text:
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}
The success of image recognition benchmarks on ImageNet~\cite{russakovsky2015imagenet} has triggered the significant progress of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) ~\cite{he2016deep,tan2019efficientnet,zagoruyko2016wide,hu2018squeeze,huang2017densely}.
Those CNN architectures and their variants are widely applied to various computer vision tasks~\cite{long2015fully,ren2015faster}.
Even though CNNs have established as a powerful framework, they are not entirely free from drawbacks.
It is widely known that the performance of CNNs is dramatically degraded by geometrical transformation, such as large-scale rotations.

The typical way to handle this degradation is to employ data augmentation.
Recently, more sophisticated data augmentation algorithms based on reinforcement learning and random search have been proposed~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment,cubuk2018autoaugment,lim2019fast}.
Even though these augmentation algorithms can obtain a highly expressive model, training becomes significantly difficult due to a large number of trials when their magnitude of data augmentation (e.g., rotation angle range) is increased.

	\begin{figure*}[t]
        \centering\includegraphics[width=0.6\linewidth]{Fig1d.png} \\
        {\vspace{-0.1cm} \small{(a) Standard CNN with TTA \vspace{0.2cm}}}\\
        \centering\includegraphics[width=0.88\linewidth]{Fig0d.png} \\
        {\vspace{-0.1cm} \small{(b) Proposed method

        with forward and reverse transformations
        \vspace{0.2cm}}}\\
        \vspace{-3mm}
		\caption{{\bf{Overview of the proposed method.}} The proposed method improves the robustness to geometric variations such as rotation by ensembling the set of the feature maps from the backbone $f_F$.}
		\label{fig:proposed pileline2}
	\end{figure*}

The data augmentation is also useful at test time, called Test-Time Augmentation (TTA). Test-Time Augmentation makes the recognition accuracy more robust by computing the mean or maximum inference scores.
However, the performance tends to drop dramatically in the case of false acceptance with high inference score because the final recognition accuracy is only evaluated based on the inference scores.
Furthermore, it has also been pointed out that TTA can turn many correct predictions into wrong predictions, even if it produces a model with improved overall accuracy~\cite{shanmugam2020and}.
It suggests that the performance gain is limited when the input and the inference scores are only manipulated. In other words, it is necessary to incorporate the data augmentation framework into the network structure.

In this paper, we propose a novel CNN architecture that can improve the robustness against geometric transformations without modifying the existing backbones of the original CNN.
The key is to enclose the existing backbone with a geometrical transformation (and the corresponding reverse transformation) and a feature map ensemble.
As shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:proposed pileline2}~(a), in a typical TTA, the final output is obtained by integrating the inference scores.
On the other hand, the proposed method integrates the feature maps at the intermediate layer, as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:proposed pileline2}~(b).
The proposed method is inspired by the Maxout networks~\cite{goodfellow2013maxout}, which was proposed to train complex activation functions.
Other existing methods~\cite{laptev2016ti,zhang2018mintin} also use the Maxout architecture in a fully connected layer to obtain rotation-invariant features.
In contrast, the proposed method takes advantage of the Maxout architecture for integrating the feature maps corresponding to each data augmentation.
The implementation of our method is very simple and can be implemented with only a few changes to the conventional CNN architecture.
 Moreover, our method can be used in combination with state-of-the-art data augmentation techniques.
 We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method using standard datasets, including CIFAR, CUB-200, and Mnist-rot-12k.

\section{Proposed method}
\label{sec:proposed method}
\subsection{Processing pipeline of the proposed framework}
Our goal is to improve the robustness to geometrical transformation without modifying the original backbone of the CNN architecture
so that we can reuse the high-performance pretrained backbone.
We begin our discussion with a standard CNN with TTA shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:proposed pileline2}~(a).
The standard CNN contains the backbone and the head.
Let ${\bf{x}}$, $f(\cdot)$, and $g(\cdot)$ be an input image, the backbone, and the head, respectively.
The backbone ${f}$ further consists of ${f_{F}}$ and ${f_{R}}$.
The output of the backbone ${f_{F}}$
generates the feature map ${\bf{z}}=z_{chw}$, where $c$, $h$, and $w$ are the indexes of  channel, height, and width, respectively.
The output $y$ for input image ${\bf{x}}$ is given by $y=g(f({\bf{x}}))=g(f_{R}({\bf{z}}))=g(f_{R}(f_{F}({\bf{x}})))$.
In the typical TTA manner, the inference scores are combined by evaluating the mean or maximum.

On the other hand, as shown in Fig.~\ref{fig:proposed pileline2}~(b), the proposed method consists of 1) the backbone with
forward and reverse geometric transformations, 2) the feature ensemble, and 3) the head. In the following, we describe
each component.

\vspace{-0.3cm}
\subsubsection{Backbone with geometrical transformations}
The proposed method generates the set of the aligned feature maps by enclosing the original backbone $f_F$ with a geometric transformation $T$ and the corresponding reverse transformation $T^{-1}$.

\vspace{0.1cm}
\noindent
{\bf{Geometrical transformation}}:
First, we generate a set of the geometrical transformed images
$ \mathcal{\tilde{X}} = \{ {\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{1} , \cdots, {\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{n},\cdots, {\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{N} \}$
from the input $ {\bf{x}} $, where $n$ is the index for each geometrical transformation, $N$ is the number of the geometrical transformation. The $n$-th transformed image ${\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{n}$ is given by
\begin{equation}
{\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{n} = {\it{T}}( {\bf{x}};  {\xi}_n   ),
\end{equation}
\noindent
where $ {\xi}_n $ is a parameters for the $n$-th geometrical transformation.
In this paper, four rotations with discrete angles (i.e., $0$~[deg], $90$~[deg], $180$~[deg] and $270$~[deg]) are used as the geometrical transformation represented as $\{ {\xi}_n \} = \{ {\bf{R}}_{0}, {\bf{R}}_{90}, {\bf{R}}_{180}, {\bf{R}}_{270} \}$, where  ${\bf{R}}_{\theta}$ is the rotation matrix that rotates the input $ {\bf{x}}$ by ${\theta}$ degrees.
Note that the proposed method can deal with various geometrical transformations  instead of the discrete rotations.
The set of the transformed images $ \mathcal{\tilde{X}} $ is used as the input of $f_F$, and then the set of the feature maps with the geometrical transformation is obtained as
$ \mathcal{\tilde{Z}} = \{ {\tilde{{\bf{z}}}}_{1}, {\tilde{{\bf{z}}}}_{2} \cdots, {\tilde{{\bf{z}}}}_{N} \} = \{ f_F({\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{1}), f_F({\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{2}) \cdots, f_F({\tilde{{\bf{x}}}}_{N}) \}$.

\vspace{0.1cm}
\noindent
{\bf{Reverse transformation}}:
The reverse transformation geometrically reverses the set of the feature maps $\mathcal{\tilde{Z}}$.
As described later, the feature map
ensemble selects one feature from the set of features corresponding to each position.
To compare the feature maps with the same positions, these feature maps should be
geometrically
aligned by the reverse transformation.
The parameters for this reverse transformation are uniquely determined from the geometrical transformation parameters $\{ {\xi}_n \}$.
The set of the reverse transformed feature maps is denoted as  $ \mathcal{{Z}} = \{ {\bf{z}}_{1},\cdots, {\bf{z}}_{n} \cdots, {\bf{z}}_{N} \}$, where ${\bf{z}}_{n}$ is the $n$-th reverse transformed feature map  from the input ${\bf{x}}$, given by
\vspace{-0.3cm}
\begin{eqnarray}
\label{eq:backbone}
{\bf{z}}_{n}
= {\it{T}}^{-1}( f_F(  {\it{T}}( {\bf{x}};  {\xi}_n  )  ) ;  {\xi}_n ).
\end{eqnarray}

\vspace{-0.6cm}
\subsubsection{Feature map ensemble}
\vspace{-0.1cm}
Feature map ensemble integrates the set of  the reverse transformed feature maps $\mathcal{{Z}}$.
To integrate the feature maps, we concatenate the set of feature maps $\mathcal{{Z}}$, and obtain the concatenated feature maps ${\bf{Z}}=[ {\bf{z}}_{1},\cdots, {\bf{z}}_{n} \cdots, {\bf{z}}_{N} ]$, where $[ \cdot  ]$ is concatenation operator. In indax notation, the concatenated feature maps ${\bf{Z}}$ is represented as $Z_{nchw}$.
In this paper, two types of ensemble algorithms, called the feature map maximum and the feature map mean, are proposed as follows:
\begin{eqnarray}
&{\hat{\bf{z}}}&=S_{{\rm{max}}}({\bf{Z}}) = \max_n Z_{nchw} , \\
&{\hat{\bf{z}}}&=S_{{\rm{mean}}}({\bf{Z}})= \frac{1}{N} \sum_{n} {\bf{z}}_{n}.
\end{eqnarray}
The final output inference $y$ is given by ${y} = g(f_{R}({\hat{\bf{z}}}))$.

Note that the existing methods~\cite{laptev2016ti,zhang2018mintin}
use the Maxout architecture at the fully connected (fc) layers. Therefore, these methods are only applicable to image classification task because the spatial information is already lost at the fc layers. In contrast, the proposed method has the potential to apply various tasks such as semantic segmentation because the proposed method integrates the feature maps containing the spatial information.

