Once upon a time, there was an office executive. He went to work early, went home on-time and clocked in 35 hours a week. He loved his wife, his children loved him, they watched YouTube together in the evenings, they went to the zoo on weekends and he and his wife lived happily ever after.
This is Asia. A beacon of productivity shining brightly from the East. Our culture has bred a sadomasochist attitude towards work. Japan even has a word to describe "death by overworking in the Japanese workplace": Karoshi. Today, we see it normal to clock in on average 9 hours a day and continue beyond office hours (70 per cent chose to complete unfinished work in the office while the remaining 30 per cent chose to bring work home, says JobStreet).
It is culture really. Some staff feel awkward if they leave the office before the boss does. Excellence has been imbued in us since young, and we have been conditioned to work hard, work fast and more often than not, equate putting in longer hours to working hard. Some old fashioned bosses still think if you do not stay the hours, send enough emails or make a quantifiable number of telephone calls; you're not working hard enough. This attitude is, in a word: sadistic.
We believe that, if you have to work beyond your allotted time, you're not being effective. Some bosses I know still practice very old fashioned way of doing work: time wasting meetings, unnecessary processes and ineffective management creates barriers that hinders productive work. Bosses: more time spent at work does not equate to more revenue for your business. When an employee starts to lose motivation, or gets worn out from a mundane tasks, it is time to think about how to make work more interesting for this person. Holidays are just quick fixes and whilst salary increases are good, it may not be the best, nor the only way to rejuvenate morale.
Wouldn't you like to work for a company that is seen to pursue employee happiness? These employers can be identified easily through the Work-Life Excellence Award logo. (Here's a list of some of these guys) This award was introduced by The Ministry of Manpower and its purpose is to encourage companies to understand that Work Life balance is not just some fluffy concept.
To help companies, SPRING Singapore has developed an entire host of funds and grants that companies of all sizes can apply for .
These are all good initiatives, yet employers need to see the benefits. We know of companies that push their own anti work-life programs of their own: for example, giving staff freebies by staying at work longer. The culture of working late is deeply set in our society, it is considered an honour and friends are actually quite proud to make perverse brags in everyday conversation about how late, long they've worked. This must stop.
Robert Pozen's recent article in the New York Times suggests that organisations should take a results-orientated approach rather than an "hours-centric" one, setting mutually-agreed quantitative and qualitative Key Performance Indicators that employees can work towards achieving. This metric would encourage employees to work more efficiently knowing that he/she will be judged by their output rather than "office face-time".
Working towards a results-oriented culture would also reap a multitude of benefits for the organisation. The work-Life Balance Index, published by Regus, points to a connection between a good work-life balance and higher productivity. Employees would also feel less burnout leading to a lower turnover rate, better employee retention and less of the organisation's resources wasted on recruitment. With Singapore going into a labour crunch, employers with foresight would do well to retain their current batch of employees.
In the debate of work/life balance, fingers fly instinctively to employers as the source of grief. Workers do not see that they themselves have been a product of a society that from an early age put great weight on being competitive. This magazine believes that employees need to step up and take responsibility for their own work-life balance, pushing and enforcing boundaries that would help them achieve a good compromise. It is up to us to prioritise what is important and choose not to let peer-pressure or unrealistic expectations from employers affect a good work-life balance. Only when there is collective effort from employees demanding policies that promote work-life balance or choosing to work for organisations that implement such policies will the tide turn significantly, forcing organisations to re-look at creating a conducive and family-friendly work environment to continue to attract workers.
Ultimately, organisations must be ready for some comprimise. The proprietor, board of directors or CEO must understand that their motivation is stronger than the average employee's. Instead of foisting corporate ideals onto a weary workforce, it is far more profitable to life through the eyes of a salaried employee. Money is great, is important and forms the basis of employment in the first place. Next comes people management: creating an ideal environment, pushing for happiness and understanding each individual's career goals and pushing the right buttons.
Oprah Winfrey once said "You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once." Maybe not right now but if we demanded for our right to life, a right to leave on-time and the right to spend time and show love for our families, then there will be a light on the horizon: and it will be as bright as the fluorescent tubes that brighten your offices at night.
I totally agree that ultimately companies must be willing to compromise. At the end of the day, companies and its leaders must recognise that its employees are its biggest assets and show appreciation by allowing some form of flexibility.
I recently went for an interview with a company. In fact, we had several rounds of interviews as the company placed a huge emphasis on spending enough time with the prospective employee to allow him/her to understand the company's goals, work culture and the opportunity to speak to different people working there to get a "feel" of what it is like to work there.
What I like about this company is that it has a low staff turnover ie lost only 3 pp in 4 years with a headcount of around 50 staff worldwide (Singapore, HK, London and Sydney). So long as the staff meet its KPIs and billing targets, there is time flexibility. The boss cited an example of a top performing staff who is fond of travelling and he has granted him to work a 3-day week, as well as taking a week off every so often when he meets his targets.
For married women thinking of starting a family, the boss is also open in its discussion and welcomes the idea for female staff returning to work on a part-time basis after maternity leave.
This is not to mention, motivational trips away in the region as a form of staff reward for the entire company once it reaches its business goals.
It is a two-way thing. So long as the company recognises the value of results driven approach of managing its staff as opposed to hours centre, it will be challenging for employees to achieve work-life balance. On the employees' end, they too must to live up to their end of the deal.


text:
\section{Introduction}

Deep learning has shown state-of-the-art performance in image reconstruction tasks across a variety of medical modalities \cite{zhu18,sun2016deep,Adler18,lucas18,ghimire2018generative}. These approaches typically formulate the problems in standard Euclidean image grids. However, in many problems, the unknown variables of interests and the corresponding measurements are defined over non-Euclidean geometrical domains: their physics-based relationship, both forward and inverse, is largely reliant on the underlying geometry. Examples include electrical activity in the heart and the potential it generates on the body surface \cite{bacoyannis2019deep,ghimire2019noninvasive,ghimire2017overcoming}, or electrical activity in the brain and its potential measurements on the skull surface \cite{michel2012towards}. Standard Euclidean deep learning neglecting the underlying geometry not only ignores the geometry-dependent imaging physics, but also has difficulty in generalizing over different geometry.

To design inverse imaging (image reconstruction) networks that can generalize across geometry, there are two general approaches. One is to make the network invariant to geometry by, for instance, an information bottleneck that removes geometrical information from the input data \cite{ghimire2019improving}. While demonstrating improved generalization to geometrical changes \cite{ghimire2019improving}, the treatment of non-Euclidean data as Euclidean data ties the network to the training mesh and prevents its direct application to unseen meshes from new patients. Alternatively, one can make the network equivariant to the geometry. In \cite{bacoyannis2019deep}, for instance, the reconstruction of electrical activity in the heart is formulated and conditioned on 2D image scans of the heart \cite{bacoyannis2019deep}.   Rather than explicitly describing the geometry, this approach defines non-Euclidean variables at a small region of interest within the Euclidean image grid. How to extend it to consider the geometry of both the unknown (\textit{e.g.}, the heart) and the measurement (\textit{e.g.}, the body), and to explicitly consider the geometry-dependent physics in between, is not clear.

Graph convolutional neural networks (GCNN) provide an appealing alternative to solving inverse imaging between non-Euclidean variables defined over geometrical domains \cite{bronstein2017geometric}. Significant efforts in GCNN have been made for node- and graph-level classifications,  graph embedding, and graph generation \cite{wu2020comprehensive}. However, no existing work has considered learning geometry-dependent relationship between signals defined on two separate graphs, which is a critical component of achieving physics-based inverse imaging.

In this paper, we present a non-Euclidean inverse imaging (image reconstruction) network that 1) directly models the unknown and its measurement over their geometrical domains, and 2) models and learns their inverse relationship -- as informed by the physics -- as a function of the geometry. It consists of two novel contributions. First, to describe the spatiotemporal variables (unknowns and measurements) over their respective geometrical domain, we introduce an encoding-decoding architecture composed of spatial-temporal graph convolutional neural networks (ST-GCNN) defined separately for each domain. Second, to learn the geometry-dependent physics in between, we model it with a bipartite graph between the graphical embedding of the two geometrical domains. We applied the presented method for reconstructing spatiotemporal electrical potential on the ventricular surface from body-surface potential. In synthetic and real-data experiments, we tested the presented network in a series of generalization tasks with increasing difficulty, and compared it to Euclidean baselines without and with a geometry-invariant bottleneck \cite{ghimire2019improving}. By learning inverse imaging in a geometry-dependent and physics-informed fashion, the presented network showed an improved generalization to geometrical changes in the data.

