molecular information, the depiction of the submitted molecules and if they exist, the identifiers of the submitted molecules in public databases. The results table is enhanced with DataTables.js library (https://datatables.net) and allows an easy export of tabular data in CSV and Excel formats, copying to the clipboard, sorting the results by all columns and a dynamic search. If any of the submitted molecules contains a fragment that is not in the database, the user is alerted, and the fragment is excluded from the score computation. In the results page distributions of NP-likeness scores as also depicted and where the computed results are situated among them. The schema of the NaPLeS query workflow is shown in Fig. 1b.
The original databases and the numbers of NP used for the NaPLeS' NP-likeness scorer training are listed in Table 1. Data used for the training is exclusively open data. Note that Supernatural II database was excluded from the training set due to doubts on its content, but NP-likeness scores were computed for the molecules present in it and are available in the web-application.
Table 1 Size of individual data sets prior and after processing
At the time of publication of this article, NaPLeS works with a total of 364,807 unique natural products and 489,780 unique synthetic molecules, unified on the basis of structural identity ignoring stereochemistry. The minimal NP-likeness score for this dataset is − 3.63, the maximum is 5.15 and the global average is 0.27 (Fig. 2). The score for synthetic molecules ranges between − 3.61 and 4.01 with an average of − 0.61. The score for natural products is distributed between − 2.31 and 5.15 with an average of 1.48. The top 5 molecules tagged as a NP in public databases with the most negative NP-likeness scores are shown in Fig. 3. The most common fragments in NPs and SMs have different structures and atomic composition (Figs. 4, 5). 95% of molecules in our dataset (NP and SM) have at least one repeated fragment that is not centred on a hydrogen (the latter are not informative as most of fragments centered on a hydrogen in any molecule will be repeated). The biggest difference between NPs and SMs in terms of repeated fragments is the dominant presence of repeated fragments centred on an oxygen in NP compared to SM: 65% of NPs with at least one oxygen have at least one repeated fragment centred on an oxygen (Fig. 6) and only 38% of SM with at least one oxygen possess such fragments. This difference is lesser, although remarkable, for molecules containing nitrogen: fragments centred around a nitrogen are repeated in 14% of NPs compared to 8% of SMs.
Distribution of the NP-likeness score for natural products and synthetic molecules
Top 5 molecules tagged as natural products in public databases with negative NP-likeness score. From left to right: 2,4-dichlorobenzohydrazide, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, malonohydrazide, picric acid and pyridine-2,3-dihydrazide
Top 10 fragments with highest frequency among synthetic molecules
Top 10 fragments with higher frequency among natural products
Examples of highly repeated in natural products fragments centered on an oxygen
The described software suite is the update and improvement of the NP-likeness score published in 2012 by Jayaseelan et al. [2]. This previous version was available for download as a Jar executable and a Taverna workflow. We believe that our containerised update is easier to use for researchers not accustomed to Unix or Windows command-line.
The NP-likeness score can be also used to identify molecules mistakenly annotated as natural products in databases. Indeed, in Fig. 3 are shown the top 5 molecules annotated as NP with the lowest NP-likeness scores. Manual examination of these molecules shows that all of them are in reality synthetic and have been erroneously tagged as NP due to their direct interaction with living organisms (three of them are drugs, one is a bio-remediable toxin and one is a derivate from a natural product). Despite their presence in the training set, their non-natural product likeness was not affected. However, this point also shows that a more extensive curation of the NP dataset is needed. Therefore, NaPLeS' NP-likeness database will be regularly updated and curated for better data quality.
