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A #dataviz review of the UK Election Poll trackers
We're one week away and, as ever, all the media outlets have an election poll tracker. How do they stack up? Do they mislead? Do they adhere to good practice? Do they communicate well with their audience? What can we, as data analysts, learn from these?
Today I'm taking a look at 5 trackers from across the media and political spectrum.
Overall, there's lots to like. I didn't find any egregious visualization crimes. Instead, I found simple charts, attempts to show uncertainty, and some new ways to tell stories.
FT, Guardian, BBC
I'm struck at how similar these three are. Why is this? I believe it's because many organisations realise that simple, effective charts are best. People want insight more than they want shiny toys.
The use of lines and colour saturation makes it easy to see the movements of each of the parties over time. Adding dots to indicate each individual poll is a very good way to communicate the variance and uncertainty.
Each tracker has a couple of nice features the others' don't, as well as a couple of things I might like to see improved upon.
The front page of the Guardian's election site doesn't show the tracker. Instead it shows BANs: the headline numbers. Do I like this? Well, I wrote the book that introduced BANs to the world, but here, I'm not so sure. Headline numbers are amazing, but in an election, it's the value relative to the others and how it's changing that is most important.
I think that for the front page real estate taken with these numbers, it would be possible to show the info with some sparklines. Something like this, perhaps:
With the above approach, we get the headline numbers, but also the sense of change as well as a way to compare parties visually and quickly. Sparklines are great for mobile, too, as they will shrink down really small while maintaining readability.
The Poll Tracker itself is the only one of the three with interactivity. Hover over a dot and it highlights all the polls by that pollster, for that political party:
I like this interactivity because it builds a deeper insight into each pollster.
Beneath the line chart is another interactive chart, showing all the polls, row by row. I like this too: it's a visual representation of row-level detail (contrast that with the BBC and FT which both have plain tabular data beneath their trackers)
The FT
The FT tracker lacks the interactivity of the Guardian, but is otherwise equally well done. There is one nice feature that's extra:
I like the labels at the right hand side on the FT tracker. They form an at-a-glance headline, embedded in the visualization itself.
UPDATE: This tweet from Martin Stabe at the FT adds some extra context about the line-end labels:
Thanks — our colour-coded labels are also an accessibility feature. It's often difficult to maintain conventional party colours and colour-blind accessibility, so dynamically annotating lines at their endpoint is something we've used for a while on these: https://t.co/vsd1I00dYQ
— Martin Stabe (@martinstabe) December 6, 2019
I also like that the FT Tracker page contains changing polticial and methodological commentary which they update throughout the campaign.
How does the BBC do it? As we've seen they have the same overall approach.
The top of the BBC tracker has a headline section, too:
This is the only tracker to show the "Likely Range". I think this is really important, because it's the only one to show, in "headline" form, the uncertainty in the data. Including "Likely Range" let's us see how close the parties might be at the upper/lower ends of the ranges.
There are 2 small niggles with the BBC's tracking chart:
Number 1: which line is this label referring too? I was confused. It's a reference line label to the solid red line, not the dotted grey line. It took me a moment to work that out. I originally interpreted the solid red line as a border, not a reference line
Number 2: the BBC chose to include more party lines than the FT and the Guardian, and the result is that the smaller parties' lines become unreadable. Try following the black line from start to end: it gets lost.
The Daily Mail doesn't seem to have a tracker per se, but is publishing regular articles about polling data. I quite like that approach: it makes the polling numbers more of a news item than something to remember to go check in with.
I have some issues. There are a couple of things to like. They chose bar charts, which is great. There's a nice clear headline. That tells me what I am looking at.
But there are issues:
Why 2 bars for each party? Have a look at the chart and come back to tell me what they mean. … … … You're back? It took about a minute, right. Now you've worked it out, does it help prove the point being made in the title? Not really. Are side-by-side bars the best way to show change over time? Not really.
Since this is a chart about the Tories, in a Tory-supporting paper, why did they sort this so the smallest was on top?
I don't like the background images, personally. They might drive up engagement for a non-data audience on social media, but they do nothing for me.
Why is the data source and explanation floating next to the Labour bars? It should be alongside the title, or at the bottom.
The Mirror have taken a different approach. Check out their page: where's the charts? A video?? What madness is this?
Yes, it's a 30 second video of a line chart. The chart itself isn't particularly exciting (mainly because the data hasn't moved much), but I think they're doing something clever here.
Last week I blogged about Bar Chart Races and why they're like Fidget Spinners. But despite my misgivings, the Mirror's video takes what's great about Bar Chart Races – movement, sound and engagement – and brings it to polling data.
This means it's a great approach for a non-data audience.
The data reveals itself to audio soundbites from the last few days. The chart builds slowly, with annotations.
Yes, it does demand 30 seconds of your time, but it's a great little explainer. And finally: consider this as an autoplaying video embedded in your social media feed. You're likely to stop and watch it; perhaps more than stopping to pay attention to a video?
My own tracker: Tableau-built!
Finally, I thought I'd build my own, using Tableau. I took the data and combined the interactivity of the Guardian with the right-hand BANs of the FT. I didn't push the needle out, but you can see the interactive version by clicking here.
Click to view the interactive version
It's very reassuring to find that there are great examples of clean, audience-focused, clarity-driven poll trackers. Even the Daily Mail chart, for its faults, isn't a disaster. This reflects a reassuring maturity of data journalism skills.
What do you think? Which are your favourite poll trackers? (and since I know you're all data geeks, I know you'll probably have an answer to both these questions!)
One more thing: I need to provide a special mention to Gavin Freeguard of the Institute for Government and his team for this poll-tracker:
Singing the blues… and the reds, golds, purples and turquoises.
Yes – in this week's #SpeedData, @thorpekj @Jess_Sargeant @lewisalloyd and I *sing* the polls since the start of this year.
Listen to the NEW @instituteforgov Inside Briefing for more https://t.co/ugpWKZfWpR pic.twitter.com/bnS2Ki4Knm
— Gavin Freeguard (@GavinFreeguard) December 6, 2019
Posted in Current Affairs
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100yrs of data viz: and we're still making mistakes – #data14 preview