\section{Methodology}

Cardiac electrical excitation produces time-varying voltage signals on the body surface, following quasi-static approximation of the electromagnetism \cite{plonsey2001bioelectric}. Given a pair of heart and torso geometry, the governing physics can be numerically approximated to relate signals in the heart $\mathbf{X}_t$ to those on the body surface $\mathbf{Y}_t$:
\begin{equation}
    \mathbf{Y}_t
    = \mathbf{H} \mathbf{X}_t
    \quad \forall t \in \{1,...,T\}.
    \label{bemrforward}
\end{equation}

Note that $\mathbf{X}_t$ and $\mathbf{Y}_t$ live on the 3D geometry of the heart and torso surface, respectively. The forward operator $\mathbf{H}$ defines the physics of their relationship and is highly dependent on the given heart-torso geometry. Traditional approaches to reconstructing $\mathbf{X}_t$ from $\mathbf{Y}_t$ starts with this forward model, exploiting the geometry and physics behind the inverse relationship. When using Euclidean deep learning for direct inference of $\mathbf{X}_t$ from $\mathbf{Y}_t$, the network becomes solely reliant on labeled data pairs, incorporating neither the physics nor the geometry underlying the problem. The proposed method is set to bridge these gaps by 1) allowing the description of $\mathbf{X}_t$ and $\mathbf{Y}_t$ in their geometrical domains, and 2) explicitly modeling their physics relationship as a function of the geometry.

\begin{figure}[t]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{network.png}
\caption{Illustration of the presented non-Euclidean inverse imaging network.
}
\label{fig:overview}
\end{figure}

As summarized in Fig.~\ref{fig:overview}, we present an encoder-decoder architecture with ST-GCNNs to embed/generate $\mathbf{Y}_t$ and $\mathbf{X}_t$ over their respective geometry. The geometry-dependent relationship between the latent variables of $\mathbf{Y}_t$ and $\mathbf{X}_t$ is learned via a bipartite graph over the graph embedding of the two geometry.

\subsection{Encoding-Decoding with ST-GCNNs}

As $\mathbf{X}_t$ and $\mathbf{Y}_t$ are temporal sequences living on 3D geometry, we describe their generation/embedding with ST-GCNNs that consist of interlaced graph convolution in space and regular convolution in time. As illustrated in Fig.~\ref{fig:overview}, both spatial and temporal dimensions are reduced/expanded during encoding/decoding.

\subsubsection{Geometrical Representation in Graphs:}
We represent triangular meshes of the heart and torso as two separate undirected graphs: $\mathcal{G} = (\mathcal{V}, \mathcal{E}, \mathbf{U}, \mathbf{F})$, where vertices $\mathcal{V}$ consist of all $V$ mesh nodes and edges $\mathcal{E}$ describe the vertex connection as defined by the triangular mesh. $\mathbf{U} \in [0, 1]^{V \times V \times 3}$ consists of edge attributes $\mathbf{u}(i, j)$ between vertex $i$ and $j$ as normalized differences in their 3D coordinates $((x_i - x_j) / s, (y_i - y_j) / s, (z_i - z_j) / s)$ if an edge exists, and 0 otherwise, where $s = \sqrt{(x_i - x_j)^2 + (y_i - y_j)^2 + (z_i - z_j)^2}$. $\mathbf{F} \in \mathrm{R}^{V \times M \times T}$ represents the time sequences of node features across all vertices.

\subsubsection{Spatial Graph Convolution:}
A continuous spline kernel for spatial convolution is used such that it can be applied across graphs \cite{fey2018splinecnn}. Given graph node features $\mathbf{f} \in \mathrm{R}^{V \times M}$ at each time instant, the convolution kernel is defined as:
\begin{equation}
    g_l(\mathbf{u}) = \sum_{\mathbf{p} \in \mathcal{P}} w_{\mathbf{p}, l} B_{\mathbf{p}}(\mathbf{u}),
    \label{spline-kernel}
\end{equation}
where $1 \leq l \leq M$, the spline basis  $B_{\mathbf{p}}(\mathbf{u}) = \prod_{r=1}^d N_{r, p_r}^m(\mathbf{u})$ with $N_{r, p_r}^m$ denoting $d$ open B-spline basis of degree $m$ based on equidistant knot vectors, $\mathcal{P} = (N_{1, r}^m)_r \times ... \times (N_{d, r}^m)_r$ is the Cartesian product of the B-spline bases, and $w_{\mathbf{p}, l}$ are trainable parameters. Given kernel $\mathbf{g} = (g_1,...,g_M)$, spatial convolution for vertex $i\in \mathcal{V}$ with its neighborhood $N(i)$ is defined as
\begin{equation}
    (f_l * g_l)(i) = \sum_{j \in N(i), \mathbf{p} \in \mathcal{P}(\mathbf{u}(i, j))} f_l(j) \cdot g_l(\mathbf{u}(i, j)).
    \label{spline-cnn}
\end{equation}
Since the B-spline basis in equation (\ref{spline-kernel}) is conditioned on local geometry, the learned kernel can be applied across graphs and the convolution incorporates geometrical information within the graph. This spatial convolution is independently applied to each time frame of the signal sequence in parallel.

To make the network deeper and more expressive, we introduce residual blocks here to pass the input of spatial convolution through a skip connection with 1D convolution before adding it to the output of the spatial convolution.

\subsubsection{Temporal Modeling:}
After spatial convolution, temporal convolution using standard 1D convolution is applied to the time sequence for each node and feature. The number of filters is set to compresses the time sequence in dimension in the encoder, while expanding in the decoder.
The geometry graph remains the same for the complete temporal sequences.

\subsubsection{Hierarchical Graph Composition:}
To allow pooling and unpooling in space, we further introduce a hierarchical graph representation of the two geometry. While various graph clustering \cite{dhillon2007weighted} and pooling methods \cite{wu2020comprehensive} exist, a unique constraint needs to be met here due to the underlying physics: the topology of the geometry must be preserved in its hierarchical representations to prevent non-physical spatial propagation of signals. Here, we obtain hierarchical geometry representations by specialized mesh coarsening method in CGAL \cite{cgal:c-tsms-12-20a,lindstrom1998fast}.

The hierarchical graph representation is predefined and stored in matrices to allow efficient matrix multiplications for pooling/unpooling \cite{dhamala2019bayesian}. If $\mathcal{G}_o$ is a graph with $N_1$ vertices and $\mathcal{G}_c$ is its coarsened graph with $N_2$ vertices, we use a binary matrix $\mathbf{P} \in \mathrm{R}^{N_1 \times N_2}$, where $\mathbf{P}_{ij} = 1$ if vertex $i$ in $\mathcal{G}_o$ is grouped to vertex $j$ in $\mathcal{G}_c$, and $\mathbf{P}_{ij} = 0$ otherwise. Given feature map $\mathbf{f}_o \in \mathrm{R}^{N_1 \times M}$ over $\mathcal{G}_o$ and $\mathbf{f}_c \in \mathrm{R}^{N_2 \times M}$ over $\mathcal{G}_c$, the pooling operation is defined by $\mathbf{f}_c = \mathbf{P}_n^T \mathbf{f}_o$ and the unpooling operation is defined by $\mathbf{f}_o = \mathbf{P} \mathbf{f}_c$, where $\mathbf{P}_n^T$ is column normalized from $\mathbf{P}$.

\subsubsection{Summary:}
As summarized in Fig.~\ref{fig:overview}, each ST-GCNN block consists of spatial graph convolution, temporal convolution, and spatial pooling/unpooling as described above. Using these building blocks, we obtain an encoder that embeds body-surface signal $\mathbf{Y}_t$ over its torso geometry, and a decoder that generates heart-surface potential $\mathbf{X}_t$ over its heart geometry. Next, we learn the physics-based relationship between the two latent space as a function of their geometry.

\subsection{Learning Geometry-Dependent Physics in Latent Space}
As explained earlier, the physics between $\mathbf{X}_t$ and $\mathbf{Y}_t$ is heavily reliant on the underlying heart-torso geometry: according to equation (\ref{bemrforward}), the potential on one torso node can be represented as a linear combination of the potential from all heart nodes, where the coefficients are determined by the relative position between each pair of torso-heart nodes. We assume the linearity to hold between the heart and torso signals in the latent space during inverse imaging, and explicitly model it as a function of the relative position between embedded heart and torso geometry, where a quadratic function exists between the coefficients of the linear function and the geometry.

To do so, we construct a bipartite graph where the edge exists between each pair of heart and torso vertices from their respective graph embedding: the edge attribute $\mathbf{u}(i, j)$ between torso vertex $i$ and heart vertex $j$ thus describes their relative geometrical relationship. The bipartite graph is also learned using the complete temporal sequences. For latent representation $\mathbf{z}_h(i)$ on vertex $i$ of the latent heart mesh, we define it as a linear combination of latent representation $\mathbf{z}_b(j)$ across all vertices $j$ of the latent torso mesh:
\begin{equation}
    \mathbf{z}_h(i) = \sum_{j} \mathbf{z}_b(j) \cdot \hat{\mathbf{h}}(\mathbf{u}(i, j)),
    \label{invele}
\end{equation}
where the coefficients $\hat{\mathbf{h}}(\mathbf{u}(i, j))$ are dependant on the relative position $\mathbf{u}(i, j)$ between the two graphs. Aside from being a physics-informed function, this geometric parameterization allows the learned function to generalize across different torso-heart geometry. None of this would be achievable by, for instance, using fully connected layers between $\mathbf{z}_b$ and $\mathbf{z}_h$. Exploiting the similarity between eq.(\ref{invele}) and eq.(\ref{spline-cnn}), we recast linear relationship in eq.(\ref{invele}) using spline convolution, with the geometry-dependent coefficients $\hat{\mathbf{h}}$ learned as the spline convolution kernel.