\vspace{-0.15cm}
\subsection{Analysis}
\label{sec:ana}
\vspace{-0.15cm}
We demonstrate the advantages of the proposed feature map ensemble using toy examples.
The rotated training images were generated by randomly rotating the original CIFAR10 to one of four angles  (0~[deg], 90~[deg], 180~[deg], and 270~[deg]).
On the other hand, the four sets of rotated test images were generated by rotating the original test image of CIFAR10  with all four angles (i.e., 0~[deg], 90~[deg], 180~[deg], and 270~[deg]).
 We used ResNet18~\cite{he2016deep}  for this analysis.
 The weight of ResNet18 was obtained by fine-tuning from the pre-trained model whose weight is optimized using the original CIFAR 10 without rotation.

Figure~~\ref{fig:A} shows the comparison of our algorithm to four algorithms, where BS represents a base model trained with original images only, DA represents a model trained with images augmented by rotating, and TTA represents four angle TTA.
We used max operation for our algorithm and mean operation for TTA to obtain a better performance.
The accuracy of BS
is significantly decreased by the angle rotation.
Even if the data augmentation and the TTA are performed,
the accuracy is lower than that of BS with the original CIFAR10 (i.e., the BS's accuracy with 0 [deg] shown as the red dotted line).
On the other hand, our proposed method can keep accuracy among all rotations. These results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method to the rotation.

\begin{figure}[t]
        \centering\includegraphics[width=0.99\linewidth]{Fig2a1.png}

        \vspace{-0.2cm}
		\caption{{\bf{Results on CIFAR10 with  four discrete rotations.}}}

		\label{fig:A}
\end{figure}

\vspace{-0.15cm}
\section{Experiments}
\label{sec:intro}
\vspace{-0.15cm}
We first compared the performance of the proposed method with that of test-time augmentation (TTA).
Then, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method using Mnist-rot-12k dataset. Finally, the effectiveness of joint use with state-of-the-art data augmentation is evaluated.

\vspace{-0.15cm}
\subsection{Comparison with test-time augmentation}
\label{sec:exp1}
\vspace{-0.15cm}
{\bf{Datasets.}} We generated 12 different evaluation datasets from the four common image classification datasets (CIFAR10/100, SVHN~\cite{howard2013some}, and CUB-200~\cite{WahCUB_200_2011}) by performing the following three geometrical transformations (Trans.~A, Trans.~B, and Trans.~C):
\vspace{-0.1cm}
\begin{description}
\item[Trans.~A:]
Randomly rotate the original training and test images to one of four discrete angles (0~[deg], 90~[deg], 180~[deg], and 270~[deg]). This geometrical transformation is a similar dataset to Sec. ~\ref{sec:ana}.
\vspace{-0.1cm}
\item[Trans.~B:]
Randomly rotate the original training and test images with
uniformly sampled
angles $\theta \in [0,360]$.
\vspace{-0.1cm}
\item[Trans.~C:]
Rotate the original training and test images with
uniformly sampled
angles $\theta \in [0,360]$, and then scale with random magnifications $r \in [0.5, 1.5]$.
\end{description}
\vspace{-0.1cm}

\noindent
We evaluated the effectiveness of the proposed method using the six comparison methods according to the combination of types of the training data for fine-tuning (original data or geometrically transformed data) and types of TTA (without TTA, the ensemble mean, and the ensemble maximum) as shown in Table~\ref{tbl:Settings}.
For this experiment, we used ResNet18,ResNet50 ~\cite{he2016deep} and MobileNetV2~\cite{sandler2018mobilenetv2}. By default, we train the networks for 200 epochs with mini-batch size 128, weight decay is 0.0005, and momentum 0.9. We used SGD for optimization. The learning rate is set to 0.1 to 0.0001.

\begin{table}[t]
	\begin{center}
		\caption{\bf{Settings  in existing and proposed methods.}}
		\label{tbl:Settings}
		\scalebox{0.825}
		    {
		    \tabcolsep = 0.5mm
			\begin{tabular}{c|c|c|c}
			%
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{}  & TTA or feature- & {Dataset} \\
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{}  & map ensemble & for fine-tuning \\
            \hline
            \hline
             & - & without TTA &  \\
            Baseline (BS) & max & Ensemble maximum & original dataset\\
             & mean & Ensemble mean & (e.g., CIFAR10)\\
            \hline
            Data  & - & without TTA &  \\
            Augmentation & max & ensemble maximum & transformed dataset\\
             (DA) & mean & ensemble mean & (e.g., CIFAR10 with Trans.~A)\\
            \hline
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Ours (mean)} & ensemble mean & transformed dataset \\
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Ours (max) } & ensemble maximum & (e.g., CIFAR10 with Trans.~A) \\
            \end{tabular}
			}
	\end{center}
\end{table}

\noindent
{\bf{Result.}} Table~\ref{tbl:main1} and Table~\ref{tbl:main2} show the results obtained by the proposed and the comparison methods using ResNet and MobilenetV2.
Bold and underline indicate the highest and next highest values, respectively.
For all network models and all datasets, the accuracy of the proposed method is higher than those of the comparison methods.
These results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. Note that the feature map maximum $S_{\rm{max}}$ is generally more effective than the feature map mean $S_{\rm{mean}}$ in the proposed method. Therefore, in the following experiments in Sec.~\ref{sec:exp2} and Sec.~\ref{sec:exp3}, we used the feature maximum $S_{\rm{max}}$ to evaluate the performance of our method.

\begin{table*}[t]
	\begin{center}
		\caption{{\bf{Results for ResNet18 and ResNet50~\cite{he2016deep}}}. Bold and underlines indicate the most and next most accurate methods, respectively.
		ResNet18 was used for CIFAR and SVHN, and ResNet50 was used for CUB-200.}
		\label{tbl:main1}
		\scalebox{0.875}{
    		{\tabcolsep = 1mm
			\begin{tabular}{cc|ccc|ccc|ccc|ccc}

            &  \multicolumn{1}{c|}{} &\multicolumn{3}{c|}{CIFAR10} & \multicolumn{3}{c|}{CIFAR100}  & \multicolumn{3}{c|}{SVHN} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{CUB-200}\\
            \hline
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{TTA} & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C \\
            \hline
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{-} & 55.18	&	48.04	&	40.35	&	43.07	&	31.70	&	24.67	&	43.31	&	42.81	& 36.44 &	52.90	&	50.07	&	46.53	\\
            Baseline& \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{max} &	83.26	&	67.90	&	55.98	&	69.26	&	46.08	&	34.22	&	67.23	&	63.45	& 52.74 &	68.78	&	64.38	&	60.44	\\
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{mean} &	71.53	&	57.30	&	46.67	&	62.81	&	40.88	&	30.47	&	67.47	&	63.24	&  52.6 &	62.70	&	58.23	&	54.68	\\
            \hline
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{-} &	88.82	&	85.15	&	79.29	&	65.05	&	60.95	&	52.91	&	89.66	&	87.41	& 85.17 &	71.28	&	70.87	&	66.12	\\
            fine-tuning& \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{max} &	91.28	&	87.9	&	82.37	&	68.91	&	64.26	&	56.26	&	91.44	&	89.76	& 87.68 &	72.78	&	71.54	&	67.64	\\
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{mean} &	91.55	&	88.28	&	83.05	&	70.82	&	66.37	&	58.31	&	91.73	&	90.39	& 88.43 &	74.65	&	73.84	&	69.05	\\
            \hline
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Ours (max)} &	{\bf{94.66}}	&	{\bf{91.86}}	&	{\bf{87.89}}	&	{\bf{75.36}}	&	{\bf{71.13}}	&	{\underline{62.91}}	&	{\underline{92.41}}	&	{\underline{90.83}}	& {\underline{88.70}} &	{\bf{77.51}}	&	{\bf{75.98}}	&	{\bf{72.66}}	\\
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Ours (mean)} &	{\underline{94.08}}	&	{\underline{91.76}}	&	{\underline{87.68}}	&	{\underline{75.26}}	&	{\underline{70.45}}	&	{\bf{62.98}}		& {\bf{92.45}} &	{\bf{91.29}} & {\bf{88.80}} &	{\underline{74.23}}	&	{\underline{73.80}}	& {\underline{69.92}}	\\