NP-scout [21] is, to our knowledge the only other web application allowing to compute an estimation on how much a submitted compound is likely to be a natural product. The approach used in NP-scout is different, as it computes a probability of a molecule to be a NP based on its physico-chemical properties, Morgan2 fingerprints and MACCS keys. Similarly, to the NP-likeness scorer presented here, NP-scout is also trained on public data, and has a similar processing time per submitted molecule (from 3 to 20 s depending on the molecule size). The NP-likeness scorer accepts more file formats, its results are simpler to interpret and there are more output options. Both tools are consistent with reality and can be seen as complementary, however, NP-scout has a more complex approach, that is less straightforward to understand and to interpret.
Here we have presented NaPLeS, an easily portable, containerised, open source web application based on open data to compute natural product likeness scores for chemical libraries. The NaPLeS NP-likeness scorer is available as a containerised web application and a containerised standalone version whose sole requirement is a docker installation. It is a useful tool that can help to guide the design of new molecules toward interesting regions of chemical space which have been identified as active regions by natural selection. The compilation of a big number of NP with their characteristics and pre-computed fragments offered in the NP-likeness database facilitates the exploration of the structural features of NP on a large scale.
Future developments will focus on the visualization of fragments in the query molecule as well as the search of natural products and their scores in the NP-likeness database by molecular fragments. It is also planned to include the NP-likeness score computed on molecules without the sugar removal to the results' visualisation to allow the users to estimate by themselves the importance of the sugar moieties in the submitted molecules. A REST API, allowing interaction with NaPLeS without browser will be added to the application in the near future.
Availability and requirements
Project name: NaPLeS
Project home page: https://naples.naturalproducts.net
Operating system(s): Platform independent
Programming language: Java
Other requirements: Docker
Any restrictions to use by non-academics: no.
Data and software are freely available under the MIT license. The web application is available at http://naples.naturalproducts.net and the source code can be freely obtained from GitHub (github.com/mSorok/NPdatabaseFiller and github.com/mSorok/NPlsWeb), the data and the data processor is available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2652372) and the NaPLeS web application is downloadable also on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2652356).
Ertl P, Roggo S, Schuffenhauer A (2008) Natural product-likeness score and its application for prioritization of compound libraries. J Chem Inf Model 48:68–74. https://doi.org/10.1021/ci700286x
Jayaseelan KV, Moreno P, Truszkowski A et al (2012) Natural product-likeness score revisited: an open-source, open-data implementation. BMC Bioinform 13:106. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-13-106
Hastings J, de Matos P, Dekker A et al (2013) The ChEBI reference database and ontology for biologically relevant chemistry: enhancements for 2013. Nucleic Acids Res 41:D456–D463. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gks1146
Gaulton A, Bellis LJ, Bento AP et al (2012) ChEMBL: a large-scale bioactivity database for drug discovery. Nucleic Acids Res 40:D1100–D1107. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkr777
Hähnke VD, Kim S, Bolton EE (2018) PubChem chemical structure standardization. J. Cheminformatics 10:36. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-018-0293-8
Chen CY-C (2011) TCM Database@Taiwan: the World's largest traditional Chinese medicine database for drug screening in silico. PLoS ONE 6:e15939. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0015939
NPAtlas. http://www.npatlas.org
Ntie-Kang F, Zofou D, Babiaka SB et al (2013) AfroDb: a select highly potent and diverse natural product library from african medicinal plants. PLoS ONE 8:e78085. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078085
Hatherley R, Brown DK, Musyoka TM et al (2015) SANCDB: a South African natural compound database. J Cheminform 7:29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-015-0080-8
Pilon AC, Valli M, Dametto AC et al (2017) NuBBEDB: an updated database to uncover chemical and biological information from Brazilian biodiversity. Sci Rep 7:7215. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-07451-x
Ye H, Ye L, Kang H et al (2011) HIT: linking herbal active ingredients to targets. Nucleic Acids Res 39:D1055–D1059. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkq1165
Mangal M, Sagar P, Singh H et al (2013) NPACT: naturally occurring plant-based anti-cancer compound-activity-target database. Nucleic Acids Res 41:D1124–D1129. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gks1047