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Syracuse vs. Florida State
Florida State 45, Syracuse 21: Four Quick Takeaways
The Orange lost. It wasn't pretty.
By Michael Burke Oct 31, 2015, 4:00pm EDT
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Glenn Beil-USA TODAY Sports
Syracuse suffered a 45-21 loss to Florida State on Saturday in Tallahassee. Here are four takeaways:
1. Questionable coaching decisions
Down 21-7 with the ball and near the goal line with about a minute left in the first half, the Orange took a timeout. That stopped the clock, and after Eric Dungey ran for a touchdown on the next play, there were still 56 seconds remaining in the half. Had Syracuse not called a timeout, it obviously could've wasted some clock and left FSU without enough time to do anything offensively.
Then, on the ensuing kickoff, SU opted to squib kick, despite the fact that kicker Ryan Norton had already recorded a couple touchbacks. That gave the Seminoles the ball at their own 42-yard line and, with plenty of time to operate, they promptly marched 58 yards on seven plays, scoring a touchdown and erasing any momentum SU had seized.
2. Dungey's issues
For perhaps the first time this season, Eric Dungey was less than sharp through the air on Saturday, finishing 11-of-24 for 120 yards and zero touchdowns. He didn't quite have the touch he typically does with his deep throws, and he often looked rattled in the pocket. Of course, Florida State's defense is easily the best one Dungey has faced this season, so it's not surprising that he'd struggle.
And on a better note, Dungey did rush 13 times for 46 yards and accounted for Syracuse's only two touchdowns with his legs. Fortunately, he avoided another injury -- though it is worrisome to see him continually take big hits from linebackers and safeties.
3. Secondary debacle
With Florida State starting quarterback Everett Golson out, backup quarterback Sean Maguire finished 23-of-35 for 348 yards and three touchdowns. And though Maguire played exceptionally well, it's worth pointing out that he was throwing to receivers who had very little trouble getting open down the field.
Specifically, Syracuse's secondary made Travis Rudolph look like college football's best receiver. He caught five passes for 191 yards -- thus averaging 38.2 yards per reception -- and reeled in three touchdowns.
4. No Cook, no problem
When FSU running back Dalvin Cook was ruled out of Saturday's game, it was logical to think that it gave SU a much better chance at coming away with the upset. But the Seminoles hardly missed a beat with Jacques Patrick filling in for Cook.
Patrick had 162 yards rushing and three touchdowns on just 24 carries, becoming the fourth running back this season to rush for more than 100 yards in a game against Syracuse.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It is good to note that at time of the purchase it will be a good idea to make sure that you have what will go with your ideas in the beauty and ease of working. There is a variety of the office furniture that you should buy which will suit your needs. The biggest challenge when it comes to furnishing your office will come because of finding the best seller.
It is great to note that you will need to have some proper ways, which will aid in getting the right furniture company. It is great to note that you will have much to gain once you get the reputable furniture dealer. Below are some reasons that do make the best office furniture seller the right choice for your needs.
It is good to note that with the best you will have the opportunity to select the furniture that will satisfy your wants. You will realize that you will have much variety that you need to make the right choices. With the great choice and variety it will be easier for you to pick what will suit your office furnishing desires. You should know that you would have the best place to but the high quality furniture.
It is critical to understand that the right seller will know the office worth and ensure that he or she has only the top quality. Therefore, with the best furniture company you will have what will serve you well for many years to come. It is a good thing to note that the possibility of getting strong and durable material when it comes for your furniture will be certain with the top seller.
At your office, you will need to buy something that will be there for a long time of service so that you can save more on your business expenses. You should know that you will have more peace of mind when you buy the furniture from the best as you will get the assurance of comfort and good support to the electronics and all of the items that you will place or store in them.