			\end{tabular}
			}

		}
	\end{center}
	\begin{center}
		\caption{{\bf{Results for MobilenetV2~\cite{sandler2018mobilenetv2}}}. Bold and underlines indicate the most and next most accurate methods, respectively.}
		\label{tbl:main2}
		\scalebox{0.875}{
    		{\tabcolsep = 1mm
			\begin{tabular}{cc|ccc|ccc|ccc|ccc}
            &  \multicolumn{1}{c|}{} &\multicolumn{3}{c|}{CIFAR10} & \multicolumn{3}{c|}{CIFAR100} & \multicolumn{3}{c|}{SVHN} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{CUB-200} \\
            \hline
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{TTA} & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C & Trans.~A & Trans.~B & Trans.~C \\
            \hline
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{-} &	50.47	&	40.61	&	36.40	&	37.44	&	25.05	&	19.81	&	42.21	&	41.67	& 37.95 &	44.44	&	41.63	&	37.07	\\
            Baseline& \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{max} &	82.52	&	59.36	&	50.64	&	61.24	&	36.03	&	28.12	&	78.26	&	69.46	& 62.29 &	55.51	&	50.85	&	45.41	\\
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{mean} &	67.02	&	46.10	&	39.35	&	51.89	&	31.17	&	24.94		&	73.69	&	67.41	& 59.21 &	51.71	&	47.64	&	42.13\\
            \hline
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{-} &	75.75	&	70.10	&	68.89	&	58.66	&	52.93	&	45.73	&	86,00	&	85.27	& 81.82 &	65.02	&	64.67	&	60.68	\\
            fine-tuning& \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{max} &	76.83	&	71.20	&	69.93	&	60.80	&	54.27	&	47.20	&	86.56	&	86.38	& 82.45 &	65.96	&	65.52	&	62.5	\\
            & \multicolumn{1}{|c|}{mean} &	77.94	&	72.17	&	70.7	&	62.14	&	55.36	&	48.58	&	87.73	&	86.91	& 83.44 &	67.31	&	66.95	&	63.65	\\
            \hline
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Ours (max)} &	{\underline{82.62}}	&	{\underline{76.28}}	&	{\underline{74.41}}	&	{\bf{65.84}}	&	{\bf{59.48}}	&	{\bf{52.87}}	&	{\bf{89.68}}	&	{\bf{87.72}}	& {\bf{84.65}} &	{\bf{73.58}}	&	{\bf{71.44}}	&	{\bf{67.10}}	\\
            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{Ours (mean)} &	{\bf{85.56}}	&	{\bf{79.60}}	&	{\bf{74.89}}	&	{\underline{64.83}}	&	{\underline{58.59}}	&	{\underline{52.34}}	&	{\underline{89.18}}	&	{\underline{84.45}}	&	{\underline{84.24}} &	{\underline{69.04}}	&	{\underline{67.47}}	&	{\underline{61.67}}	\\

			\end{tabular}
			}
		}

	\end{center}
\end{table*}

\vspace{-0.25cm}
\subsection{Comparison with existing methods using Mnist-rot-12k dataset}
\label{sec:exp2}
\vspace{-0.15cm}
Next, we compared the performance of the existing and proposed methods using MNIST-rot-12k~\cite{larochelle2007empirical}, which is widely used to evaluate the robustness to image rotation.
This dataset consists of 12k training images and 50k test images.
In this experiment, ResNet18 and Xavier's initialization was used.
Other training protocols (e.g., number of mini-batch  size and optimization methods) were the same as those in Sec.~\ref{sec:exp1}.

Table~\ref{tbl:Mnist} shows the performance of the proposed method and the existing methods which employ Maxout architecture. The evaluation results of the state-of-the-art methods are also shown as references. Note that the results of the existing methods are taken from the original paper.
As shown in Table~\ref{tbl:Mnist}, the accuracy of the proposed method is higher than those of the existing method with Maxout architecture~\cite{laptev2016ti,zhang2018mintin}. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed method is comparable or better than the state-of-the-art methods.

\begin{table}[t]
	\begin{center}
	    \vspace{-0.65cm}
		\caption{ {\bf{Result on Mnist-rot-12k.}} Left: Performances of the existing methods using Maxout architecture and the proposed method. Right: Performances of other state-of-the-art methods.}
		\label{tbl:Mnist}
		\scalebox{0.875}{
		    {\tabcolsep = 1.5mm

			\begin{tabular}{cc}

			\begin{tabular}[t]{c|c}

            \multicolumn{1}{c|}{\it{Method}}  & {\it{Acc.}}\\
            \hline
            \hline
            \multicolumn{1}{c|}{TI polling~\cite{laptev2016ti}}	& 97.80 \\

            MINTIN~\cite{zhang2018mintin} & 98.43 \\
            \multicolumn{1}{c|}{{Ours (max)}} & {\bf{98.96}}\\

			\end{tabular}

			&

			\begin{tabular}[t]{c|c}

            {\it{Method}}  & {\it{Acc.}}  \\
            \hline
            \hline
            STN~\cite{jaderberg2015spatial}	& 97.12  \\
            GECNN~\cite{cohen2016group}	& 97.72  \\
            Harmonic~\cite{worrall2017harmonic} &	98.40	\\
            OR-Net~\cite{zhou2017oriented}	& 98.46	\\
            RotEqNet~\cite{marcos2017rotation} & 	98.91 \\
            Xu et.al.~\cite{xu2020towards} & 98.92
			\end{tabular}
			\end{tabular}
			}
		}
    \vspace{-0.3cm}
	\end{center}
\end{table}

\vspace{-0.2cm}
\subsection{Joint use with state-of-the-art data augmentation}
\label{sec:exp3}
Finally, we evaluated the effectiveness of the proposed method in combination with state-of-the-art data augmentation. In this experiment, we used the transformed dataset obtained from the original CIFAR10 and CIFAR100 with Trans.~B described in Sec.~\ref{sec:exp1}.
We used Rand Augmentation (RA)~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment} as state-of-the-art data augmentation.
The comparison method is also the same as in Sec.~\ref{sec:exp1}.
Furthermore, we evaluated the performance of the state-of-the-art learning-based TTA (GPS~\cite{molchanov2020greedy}) as a comparison.
The performance was evaluated using WideResNet~(WR)~\cite{zagoruyko2016wide} as in ~\cite{molchanov2020greedy}.

The experimental results are shown in Table~\ref{tbl:ra}.
The proposed method achieves higher accuracy than all existing methods, including GPS~\cite{molchanov2020greedy}.
These results show that our proposed method can be effectively used in combination with state-of-the-art data augmentation.

\begin{table}[t]
	\begin{center}
	    \vspace{-0.65cm}
		\caption{{\bf{Effectiveness of joint use with state-of-the-art data augmentation.}}}
		\label{tbl:ra}
		\scalebox{0.875}{
			\begin{tabular}{cc|c|c}

            \multicolumn{2}{c|}{} &\multicolumn{1}{c|}{CIFAR10}&\multicolumn{1}{c}{CIFAR100} \\
            \hline
            \hline

            \multicolumn{2}{l|}{WR~\cite{zagoruyko2016wide}+RA~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment}} & 90.74 & 72.07 \\
            \hline
            \multicolumn{2}{l|}{WR~\cite{zagoruyko2016wide}+RA~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment}+TTA(max)} & 91.68 & 73.51  \\
            \multicolumn{2}{l|}{WR~\cite{zagoruyko2016wide}+RA~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment}+TTA(mean)} & 91.93 & 74.67  \\
            \multicolumn{2}{l|}{WR~\cite{zagoruyko2016wide}+RA~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment}+GPS~\cite{molchanov2020greedy}}  & 92.08 & 74.25  \\
            \multicolumn{2}{l|}{{{WR~\cite{zagoruyko2016wide}+RA~\cite{cubuk2020randaugment}+Ours (max)}}} & {\bf{93.59}} & {\bf{77.50}}
			\end{tabular}
		}
	\end{center}
    \vspace{-0.3cm}
\end{table}

\vspace{-0.2cm}
\section{Conclusions}
\label{sec:intro}
\vspace{-0.2cm}
We have proposed the novel CNN architecture to improve the robustness against geometrical transformations without modifying an existing backbone.
The key is to enclose the existing backbone structure with the geometrical transformation and the feature map ensemble.
We have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method using CIFAR, CUB-200, and Mnist-rot-12k.
Our future work would be to extend the proposed framework to improve the robustness to photometric transformations.
\end{spacing}