Klementz D, Döring K, Lucas X et al (2016) StreptomeDB 2.0—an extended resource of natural products produced by streptomycetes. Nucleic Acids Res 44:D509–D514. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkv1319
Gu J, Gui Y, Chen L et al (2013) Use of natural products as chemical library for drug discovery and network pharmacology. PLoS ONE 8:e62839. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0062839
SelleckChem. http://www.selleckchem.com
InterBioScreen http://www.ibscreen.com
Banerjee P, Erehman J, Gohlke B-O et al (2015) Super Natural II—a database of natural products. Nucleic Acids Res 43:D935–D939. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gku886
Willighagen EL, Mayfield JW, Alvarsson J et al (2017) The Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) v2.0: atom typing, depiction, molecular formulas, and substructure searching. J Cheminformatics 9:33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-017-0220-4
Carbonell P, Carlsson L, Faulon J-L (2013) Stereo signature molecular descriptor. J Chem Inf Model 53:887–897. https://doi.org/10.1021/ci300584r
Ntie-Kang F, Telukunta KK, Döring K et al (2017) NANPDB: a resource for natural products from northern African sources. J Nat Prod 80:2067–2076. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.7b00283
Chen Y, Stork C, Hirte S, Kirchmair J (2019) NP-scout: machine learning approach for the quantification and visualization of the natural product-likeness of small molecules. Biomolecules 9:43. https://doi.org/10.3390/biom9020043
CAS Article PubMed Central Google Scholar
We would like to thank Peter Ertl (ORCID: 0000-0001-6496-4448), Silvio Roggo (ORCID: 0000-0002-3815-692X) and Ansgar Schuffenhauer for their reproducible article in 2008 as well as Kalai Jayaseelan (ORCID: 0000-0003-1572-0687) for her open data, open source implementation on which this article is based.
This work was supported by the German Research Foundation within the framework CRC1127 ChemBioSys.
University Friedrich-Schiller, Lessingstrasse 8, 07743, Jena, Germany
Maria Sorokina & Christoph Steinbeck
Maria Sorokina
Christoph Steinbeck
MS developed the standalone and web application and surrounding support applications. CS conceived and oversaw the project. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Correspondence to Maria Sorokina.
Sorokina, M., Steinbeck, C. NaPLeS: a natural products likeness scorer—web application and database. J Cheminform 11, 55 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-019-0378-z
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The opening game of Asia Cup 2018 will be played between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on 15th September.
The two sides played each other in the Nidahas Trophy knockout game, in which Bangladesh came out on top in a contest that had its fair of drama and controversy.
The live action will start at 5:00 PM on Saturday (15th September) at Dubai Cricket Stadium.
Bangladesh prevailed in an intense encounter against Sri Lanka played in Nidahas Trophy. The Islanders would be determined to take revenge for their defeat and start on a winning note in Dubai.
Sri Lanka captain Angelo Matthews will be determined to make sure Sri Lanka can change their fortunes in limited-overs cricket. They have poor and inconsistent with bat and ball. Matthews played well in the recent series against South Africa. The side has suffered a setback of sorts as Dinesh Chandimal and Danushka Gunathilaka are ruled out of the Asia Cup due to injuries. Premier bowler Akila Dhananjaya will miss the initial few games due to personal reasons.
Veteran pace bowler Lasith Malinga has been included in the squad but it will be interesting to see how he goes in this competition. On the other hand, Bangladesh will be hoping that Shakib Al Hasan plays this game. The all-rounder has been suffering from a finger injury.
The side is coming into Asia Cup on the back of a successful tour to West Indies. Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan, and Mushfiqur Rahim did exceedingly well in the ODI and T20I series held in West Indies.
The surfaces are expected to batsmen friendly with temperatures expected to be on the higher side in this month. Group B is certainly going to be tougher with Afghanistan rising through the ranks in the one-day game. Both the sides will be focused to make sure they get off to a good start in this opening game of the competition.
Sri Lanka: Angelo Mathews (captain), Dhananjaya de Silva, Dilruwan Perera, Kusal Perera, Kusal Mendis, Thisara Perera, Dasun Shanaka, Upul Tharanga, Amila Aponso, Suranga Lakmal, and Lasith Malinga.