\subsection{Loss Function}
Denoting the encoder as $\mathbf{z}_b = E_\theta(\mathbf{Y})$, the geometry-dependent inverse function as $\mathbf{z}_h = h_\rho(\mathbf{z}_b)$, and the decoder as as $\mathbf{X} = D_\phi(\mathbf{z}_h)$, parameters $\theta, \rho$ and $\phi$ of the network are optimized by minimizing the mean square error between the reconstructed $\hat{\mathbf{X}}_i$ on given pairs of training data $\{ \mathbf{X}_i, \mathbf{Y}_i \}_{i=1}^N$:
\begin{equation}
    \mathcal{L} =\sum_i || \mathbf{X}_i -  D_\phi \left(h_\rho \left(E_\theta \left(\mathbf{Y}_i \right) \right) \right) ||_2^2.
\end{equation}

\section{Experiments}
We design a series of generalization tasks of increasing difficulty. In specific, we trained the network using synthetic data simulated on a specific pair of heart-torso geometry, including geometrical variations introduced by rotating the heart along the longitudinal axis (z-axis) for a predefined range. We then tested the trained network regarding generalization to: 1) synthetic data simulated on the same heart-torso geometry but with z-axis heart rotations beyond the training range, 2) synthetic data simulated on the same heart-torso geometry but with novel heart rotations along frontal axis (x-axis) and sagittal axis (y-axis), 3)  synthetic data simulated on new heart-torso geometry from new patients, and 4) real data on different heart-torso geometry.

The first two tests considered comparisons to Euclidean encoding-decoding networks \cite{ghimire2019improving}, both in a deterministic formulation and in a stochastic formulation with improved invariance to input geometry. These Euclidean networks will not apply without re-training on the new geometry in the last two tests.

\subsubsection{Models and Training:}
In all experiments, the presented network consists of three ST-GCNN blocks and two standard convolutional layers in the encoder, one spline convolutional layer in the inverse block, and four ST-GCNN blocks and two standard convolutional layers in the decoder. We used ELU activation, ADAM optimizer \cite{kingma2014adam}, and a learning rate of $5 \times 10^{-4}$. The Euclidean baselines followed the architectures presented in \cite{ghimire2019improving}, which consist of cascaded LSTMs and fully connected layers in the encoder and decoder.

For training, we generated pairs of simulated potential data on a specific heart-torso mesh. On the heart, we simulated spatiotemporal propagation sequence of action potential by the Aliev-Panfilov (AP) model \cite{aliev1996simple}, considering a combination of 38 different origins of activation and 16 spatial distribution of scar tissue in the heart. We then rotated the heart by -2$^\circ$ to 2$^\circ$ around the z-axis, obtaining approximately 2700 sets of different body-surface potential embodying changes of heart orientations in the data. All body-surface potential were corrupted with 20dB Gaussian noises for inverse imaging. Using NVIDIA Tesla T4 with 16 GB memory, the geometric model took 3 days for training.

Synthetic data for testing were generated in a similar fashion, with additional geometry changes as detailed in later sections. The reconstruction accuracy was measured by the mean square  error (MSE) and correlation  coefficient (CC)  between  the  reconstructed  and  actual  potential sequence on the heart surface.

\begin{figure}[t]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{metric.png}
    \caption{Comparison of reconstruction accuracy
    among the three comparison models in test data with A) heart rotations outside training range, and B)-C) novel rotations not seen in training. X-axis represents the degree of rotation relative to training.}
    \label{fig:exp1}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[!ht]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.8\textwidth]{z_rotation.png}
    \caption{Reconstructed electrical activity by three comparison models when z = -19$^\circ$.}
    \label{fig:exp11_view}
\end{figure}

\subsubsection{Generalization to Rotations Outside Training Range:}
We first applied the trained models to body-surface potential data generated when the heart was rotated by -20$^\circ$ to 20$^\circ$ around the z-axis, a range far outside that considered in training. Fig.~\ref{fig:exp1}A summarizes the quantitative metrics of the three models on approximately 22,000 test cases, against the change in heart rotations from training data. As shown, the presented method (red) outperformed the deterministic (green) and stochastic (blue) Euclidean baseline  in all metrics for all heart rotations. The standard deviation of the geometric method lies in between that of deterministic and stochastic baseline.

\subsubsection{Generalization to Novel Rotations:}
We then tested the trained models on approximately 66,000 body-surface data generated from novel heart rotations around the x-axis (-20$^\circ$ to +40$^\circ$) and y-axis (-20$^\circ$ to +40$^\circ$). As summarized in Fig.~\ref{fig:exp1}B-C, the presented model (red) significantly outperformed the two Euclidean models in all metrics. Furthermore,  we observe in Fig.~\ref{fig:exp1}B that the geometric method performs better as the test set deviates more from the training set (up to 40 degree of rotation). This supports that, as test data move further away from training, the gain in the generalization ability of the presented method would become more significant in comparison to its Euclidean alternatives. The standard deviations of the three models are comparable.

\subsubsection{Generalization to New Geometry:}
We then moved to apply the trained network to simulated data generated on two new heart-torso meshes. This represents a realistic scenario where the network trained on a group of patients will be applied to new patients. Fig.~\ref{fig:exp2} provides box plots of the two metrics obtained on the two new geometry over, respectively, 491 and 444 test data. Despite a drop in performance in comparison to the earlier results on the training geometry, reasonable accuracy was achieved considering the difficulty of the generalization task. Note that Euclidean networks will not be applicable here unless being re-trained on data generated on the new geometry \cite{ghimire2019improving}.

\begin{figure}[t]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.8\textwidth]{metrics_topology.png}
    \caption{Accuracy of reconstruction on training geometry (1) and new geometry (2/3).}
    \label{fig:exp2}
\end{figure}

\subsubsection{Generalization to Real Data:}
Finally, we tested the presented network on \textit{in-vivo} 120-lead body-surface potential data obtained on two patients with scar-related ventricular arrhythmia. Since the heart-torso geometry of patient $\sharp 1$ was used in training, we were able to apply the Euclidean baselines for comparison purpose. From each reconstructed potential sequence on each patient, we identified the region of scar tissue by nodes whose activation was shorter than a predefined duration. The results summarized in Fig.~\ref{fig:exp3} demonstrated the ability of the presented network to not only generalize across geometry but across the shifts between simulated and real data, approximating the location of scar tissue with evident visual improvement over its Euclidean alternatives.

\begin{figure}[t]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.9\textwidth]{realData_combined.png}
    \caption{Region of scar identified from reconstructed potential sequence on a) the training patient and b) a new patient.
    The ground truth was from \textit{in-vivo} voltage mapping.}
    \label{fig:exp3}
\end{figure}

\section{Conclusion}

In this work, we present a novel non-Euclidean network for learning geometry-dependent and physics-based inverse imaging between spatiotemporal variables living on 3D geometrical domains. In generalization tests with increased difficulty, we demonstrated the ability of the presented network to better generalize to unseen geometrical variations in comparison to its Euclidean alternatives, and to directly apply to new geometry which is not possible with Euclidean approaches. An immediate future work is to explore the use of fine-tuning with a small number of labeled data in order to improve the performance of the network when applying it to new patients. To our knowledge, this is the first geometry-dependent inverse imaging network over non-Euclidean domains and its application to reconstructing cardiac electrical activity from surface potential.