\begin{spacing}{0.915}
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Home » World News » Couple are prisoners in their own home because a mob of nesting seagulls are so loud they cannot hear each other
Couple are prisoners in their own home because a mob of nesting seagulls are so loud they cannot hear each other
A COUPLE are prisoners in their own home because a mob of nesting seagulls are so loud they can't hear each other speak in the garden.
Yve and Mike Cast say at least 30 breeding pairs of gulls screech round the clock from a roof near their home in Totnes, Devon.
They are often unable to sleep past 5am and can't use their garden because the noise is so unbearable.
To make matters worse, seagull poo covers their property and sets like concrete.
Yve, 62, and Mike, 65, have been plagued by the noise for six years but council chiefs won't intervene because seagulls are a protected species.
Mike said: "It's the incessant noise which is the issue and it is driving us mad.
"At the worst times during breeding you struggle to be in the garden – and forget sleeping past 5am.
"Luckily our dog chases the ones that land in the garden, it's like living in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
"Months and months of screeching gulls virtually all day long is not acceptable." The gulls nest on the roof of a nearby library and a block of flats with the worst of the noise during breeding season between May and September.
Many adult gulls remain on the roof all year.
They also cause trouble in the nearby town centre and regularly use their beaks to rip open bin bags and create a huge mess.
South Hams District Council claim they cannot cull the pesky birds as they are a protected species.
And it says it has no legal power to enforce property owners to install seagull deterrents.
Mike added: "South Hams are inept while other councils have been proactive.
"Culling of Gulls by various means, many of them perfectly humane, is absolutely acceptable with a licence.
"South Hams Council have got to get a grip on this problem and lead from the front.
"Seagulls should be renamed urban gulls because they live here now – and not at sea." All species of gull are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981.
Research has shown that seagulls are having larger families due to the lack of predators and the advantages of food nearby.
Yve added: "Many of the adult seagulls are still here in the winter and are still screeching, the problem is all year round."
"But our main beef is really with the lack of action from the council who say it's not their problem or responsibility.
"They are not prepared to insist that owners of buildings – including their own – with large roof spaces do something about it.
"It's just sloppy governance and enough is enough."
Executive member for environment at South Hams District Council, Cllr Keith Baldry said: "We wish we could help but seagulls are protected birds and cannot be destroyed.
"Enforcement against property owners is not possible because we don't have any power to insist owners put seagull deterrents in place.
"With regard to the refuse all containers we provide to properties for the storage of refuse are designed to be seagull proof.
"Following our markets, we have officers who patrol the area to ensure everything is clean and tidy and we have not had any reports of mess."
Totnes Community Development Society trustee Anna Lodge said: "We have consulted specialist contractors about the seagulls, who emphasised the need for a thorough approach involving multiple interventions to address the different roof types in the local area.
"There are limited opportunities to tackle the issue on the Mansion site in isolation due to the variety of roofs in the locality and the protected nature of the gulls themselves.
"Trustees regard improvement to the condition of the building critical to its future through planned renovations for the site."
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This month, we're delighted to announce the launch of our new and improved Gift Registry! We're excited to be able to offer a new, easier way to register for products you love on Ballarddesigns.com, and in celebration of our new Gift & Wedding Registry, we'll be talking weddings all week!
Today, we're rounding up 8 of our must-have items for brides!
1. A Plush Set of Towels — towels may not seem like the most exciting item to unwrap in the weeks leading up to your wedding, but accept this as one of the only chances in your life to receive a complete set of towels. If you're the monogram type, you can always have them monogrammed with your new initial.
2. A Handful of Versatile Serving Dishes — three or four classic serving pieces is all you need. Get a few large serving bowls and 1-3 serving platters and your all set. You never know when you'll need to take a dish over to a potluck or host Thanksgiving dinner. Just be sure to pick a color and pattern that is classic enough to last you for years to come!
3. A Killer Bedding Collection — whether you're a fan of an all-white bed or something with a little personality (like Suzanne Kasler's Greek Key Bedding), register for a complete set of bed linens, from top to bottom.
4. Serving Spoons and Forks — Even if you're not a huge entertainer, we promise you'll get more use out of these than you expect. We're partial to our Fairhope Serving Set because while it looks like your grandmothers sterling silver, you can throw it in the dishwasher without worry!
5. A Set of Placemats and Napkins — Pick a pattern that you absolutely love or go for a classic white linen, but a set of placemats and napkins should be on your wishlist. We recommend a set of 8!
6. Glassware — A classic set of glassware is a no-brainer. A set of six will do, but a set of 8 is even better!
7. Dinnerware — Again, take this moment as one of the few chances that someone (or several someones) might gift you a full set of dinnerware. Pick a classic white or a more modern, but still neutral gray.
8. Woven Placemats — We can't help but love our Piper Woven Placemats! They're durable enough to use every day, but they can also be dressed up for more special occasions. You can also take them outside if you're dining al fresco. All in all, these are a never go out of style must-have!
Stay tuned all week for registry tips, a bridal suite makeover, and even wedding etiquette!


text:
Q: spring boot 2 and Redshift connectivity. I'm trying to connect spring boot2 with redshift ,
Since spring boot 2 have uses hikariCP by default and  hikariCP doesn't have explicit support . Does any one have successfully connected to redshift ?
Here is my Spring boot 2 properties
spring.datasource.driver-class-name=com.amazon.redshift.jdbc41.Driver
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:redshift://<someHost>.redshift.amazonaws.com:5439/XXX
spring.datasource.username=xxxxxx
spring.datasource.password=xxxxxx

spring.datasource.testWhileIdle = true
spring.datasource.validationQuery = SELECT 1

spring.jpa.show-sql = true
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=validate
spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.dialect =  org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQL9Dialect

Maven POM.XML
        <dependency>
        <groupId>com.amazon.redshift</groupId>
        <artifactId>redshift-jdbc41</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.10.1009</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>

When i start the server i get below warning and error
2018-03-29 00:00:52.740  WARN 23279 --- [           main] com.zaxxer.hikari.util.DriverDataSource  : Registered driver with driverClassName=com.amazon.redshift.jdbc41.Driver was not found, trying direct instantiation.
2018-03-29 00:00:54.443  INFO 23279 --- [           main] com.zaxxer.hikari.pool.PoolBase          : HikariPool-1 - Driver does not support get/set network timeout for connections. ([Amazon][JDBC](10220) Driver not capable.)
2018-03-29 00:00:54.450  INFO 23279 --- [           main] com.zaxxer.hikari.HikariDataSource       : HikariPool-1 - Start completed.
2018-03-29 00:00:55.318  INFO 23279 --- [

......
2018-03-29 00:00:55.744  INFO 23279 --- [           main] o.h.e.j.e.i.LobCreatorBuilderImpl        : HHH000424: Disabling contextual LOB creation as createClob() method threw error : java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: null
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.env.internal.LobCreatorBuilderImpl.useContextualLobCreation(LobCreatorBuilderImpl.java:113) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.env.internal.LobCreatorBuilderImpl.makeLobCreatorBuilder(LobCreatorBuilderImpl.java:54) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.env.internal.JdbcEnvironmentImpl.<init>(JdbcEnvironmentImpl.java:271) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.env.internal.JdbcEnvironmentInitiator.initiateService(JdbcEnvironmentInitiator.java:114) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.env.internal.JdbcEnvironmentInitiator.initiateService(JdbcEnvironmentInitiator.java:35) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.internal.StandardServiceRegistryImpl.initiateService(StandardServiceRegistryImpl.java:88) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.createService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:259) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.initializeService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:233) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.getService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:210) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.JdbcServicesImpl.configure(JdbcServicesImpl.java:51) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.boot.registry.internal.StandardServiceRegistryImpl.configureService(StandardServiceRegistryImpl.java:94) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.initializeService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:242) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.service.internal.AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.getService(AbstractServiceRegistryImpl.java:210) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.boot.model.process.spi.MetadataBuildingProcess.handleTypes(MetadataBuildingProcess.java:352) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.boot.model.process.spi.MetadataBuildingProcess.complete(MetadataBuildingProcess.java:111) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.metadata(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:861) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.hibernate.jpa.boot.internal.EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.build(EntityManagerFactoryBuilderImpl.java:888) [hibernate-core-5.2.14.Final.jar:5.2.14.Final]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.SpringHibernateJpaPersistenceProvider.createContainerEntityManagerFactory(SpringHibernateJpaPersistenceProvider.java:57) [spring-orm-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.createNativeEntityManagerFactory(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:365) [spring-orm-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.buildNativeEntityManagerFactory(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:388) [spring-orm-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(AbstractEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:377) [spring-orm-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean.java:341) [spring-orm-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1769) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1706) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:583) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:502) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.lambda$doGetBean$0(AbstractBeanFactory.java:312) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:228) ~[spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:310) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:200) [spring-beans-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.getBean(AbstractApplicationContext.java:1085) ~[spring-context-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:858) ~[spring-context-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:549) ~[spring-context-5.0.4.RELEASE.jar:5.0.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.context.ServletWebServerApplicationContext.refresh(ServletWebServerApplicationContext.java:140) ~[spring-boot-2.0.0.RELEASE.jar:2.0.0.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:752) ~[spring-boot-2.0.0.RELEASE.jar:2.0.0.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refreshContext(SpringApplication.java:388) ~[spring-boot-2.0.0.RELEASE.jar:2.0.0.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:327) ~[spring-boot-2.0.0.RELEASE.jar:2.0.0.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1246) ~[spring-boot-2.0.0.RELEASE.jar:2.0.0.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1234) ~[spring-boot-2.0.0.RELEASE.jar:2.0.0.RELEASE]
    at com.starz.dwh.paymentTransaction.PaymentTransactionProducerApplication.main(PaymentTransactionProducerApplication.java:11) ~[classes/:na]
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498) ~[na:1.8.0_102]
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:147) ~[idea_rt.jar:na]
Caused by: java.sql.SQLFeatureNotSupportedException: [Amazon][JDBC](10220) Driver not capable.
    at com.amazon.exceptions.ExceptionConverter.toSQLException(Unknown Source) ~[na:na]
    at com.amazon.jdbc.common.SConnection.createClob(Unknown Source) ~[na:na]

A: Actually, this is not an exception. This is a log generated by LobCreatorBuilderImpl:124. This notifies you that the Redshift implementation of the Connection class does not support the createClob() operation.
What you can do is set spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.jdbc.lob.non_contextual_creation to true.
Once you do, you will now have a different log which says:
HHH000421: Disabling contextual LOB creation as hibernate.jdbc.lob.non_contextual_creation is true
That is much cleaner. And you will have to deal with Redshift not being able to create clobs anyway.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Holmes boys basketball team will not travel to Mt. Sterling, Kentucky for the Joe B. Hall Classic on Saturday, a news release from Covington Independent Public Schools said on Friday.
Instead, the Bulldogs will play host to #2 Louisville Trinity at home.
The game is scheduled for 4 p.m. at the Holmes High School fieldhouse.