Maximise online entries to the Kiss 100 Father Kissmas competition.
An interactive Facebook app that used listeners profiles (number of friends, status updates) to create a personalised message from Father Kissmas and help them choose a present. Once entered, the app posted their chosen gift to their wall and encouraged their friends to take part.
57,000 competition entries – doubling that of the year before.
35,000 new Kiss 100 Facebook fans.
13.5% increase in listeners to the station – an extra 216,000 people.


Greg is learning a dialect of Lisp that uses brackets, braces and parentheses but he is really bad at figuring out if they are balanced. He's asked you to write a program to help you figure out if everything is balanced.
, the length of Greg's program.


A quick review for you today, we're looking at Lindt's Lindor Peanut Butter Truffles.
In typical Lindor fashion these truffles come sold in bag form usually, but I picked mine up as an individual solo chocolate, so I don't have a ton to talk about with regards to the packaging. Its orange, which I guess thematically works, and has the typical Lindor floral patterning. It also clearly says that its peanut butter flavor. Pretty functional.
Opening the chocolate up we find a standard Lindor chocolate. Great smelling little ball of chocolate, with a small impression on the top and depression on the bottom. I always thought the size here was decent, and even though I just opened it, I kind of like how all Lindors look essentially the same once they're unwrapped. It's comforting.
Biting into the chocolate there's that great Lindt quality at work again. The chocolate is rich and smooth. Its think enough to be noticable but definitely not overpowering. The Lindor here is filled with peanut butter. Well its not really like regular peanut butter. Its a touch sweeter than regular peanut butter, and much creamier. The consistency is perfect, unlike say the peanut butter filling of the Russell Stover Peanut Butter egg. This is thick enough not to drip out, but so very very smooth that in traditional Lindor fashion it has a slight melting quality that's just great. And while its sweet, its not sugary sweet, its more a richness. Maybe like there is some chocolate mixed into the peanut butter.
I'm definitely a fan of this Lindor. It's as smooth as you could want and tastes great. If you haven't ried it definitely pick one of these up!


Post per week!! Here is the latest topic…..
1) New York City, NY – A place that I have gone back year after year to visit the Broadway Dance Center to train. I have been there so many times and been lucky enough to train with some of the best in the industry. It was my home for a while when I was working on a cruise and I remember I would rush off the boat when we were port in Times Square and take a class any chance I would get.
2) Los Angeles, CA – This is one place that I have not been to yet. It is a goal of mine to get to LA one day and to take classes.
3) Somewhere in Germany – I will get to Germany and study dance, it is just a matter of time!!
How about you? Is there a place that you have always wanted to train? Or where have you gotten some of your best training? Which city do you think has the best training centre for dance?
Next week is a holiday weekend and there will be no beginner contemporary class, but check out our classes tab to read all about the new sessions and a new class starting. Hope to see you there!