In China, scholar-artists have a complex relationship with nature, which served both as inspiration and as a refuge for retreat from an unfriendly political climate. This talk investigates the intersections of art, landscape, and critical dissent in the work of artists from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
These lectures, part of a continuing series, introduce the permanent collection and selected exhibitions on view at the Kimbell Art Museum and provide background on the traditions underlying the major schools of art. The talk is free, no reservations, but seating is limited.


makebarcode: Print various kinds 2/5 and Code 39 bar codes.
The package contains macros for printing various 2/5 bar codes and Code 39 bar codes. The macros do not use fonts but create the bar codes directly using vertical rules. It is therefore possible to vary width to height ratio, ratio of thin and thick bars. The package is therefore convenient for printing ITF bar codes as well as bar codes for identification labels for HP storage media.


All the books and videos featured here are also listed in their respective categories in our maritime bookshop, and are grouped accordingly. What we have done is to provide a selection of the books and videos we think are most suitable as gifts. No matter the subject matter, they stand out as exceptional, and will surely be treasured by the lucky recipient.
Remember, all items are offered at discount prices, and you can have them gift wrapped and shipped anywhere in the world, together with your personal message! If you need instructions on how to do this, just take a look at our FAQ page.
Because of the illustrative cover art, this page will take a little time to load. It is well worth the wait!
Incredible is the word! This is the exceptionally well written account of how the crew from Endurance returned from the Antarctic in a lifeboat after the ship was crushed in the ice.
Our Book of the Month in December 1998, this is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. What began as a journey of exploration became a 20-month battle to stay alive. Extraordinary photographs by ship photographer, Frank Hurley. This book has been selected as No 3 on Amazon.com's Top 10 Travel Books for 1998, and is one of two boating related books on the list. No 4 on the list is "North to the Night, featured below.
The definitive account of the greatest disaster in the history of yachting. Also available in paperback.
After the evacuation of his wife, Alwah Simon finds himself alone in the Arctic ice, frozen in with his 36 foot steel cutter. Harrowing adventures, great photographs, and a flair for story telling. This book has been selected as No 4 on Amazon.com's Top 10 Travel Books for 1998, and is one of two boating related books on the list.
Our all-time favorite! This is the exceptional true story of Donald Crowhurst's attempt to become the first man to circumnavigate the globe non stop. Extremely well researched and written, it is also the story of one of the greatest hoaxes of our time - and its tragic outcome.
The terrifying true story of a ship caught in the middle of the storm of the century - "perfect" in the sense that it could not possibly be worse. Also available in paperback.
Updated (1998) version of one of the definitive "must reads" on Titanic. A first hand telling of the quest to find the sunken ship, but also a lot of information on how she ended up on the ocean floor. Beautiful pictures.
Featuring Jack, and Rose, and most of all, the Titanic... A love story like no other, reviewed to 5 solid stars (the max) by its readers. Also available in paperback.
Quite a few novels have been set on the Titanic up through the years, but few if any are as well written and compelling as this one. A gem! Also available in paperback.
Compassionately written, this is a very easy to read, yet well researched account of what happened to Titanic on that fateful last night in the North Atlantic.
Letters, mementos, and personal effects from those who sailed on the lost ship. Absolutely wonderful pictures which words cannot do justice. A beautiful and remarkable book.
A must! The author makes use of numerous sources and personal accounts to tell the story, while also shedding light on many issues not often emphasized by others. Beautifully illustrated. By its nature, it is fragmented, so don't choose it for your one and only book about the Titanic disaster. But put it right after "A Night to Remember" or "Unsinkable" on your reading list!
Though no other disaster can compete with the foundering of the RMS Titanic for fame (and it is well featured here also), she is far from the only liner lost to the sea. This remarkable book will take you through more than 100 years of maritime history. A beautiful book!
The new bible for modern sailboat design. The design and building of a 40-footer is used throughout as an well illustrated example.
This book features a 100 of the famous S & S yacht designs. Beautifully illustrated.