This genuine 993cc Vanguard twin cylinder engine offers dependable power for your equipment needs. With a power rating of 35 horsepower, this engine features a premium Dual Clean air filtration system, electric starter, and maintenance-free Magnetron electronic ignition. With a manufacturer limited warranty of 3 years consumer use / 3 years commercial use, Vanguard provides power that you can trust. This engine includes a Dura-Bore cast iron cylinder sleeve for extended life. This engine includes an oil cooler. This engine includes a fuel pump. This engine includes an oil filter. This engine includes a 20 amp charging system. This engine is equipped with low-oil shutdown.


text:
(Redirected from Double Fine Productions)
Double Fine Productions, Inc. is an American video game developer based in San Francisco, founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer after his departure from LucasArts. In June 2019, Double Fine was acquired by Microsoft and became part of Xbox Game Studios.
Double Fine Productions, Inc.
Video game industry
July 2000; 19 years ago (2000-07)
Tim Schafer (president and CEO)
Xbox Game Studios (2019-present)
doublefine.com
Though the company's first two games Psychonauts and Brütal Legend were critically praised, both underperformed publishers' expectations. The future of the company was assured when Schafer turned to several in-house prototypes built during a two-week period known as "Amnesia Fortnight" to expand as smaller titles, all of which were licensed through publishers and met with commercial success. Schafer has since repeated these Amnesia Fortnights, using fan-voting mechanics, to help select and build smaller titles. Double Fine is also credited with driving interest in crowdfunding in video games, having been able to raise more than US$3 million for the development of Broken Age, at the time one of the largest projects funded by Kickstarter. The company has continued to build on their independent developer status and has promoted efforts to help other, smaller independent developers through its clout, including becoming a video game publisher for these titles. Double Fine has also been able to acquire rights to remaster some of the earlier LucasArts adventure games, including Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle.
The Double Fine website is also host to seven webcomics, which are created by members of Double Fine's art team and are collectively referred to as the Double Fine Comics.[1]
Double Fine was founded by former LucasArts developer Tim Schafer, together with some colleagues from LucasArts, in July 2000.[2] In the years prior, LucasArts had started to shift development away from adventure games into more action-oriented ones as part of the general trend in the gaming industry. Schafer, who had just finished producing the adventure game Grim Fandango, a title met with critical praise but was a commercial disappointment, saw others leaving LucasArts and was unsure of his own position there. He was approached by colleagues suggesting they launch their own studio to develop their own titles.[3] Schafer departed LucasArts in January 2000, co-founding Double Fine later that year.[4]
Schafer started Double Fine with programmers David Dixon and Jonathan Menzies in what was once a clog shop in San Francisco. After several months of working on the demo for what would become Psychonauts, a mixture of personnel from the Grim Fandango development team and other new employees were slowly added to begin production.[5]
After the implementation of Amnesia Fortnights in 2011 as a means to find new titles to publish, the company is split into a number of teams with about 15 people each. Each team has the capabilities of fully developing a small game on its own, but for their larger titles, like Pyschonauts 2, the company temporarily merges two or more of these teams, and with the option of unmerging the teams once the project is finished.[6]
The company remains situated in San Francisco.[7] The name "Double Fine" is a play on a sign on the Golden Gate Bridge that used to display "double fine zone" to warn motorists that fines on that stretch of road were double normal rates. Double Fine's logo and mascot is called the Two-Headed Baby, frequently abbreviated 2HB,[8] an abbreviation also used for Moai, an integrated development environment.[9][10]
On June 9, 2019, during Microsoft's press conference at E3 2019, it was announced that Double Fine had been acquired by the company and was becoming part of Xbox Game Studios.[11] According to Schafer, through the acquisition, Double Fine will be able to retain its independent nature but will not have to struggle with finding publishers for its games, a problem it has had in its past.[12] Schafer spoke to Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass, a games subscription service for Microsoft Windows and Xbox users, as one favorable aspect of the acquisition. Schafer felt many of Double Fine's games, particularly Psychonauts and its sequel, do not have an aesthetic that people would necessary pay the full price for, but the subscription approach of Game Pass lowers that barrier and will potential get more people to try the game. Thus, Schafer felt that being acquired by Microsoft would allow the studio to continue to develop experimental games in a way that they can still gain good exposure.[13]
ProjectsEdit
Double Fine's first completed project was Psychonauts, a multi-platform platform game following Raz (named after Double Fine's animator Razmig Mavlian),[14] a psychically-gifted boy who breaks into a summer camp for psychic children to try to become part of an elite group of psychic heroes called Psychonauts. Critically praised, it was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Despite its acclaim, however, it did not sell well initially.[15]
Double Fine's second project was Brütal Legend, a hybrid real time strategy, action-adventure game following a heavy metal roadie named Eddie Riggs, whose name is derived from both Eddie the Head, the Iron Maiden mascot, and Derek Riggs, the artist who created the mascot. The story follows Eddie as he is transported to a fantasy world in which demons have enslaved humanity. Tim Schafer has credited the inspiration for the game to the lore, fantasy themes, and epic Norse mythology of heavy metal music found in both its lyrical content and its album art.[16] Brütal Legend was published by Electronic Arts and was released in North America on October 13, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and later for Microsoft Windows.
Amnesia FortnightEdit
During the development of Brütal Legend, a publishing issue arose. Activision, having acquired the rights to the title through its merger with Vivendi Games, decided to drop it and forced Schafer to locate another publisher. During this period, in approximately 2007, Schafer attempted to boost the company's morale by engaging the team in an "Amnesia Fortnight". For a two-week period, the employees were split into four groups, told to forget their current work on Brütal Legend (hence the "Amnesia"), and tasked to develop a game prototype for review by the other groups.[17] The four ideas were successfully made into playable prototypes. The four prototypes produced were Custodians Of The Clock, Happy Song, Love Puzzle, and Tiny Personal Ninja.[18]
The process was repeated later near the end of Brütal Legend, providing an additional two prototypes. The prototypes produced were Costume Quest and Stacking.[19]
Schafer credits the concept of the Amnesia Fortnights to film director Wong Kar-Wai. During the long, three-year filming of Ashes of Time, Wong had taken some of his actors and film crew to Hong Kong to shoot footage for fun, ultimately resulting in the films Chungking Express and Fallen Angels. Schafer noted these were some of the director's more famous films.[20] Schafer eventually signed a publishing deal with Electronic Arts for Brütal Legend.
Double Fine founder Tim Schafer and Cookie Monster during a promotional video for Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster
These Amnesia Fortnight periods proved fortuitous, as Schafer considers these to have kept the company viable.[20] Upon completion of Brütal Legend, Double Fine started work on its sequel but was told to stop development shortly after as Electronic Arts decided against publishing it. With no other publishing deals lined up at the time, Schafer turned back to the eight game ideas developed from Amnesia Fortnight, believing they could be developed further into short, complete games. Schafer also looked at the success of smaller focused games like Geometry Wars on the various download services, realizing the potential market for similar titles.[20] Schafer and his team selected the best four, and began shopping the games to various publishers, and successfully worked publishing details with these.[21] Two of these games, Costume Quest and Stacking, were picked up by THQ and released digitally on the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network storefronts. Both games were considered successful and THQ expressed interest in helping Double Fine produce similar titles.[22] Iron Brigade was prototyped between 2008 and 2009 as Custodians Of The Clock, and was originally released as Trenched before the title was changed due to trademark issues. It was developed as an Xbox Live Arcade game in association with Microsoft Game Studios, and similarly received positive praise from journalists.[23] A fourth game, Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, expanded from the Happy Song prototype, was published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in association with the Sesame Workshop for the Xbox 360 using the Kinect controller. Though it initially was not a licensed title, Schafer and his team found it to be an ideal fit for their first licensed-property game.[24] The four unused ideas may be used for a game in the future, according to Schafer, but believes some of them may be unsellable to a publisher.[17]
The development groups for these games were headed by the former leads from Brütal Legend: lead animator Tasha Harris for Costume Quest, lead art director Lee Petty for Stacking, lead designer Brad Muir for Iron Brigade, and lead programmer Nathan Martz for Once Upon a Monster. This was to not only put these teams under people who had been in the industry for a long time, but as a means to help promote these leads.[25] The remaining staff were split among the four teams, with some later swapping to make sure each team has appropriate resources when needed, such as artists and programmers.[17] Double Fine did not have to lay off any of the staff during this time,[17] and instead were able to hire Ron Gilbert, Schafer's former collaborator at LucasArts, to work on the new titles, as well as a future title that Gilbert has envisioned.[26] Schafer stated that though they could likely make another large game akin to Psychonauts or Brütal Legend, they would likely keep the smaller teams to continue to work on these smaller titles, due to the gained experience shared by the company.[17]
In 2011, the prototyping process was repeated in Double Fine's last private amnesia fortnight. The prototypes produced during this period were Middle Manager Of Justice, a superhero simulation game, Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, a camp-building game based on Psychonauts, and Brazen, a Monster Hunter-style four-player online co-op game.[27]
Tim Schafer and Drew Skillman with 2 Player Productions' Asif Siddiky at PAX Prime 2012
In November 2012, Double Fine, along with Humble Bundle, announced Amnesia Fortnight 2012, a charity drive based on the previous Amnesia Fortnight. During this, those that paid a minimum of US$1 had the opportunity to vote on 23 concept ideas. After the completion of the voting period, Double Fine developed the top five voted ideas into game prototypes that were available for those that purchased the bundle. The prototypes were (in order of receiving the most votes): Hack 'n' Slash, a The Legend of Zelda-inspired action-adventure, where players need to hack to solve puzzles, led by senior programmer Brandon Dillon, Spacebase DF-9, a sim game set in space, led by designer-programmer JP LeBreton, The White Birch, an ambient platform game (inspired by Ico and Journey), led by art director Andy Wood, Autonomous, a retro-futuristic sandbox robot game, led by art director Lee Petty, and Black Lake, a fairytale exploration game led by senior artist Levi Ryken. In addition, the purchaser received the initial prototypes of Costume Quest, Happy Song (what would become Once Upon a Monster), and Brazen, a Monster Hunter-style four-player online co-op homage to Ray Harryhausen, which was led by Brad Muir, who was also project lead of Iron Brigade. The development of the prototypes was documented by 2 Player Productions.[28]
The Indie Fund announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 that they provided funding for two titles from Double Fine.[29] The first game created with Indie Fund backing was revealed on October 15, 2013 to be Spacebase DF-9, a fleshed out commercial version of one of the Amnesia Fortnight 2012 prototypes. The game was released as an alpha version on Steam Early Access, and was developed with user feedback received during the early access release period.[30] Unfortunately, development was canceled at version "Alpha 6e" with the next patch released as the finished game. This release did include source code that was released to the community.[31] Largely due to backlash from the abrupt end of development, Spacebase DF-9 has more negative user reviews on the Steam store than positive. The other game partially funded with Indie Fund backing was revealed on December 10, 2013 to be Hack 'n' Slash, another full commercial version of an Amnesia Fortnight 2012 prototype. Hack 'n' Slash was released through Steam Early Access in the first half of 2014.[32]
An additional prototype from the 2012 Amnesia Fortnight, Autonomous, was released as an expanded full free release for the Leap Motion controller on November 18, 2013.[33]