\bibliographystyle{splncs04}

\section{Introduction}
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Please note that the first paragraph of a section or subsection is
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The contribution should contain no more than four levels of
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\caption{Table captions should be placed above the
tables.}\label{tab1}
\begin{tabular}{|l|l|l|}
\hline
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\hline
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1st-level heading &  {\large\bfseries 1 Introduction} & 12 point, bold\\
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3rd-level heading & {\bfseries Run-in Heading in Bold.} Text follows & 10 point, bold\\
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Buenos Aries – There are lot more to do in Buenos Aries than the dancing tango that includes the theatres, museums, polo matches, fairs, shopping or simply walking through the city are interesting ideas to try out.
Buenos Aries is always found to be the dynamic and mysterious destination and in which like the big city you can feel and get the variety of experiences. In general those who visit the Buenos Aries are very glad in wondering the unique beauty of this city. However before you travel or plan to visit a place you need to gather complete information about the place and here are few things which you need to know before visiting the Buenos Aries in Argentina. They are.
What is the political situation of the place?
How is economy doing there?
How much money should I take with me?
When you gather answers for the above questions then your tour trip will be memorable one and you can also enjoy visiting the place very happily by getting rid out of the problems.
Generally web hosting is the important part of building efficient website and most of the companies are offering web hosting service. A web hosting service is the type of internet hosting service and it allows the organizations and individuals to create their website accessible through World Wide Web. There are different types of the web hosting services are there such as smaller hosting service, larger hosting service, image hosting service, file hosting service, blog hosting service and video hosting service. If you choose this service then your website files are stored in the remote computer server.
small scale business goes for managed or shared service because it is costs less. Most of the web host provide all in one fee for bandwidth, operating system, set-up, support and hardware. You are always advisable to choose best web hosting like Ipage, siteground, Ovh and hostgator which is really useful to increase your sales. If you choose the best hosting company then web hosting package might include email account that link to your website. Generally, professional web hosting allows the business to benefit from better web security and technical support.
There are more numbers of the benefits are involved in the web hosting such as customer support, reliability, space, domain and email. Some of the webhosting companies are offering at least one domain name that allows the company or business to build their brand awareness. Web hosting service comes with two options like free or paid one so that you can choose the perfect one as per your desire. In a simple term, web hosting is the service that allows the individuals or company to post the web page or web onto internet. Most of the business owners use blogs and websites to engage with reach potential customers and existing clients. You must keep in mind; no host can offer 100% uptime and they must provide at least 99% of the uptime on average. Web hosting provider must able to scale and upgrade to accommodate your traffic growth.
Choosing the best web hosting company is crucial one because each company is offering different kinds of offers. Full web hosting service makes the process of publishing and setting up the website. Siteground is the best web hosting company and it was founded in the year of 2004. They serve more than five lakhs domains across the world. They are providing cloud hosting, shared hosting and dedicated servers. They have data center is five countries like Netherlands, United States, Milan, Singapore and United Kingdom. This company runs on Apache, PHP, Mysql and WHM.
When the Roku direct to TV film option came out (using the US Netflix subscriber base and some of its DVDs), I immediately got one. I'd had other options before, including Comcast's pay per view movie service and Netflix's mail delivery of DVDs. This was so much better! I could simply watch movies whenever I wanted, with no risk of a defective DVD in my mailbox, one with scratches on it.
You can see the original article I wrote here, spelling out the reasons we bought the Roku and what options it offers. I'll go over some of those in a moment.
We do have Tivo as well and it is great, for what it does. I need to be able to record breaking news as well as new television shows and the Tivo does that as needed…..most of the time. However, it can be hit or miss and there is a certain error rate, making me record two or three of the same movies or shows so that I can be sure to have one that is actually recorded from the right channel. That isn't an issue with the Roku.
Pay per view is certainly supposed to be convenient but when we used the Comcast system, all too often we'd get error messages and have to call the company. Sometimes the movie would show up on our television screen and sometimes it would not. Even if it did, we might miss part of it or have the weather or something else affect coverage.
If you scroll through his articles, you'll see many which focus on various subjects and types of movies available for the Roku. Yes, the selection of current movies may seem limited primarily to classics or even noir type movies from various genres. However, as someone who likes to watch classic and cult favorites repeatedly, this isn't an issue. Secondly, there are some newer movies in the mix. Also, I have some relatives who haven't seen many of the 10,000 movies available from American Netflix for viewing on the Roku. So the initial price has been well worth it.
Yes, there is a lot of attention about the Xbox 360. Depending on your taste, you may not be impressed with the movies offered yet (again, I'd urge you to read Mr. Sexton's diverse articles about the Roku movies before you make that decision, yay or nay, about the movie selection). However, the picture quality is excellent and I tend to stick with what works. I know how Tivo functions (erratically). I know how Comcast Pay Per View functions. I don't know how the Xbox 360 functions. I'm sticking with the Roku as the direct to tv movie delivery system for me. Oh, yes, I'm also familiar with Netflix and hopeful about the movies that will be available as time goes on. Besides, working through those 10,000 movies, given my schedule, isn't exactly the easiest of tasks.
It is nearly instant delivery. Find your movie (again, I suggest using Mr. Sexton's articles for suggestions or inspiration), pick it out, watch it by using the Roku controller. It is that simple, pretty much. Set-up isn't hard, although you do have to consider what you already have installed along with your basic television set. Is it perfect? No. Could it be better or offer a wider range of movies? Absolutely. But for the price, $99, and the low Netflix subscription fee, I don't see a better game in town right now when it comes to this type of service. Great picture quality. Movies pretty much whenever we want to watch them.
If you want to know more, read my article or go to the Roku website and learn more…and don't forget to bookmark Mr. Sexton's guides to Roku movies while you are at it. The Roku website is here: roku.com.
So is the Roku for you?
I stand by my earlier stance. It really depends on your viewing preferences and tastes. Those who love it…well, they really love it. I'm one of them. I confess that Mr. Sexton got his delivered and hooked up before I did so his enthusiasm for the product – and actual use – preceded mine. I'm still working on catching up on those guides of his, just like I"m working to catch up on all the movie selections available on the Roku. The Xbox 360? I'm not inclined to buy it just for the movie option…yet.
What is next for Roku and direct to tv movies?
Hopefully, Roku will offer more of the newest titles and do so quickly. Also, the industry seems to be changing so quickly that no one really knows what the next big thing could be. In the meantime, I'm hoping that $99 investment turns out to be one of the best moves I made recently. So far, I'm one happy customer.
The Pirate Bay is at it again. Two new features are currently popping up on its Web site as it awaits the results of its trial in Sweden. It looks like nothing lets the wind out of its sails.
The Pirate Bay has now put BitTorrents in Facebook. What a concept. If you google Pirate Bay, you find a Share on Facebook link. By clicking on this link, users can share torrent tracker links.
As of March 30th, Facebook says they are aware of this action and are looking into it. As of now, no action has been taken by them though. According to Peter Sunde, who helps run the The Pirate Bay, no complaints from either Facebook or entertainment industry trade groups have taken place yet.
The Pirate Bay does not host copyrighted materials. It hosts links to torrent files that are used to download larger files for peer-to-peer file sharing. A torrent doesn't actually contain the copyright material anyway. It merely coordinates the download. Although users might think twice about posting copyrighted material on their profile page, it is an interesting twist to the continuing saga of free movie and music distribution.
According to Struan Robertson, a technology lawyer, Facebook can block the links or hold Pirate Bay accountable for copyright infringement charges they might incur because of the link. Mr. Robertson warns that any user who shares copyright links through Facebook risks legal threats from companies enforcing their copyrighted materials.
As if this isn't enough, The Pirate Bay just launched a Virtual Private Network called IPREDator. It's a network for more privacy while browsing the Internet. The cost is around $6.95 a month and subscribers share files anonymously and their IP addresses are hidden. VPN technology Canada best vpn canada is most commonly used among remote office workers so they can use their company networks securely.
As the saga of free file sharing continues, it becomes apparent that it will not be stopped. The Internet has challenged the way we do things since its inception. I remember when citizenship to an on-line country could be purchased. Imagine no taxes, no physical address and no police.
The Pirate Bay will know the results of the trial on April 19th. Until then, they apparently are going to continue their innovations. As they state on their website: "We control it. Not them." The Pirate Bay is talking about their website but I'm thinking of free file sharing throughout the world.
Click here for a link to the only interview of the brains behind and co-founder of The Pirate Bay.


Please note that this is a work-in-progress and may not reflect the final product.
The survivors find themselves in a once safe-haven evacuation zone underground, only to find it's been overrun. It's a bit dark, why not fire up the generator and get some lights?
Some minor lighting and texture issues.
1SG.Heartless for the tip on nav editing.