So you've built (or bought!) your yacht. Now make it look good!
If you are only buying one book about sailing - this be the one!
Four-time America's Cup winner Dennis Conner knows a thing or two about sailing. And in this book, he communicates it very well to the absolute beginner.
A great introduction to sailing, and very useful for the more experienced as well.
This very comprehensive book covers any topic you can think of in basic and advanced sailing.
So many of us dream about quitting the 9 to 5 routine, buying a sailboat, and setting sail for a world full of adventures. Here's a well written book about a family who did just that. It is a sober and informative account, but it won't stop you dreaming. In fact, some of you will go ahead and actually do it!
Most of us are not born sailors. It takes experience, practise - and sometimes even persuasion!
Another book about taking the big leap, but this time from a woman's perspective. Very refreshing!
This new book (published 1998) is likely to become the new bible for offshore cruisers, blue water sailors, circumnavitagors... Has received raving reviews from the boating press as well as its readers, and deservedly so.
If you are only buying one cruising handbook, the choice is a given!
The comprehensive guide to almost 500 sailing routes around the world. The best possible planning aid for the long distance voyager.
Winning a race is not all about short-term speed. By choosing the right tactics, you can beat a faster boat - or conversely, avoid losing to those you should outperform.
Comprehensive book for racers of small sailboats. Excellent as a primer, but useful for the more seasoned racers also.
...or like Dennis Conner, perhaps - he is the author of this book. Few people in the world know more about racing. Though it was issued in 1992, it is still very relevant.
Written by Dennis Conner, three time winner and one time loser of the most prestiguos yacht racing trophy. Very insightful from the definite insider!
Covering practically all aspects of motorboating, this is the authoritative guide to motorboating. A bestseller on the topic.
Excellent book for the recreational boater. If you are only likely to read one book on the subject, choose this one!
The definitive book on the subject. Not only does it provide you with a wealth of infomation and excellent advice, but it is a riveting read as well. Also has chapters on motorboat and multihull handling in bad weather.
If there ever was a bible on knots, this be the one! Magnificent, comprehensive, incredible - choose your adjectives! The only reason for the seriously knot-minded to consider something else is the somewhat stiff price.
Good alternative for the practical user.
An excellent gift that will keep on giving. And with a 25-85% saving off the cover price, it's a bargain. Go to our Magazine page for more information. There are numerous boating mags to choose from...and thousands of others!
Please note that these videos are in NTSC format. This is the system used in the US and Canada. For overseas orders, please make sure that your VCR can show tapes in the NTSC format.
You've all seen it - now own it, and see it again. And again... After all, it is the biggest movie the world has ever seen, in more sense than one.
Terrifying thriller starring Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman. Does for cruising what "Jaws" did for a night time dip in the sea.
The tale of a single handed circumnavigation, narrated by Bill Cosby.
Join Simon le Bon and crew on the racing yacht "Drum" as they participate in the Whitbread Around the World Race.
Very useful for all boaters, sailing or powerboat, large or small!
For more books click on your category of choice on the menu. No menu? Go here.
Do you have suggestions for books that should be listed here? Please send us an email!


Because they're sponges, it's better to incorporate it into their lives now rather than change behavior (later).
Similarly, if we act nice, speak nice, smile, treat people with respect, see strangers as people, listen with intent, and focus on the needs of others it becomes a part of us, our new "norm." Over time, it will feel natural.
The inference is that every action you take becomes a part of you. It is not really possible to be snarky on Facebook, contradictory in person, then nice at church. Our brains have recorded all our behaviors, both good and bad.
It therefore makes sense to try to be the best people we can be, in every interaction we have with others. The easiest way to do that, in my opinion, is to focus on the needs of others whenever we can. It takes the pressure off of ourselves to be good or bad, and puts our attention on helping and showing compassion.
Be kind, be courteous, be helpful, and our brain will soak all that kindness up.
This entry was posted in Around the House, In the community and tagged behavior, brain, give our time, give time, Kindness. Bookmark the permalink.