text:
Home open source Ruby-most important programming language
Ruby-most important programming language
Mayur Jain
Ruby is a scripting language designed by Yukihiro Matsumoto IN 1993, also known as Matz. Ruby is a pure object-oriented programming language.It runs on a variety of platforms, such as Windows, Mac OS, and the various versions of UNIX.Ruby is considered that are similar to those of Smalltalk, Perl, and Python. Perl, Python, and Smalltalk are scripting languages. Smalltalk is a true object-oriented language. Ruby, like Smalltalk, is a perfect object-oriented language. Using Ruby syntax is much easier than using Smalltalk syntax.
ALSO READ: Top 10 cloud security companies and service providers
1 FEATURES IN RUBY:
2 RUBY ON RAILS:
3 RUBY VS PYTHON:
4 STABILITY AND INNOVATION:
5 USAGE:
6 JOB MARKETS
7 CONCLUSION:
FEATURES IN RUBY:
Ruby is open-source and is freely available on the Web, but it is subject to a license.
Ruby is a general-purpose, interpreted programming language.
Ruby is a true object-oriented programming language.
Ruby is a server-side scripting language similar to Python and PERL.
Ruby can be used to write Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts.
Ruby can be embedded into Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
Ruby has a clean and easy syntax that allows a new developer to learn very quickly and easily.
Ruby has similar syntax to that of many programming languages such as C++ and Perl.
Ruby is very much scalable and big programs written in Ruby are easily maintainable.
Ruby can be used for developing Internet and intranet applications.
Ruby can be installed in Windows and POSIX environments.
Ruby support many GUI tools such as Tcl/Tk, GTK, and OpenGL.
Ruby can easily be connected to DB2, MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase.
Ruby has a rich set of built-in functions, which can be used directly into Ruby scripts.
ALSO READ Everything you need to know about Bootstrap
RUBY ON RAILS:
Ruby on Rails is an extremely productive web application framework written in Ruby by David Heinemeier Hansson.
It encourages and facilitates the use of web standards such as JSON or XML for data transfer, and HTML, CSS and JavaScript for display and user interface.
You've probably already used many of the applications that were built with RubyonRails: Basecamp, GitHub, Shopify, Airbnb, Twitch, SoundCloud, Hulu, Zendesk, Square, Highrise, Cookpad. Those are just some of the big names, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of applications built with the framework since its release in 2004.
Ruby on Rails is open source software, so not only is it free to use, you can also help make it better
More than 45000 people have already contributed code to Rails. It's easier than you think to become one of them
RUBY VS PYTHON:
Python and Ruby are among some of the most popular programming languages for developing websites, web-based apps, and web services.
In many ways, the two languages have a lot in common. Visually they are quite similar, and both provide programmers with high-level, object-oriented coding, an interactive shell, standard libraries, and persistence support. However, Python and Ruby are worlds apart in their approach to solving problems because their syntax and philosophies vary greatly, primarily because of their respective histories.
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Which one to implement for web development requires some thought because all languages have strengths and weaknesses and your decision will have consequences.
STABILITY AND INNOVATION:
Python's community already includes a large Linux and academic community and therefore offers many academic use cases in both math and science. That support gives the community a stability and diversity that only grows as Python increasingly is used for web development.
However, Ruby's community has focused primarily on web development from the get-go. It tends to innovate more quickly than the Python community, but this innovation also causes more things to break. In addition, while it has gotten more diverse, it has yet to reach the level of diversity that Python has.
Python has been by companies including Google, Pinterest, Instagram, National Geographic, Mozilla Firefox, and the Washington Post.
Ruby has been used by companies like Apple, Twitter, Airbnb, Shopify, Github, and Groupon
JOB MARKETS
This is comparing it to Python, PHP, and Java. Rails have the crazy top percentage growth. Part of that is that it's growing from such a small base. This sort of data is borne out pretty well if you go to Indeed or you look up language statistics on GitHub or StackOverflow. There's a strong and growing demand for Ruby and Rails developers. It's popular with startups. For a long time Rails was a niche startup language, but now it's gained a lot of popularity even within larger corporations. I know Apple does a lot of internal support sites with Rails and Amazon is the same way.
Definitely. That stuff is always worth getting involved with. For both communities, there are meetups all over the world. I live in Boise, Idaho and there's a Python meetup that meets once a month and a Ruby meetup that meets once a month. If they're meeting here in Boise, they're probably meeting wherever people are located. It's great. It can be a really intimidating thing when you're first getting started because it feels scary and like you don't know enough. I think most of these places you'd be surprised. You'd go there and the people would be welcoming. They're excited for people to be getting into it. They'll have resources and advice. It's similar to what a mentor does for you. You're joining a special club that's always welcoming new members.
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For web development, Ruby has Rails and Python has Django. Both are powerful frameworks, so when it comes to web development, you can't go wrong with either language. Your decision will ultimately come down to your level of experience and your philosophical preferences.If you are interested in building web applications and would like to learn a language that's used more generally, try Python. You'll get a diverse community and lots of influence and support from the various industries in which it is used.
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Best chrome extensions for web developers and designers to raise productivity today!
Best chrome extensions for web developers and designers to raise productivity...
Santhosh - November 10, 2018
Chrome extensions are very useful for both the developers and designers, some of these extensions enhance the abilities of developer tools, some replicate the...