In February 2014, Double Fine, and the Humble Bundle group began another charity drive titled Amnesia Fortnight 2014. During this drive, those that paid a minimum of $1 had the opportunity to vote on 29 concept ideas. In addition, those that paid more than the average will get to vote on a concept idea for a prototype led by Pendleton Ward, the creator of Adventure Time.[34] After the completion of the voting period, Double Fine developed the top voted ideas into game prototypes that were available for those that purchased the bundle. As with Amnesia Fortnight 2012, 2 Player Productions filmed the production of the prototype, which was available to people who purchased the bundle, as well as on a Blu-ray, along with the prototypes on a DVD, for those who paid a minimum of $35.[34] The four pitches that were made into prototypes for Amnesia Fortnight 2014 were Dear Leader, an emergent narrative game led by Anna Kipnis, Little Pink Best Buds, a game about little pink creatures who want to be your friend led by Pendleton Ward, Mnemonic, a surreal, first-person noir adventure led by Derek Brand, and Steed, a game set in a storybook land full of inept heroes led by John Bernhelm.[35] One idea, Bad Golf 2, was not selected as a prototype, but a group of Double Fine fans have started working on developing the title themselves, with the blessing of its conceptor, Patrick Hackett and permission of Double Fine.[36][37]
In April 2017, a third charitable public Amnesia Fortnight was jointly held by Double Fine and Humble Bundle. For Amnesia Fortnight 2017, two prototypes were chosen from the 25 prototype videos by means of the top public votes. These were The Gods Must Be Hungry and Darwin's Dinner. A multi-player virtual reality party game prototype, I Have No Idea What I'm Doing, was chosen by Tim Schafer. Another, the four-player competitive game, Kiln, was chosen by the Double Fine team members that were working on Amnesia Fortnight. This was done to give the team a bit of control, rather than have all of the choices be as a result of online voting.[38] In addition, three fan pitches for prototypes were included in Amnesia Fortnight 2017. All three fan pitches, Pongball, The Lost Dev Team, and Amnesia Adventure, were developed into prototypes. The top pick, Pongball, was included in the Amnesia Fortnight 2017 prototype downloads, and the fans were mentored by Double Fine developers.[39]
Dracogen fundingEdit
Double Fine has received financial investment from Steven Dengler's investment company Dracogen. The investment started as a result of a Twitter conversation between Dengler and Schafer in March 2011, where Schafer commented that the cost of bringing Double Fine's games to personal computers would be high. Dengler asked Schafer for a monetary value, though at the time Schafer believed Dengler was joking around and offered a value of around $300,000. As more formal conversations ensued, however, the company worked with Dengler to set an amount, signing an initial deal to bring Psychonauts to the macOS and to bring Costume Quest and Stacking to Microsoft Windows.[40]
Following this initial agreement, a subsequent deal was made with Dracogen for three iOS mobile games, the first of which is Middle Manager of Justice. The game itself is based on another idea from the Amnesia Fortnights, a simulation game with RPG elements that involves managing teams of superheroes and then fighting as those heroes in battles.[41] Dengler's children helped to provide some of the drawings of superheroes for the game.[40] Middle Manager of Justice was released for iOS in December 2012,[40] and the Android version was released on August 14, 2013.[42]
Dropchord, a motion-based rhythm puzzle game for macOS, Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android, was as well financed by Dracogen. It was a launch title for the Leap Motion Airspace app store when the Leap Motion controller was released on July 22, 2013.[43][44][45]
As of 2012, Dengler has invested about one million dollars into Double Fine, which Schafer said has "paid off for both sides".[40] Schafer has said that Dengler's funding has allowed the company to realize the ability of self-publishing, and believes they would be able to self-publish a triple-A title with Dracogen's financial assistance.[40]
CrowdfundingEdit
In February 2012, Double Fine and 2 Player Productions announced a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter, initially codenamed Double Fine Adventure. It aimed to create a new adventure game featuring art by Double Fine's in-house artist Nathan Stapley.[46] The Kickstarter effort was started because the adventure genre has been perceived as niche and commercially risky. The project aimed to collect $300,000 for the game's development and $100,000 for the filming of the game's development by 2 Player to be released alongside the game.[47] The project reached its $400,000 funding goal in under nine hours of the month-long drive.[48][49] Within 24 hours, Double Fine Adventure had raised more than a million dollars, becoming the most funded and most backed project ever on Kickstarter until it was surpassed by the Pebble watch in April 2012.[50] The game was developed with Moai, and was released in two parts, Act 1 in early 2014 and Act 2 in April 2015.[51] The game was ultimately named Broken Age.[52]
On May 30, 2013, Double Fine started their second crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter. The game, Massive Chalice, is a strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux,[53] directed by Brad Muir.[54]
Additional projects through publishersEdit
Although Double Fine has experienced success through crowdfunding, the company has not renounced working with publishers. Their crowdfunding success has, however, granted them enough independence to be more selective about the publishers they work with and the types of publishing deals they are willing to accept. Talking to gaming news site Polygon, Schafer explained: "We've changed our relationship with publishers. They used to be our sole source of income. Now that we've been self-publishing, we can kind of pick and choose who we work with and work with publishers that have similar goals that we have...[who] have the same kind of mission and believe in the same kind of things we believe in."[55]
In February 2012, the casual video game, Double Fine Happy Action Theater, was published for the Xbox 360 Kinect through the Xbox Live Arcade by Microsoft Game Studios. The title is less a game and more an interactive toy, in which the Kinect is used to create augmented video on the players' screen, putting the players into scenarios such as walking through lava or playing in a giant ball pit. Happy Action Theater was the first game to be directed by Tim Schafer since Brütal Legend in 2009, and came about during Once Upon a Monster, finding that his young daughter had difficulty with the Kinect precision and aimed to make a game that required far less precision but was still enjoyable.[56] Its sequel, Kinect Party, featuring even more augmented reality scenarios, was published by Microsoft Game Studios in December 2012.[57][58]
On February 22, 2012, Double Fine filed a trademark for the name "The Cave",[59] later confirming that this was not related to the Double Fine Adventure project.[60] In May 2012, it was revealed that The Cave was the title of an adventure and platform game developed by Ron Gilbert during his tenure at Double Fine. It was published by Sega in January 2013.[61] Gilbert subsequently left the company on amiable terms to pursue other game development opportunities.[62]
At PAX Prime 2013, it was revealed that Double Fine had a game in development that would be released as free downloadable content for The Playroom, the augmented reality mini-game compilation that utilizes the PlayStation Camera on PlayStation 4. Titled My Alien Buddy, it built on their experience on augmented reality that they gained while making Double Fine Happy Action Theater and Kinect Party for Microsoft.[63] The alien buddy is a deformable toy with which the player can interact. My Alien Buddy was released on December 24, 2013.[64]
On November 21, 2014, Double Fine announced that due to a publishing deal falling through, that it was forced to cancel an unannounced project and let 12 staff go.[65]
As part of a deal with Nordic Games, who gained the publishing rights to Costume Quest and Stacking and the distribution rights to Psychonauts from the takeover of THQ after their bankruptcy, Double Fine took over all publishing rights, while Nordic Games retained and restarted distributing retail copies of all three titles for Microsoft Windows and macOS in early 2014.[66]
Double Fine PresentsEdit
Double Fine announced in March 2014 that it would begin publishing indie games under the moniker Double Fine Presents. Using that program, Double Fine makes its publishing capabilities and offices available for other independent developers to help them finish their work by funding, publishing, and promoting it. The idea came about during the Amnesia Fortnight 2014, where local San Francisco independent developers were working alongside Double Fine in their studios during the two-week period, with the intent to help give them exposure through the production process as it was filmed by 2 Player Productions. The idea of Double Fine providing more long-term assistance to these indies arose during this event, forming the basis for this program.[67] According to Double Fine's COO Justin Bailey, the goal of this approach is to "help indies build their own community and empower them with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed on their own", providing them assistance "customized to what indies need without also creating a certain codependence" that other publishing means require.[68]
The first such game created in this fashion is Escape Goat 2, the sequel to Escape Goat, by MagicalTimeBean.[69] This included a humorous video introducing both the game and Double Fine's program, which was filmed during the week of the 2014 Game Developers Conference in March 2014.[67] For the second title, Last Life by Rocket Science Amusements, Double Fine helped to prepare and present a Kickstarter campaign to help funding the final development of the title.[70] The third title announced under this program was Mountain by David OReilly, a procedural terrarium that provides an ambient, minimalist, zen-like experience full of secrets and mysteries.[71] In August 2014, Double Fine announced that a fourth game would be released under the program, the multiplayer beat 'em up Gang Beasts by Boneloaf, which launched into Steam Early Access on August 29, 2014.[72] The latest addition to the Double Fine Presents program is GNOG by KO OP, a puzzle-adventure released in 2016.[73]
Following Microsoft's acquisition of Double Fine in June 2019, the fate of the Double Fine Presents publishing label was unclear. At least one title, Ooblets, will change to a self-publishing model, while another, Knights & Bikes, remained under the label.[74]
EventsEdit
Double Fine and iam8bit host an annual free festival, Day of the Devs, in San Francisco with food, drink, and playable demos of unreleased indie games.[75][76][77]
Games developedEdit
2005 Psychonauts Majesco Entertainment, Double Fine Productions Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox
2007 Epic Saga: Extreme Fighter Double Fine Productions Browser
2008 My Game About Me: Olympic Challenge Double Fine Productions Browser
Tasha's Game Double Fine Productions Browser
2009 Host Master and the Conquest of Humor Double Fine Productions Browser
Brütal Legend Electronic Arts, Double Fine Productions Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
2010 Costume Quest THQ, Double Fine Productions Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
2011 Stacking THQ, Double Fine Productions Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Iron Brigade Microsoft Studios, Double Fine Productions Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360
Psychonauts Vault Viewer! Double Fine Productions iOS
Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Xbox 360
2012 Double Fine Happy Action Theater Microsoft Studios Xbox 360
Middle Manager of Justice Double Fine Productions Android, iOS
Amnesia Fortnight 2012 Double Fine Productions Microsoft Windows
Kinect Party Microsoft Studios Xbox 360
2013 The Cave Sega, Double Fine Productions Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox 360
Host Master Deux: Quest for Identity Double Fine Productions Browser
Dropchord Double Fine Productions Android, iOS, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Autonomous Double Fine Productions Microsoft Windows
The Playroom: My Alien Buddy Sony Computer Entertainment PlayStation 4
2014 Broken Age Double Fine Productions Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One
Hack 'n' Slash Double Fine Productions Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows
Costume Quest 2 Midnight City, Majesco Entertainment Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Spacebase DF-9 Double Fine Productions Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows
2015 Grim Fandango Remastered Double Fine Productions Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Massive Chalice Double Fine Productions Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One,
2016 Day of the Tentacle Remastered Double Fine Productions iOS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita,
Headlander Adult Swim Games macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2017 Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin Double Fine Productions Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4
Full Throttle Remastered Double Fine Productions iOS, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
2019 Rad[78] Bandai Namco Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2020 Psychonauts 2 Xbox Game Studios Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Games publishedEdit
2014 Escape Goat 2
2017 Everything
2019 KIDS[79]
TBA Knights and Bikes
Samurai Gunn 2
Game Developers Conference — Best New Studio (2006)
Official Xbox Magazine — Developer of the Year (2011)[80]
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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Double_Fine&oldid=906218691"