When you approach product packaging, where do you start?
If you have a brand concept statement or a value proposition, you can begin there. These statements define, among other things, what's unique about your product, including benefits and features. Knowing and articulating this is the foundation for all copy - packaging no less.
If you're not there yet, and if you're pressed to come up with packaging fast, you can do what I did for Heavenly Sleep Liquid Melatonin.


The advent of time tracking app has brought up a positive change in the working environment of the corporate sector. It proved to be beneficial both for the management and as well as the employees in improving the efficiency of the employees and the work culture of the organization.
Several types of time tracking app have been introduced in the market, with different kinds of features for tracking time and those proved to be quite productive for the organizations and as well advantageous for the employees. Here we listed the best time tracking apps for Android and iOS.
This time tracking app helps in tracking the accurate work time. The employees with a busy schedule can easily do their entries in this app instead of manual entry. This app helps in tracking the employee hours and earnings, business expenses, breaks, and payment periods. It has a user-friendly interface thus allowing the employees to clock in and clock out instantly. It can automatically track hours based on their arrival at the job location or leaving their job location.
This time tracking app is compatible with the iOS device and can also be run on the personal computer. The iOS version of the Toggle app is considered one of the best apps for tracking employee hours. It is quite convenient to use for the users and can be connected with various tools for increasing productivity. Apart from its excellent performance in tracking accurate time, it also provides amazing detailed reports. By enabling the app's widget, the user can start and stop time entries with a simple click on the icon.
This time tracker is platform independent as it is compatible with iOS devices, Android platform, and even desktop. This app includes online timesheets, and project management tools large corporations and small businesses. While keeping track of the work hours with the Hubstaff app, the management would be able to understand exactly at what project the team is working on and where the project is at any point in time. For more in-depth productivity tracking, it even includes optional randomized screenshots and activity levels. In this way, the management team can always be updated with the latest developments of the project.
It is a timecard app having a different approach towards time tracking. The primary feature of the app is the unique calendar integration. For the presence of this feature, the app can work both as a time tracker as well as a calendar for the employees of an organization. With this app, the employees can plan their projects in advance and then can start their time clock app accordingly. All the projects can be tracked conveniently using this timesheet app for the iOS platform.
This app is used for tracking the employee hours that need to be set up before using it. With this app, it is required to first create profiles for all the employees and adjust their projects and then the time can be entered manually later on or through the running timer. It does not provide a much detailed report to the management team. It offers a cloud-based backup service for storing the data and can easily restore the data with a single tap.
This is the advanced version of the time tracking app which is compatible with the iOS platform and with the help of this app the user can track tasks, employees, and projects. In addition to this feature, the user can strictly determine each of the project's rates and tasks. It can display multiple timers in one screen for the different projects. The user can download timesheet from this app for records in the PDF format. It also includes the provision for unlimited projects, tasks, and time entries.
It is considered one of the best apps in time tracking through mobile. The few main features of this app include the visual timeline, smart reminders, and detailed reports. Similar to the Toggl app, it also has a widget that lets the employees keep track of their regular work with a single click. It is compatible with the iOS platform.
This is an exclusively designed app that offers work time tracking through a mobile, web, and time clock kiosk. The other key components of this app are GPS location tracking and Shift Scheduling. According to the functionality, the mobile team can clock in from this iOS app, then start their route, and clock out when the day is over. The acquired data is then fed into the report that the business owners and the managers can use to optimize their business and routes.
This time tracking app has a user-friendly interface and has several rich features. It has a widget that shows the employees everything that they have done throughout the day. The report created by ATracker can help the managers check that on which stuff the employees have spent most of the time. It has recently allowed the implemented network sync via Dropbox so that one can have regular automatic backups.
It is a well-designed time tracking app that can be easily used to track the hours worked by the employees and calculate their earnings. It is a simple time clock app that is compatible with the iOS and iPhone devices. It can display several timers on the screen at once. The user can track the time spent on the projects, and then can use that information to issue the PDF invoices. It is not as user-friendly as other apps. But the people who love unique user-interfaces might instantly feel at home.
All the time tracking apps as discussed above are considered among the best time tracking apps. These apps are highly beneficial to the employees and the managers of an organization. It helps in increasing the productivity of the employees through its numerous features.
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Ann Fetter Friedlaender (geboren 1938 in Philadelphia; gestorben am 19. Oktober 1992 in Boston) war eine amerikanische Wirtschaftswissenschaftlerin.