text:
ACT Theatre's risky 'Ramayana' falls prey to troubles
It's a bold production, born of tremendous effort and collaboration. But its goals may have been unreachable.
Alice Kaderlan
Akhi Vadari (foreground) and John Farrage in "Ramayana"
ACT Theatre's Artistic Director Kurt Beattie has taken a huge risk in mounting a new, abbreviated English-language version of the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana. This is one of the two great sagas of India and Nepal (the other is the Mahabharata) and is performed, often over several days, throughout southern Asia.
Like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is not just a story: it presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages in narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical and devotional elements. The characters are fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma and many South-East Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.
As in all great epics, the Ramayana has a hero, tribulations that he must survive, a great love story, and a happy ending. This particular epic is also chock full of magical characters and demons, some of them friendly and some bent on our hero's destruction.
Written roughly between 100 and 500 BC, the Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses; the title translates to "Rama's Journey," and tells the story of Prince Rama (the avatar of the god Vishnu) who falls passionately in love with Princess Sita. When Rama is exiled from his kingdom, he and Sita flee to the forest, where Sita is abducted by the evil king Lanka. The core of the plot — at least in ACT's production — is Rama's search for Sita and how he vanquishes Lanka with the aid of the monkey king Hanuman.
In Hindu culture, the Ramayana is a guide to devotion, right action, the moral life, and dharma. The notion of dharma must be understood to fully appreciate any production of the Ramayana. It refers to the concept of upholding, supporting or maintaining the natural order of the universe and the behaviors necessary to that order. Dharma encompasses ideas like duty, work, religion, and everything that is considered proper and decent behavior.
In the Ramayana, dharma is expressed through the idealized main characters — the ideal hero, ideal servant, ideal brother, and ideal wife. A clear example is in the relationship between Rama and his brother Bharata. When Queen Kaikeyi, the favorite wife of Rama's father, schemes to have her son Bharata named successor to the king and Rama banished from the kingdom for 14 years, Bharata threatens to kill himself rather than assume the throne. Rama convinces Bharata he must remain king until the 14 years are up because their father has made a formal declaration, and Bharata agrees. How different this is from the Western tradition in which brothers often plot against and even kill each other in order to gain power.
In an effort to make the Ramayana accessible to a contemporary Western audience, Artistic Director Beattie hired two local playwrights — Yussef El Guindi (author of the recent Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World) and Stephanie Timm (company playwright for New Century Theatre Company) — to shorten and modernize the script. They have created a production with a running time of 2 hours 45 minutes (including two intermissions), which Beattie, sharing directing credit with Sheila Daniels, has fleshed out with gorgeous, if minimalistic, sets and costumes. The entire production cost $500,000, due in part to the laborious process that Beattie used to bring the Ramayana to the stage. Years in the making, with many in-house readings and workshops, ACT's version has been a hugely collaborative effort. Besides the two playwrights and two directors, the creative team included ACT's Affiliate Artist Working Group, choreographer Maureen Whiting, scenic designer Matthew Smucker, costume and mask designer Melanie Burgess, plus others from ACT's first-rate production staff.
Given so much effort and so many resources necessary to produce this Ramayana, it's disheartening to have to say that the results are decidedly mixed. On the positive side, there's no question that, except for a lagging middle act, the production moves along swiftly. The spare production design is beautifully conceived and executed, especially Smucker's sets, which consist largely of filigree door frames and flowing fabric, a menacing giant red monster, and Burgess' inventive costumes, especially Hanuman's monkey outfit.
Brandon O'Neill, seen most recently at ACT in First Date, is a riveting Hanuman, the only actor who manages to speak El Guindi and Timm's bizarre colloquial lines without sounding like a transplant from a TV sitcom. O'Neill captures perfectly the mythic qualities of his character and, with his dark good looks, is one of the few members of the cast whose physical appearance makes some sense.
The fact that there are almost no actors of Indian background is a major defect. The adorable child actor Akhi Vadari, who opens and closes the production by singing some verses from the original Ramayana, provides the few moments of authenticity in his physical appearance, his singing and his dancing. Whiting's choreographic attempts at Indian-style movement fall far short and, despite their best efforts, the Anglo actors just can't get the steps down right. Only Vadari manages to take Whiting's steps and infuse them with the angularity and control that Indian dance requires.
In all fairness, the cast has had a huge challenge in embodying characters from a completely different theatrical tradition, and seeming both human and mythic at the same time. Besides O'Neill, Anne Allgood (despite her blond hair) brings the requisite magic to her various roles, most notably as the female demon who tries but fails to seduce our hero Rama.
Despite this Ramayana's many charms, if audiences expect to see and feel the power of the original or feel a connection to the cultures in which it is central, they are bound to be disappointed. Beattie has said the reason he chose to solicit a new English translation is that there is no authoritative version in our language. Unfortunately, El Guindi and Timm are not able to provide one; whether such a successful effort is possible remains to be seen.
If you go: Ramayana, ACT Theatre, 700 Union Street, through Nov. 11. Tickets $37.50-55; students, $15; those 25 and under, $20; seniors 25 percent off adult price; tickets available at the box office, by phone 206.292.7676 or online at www.acttheatre.org.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Behold, Our Celebrity Fashion Collaboration Wish List
15 celebrity fashion collaborations that we're hoping, wishing and praying will happen!
By Crystal Tate	· Updated October 27, 2020
Uzo Aduba
We like that Uzo Aduba's red carpet looks are both stylish and inspiring for curvy girls, so we'd love to see a fashion brand partner with her on a collaboration!
Jourdann Dunn
Model Jourdan Dunn looks good in practically anything and considering she already models for brands like H&M and Express, we'd love to see one of them partner with her for a fashion collaboration.
Jidenna
Singer Jidenna is certainly a "Classic Man" and the perfect pick for a fashion collaboration with a modern suit line. He's always dressed to the nines!
Zendaya may only be 19, but she's one of the most stylish celebrities we've seen in years. We'd love to see a young, hip brand like ASOS do a capsule collection with the young actress and style star.
Beyoncé's younger sister Solange makes our hearts sing every time she hits a red carpet or posts on Instagram. Although she previously did a sneaker collaboration with Puma — wouldn't it be cool if she created a clothing collection?
Jaden and Willow Smith
The brother-sister duo have certainly paved their own fashion lanes, and it'd be great to see a fashion brand collaborate with them on an androgynous clothing line catered to young adults.
Ciara generally looks flawless from head to toe! A clothing or shoe collaboration with the singer and a top fashion designer would definitely be something we'd shop.
NBA player Dwyane Wade generally looks dapper off-court, and although he has a tie and pocket square collection with The Tie Bar, a sportswear collab with Wade would be a perfect fit.
Yes, Rihanna did a line with River Island in the past and most recently, she teamed with Puma on her Fenty x Puma streetwear collection. BUT, we want to see the sexier side of Rihanna in a fashion collab.
Have you seen a celebrity kid more stylish than Kanye & Kim's daughter? A kid's clothing brand collaboration with North West would be epic.
From her "Girlfriends" days to now, Tracee Ellis Ross has always been a style maven. She'd be the ultimate pick for a stylish clothing brand to collaborate with.
We don't think Kerry Washington has ever had a fashion fail — and her red carpet looks are always pretty stunning. Although she worked with The Limited on a "Scandal"-inspired line, we'd love to see the actress collaborate with a brand on her own fashion collection.
Cast of "Empire"
Whether it's just Cookie-inspired, or influenced by the entire Lyons family, we wouldn't be able to wait for a glimpse of a clothing collaboration with the cast of "Empire."
Although her strong suits are modeling and cooking, we think a maternity line inspired by mother-to-be Chrissy Teigen would be totally adorable.
Lately, actress Keke Palmer has been a true style chameleon and makes practically anything look good. We'd totally be here for a collab between the actress and a brand like Nasty Girl or H&M.


We matched 6 top-rated baby starters pink blanket bargains over the past 3 years. Discover which baby starters pink blanket is best for you. Narrow by theme, model, pattern and to fit.
Baby Starters Cuddly Blanket 30" X 40"
We spotlighted the main pink blanket attributes you can distil with foremostly: theme, model, pattern, to fit,... and department.


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Q: request.COOKIES is empty when Django Rest Framework API hit from React JS but works in Postman I have implemented JWT Authentication in Django Rest Framework and using React JS as frontend.
The issue is, When i test my API in Postman everything works.
I send email and password to /login, it returns jwt token and set_cookies with http_only = True, UserView simple fetches that jwt token form cookies and returns the user.
See the image of working backend. JWT token returned and COOKIE is set.

And userview gives the User back as shown in image...
But when i call this API into React JS, The Login Works but UserView doesn't get any Token hence gives error 401. Why this happening? Please see my code

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Publicly available records published by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and accessed on February 7, 2019 indicate that former Missouri-based Oppenheimer & Company broker/adviser David Reid, who has received a pending customer dispute, recently resigned from his former employer in connection to alleged rule violations and is currently not affiliated with any broker-dealer firm. Fitapelli Kurta is interested in hearing from investors who have complaints regarding Mr. Reid (CRD# 3022847).
David Reid has spent 20 years in the securities industry and was most recently registered with Oppenheimer & Company in St. Louis, Missouri (2009-2019). He was previously registered with Citigroup Global Markets in Clayton, Missouri (1998-2009). He has passed four securities industry examinations: Series 65 (Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination), which he obtained on May 8, 1998; Series 63 (Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination), which he obtained on April 30, 1998; SIE (Securities Industry Essentials Examination), which he obtained on October 1, 2018; and Series 7 (General Securities Representative Examination), which he obtained on April 27, 1998. He is currently not registered with any state or firm.
In January 2019 he voluntarily resigned from his position at Oppenheimer & Company in connection to allegations he texted with customers and devices that were not approved by the firm.
In November 2018 a customer alleged David Reid, while employed at Oppenheimer & Company, executed unauthorized trades and over-concentrated the account in certain sectors. The customer is seeking unspecified damages in the pending complaint.
If you have lost money investing with David Reid, you may be entitled to recoup your losses. Call Fitapelli Kurta at 877-238-4175 for a free consultation. All cases are taken on a contingency basis, which means we only get paid if and when you collect money. Time to file your claim may be limited, so we encourage you to avoid delay. Call 877-238-4175 now to speak to an attorney for free.


text:
Q: Creating new exception that receives parameters Hi I'm trying to create new exception that receives parameters and sends string to base class.
Code
class EmptyFunctionException : public std::runtime_error {
public:
    EmptyFunctionException(std::string filename, std::string funcname){
        std::stringstream ss;
        ss << filename << " " << funcname;
        std::runtime_error(ss.str());
    }
};

Error

Base class 'runtime_error' doesn't have default constructor.

I know i need to send it like that
EmptyFunctionException(std::string filename, std::string funcname)
  : std::runtime_error(...)

but How can I create the string before that?
Thanks.

A: The class declaration for std::runtime_error has no default constructor and thus requires you to call the base constructor in your inherited class's constructor. I know you said that in your question but it's an important fact to list here.
Don't use stringstream to construct a more complicated string. In this instance it's easy to just construct the string in the base type's constructor.
class EmptyFunctionException : public std::runtime_error {
public:
    EmptyFunctionException(std::string filename, std::string funcname) :
      std::runtime_error(filename + " " + funcname)
    {
    }
};

A: I would go the way, not to set the what() message of the base exception in the constructor actually, but overwrite the what() method according to your needs:
class EmptyFunctionException : public std::runtime_error {
public:
    EmptyFunctionException(const std::string filename&, const std::string& funcname
    : std::runtime_error(""), filename_(filename), funcname_() {
        std::stringstream ss;
        ss << filename << " " << funcname;
        msg_ = ss.str();
    }

    const char* what() const noexcept {
        return msg_.c_str();
    }

private:
    std::string filename_;
    std::string funcname_;
    std::string msg_;
};

Since what() is declared as virtual in the very base, and it's the only method affected by the required base exception argument, it seems best to overwrite it.

Though, then I would think about, what's the whole purpose of a specific EmptyFunctionException? Should there be some special logic for handling it beyond a runtime_error, or is it just purposed to do the error message formatting?
In the latter case, that could simply be done, before throwing the exception.