Our view tonight from our picnic dinner.
And here is our picnic spread by the AMAZING Lisa Steigerwalt. That is real china that we ate off of tonight, perfectly beautiful.
We loved adventuring out to Pope's Landing and we loved Experiencing Home on the adventure. Thank you, Lisa!


Discover a lot of information on the number 48712: properties, mathematical operations, how to write it, symbolism, numerology, representations and many other interesting things!
How to write / spell 48712 in letters?
In letters, the number 48712 is written as: Forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twelve. And in other languages? how does it spell?


text:
Highland County Maple Festival has been postponed due to coronavirus threat until further notice
Laura Peters
Staunton News Leader
MONTEREY - Maple doughnuts and fried trout lunches will have to wait.
The Highland County Maple Festival has officially been postponed, according to a release from the Highland County Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber made the decision to postpone both weekends of the 62nd annual festival, originally scheduled for March 14-15 and 21-22, until further notice due to safety considerations regarding the coronavirus COVID-19, a release said.
Since March 6, the chamber has been in constant contact with local and state health and emergency services professionals to determine the safety precautions needed to be in place for the health of everyone at the Maple Festival, the release said.
Earlier this week, the chamber said the festival would go on as planned, but with extra safety precautions in accordance to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Virginia Department of Health.
Want to read more stories by The News Leader but hit your article limit? Click here to get a subscription and support local journalism.
More:Coronavirus: Longwood student tests positive, school cancels events and in-person classes
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More:Where is the coronavirus? Interactive maps track COVID-19 cases across Virginia and beyond
The chamber previously said it would be taking extra precautionary measures like obtaining portable hand-washing stations, getting disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer bottles to be placed at key locations, identifying areas away from crowds to assist those who feel ill and placing additional signage to point people to public toilet areas with hand sanitizer, the release said.
Now, everything has been called off.
Concerns and recommendations escalated as more information was gathered in the afternoon by March 11, the release said. The World Health Organization declared coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak pandemic.
The decision to postpone came from concerns that local EMS department and Highland Medical Center professionals had about the health of the elderly population in Highland County. The chamber also took into account considerations from the VDH about canceling events with populations especially vulnerable to higher risk for serious illness from the coronavirus like older adults above 60 years old.
More:Search warrant: Grottoes woman caught with a safe, drugs in her trunk
Vendors for the festival also were deciding not to attend out of safety concerns. Other regional events have been canceled. There was an official recommendation from the Highland County Board of Supervisors to cancel the Maple Festival, the release said.
The Chamber of Commerce held an emergency board meeting Wednesday night to discuss steps of action, the release said. A motion was tabled and it was to be decided by Thursday morning.
Thursday morning, Superintendent of Highland County Public Schools' Dr. Thomas Schott recommended that the school system not serve pancake meals or hold their bazaar out of safety concerns during the Maple Festival.
The final decision was made Thursday at another emergency meeting. Postponement was decided with safety being the top concern.
The Chamber will advise its vendors, located at the Highland County Public Schools, Monterey Courthouse Lawn, Ernie's Market in Monterey, some of Monterey's Main Street, Monterey's North Water Street and many at the Stonewall Ruritan Club in McDowell that the festival has been postponed until further notice and to not attend both weekends, the release said.
"The Highland County Chamber of Commerce fully understands the immense and overwhelmingly negative implications that will occur to the local economy, businesses, school system, nonprofits, civic organizations, churches, individuals, vendors and visitors, as well as the Chamber of Commerce itself, based upon this unprecedented and undesirable decision, especially given the timing," Chris Swecker, executive director of the Highland County Chamber of Commerce said in a release.
"The Chamber of Commerce will actively be looking at next steps regarding the future of this year's festival, but we want to make clear that we are looking at holding the Maple Festival in 2021 as usual," he added. "The is a difficult time for the world, country and Highland County, but we believe in the resiliency of our community to come out of this better than before."
The chamber advises people to continue to follow the safety guidelines outlined on the CDC website at CDC.gov and the Virginia Department of Health at vdh.virginia.gov/.
You can reach reporter Laura Peters at lpeters@newsleader.com. Follow her @peterslaura.