Leben
Ann Fetter graduierte 1960 am Radcliffe College mit einem B. A. in Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Anschließend studierte sie mit Hilfe eines Stipendiums am Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) und erlangte 1964 ihren Abschluss als Ph.D. Danach war sie im Rahmen des Fulbright-Programmes Dozentin in Helsinki. Von 1965 bis 1974 lehrte sie am Boston College und wechselte anschließend als Professorin ans MIT. Ab 1983 leitete sie den Bereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften und war von 1984 bis 1990 Dekanin der School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Sie war die erste Frau am MIT die einen Bereich und eine Fakultät leitete. Ann Friedlaender war Professorin für Wirtschafts- und Ingenieurwissenschaften.

Sie war 14 Jahre lange Mitherausgeberin der Fachzeitschrift "Transportation Science". Außerdem saß sie im Aufsichtsrat der Rand Corporation sowie der staatlichen Bahngesellschaft Conrail (1978 bis 1981 und 1987 bis 1992). In der amerikanischen Vereinigung der Wirtschaftswissenschaftler American Economic Association war sie ein aktives Mitglied.

Sie starb 1992 an einer Krebserkrankung.

Sie war verheiratet und hatte zwei Kinder und lebte zuletzt in Newton.

Werke
 The Interstate Highway System: A Study in Public Investment (1965)
 Studies in Economic Stabilization (Studies of Government Finance) (1968)
 The Dilemma of Freight Transport Regulation (1969)
 Government finance: economics of the public sector (1973)
 Study of national housing needs : task 2, report on the relationship between house values, rents, and incomes (1973)
 Approaches to Controlling Air Pollution (1978)
 Freight transport regulation: equity, efficiency and competition in the rail and trucking industries (1981)
 Interdependent Pricing and Markup Behavior: An Empirical Analysis of GM, Ford and Chrysler (1990)
 Rail Costs and Capital Adjustments in a Quasi-Regulated Environment, in Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, vol. 27, no.2 May 1993, pp. 131–152 (1991)

Weblinks

Literatur

Wirtschaftswissenschaftler
US-Amerikaner
Geboren 1938
Gestorben 1992
Frau

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


BC's Largest Wine Tasting & Farmers Market. Cropped is a sensory and visual experience that truly depicts the Okanagan in its Fall splendor. Featuring over 200 wines and an indoor farmers market, join close to 1,000 guests each night for a Thanksgiving wine tasting where you will rather be grateful for all the wine and artisan vendors. Complete with live musical buskers, Nesters Market, Saputo cheeses and the Blind Pinot Bar, this two-night event is plain fun. And with an onsite wine store, you can take home your favorite wines. This is a Get Home Safe Event generously supported by BC Liquor Stores.
DOWNLOAD OUR APP (availible for both Andriod and Apple) NOW FOR UP TO DATE TASTING NOTES FOR ALL OF OUR EVENTS.
Bordertown Vineyard & Estate Winery ltd.


I have 3 tissue samples with three replicates each (HiSeq data). I want to do gene network co expression analysis on this data. can anybody suggest me best software to do this analysis. I was reading about WGCNA but they recommend it to have at least 20 samples. is there any equally strong alternative for this?
I think the critical point here is not (only) the number of replicates, but rather the number of different condition / samples you have. Given that the original poster only had 3 different samples, I guess it was impossible in his case to build a gene co-expression network. With so few samples in fact, 1 in ~6 genes will correlate by chance and therefore you wouldn't be able to distinguish biologically relevant correlations from random ones.
So, how many conditions do you have?
I have 3KOs vs 3WTs (biological replicates), WTs have to be excluded from this kind of analysis that leaves only three KO samples. So I conclude it's not possible to build coexpression network in my case as well. Very sad!!! Sounded like very interesting kind of analysis to learn.
Martombo, thanks for your promt reply, that helped me to conclude that it wouldn't be possible to conduct this type of analysis on a small size.
How to evaluate the similarity between two different samples by using RNA-Seq?
Do or not doing the Co-expression data analysis?
Any suggestion of tool for differential expression test when one replicate for one condition and no replicate for the other?