Please note that the SW band for the tour will change between the European and American legs. The line up for all of the European shows will be the same as on the forthcoming album: Guthrie Govan – guitar, Adam Holzman – keyboards, Theo Travis – flute/sax, Nick Beggs – bass, and Marco Minnemann – drums.
However, due to another touring commitment, Marco is unable to join the band on the North / South American leg of the tour. Sorry as I am to not have Marco for the whole tour, I'm very happy to announce that Chad Wackerman will be taking over the drum stool for these shows.
Chad is perhaps best known for being Frank Zappa's drummer for 7 years in the eighties, until Zappa's retirement from live performance, but he is also a composer and band leader in his own right, and has performed with many other high profile artists. Needless to say Chad is an extraordinary musician who will bring his own talents and unique style to the SW band.


text:
Q: PHP string length PHP coding standards say:

... PHP holds the length property of each string, and that it
      shouldn't be calculated with strlen(). Write your functions in a such
      a way so that they'll take advantage of the length property, both
      for efficiency and in order for them to be binary-safe. ...

How can I access this length property? Or do I misunderstand it?

A: As Ignacio mentioned in another post:

They're talking about the C function, not the PHP function. The C
  function will stop counting after the first \0, but PHP strings can
  contain \0 elsewhere other than the end.

That document is most likely about how to extend PHP's engine, rather than programming in PHP itself.

A: These coding standards are for not intended for web sites developpers using PHP, but for the developpers of the PHP engine itself.
PHP is developped using the C language, and the strlen function to avoid is the C one, not the PHP one.

A: It's not a "property" in the sense that it would be in other languages (like C#).
You cannot do:
    myString.Length;
Instead you would need to do:
    strlen(myString);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


World of Longplays - News: Calibrate your Screen!
I have tried to write a small tutorial on calibrating your screen for outputting a more accurate image. This allows you to view games and longplays as intended and more importantly to those recording games, to capture an accurate image. While the solution here is far from perfect, I hope it can provide more pleasing results.
Just what I was looking for. Anyway, if I'm not sure if my monitor is calibrated correctly, I try looking at the game and at the video after it got reprocessed by Megui. The High dinamic rendering effect disapear, so I'm trying to tweak the video with a contrast set to 1.1, then, to compensate the new brigthness in unwanted spots, reduced the brigthness to -3, -2 or so, just looking for it at the moment.


Hear what our current graduate assistants have to say!
Hear what some of our alumni have to say!
Here at UCA Housing & Residence Life, our graduate assistants get a unique, quality experience as they directly oversee their own facility or program. The autonomy, support, and development provided by our department, coupled with the education from the College Student Personnel Services and Administration Master's Program, ensures that you will graduate at a higher proficiency level than the average student affairs graduate student. Don't believe us? Listen to what some of our alumni have to say!
We are in the ACUHO-I Region of SWACUHO (Southwest Association of College and University Housing Officers) and one of our graduate assistants has won the SWACUHO Bob Huss Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year Award every year since 2014 for the state of Arkansas.