Aired back in April 2012, it might be an oldie but it's a goodie. P&G Mother's Day advert ahead of the London Olympics (albeit for the US Mother's Day in May) has undeniable relatability, pulling at the heartstrings of many. In fact, it worked so well they continued the concept two years later for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Pandora conducted a touching experiment looking at the unique and special bond between a mother and a child. Although aimed at the Mother's Day market, the advert remains open to broader appeal, with a call to action to celebrate the uniqueness of all women, whether a mother or not.
Never work with kids or animals they say. Well, with this fun ad, delivered exceptionally well by its young cast, Asda proves kids (and dogs) can stick to a plan! Opting to aim for childlike laughter rather than a traditional tear-jerker, this add hits the target.
Another one from the other side of the pond, Google's #HeresToTheMoms campaign encouraged everyone to upload a photo, video, or message of their choice to celebrate and thank their mothers. Here's a small compilation of some of the best bits in their heart-warming final ad.
Capturing all the emotion of the transition from being a women and partner to becoming a mother. Stating that, 'with every child, a mother is born', this HP ad for the German market visually translates to the women in all countries, that joy comes in endless forms, many of which you are yet to discover.
Running from midnight to 5am, this clever piece of targeted advertising by P&G-owned brand Pampers, aimed to reach new mothers waking up in the early hours of the morning. Ensuring their brand was the first to wish them a Happy Mother's Day, at a moment when many probably found the recognition especially welcome!
We're pretty sure there's another Mother's Day planned for 2020, and plenty more big dates in between, so if you want to create a >GREAT campaign for your brand, just get in touch!
*Denvir Marketing Limited accepts no responsibility for the extreme dehydration that may be caused by the tear-jerking adverts included in this list, whether sad or joyful.


text:
Segeda (Sekaisa) était un oppidum de la tribu des Belli. Il était situé dans la comarque de Calatayud (Saragosse), plus précisément dans la zone correspondante aujourd'hui à l'actuelle Mara et Belmonte de Gracián. Ce fut la ville la plus importante des Belli, ce qui lui permit d'émettre une monnaie vers le .

Localisation

Segeda se situe dans le Système ibérique central, près de la rivière Perejiles.

C'est une zone favorable pour l'agriculture, notamment pour la culture de céréales. L'abondance des récoltes peut expliquer le nombre important et rapproché de communautés dans la région depuis le Haut Moyen Âge.

Histoire

Guerres celtibères

Appien est le premier à mentionner l'existence de cette ville et l'attribue comme possession du peuple des Belli. Il rapporte le déroulement du conflit qui oppose Segeda et Rome<ref>Appien, Histoire romaine, guerres ibériques, chap XI, 44, sur remacle.org</ref>.

La ville a été concernée par les Guerres celtibères, car lorsque la ville a tenté d'agrandir ses murailles en 154 av. J.-C., les Romains ont utilisé ce prétexte comme casus belli'' pour commencer la conquête de la Celtibérie. En effet, le Sénat romain estime que ce peuple ne respecterait plus le traité de Gracchus qui fut signé quelques années plus tôt entre les Romains et Segeda. Les habitants estimaient être de bonne foi, car pour eux le traité interdisait seulement la construction de nouvelles villes, mais pas une extension de cette dernière. Rome lança un ultimatum à Segeda que cette dernière ignora.

En 153 av. J.-C., Segeda est alliée à l'une des tribus celtibères les plus puissantes, les Arvaques, dont la ville plus importante est Numance. L'armée romaine marche sur la ville des Belli avant que ces derniers aient pu terminer les préparatifs de défense. Les habitants de Segeda s'échappent et fuient chez leur voisin, les Arvaques devant l'armée romaine commandée par Quintus Fulvius Nobilior et composée de près de  hommes. Ces deux peuples confient la direction de l'alliance à Caro de Segeda.

Les forces combinées des deux peuples lors d'une embuscade tuent environ  soldats romains, arrêtent l'attaque du consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior contre Segeda et repoussent l'attaque romaine principale sur la ville de Numance. Toutefois lors de cette bataille, beaucoup de Celtibères perdent la vie, dont leur chef Caro de Segeda.

Numismatique

Segeda est considérée comme l'un des ateliers monétaires les plus complets qui ait été fouillé de nos jours. En effet, de nombreux pièces en bronze et en argent y ont été retrouvées. Les pièces de monnaie en bronze telles que les as pesaient entre 14 et 16 grammes. Puis à partir du milieu du , les premiers deniers commencent à apparaître.

Segeda bat ses premières monnaies entre 170 et 154 av. J.-C., principalement des as. La ville celtibère frappe également des pièces en argent uniquement pour payer son tribut à Rome. Sur les pièces de cette époque, le nom de la ville est mentionné sous sa forme celtibère « Sekaiza ».

Toutefois, les pièces les plus nombreuses sont les dernières à avoir étaient émises. Elles portent les caractéristiques suivantes :
 sur l'avers, deux dauphins présents sur les deux côtés de la monnaie ;
 sur le revers, un cavalier armé d'une lance avec en dessous la légende ;
 le poids des pièces est évalué entre 8 et 9 grammes ;
 il est possible de constater une décadence progressive au niveau de la qualité de l'art sur les pièces.

Calendrier romain

En 153 av. J.-C., le Sénat décide d'envoyer le consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior en Hispanie pour s'occuper de la guerre contre Segeda. Jusqu'alors, l'année commençait avec la prise de possession des nouveaux consuls durant les ides de mars, le 15 de ce mois ; janvier et février étant considérés comme les deux derniers mois du calendrier. À cause de l'éloignement de certaines provinces comme celle d'Hispanie, les troupes romaines ne seraient pas prêtes pour la guerre avant septembre ou octobre, alors que la plupart des campagnes militaires à cette époque se déroule durant la saison estivale. C'est pour ce motif que la date d'élection des consuls est avancée au  janvier à partir de cette année, cette date devient ainsi le premier jour de l'année. Les mois ont conservé leurs noms originaux, et c'est pour cette raison que de nos jours « septembre », « octobre », « novembre » et « décembre » ont conservé encore leurs préfixes respectifs de septième, de huitième, de neuvième et de dixième, même s'ils occupent les positions de neuf à douze dans notre calendrier.

Notes et références

Annexe

Bibliographie

Cité romaine en Espagne
Guerres celtibères
Site archéologique en Espagne
Site archéologique en Aragon

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Student-athletes must get a physical from their private physician.
NO ATHLETE MAY PRACTICE OR OTHERWISE PARTICIPATE IN ATHLETICS WITHOUT PARENT PERMISSION AND PHYSICAL CLEARANCE FROM THEIR DOCTOR.
Physicals forms can be obtained online or in the athletic director's or nurse's offices as well as the main office at the middle school and high school.
The student-athlete must have a current and valid physical within a year of the start of the sport season they are going to participate in.
All completed forms for athletics should be returned to Denis Nelson in the athletic office.
Please click on the attachment below for more information on the physicals procedure for 2018-2019 sports participation.


Evolutionary biology, with an emphasis on humans. History of evolutionary thought, pattern and macroevolution, fossils and deep time, molecular biology and genetics, behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology.
Prerequisites: Completion of GE areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 ; and ANTH 110.
Equivalent Quarter Course: ANTH 3100.


text:
The \u201cHagia Sophia\u201d (or \u201cSancta Sophia\u201d) in Istanbul was built according to construction plans of the mathematician Anthemios of Tralles and the architect Isidorus of Miletus in the era of Justitian (6th century after Christ).<\/p>\n
In several campaigns lasting up to 2005, the Bernese architectural historian Volker Hoffmann and his assistant Nicholas Theocharis developed a digital 3D model of the building that served as database for a comprehensive analysis of the architectural construction of the domed basilica. With its 56 metres height and a diameter of 31 metres, the dome is one of the most impressive domes built in ancient times. It was used as a coronation church by Byzantine emperors.<\/p>\n", "description": "The repository contains the complete model of the Bern campaign; only the upper part of the vault could not be measured due to renovation works carried out on the dome at the time of the campaign.", "shorttitle": "HASO", "license": { "name": "Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 DE", "url": "https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/de\/", "logo": "by-nc-sa.eu.png" }, "gallery_num_fig_per_page": 12, "title": "Hagia Sophia 3D", "visible_on_startpage": true, "resource_type_icons_path": "http:\/\/repository.edition-topoi.org\/resource_type_icons\/default\/", "service_images_path": "\/HASO\/ServiceHASO\/Images\/", "institutions": [ "Humboldt-Universit\u00e4t zu Berlin", "Excellence Cluster 264 Topoi", "Universit\u00e4t Bern" ], "default_thumb_extension": "png", "filter": { "subject": [ "Architecture", "Archaeology" ], "resource_type": [ "Images", "3D Data" ], "geolocation": [ "Turkey" ], "period": [ "Antiquity" ] }, "research_group": [ [ "Volker Hoffmann", "Nikolaos Theocharis" ] ], "doi": "10.17171\/2-6" }


text:
Q: Point of recursion Are there any useful cases of recursion?
I am beginning to learn recursion and came across an example of using recursion for factorial of a number.
def factorial(num):
    if num == 1:
        return 1
    else:
        return num * factorial(num - 1)

However, it can be done without recursion and would be faster when timed...
def fact(num):
    lst = []
    number = num
    for i in range(1,num):
        lst.append(i)
    for i in lst:
        number = number * i
    return number

A: The point is usually for the sake of simplicity. Yes you could convert them to iterative versions for the sake of improving run time, but this would make them much less readable.
This thread sums it up pretty well:
what is recursion and when should I use it