Salomon has updated its flagship shoe with duty-focused features to create the XA Forces Mid. With a wider toebox and reinforced instep, this boot can handle tactical tasks like rappelling and fast roping. Featuring Salomon's 3D chassis, Contragrip outsole, and the QuickLace™ system, this boot gives you an unparalleled mix of ankle support and traction while remaining lightweight. This is the ideal jack-of-all trades assault boot.


text:
Jonathan Bush
Watertown, MA, USA
Technology Entrepreneur; Co-Founder & Former CEO of athenahealth
Jonathan Bush is CEO, president and chairman of the board of directors of athenahealth, Inc. He co-founded the company in 1997 and took it public in 2007 in the most successful initial public offering that year. Today, athenahealth remains one of the health care information technology industry's fastest growing companies.
Bush's views on health care and the idea for athenahealth were born from failures with the earliest iteration of its business model. Bush co-founded and operated a birthing clinic with the idea of franchising a network of clinics that viewed pregnancy holistically. Bush would soon realize that his birthing clinic vision was challenged by his business' own inability to track outstanding claims to insurers and get paid in a reasonable timeframe. This challenge would shape the formation of athenahealth as it is known today. As a result of the challenges with the clinics, Bush and his partners set about designing a solution to address the costly administrative inefficiencies that plagued their business. In doing so, they came to realize their circumstance was more typical than unique and that the solution they architected had great application and utility for the broader health delivery system. Given his vision for an information infrastructure that makes health care work as it should, Bush is focused on creating a true, win-win marketplace that enables a broad and efficient exchange of health information.
Bush's passion for health care extends beyond the evolution of athenahealth. Previously, Bush served on the frontlines of health care as an EMT for the City of New Orleans, was trained as a medic in the U.S. Army, and worked as a management consultant in the health care practice of Booz Allen & Hamilton.
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text:
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Texas Case Law › Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Decisions › 1975 › Marshburn v. State
Marshburn v. State
Tommy Preston MARSHBURN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee (two cases).
Nos. 49075, 49076.
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
Rehearing Denied May 21, 1975.
Tom A. Boardman and Lawrence B. Mitchell, Dallas, for appellant.
Henry Wade, Dist. Atty. and W. T. Westmoreland, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Dallas, Jim D. Vollers, State's Atty., David S. McAngus, Asst. State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
ODOM, Judge.
Appellant was convicted of the offenses of attempted escape and robbery by assault. Punishment was assessed by the jury at 15 years for attempted escape and at 500 years for robbery by assault.
Because of our disposition of the case, no discussion of the facts in either cause is necessary. Appellant was tried jointly and concurrently with several co-defendants for robbery by assault and attempted escape.
Appellant complains that the prosecutor's argument to the jury at the close of the punishment stage of the trial was manifestly improper because it invited the jury to apply the parole law in assessing punishment. We agree.[1] The record reflects the following argument by the prosecutor:
"The Judge has told you in his charge that you have no control over the exact term of years that these men will serve; that's to be determined by the Board of Pardons and Paroles and you will look in *901 these judgments and you will find being sentenced from anywhere from two to five years and you say five years and two years later they are out committing another offense. Look at the records." (Emphasis supplied.)
The objection that this argument was improperly going into how long the convicted will actually have to serve was overruled. Prior to this argument, the prosecutor made other references to the potential effect of a long term of years upon the parole authority:
"The Judge told you you can't consider how long these people are going to serve when they are in the penitentiary. I would suggest to you the only way that you are going to do any good and help us here in Dallas County is to make examples of each and every one of the five. . . ". . . You know the big verdicts you hear about are not reasonable. . . you know no person has lived 2,000 years.. . . You know no man can live that long, but I say you have to do something to draw attention, to make these people different than the rest of the people in the jail, to make somebody, somebody who decides how long they are actually going to serve, say this is different than the rest of the life cases that we see. There is something special about this case. I can see right here by the verdict it stands out, I better look into this." (Emphasis supplied.)