A: If you really need sophisticated formatting and simple concatenation would not do, you can always have an intermediate class:
class EmptyFunctionException : public std::runtime_error {
    struct ErrorFormatter {
        ErrorFormatter(const std::string& filename, const std::string funcname)
        {
             std::stringstream ss;
             ss << filename << " " << funcname;
             errstr = ss.str();
        }
        const std::string& str() const { return errstr; }
        private:
        std::string errstr;
    };
public:
    EmptyFunctionException(std::string filename, std::string funcname) :
        std::runtime_error(ErrorFormatter(filename, funcname).str()) {}
};


Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce and KV Connect will host "Meet the Reps," an event that brings members of the public together with elected officials at all levels of government, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 from 5:30-7:00pm at Chace Community Forum located at 150 Main Street in Waterville (Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons).
The two organizations renewed their partnership for the upcoming legislative session in order to continue to encourage communication between business and community leaders, professionals and young professionals, and their government representatives.
Don't miss the opportunity to meet face to face and share ideas to best strengthen our business community! A free community event. Appetizers provided by Selah Tea and adult beverages available. The series is free and open to the public, but registration is appreciated. Please contact Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce at 873-3315 or programs@midmainechamber.com if you plan to attend. This series is possible thanks to the sponsorship of Central Maine Growth Council and Kennebec Savings Bank.


text:
These Words Are A Sign Of Good Mental Health (M)
The words were also linked to better physical health.
People who know more positive words relating to the emotions are likely to have better mental health, new research finds.
People who naturally use words like glad, joyful, gleeful, perky and jolly are also likely to be in better physical health.
The use of a wider variety of positive emotion words was also reflected in personality: cheerful words were linked to being more outgoing, agreeable and conscientious.
Conversely, those who know more words for negative emotions report higher levels of neuroticism and depression — they are also likely to be in worse physical health.
Dr Vera Vine, the study's first author, said:
"Our language seems to indicate our expertise with states of emotion we are more comfortable with.
It looks like there's a congruency between how many different ways we can name a feeling and how often and likely we are to experience that feeling."
The conclusions come from stream-of-consciousness essays written by 1,567 students and an analysis of over 35,000 public blogs.
The results showed that the language people use feeds back into their mental state.
While writing the essays, people who used more words for sadness grew sadder and people who talked about fear became more fearful.
People using many different words for positive emotions, though, tended to show more linguistic markers of mental well-being.
They talked about achievements, leisure activities and being part of a group.
Dr Vine said:
"There's a lot of excitement right now about expanding people's emotional vocabularies and teaching how to precisely articulate negative feelings.
While we often hear the phrase, 'name it to tame it' when referring to negative emotions, I hope this paper can inspire clinical researchers who are developing emotion-labeling interventions for clinical practice, to study the potential pitfalls of encouraging over-labeling of negative emotions, and the potential utility of teaching positive words."
The study helps underlines how important language is to our lived experience.
It is not just a way of communicating with others, it is also how we tell ourselves how we are feeling.
Professor James W. Pennebaker, study co-author, said:
"It is likely that people who have had more upsetting life experiences have developed richer negative emotion vocabularies to describe the worlds around them.
In everyday life, these same people can more readily label nuanced feelings as negative which may ultimately affect their moods."
The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Vine et al., 2020).
in category: Happiness, Mental Health


text:
Daniel Weeks, PhD
Office: 4-710 BSB
daniel-weeks@uiowa.edu
Lab: 4-711A BSB
Lab Website: https://weeks.lab.uiowa.edu/
Molecular control of embryology
We take advantage of the conservation of developmental control of embryogenesis among organisms, to study the function of genes involved in congenital defects in humans by doing experiments with the frog Xenopus laevis. We can directly inject oocytes and embryos with biomolecules like antisense oligonucleotides to reduce mRNA levels, or mRNA itself to make altered or increased levels of specific protein in live embryos. We then look for morphological and molecular changes that result. One of the techniques we use is whole mount immunohistochemistry coupled to confocal microscopy. Xenopus embryos develop rapidly and are small enough to use for confocal microscopic analysis that allows both the exterior and the interior of developing organ system to be viewed. Our most current studies look at how amyloids are used as part of normal development. The extracellular formation of amyloid particles is part of the pathogenesis that accompanies devastating diseases like Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease. However, it is increasingly clear that the formation of amyloids, most commonly the formation of proteins into cross-beta strand structures rather than their active, native three-dimensional structure, may be non-pathogenic and even advantageous. The best current examples of the formation of advantageous amyloid-like structures come from studies in yeast, where stress responsiveness and the ability to adapt to changing nutritional conditions are mediated thought the assembly and disassembly of amyloid-like structures. The formation of amyloid-like structures were also critical for long-term memory in studies using snails and fruit flies. As the features that allow a protein to form an amyloid as an alternative to it's active structure become better understood the surprising result is that at least 5% of known proteins meet the requirements. We now know that in oocytes the nuclear particles where transcription and RNA processing occurs contain amyloids, and amyloids can be found in the nucleus and cytosol of the dividing cells of the early embryo. We are investigating what proteins are forming amyloids and how they are assembled and disassembled as part of normal development.
PubMed link
Department/Program Affiliations:
MSTP
Molecular Medicine Program
357 Medical Research Center
molecular-medicine@uiowa.edu


text:
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castles from Munich
Neuschwanstein Castle: Tours & Tickets
From Munich: Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof in Spanish
Neuschwanstein Tour from Munich: Groups of 4 or More
Munich: Private Alps and City Sightseeing Flight
Duration options: 1 - 2 hours
See all tours & things to do in Neuschwanstein Castle
5 historical facts about Neuschwanstein Castle
If you're reading this, you probably already know that Bavaria's Neuschwanstein was the inspiration for Disney's iconic castle. Here are five facts about King Ludwig II's dramatic palace that you probably don't know!
1. It overlooks King Ludwig II's childhood home
Ludwig grew up in Hohenschwangau, the medieval knights' castle that his parents owned. Ludwig's dreams of building a castle on the rugged hill above it began as early as childhood!
2. It was inspired by Richard Wagner
Upon first hearing Wagner, the teenage Prince Ludwig became a devoted patron. His dream palace was the stuff of the Germanic sagas in the great composer's operas!
3. Its architect wasn't an architect
Ludwig considered his vision too extraordinary to be realized by mere architects. Neuschwanstein was instead designed by Christian Jank, a stage designer from Munich!
4. Ludwig lived for just 172 days in the castle
Forced to abdicate by a frustrated cabinet, the popular but inattentive king was removed from his new home. The next day he went for a walk and was discovered dead hours later.
5. It's been a tourist attraction ever since
Ludwig was a reclusive king and had envisioned his dream palace to be a place of solitary refuge and reflection. Just seven weeks after his death it was opened to the public!
What are the opening hours?
Neuschwanstein is open daily from March 28 to October 15 at 9:00AM until 6:00PM. From October 16 to March 27 it is open from 10:00AM until 4:00PM, except December 24, 25, 31 and January 1.
There are several modest hotels and pensions in the Hohenschwangau area. Alternatively, Neuschwanstein is also just a day-trip away from Munich!
It's possible to walk up the hill from Hohenschwangau but it's quite a trek! You'd be better off choosing between the regular shuttle bus departing from outside the Schlosshotel Lisl on Neuschwansteinstraße, or the more expensive horse-drawn carriage from the Hotel Müller on Alpseestraße. Note that both stop short of the castle for accessibility reasons, and the short walk from the shuttle bus stop might be too steep for the mobility impaired.
When should I visit?
March 28 to October 15, 9:00AM to 6:00PM, October 16 to March 27, 10:00AM to 4:00PM.
Castle ticket prices start at 12€ for adults.
*Your entrance ticket reserves you a tour spot. *
The bus from the Schlosshotel Lisl or the horse-drawn carriage from the Hotel Müller will drop you close to the castle.
Note that you will need to do some uphill walk, and be prepared! |
Book your tickets in advance! Tickets can sell out during peak times.
What people are saying about Neuschwanstein Castle
The trek, the fall colours, the palace and the castle..there is no better word than surreal!! I was smitten by the beauty of the place, the hills and the scenery that surrounded the royal beauties. The trip is planned very well, it gives time for a quick lunch, toilet breaks and to enjoy the tours without wasting any time. Our guide was very informative and helpful. She made sure we were on time so that we didn't miss any highlights of the tour. The drive was also quiet smooth and comfortable.
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castles from Munich Reviewed by Namrata, 10/12/2020
Gray Line, is a great company to do the tour around Munich, I went with them to the Neuschwaitein castle. Elizabeth and the driver were great guides, she explained every bit of our trip, she really knew the subject. I had a mishap on the trip, I ended up forgetting my wallet with documents, they went with me to the place where I forgot, they gave me all the support, because I don't speak German. Actually, I recommend the company, mainly because of Elizabeth's kindness and understanding.
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castles from Munich Reviewed by Flavio Mariano, 9/24/2020
It was excellent. The guide was really talkative, and knew his history. It was great! We saw both castles and they also took us to a small town where the Nativity is put on every ten years. It was really wonderful. I will tell you that the bus will leave early if everyone is there from the beginning. So when they say arrive 15 min before...they really mean it. No time is wasted to get going in the morning. Our adult daughter went with us on this trip.
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castles from Munich Reviewed by Charlene, 12/31/2020
The tour was very good and convenient, the bus was comfortable, the guide was friendly and explained a lot of things. However she recommended os to have lunch at Muller Cafe which was a bit pricy, but good food. The tours inside the castle were very organised in small groups of 10 people
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castles from Munich Reviewed by Anonymous, 10/28/2020
Great way to see both castles with great commentary. Hanaen was our guide and she was awesome and very knowledgeable. Our driver was Smiley and he got us there and back safely. Thanks for a great day.
Day Trip to Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castles from Munich Reviewed by Lorraine, 9/30/2020