text: Deborah Forman is the author of four books, all published by Schiffer Publishing: Perspectives on the Provincetown Art Colony, a two-volume history (2011); Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: Images of Land and Sea (2013); Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: People & Places (2014); Contemporary Cape Cod Artists: On Abstraction (2015). She wrote Horizon by the Sea: Paintings by George Xiong (2015), has written an essay for The Art of Carmen Cicero (Schiffer, 2013). Two of her essays are included in The Tides of Provincetown catalogue published in conjunction with the 2011 New Britain Museum of American Art's exhibition. She wrote the script, conducted the interviews, and worked on the filming for Art In Its Soul, an award-winning documentary on the history of the Provincetown art colony, aired on public television stations nationwide. Deborah writes a monthly art column for the Cape Cod Times, and has published articles in the Cape Cod Times, Cape Cod VIEW magazine, and Art New England. She was the features editor of the Cape Cod Times and editor in chief of Cape Cod VIEW. She has a degree in journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia. She has taught four courses at Open University of Wellfleet and also at the Cape Cod Museum of Art. Deborah, who shows her art at Miller White Fine Arts in South Dennis, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art.


To fight the highest inflation Colombia has seen in 15 years, the nation's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate, up 25 basis points to 7.5%, for the tenth consecutive month. After the June 22 move, Finance Minister Mauricio Cárdenas suggested this may be the final increase, however, as the monetary policy adjustments made thus far will counteract spiking consumer prices.
Though inflation his 8.2% in May, Colombia's central bank, Banco de la República, noted that the average of core inflation indicators fell to 6.3%. "Analysts' inflation expectations to one and two years posted at 4.4% and 3.7%, respectively," said the bank in a statement.
In addition to the underlying economic fundamentals, the bank believes the adjustments made to the interest rate can reign in inflation back to the government's target band of 2%–4% in 2017. Falling oil prices, the subsequent peso devaluation, and a difficult El Niño season were credited as the top reasons for inflation climbing so high..
In addition, Banco de la República highlighted that Colombia's current account deficit in the first quarter of 2016 was $3.38 billion USD, or 5.6% of GDP. This was below the projected sum.


Lose those boring factory light bulbs and upgrade to PIAA's High Performance Bulbs.
Xtreme White Plus – The very popular Xtreme White Plus technology is now available in H9 style bulbs. Rated at 4000K and illuminating 120watts of light from only a 65watts draw, this bulb emits a brilliant Xtreme cool white beam that lights up road hazards and highway signs long before a normal halogen bulb would.


On Wednesday, over the course of four hours 446 people made 184 LEGO ships. Entrants ranged from 2 years old to 51 and designs encompassed many different types of ships, from hotels to gardens to crocodile ships with tails for propulsion.
These 184 ships were divided into two age ranges and whittled down to a short list of 13 per age group. There are a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize from each group and they will each receive prizes generously donated to us by LEGO from their CITY Coastguard range. The winners were chosen by Commanding Officer of HMS Victory, Lt. Cmdr. Rod Strathern and his crew. They were all extremely impressed with the creativity, ingenuity and construction skills of all the builders who worked so hard to create our huge LEGO fleet.
The judges were really impressed by how Evan has managed to create a ship which has a very similar design to the current P2000 patrol boats used by university students out of LEGO bricks. LEGO should keep an eye on this designer of the future!
The judges really liked the idea of a single manned boat/ hovercraft with aerodynamic features.
The judges found this design to be extremely creative and imagiantive with all the possible functions that it may have.
The judges were impressed by the use of a towing car to get this speedboat to where it needed to be, a practical solution for our LEGO fleet. The use of the rudder above the water is clearly a new way of steering that we haven't yet considered.
The judges were very impressed with how well this ship was built and how closely it resembles the style of an RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) naval support vessel.
This fun mixture of old and modern ship design was quickly spotted by our judges.
The winners have been informed and will soon have their paws on our exciting LEGO prizes. The first prize for each category was a LEGO City Coastguard Patrol ship and launch. Second prizes were the Coastguard seaplane or helicopter and the 3rd prizes were the Coastguard jeep and rescue boat.
On Friday, all the 184 ships that entered the competition will be uploaded to this website. Well done to everyone who took part and a huge thank you to LEGO for their support and generous donation of sets.
Now, who fancies building LEGO ships next year?


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