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New ways to print bigger, soften your focus, eliminate grain, shoot from the wrist, and more.
The-Goods
A 17-incher is the acme of desktop printers: Who wouldn't want to whip out images so big that you have to stand back to appreciate them?
Canon's new entry, the imagePrograf iPF5000, is a beaut. It has two, count 'em, two heads to transport a whopping 12 inks. According to Canon, that means faster prints with a superwide gamut.
This is also the first wide-format printer to feature the new Lucia pigmented inks, which should translate into greater longevity and compatibility with more fine-art papers. In fact, Canon is introducing several new media to coincide with the printer's introduction.
Another bonus of having 12 cartridges: Enough slots to hold both matte and photo blacks, so there's no need to waste time and ink by flushing the heads to change them. That's a good thing, too, because this liquid color doesn't come cheap -- replacing all the cartridges at once will run you about $900. We look forward to seeing what this machine can do. ($1,900, street; www.canon.com)
Baby Makes 3
Short of switching to a view camera with a tilt-shift lens, there's no better way to get cool selective-focus effects than with a Lensbaby. Originally just a little, black, elephant trunk that replaced an SLR's lens, this baby's evolved. With the first two generations, exposure time was dictated by how long you could hold the bendy trunk steady between your fingers, and your image's repeatability depended on how well you could replicate the direction you pointed it. All that's changed with the Lensbaby 3G. With the added focusing rods, it's easy to frame the picture you want, choose the location of the spot of focus, then lock it in with a push of a button. While you used to be able to get sharp focus where you wanted it about half the time, now there's barrel focusing with a fine-focus ring on the lens to enable sharpness almost all the time. This should prove a boon to anyone shooting macro, working in a studio, or doing any kind of picture-taking where you might want to try the same shot twice. ($270, estimated street; www.lensbaby.com)
Portra 2.0
We always get excited when Kodak's got a new development on the film front -- once in a while we like to dust off our old cameras and remind ourselves what it's like to shoot without a preview. Plus, we still know people who shoot exclusively with the stuff. That's why we're amazed with Kodak's new Portra Professional 160- and 400-speed VC and NC films: They're not merely tweaked, but actually new, with a fresh, from-the-ground-up formulation. Kodak says that means the grain structure is visibly finer and the color is more saturated. The VC type also has lower contrast, so you'll get better results when, inevitably, you scan it to go digital. (www.kodak.com)
We may spend hours daily on yoga and pilates, but we'd still rather not do a belly flop just because we're trying to get a ground-level photo. Enter Hoodman's Right Angle Viewer, which clips like a periscope onto your viewfinder and lets you get a bug's-eye view without having to actually mingle with the bugs. Since it pivots a full 360 degrees, macro shooters and aficionados of the copystand can now look down while standing beside their camera, rather than trying to balance precariously over the top of it to frame a shot. You can even zoom in from 1:1 to 2.5X magnification, so you can check focus and fine-tune a cropped-in composition. ($130, direct. Fits most DSLRs; see www.HoodmanUSA.com for compatibility and more information.)
Print Your Videos
Still not sure what to do with those low-res videos from your digicam? Turn them into low-tech keepsakes: Upload short videos and FlipClips will turn them into actual flip books, like you used to get at the comic book store. They come in tiny size, greeting-card size, or book size, and there's even bulk pricing for party favors. (Starting at $9 for one; www.flipclips.com)
Get Really, Really Close
Ever wish you could get more macro than macro with your point-and-shoot? X-Loupe can fulfill all of your close-up dreams in the form of a supermagnetizing attachment that fits onto a Canon Digital ELPH. Magnify 60X with the starter kit, or trade up for the pro version and add the 100X and 150X interchangeable lenses. Since it zooms in entirely with the attachable front, you can still use all the camera's usual features. That means you can preview your shot or even capture extra-close video. (About $1,450 including the Canon camera; www.x-loupe.net)
Shoot and Ski
We don't recommend shooting while you snowboard: Not only could you break your face, but probably your camera, too. So how do you record the action? Strap on GoPro's Digital Hero wristcam. It's got a waterproof housing and a sturdy strap with a special ski-glove attachment, and it shoots both still and video. Store VGA photos and QVGA video on the 32MB of internal memory, with only a AAA battery. You can take it swimming, too -- it's waterproof down to 30 feet. ($80, direct; www.goprocamera.com)
Carry Paper in Your Camera
Packing for a trip, it's hard enough to remember to bring enough socks, much less all those printed-out confirmation numbers, maps, and restaurant listings. But the one thing you'll never forget is your camera, and that's why the data transport feature on Casio's 7.2MP Exilim EX-S770 is so cool. You can automatically convert web pages, e-mail, and documents to JPEGs and view them on the S770's LCD screen. The best? When you have to look at your map, everyone will think you're just checking out your latest photo. ($380, street; exilim.casio.com).


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Andrew Bird – Break It To Yourself
Chicagoan prodigy drops his guard and takes flight..
Like the green parakeets of south London, Andrew Bird is an exotic creature (violin prodigy, jazz-folk-zydeco musical adventurer, musical-saw virtuoso and world-class whistler) who has adapted himself impeccably to a more staid environment – in his case the 21st century, post-Arcade Fire ecology of adult alternative. So successfully, in fact, that his eighth album, 2009's Noble Beast, debuted at number 12 on the US album charts and established him as the darling of NPR.
Nevertheless, you still got vivid flashes of peregrine plumage, not least in his lyrics, which revealed him to be the most recondite rhymester this side of Edith Sitwell. Noble Beast featured not just "calcified arythmatists" and "young radiolarians" but "proto-Sanskrit Minoans" and indeed "a colony of dermestids". Break It Yourself by contrast feels like an attempt to communicate more directly and is his most affecting album yet.
"Eyeoneye", for example, may refer to reionisation and defibrillation, but, rocking along on a Win-Butler-goes-Spector beat, is concerned with more visceral matters: "you've done the impossible/ took yourself apart/made yourself invulnerable/no on can touch your heart/ so… you break it yourself". Similarly "Lazy Projector" extends a metaphysically cinematic metaphor but concludes, simply "I can't see the sense in us breaking up at all".
Elsewhere Bird lets a little air into his previously overly-studied exercises "Danse Caribe" seems borne on some blithe gulf stream breeze from Van's "Cyprus Avenue" back to the rhythms of Trinidadian soca, while "Hole In Ocean" ascends to Vaughan Williams heights. But the album's two highlights hit a perfectly judged pitch of heartbreak: "Lusitania", which seems to tramp the dream prairies of early Grant Lee Buffalo, and best of all, "Sifters", a lovely lullaby of departure in which "the moon plays the ocean like a violin".
Stephen Troussé


Managing Director/Lifestraw "Working with Adam over the years has helped us define and communicate the LifeStraw brand. He has been able to capture the gritty experience of the outdoors and the raw emotion of adventure in his images. He is not just a photographer but also an authentic story teller with each image."


Writing out a testimony is always an interesting and difficult thing to do. So much could be said, so many details. Yet to do so simply, with some sort of interest level and most of all, with a hope of glorifying God – is difficult to do!
In my mind, a testimony is that – not so much a narration of a whole life, but declaring the great things God has done! I think of the Apostle Paul's accounts of his testimony, and always it encourages me and helps me. In some small remote way, if you are reading this, I hope this does so for you as well.
although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
Jesus came into this world to save sinners! Paul thought he was the chief sinner and thus the best example of God's grace. But the truth is, the chief sinner is me! Actually, I am convinced that every Christian in their right place ends up feeling this very thing – that they are the most difficult and hard case they know. That God's grace in them is extreme and wonderful! I feel that way!
I did not grow up in a Christian home. My upbringing was a mix of no church or religious upbringing to something very similar, which is going to the Unitarian Church. I won't say much about the Unitarian church, except to say it is humanistic, polytheistic (worshiping all gods as the same) and more. For me, if I went, it was just to hang out and look for girls. I grew up knowing virtually nothing about the Lord or His wonderful truth.
In my early teen years, I was searching for life, for meaning of life. God has created us for a relationship with Him and we are empty outside of that. So like many in my generation, I searched for meaning, satisfaction, hope and more in so many avenues. As I look back, it seems like every three to six months of my teen years I would look into something new to find life in. Like many I tried the party lifestyle, drinking and dabbling in drugs. I tried relationships, intellectual pursuits, philosophical pursuits and more. In my mid teen years I became a convinced existentialist. What does that mean? Well, simply, an existentialist thinks we just "exist" for no purpose, rhyme or reason. Honestly, this is the logical outcome to both humanism and evolution. In the end, such a thought holds nothin, really means nothing. There is no purpose, plan, or meaning in life outside of just "existing".
Near the end of my sixteenth year, I was becoming more convinced than ever in the thoughts of existentialism. I began to feel that life itself had no hope, joy or purpose. As I look back on this, I can see that without the Lord's intervention, I was on a course and thought process that eventually would have led to suicide. Honestly, I had already begun to think about it. If nothing meant nothing and life was filled with the pain and sorrow that it is…then ending life meant nothing but early relief. It was a dark road I was on.
About this time, actually about nine months before this, my best friend moved in with me. His parent lived in Saudi Arabia at the time doing some contract work. He stayed with us so he could finish up high school in Albuquerque. It turns out that he was actually a Christian, but he was in a rebellious and backslidden state at the time. He and I did lots of bad things together from stealing, playing hookie from school and lots more. During that year, God was drawing my friend, Mike, back to Himself. Mike began listening to Christian music again…and occasionally I listened with him. There was something in that…a tinge of light. I actually went to a concert or two with him. I bought a couple of Christian tapes and listened to them even on my own – wow!
During the summer between my Junior and Senior year, Mike and I went on a camping trip up into the Jemez mountains. As I look back on that trip, it is almost hard to put into words, but on that trip, God made Himself real to me. Heading up to the mountains I was an existentialist playing with some Christian thoughts. But coming down from those mountains, I was born again! Life was fresh, alive and so exciting! Purpose, meaning, hope and more flooded my soul. It was a new day! I was alive…and God made Himself known to me and made me His! Wow!
Excited over what God was doing, Mike and I came back from the mountain trip – hoping to go to church! He had not really been going…but now wanted to. I wanted to. We woke up in the mountains that Sunday morning in June 1994 and packed up, heading back to Albuquerque to actually go to church! We did not make it in time for a morning service, it always takes longer to pack up than you like! So, we decided to go to an evening service. Problem is, neither of us knew which church to go to. Playing game of chance, we chose a church near my home. We made it to church, sat there…and well – it was a little odd. I did not know what to do or what was expected. Then a lady got up and spoke in tongues…and well, it was a little weird. I made it through that service…but I was confused.
After that service, I went and plopped myself on the hood of my 1965 Mustang and just was thinking a mile a minute. Was what happened up in the mountains real? Was I really a Christian? Is this what church is like – I felt so out of it and so disconnected. I did not know how to put it all into words, but I was confused. Mike was with me and tried to explain some things to me….but it just did not make sense. A young lady walked past my car and turned. She asked why I looked so down and depressed. I had no idea what to say, I fumbled over a sentence or two. Then she informed us that this church we just attended was her parents church, she came for them, but then left immediately after to make it to her own church. It seems their service started later. She asked us if we wanted to come. Why not, I thought, I am bummed out anyway. So, we followed her. We followed her all the way into the parking lot of a shopping center on Eubank and Snowheights in Albuquerque. It seemed this church we were going to was in a shopping mall! A little weirded out, but interested, we followed and joined a packed in this church that met in a mall!
Simple story…I was home. I wish I could say it better, but I walked into that church, Calvary Chapel of Albuquerque, and I was home. What I felt in the mountains with the Lord, I felt in this place. It was warm, alive and real. The pastor, Skip Heitzig, came out and sat on a stool. He was wearing an Izod shirt and he taught us from the Bible in the most simple, straightforward and exciting way! Fascinatingly enough, the place he was teaching from that evening was in the gospel of Luke, in one of the only passages of the Bible that I had really read at that point of my life! The joy I felt, the life I felt, could hardly be contained! It was real! God was real..and I was alive in Him.
God was doing some amazing things at that point in time in Albuquerque. A young group of people, many of whom were new converts, began to hang out constantly and I hung out with them. In this group of people, I met a beautiful young lady – Joanne Bradley. Attracted to both her and her character – I spent more and more time with her. Unlike me, she grew up in church and had such a wonderful history I did not have! It was so exciting. Without boring you with all the details, we began dating – and it was a joy. Pretty soon, we began to kick around the idea of getting married. True, we were young – both only seventeen – but the idea was exciting. Now, as I look back on that time, I can see God's hand all over it, bringing into my life the love of my life, my bride and best friend. I know God was at work, but I also have to be honest, there was a lot of me in this as well. As Joanne and I started talking about getting married, more and more people were against it. The funny thing about opposition in a teenagers life is that if often causes them to only want to rebel more. That is exactly what happened. Joanne and I decided to get married that next year! It was not because she was "in trouble" or pregnant as some assumed – it was simply because we were stubborn and going to get married no matter what others said. That is exactly what we did! On July 26th of 1985, I was joined in marriage to my beautiful bride! Being a parent now of teenage girls, I can tell you this, such a prospect is not something I would welcome for them! Yet, for us – it was wonderful. We grew up together in amazing ways! I am so thankful for God's hand in orchestrating our lives. For the next four years, through bumps and some bruises, of course, our marriage grew and grew.
God enabled me, God counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. The idea of counting faithful does not mean that I was faithful or worthy, to count someone faithful has the idea that God treated me as such, not because of me, but because of Him. He "accounted" to my account faithfulness, not of me or in me, but in Him…and He put me into ministry.
I am kind of a slow learning…and a little hard headed, so God had his work cut out for me. In high school, I had taken several of those tests that help you figure out a probable vocation for life. In it, I tested and proved to be one that would probably work best in something without managerial oversight or public responsibilities – something like an engineer or the like. Honestly, as I realized this about myself, everyone agreed and my guidance counselors concurred. I set two basic governing "rules" for future employment. One – I did not want to be in charge of, manage or lead other people. Two – I did not want to ever have to speak in public. You might think I am kidding, but these were very honest conclusions! Leading and speaking were two things that were way outside my natural course. So…as God began to call me to what He had for me…it was wild to see that it came head on with my perceptions of what I would do with my life.
It began with a desire, a desire from Him, to teach. It was crazy, but I found myself listening to my pastor, listening to other pastors…and thinking – I would like to do that. That is, teach the Bible. The desire grew and grew. Then one Sunday it seemed to me that three guys got together and all decided to ask me separately to teach a small Bible study. Now the truth is, they did not all meet and decide to do this together. Yet, it is true that on that Sunday, three separate guys approached me and asked me to consider teaching a Bible study! Are the crazy! Did they all get together and decide to torture Jim on this Sunday? No…of course not….it was God. By the end of that and several other encounters, I surrendered to God. I began to teach a Bible study…and I loved it! God was in it, I loved studying, I even enjoyed teaching (once it started). I thought to myself, I could do this the rest of my life. I could have a job and teach a small Bible study and be totally content.
Yet….God was not content. He had called me for me…and now that I was teaching, He began to work on me to take me further – and call me as a pastor. I won't walk you through all the details of how God did this, but it honestly lasted almost a year. At the end of that time, again…I surrendered and agreed to the Lord to be a pastor. It was and is an exciting journey. If you want to know more of how I actually became a pastor…well, you can read the history of Calvary Chapel of Roswell on this website as well. There are so many more details, but this is long enough already. I simply want to say this…it is all God. He saved me, called me, enabled me and is working in me. I still feel slow…like He has more for me both with Him and serving Him. In His faithfulness, I hope and pray to discover all that He has for me!
As I finish this "testimony", it seems good to take a moment and go past the timeline, past some of the details and perhaps a little to my heart. I am not sure everyone has or has to have a "life verse", but I do. There is a verse that in a thousand ways explains what I am…what I want…and where I am going. That verse is found in Psalm 27, verse 4.
That "one thing" is something that first and foremost "I desire of the Lord". I am solidly convinced that what I need can only come from Him, be of Him and His work in my life. I am a man who is growing in his understanding of his absolute dependence on the Lord. In the little that I have obtained of understanding this dependence, I can honestly say – what I want in life, from life and out of life…is only from Him and has to be "of the Lord", I desire His work in me.
It is this "one thing", that "I will seek", not in my own effort, but seeking and praying for and looking for in great and greater dependence on Him.
What is that "one thing"? Simple answer – God!. I want to "dwell in" His presence. I want to abide in Christ constantly, and with greater depth, feeling and understanding. I know, have discovered and am discovering that life is found in Him. My greatest desire is to be near Him, to know Him, love Him and be with Him in a dwelling and abiding way.
I long to see Him – to "behold His beauty". There is such depth here, but the honest truth is that all through scripture, when our relationship with God is pictured at its highest, it is pictured as "seeing Him". Right now…we don't see Him fully, but on that day – we will see Him as He is. It is this responsive relationship, this responsiveness to God, His glory and beauty that I know heaven will be. Yet, until that day…I want to grow in this. With Moses, I find myself crying out to the Lord "Show me Your glory" – I want to know Him, see Him more!
As for me…I want to stand in His counsel…hear His Words and take those to His people, and help them to hear His words! Yep, that is who I am.


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Arrival of the Berliner Means Another Big Beer Hall for Georgetown
The Berliner brings 24 tap lines and house-made sausages to the waterfront
by Tierney Plumb Nov 6, 2018, 2:28pm EST
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The Berliner is expected to debut in Georgetown this month.
The Berliner/official photo
The Berliner, a new beer hall from the owners of critically acclaimed Lapis Bistro in Adams Morgan, is scheduled to open in Georgetown this month.
With a cavernous, 4,200-square-foot events space and a kitchen stuffing sausages in-house, the Berliner will replace French-themed Malmaison cafe at 3401 Water Street NW. It's expected to open for dinner service in mid-to-late November.
The Berliner is the latest in a string of new neighborhood arrivals (Dyllan's Raw Bar, Reverie, America Eats Tavern) that have perked up Georgetown's once-stagnant dining scene.
D.C.-based Popal Group, the family-run enterprise that's also behind Cafe Bonaparte, recruited chef Mike O'Brien to craft the Berliner's meat-heavy menu. O'Brien worked in kitchens throughout the D.C. area (Liberty Tavern, Blue Duck Tavern, Birch & Barley) before moving to the West Coast to gain executive chef experience at Mikkeller Bar (L.A. and San Francisco) and The Monk's Kettle (San Francisco).
He returned to D.C. in 2017 as chef de cuisine to Kyle Bailey at the Salt Line and, according to his LinkedIn profile, most recently served as executive chef at Owen's Ordinary in North Bethesda.
At the Berliner, O'Brien's kitchen will produce six styles of sausages at any given time. The lineup, inspired by family ties and modern Berlin comfort food, calls for traditional hits like bratwurst, schnitzel, and homemade pretzels with beer cheese. Other offerings will include doner kebabs and falafel.
The Berliner's 24 tap lines will be made up of domestic, international, and seasonal beers ranging from mass producers to to smaller German breweries rarely seen on U.S. menus. Georgetown has a hall already, Church Hall. Neighborhood bar and bistro Sovereign advertises a selection of more than 50 beers .
Top graffiti artists Rachel England, Michael Pacheco and Rodrigo Pradel were recruited to splash murals across the space, which is already well-suited to house a beer hall. The converted warehouse building features three bay garage doors, industrial chic decor, and Bauhaus-inspired design.
The Berliner is scheduled to operate Tuesday to Sunday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to midnight.