It was stated in Alejandro v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 493 S.W.2d 230 at 231 that to be approved by this Court, "[J]ury arguments need to be within the areas of (1) summation of the evidence; (2) reasonable deduction from the evidence; (3) answer to argument of opposing counsel; and (4) plea for law enforcement." (Citations omitted from text). The arguments of the prosecutor do not come within any of the permissible areas of jury argument. On the contrary, the prosecutor's arguments were calculated to introduce prejudice into the minds of the jurors. Cf. Hernandez v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 366 S.W.2d 575 at 576. The prejudice introduced by the prosecutor operates by urging the jury to impose an excessive prison term to compensate for or protect against the action of the Board of Pardons and Paroles.
The prosecutor said, in relation to the term of years prisoners were required to serve by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, "and you [the jury] say five years and two years later they [the defendants] are out committing another offense." This argument demonstrated the operation of the parole laws by inviting the jury to look at records of prior offenses which had been introduced into evidence to see how long it would take for a defendant to be released by the Board of Pardons and Paroles as compared to the length of the sentence originally assessed. The effect of this argument is to demonstrate past applications of the parole law, asking the jury to increase the punishment which would otherwise be assessed, in the ratio of five to two, so that the defendants will actually stay in prison for the length of time desired by the jury.
The State contends the prosecutor's argument was a logical deduction from the records introduced in evidence. The records were not and could not be introduced for the purpose of making the calculation suggested by the State, and its argument that they should be put to such use was not a proper deduction from the evidence. The prosecutor was not recommending a severe punishment based on the evidence, "but urged such penalty in view of how the parole law operated." Dorsey v. State, Tex. Cr.App., 450 S.W.2d 332 at 337 (Dissenting Opinions, Onion, J., Morrison, J.)
The judgments in both causes are reversed and remanded.
DOUGLAS, Judge (dissenting).
The majority reverses these convictions without discussing the facts, without discussing the arguments of defense counsel, *902 without discussing the argument cited in the majority opinion where no objection was made and without mentioning the instruction given by the court following the complained of argument. The facts and circumstances of the case and the setting in which an argument is made should be considered before reversing a case on the ground of alleged improper argument.
Appellant and four others, Bobby Joe Bridger, Christopher Lee Warren, William Howard Key and Stephen Dwight Thompson,[1] were convicted of attempted escape and robbery by assault. Both charges rose out of the same incidentan attempted escape from the Dallas County jail.
The escape attempt started when Marshburn, appellant, lured Officer Pickering, a guard, into a vestibule area on the pretext of getting some papers notarized. When Pickering opened the door from the safety zone into the vestibule area, Marshburn, with a pistol at his side, stepped out and said, "Pickering, this is for real, back up against the wall." When Pickering tried to disarm Marshburn, Marshburn shot and wounded Pickering. Pickering fell to the floor, tried to crawl away and then collapsed.
Immediately prior to the shot, Officer Smart, another guard, had entered the vestibule and walked by Marshburn and Pickering when he saw that Marshburn had a gun. Smart started toward the two and saw Marshburn shoot Pickering. Marshburn turned and then put the gun in Smart's face. He told him three times to pull the latch and let the men out of their cells. Co-defendants Warren and Bridger immediately seized him, backed him against the wall at knife point and told him to strip his clothes off. Marshburn came over and pointed the gun at Smart and Smart proceeded to strip off his trousers and shirt. In the trousers was a billfold containing $317. After Smart removed the clothes Warren took them and left.
Officer Miller was standing in the picket position on Floor 6M when he heard shots. When he saw Pickering on the floor, he set off the alarm. He turned to shut the door to the picket area and saw Marshburn pointing the gun at him. Standing with Marshburn were eight to ten prisoners including Key and Thompson. Marshburn said, "Open up or I'll kill you." They entered the office and jerked the telephones and intercoms loose.
Several of the prisoners placed Miller in the elevator and tried but could not operate it. They then proceeded to take Miller down the steps of the first floor. While this was going on Marshburn held a gun on Miller. The elevator would not work and the steel door on the first floor was locked. The escape attempt was thwarted. Upon this evidence the jury found the appellant and his co-defendants guilty.
At the punishment stage of the trial the State properly introduced "pen packets" on each defendant showing their prior final convictions under Article 37.07, Vernon's Ann.C.C.P. The information before the jury for their deliberation of punishment included the following final convictions for each defendant:
(1) Thomas Preston Marshburn
(a) Swindling Under $50; convicted June 29, 1961; sentence 1 day in the county jail. (b) Felony theft; convicted June 30, 1961; sentence2 years, probated. Probation revoked March 30, 1962. (c) Passing of forged instruments; convictedFebruary 17, 1964; sentence3 years. (d) Attempted robbery; convicted October 21, 1969; sentencetwo years. *903 (e) Misdemeanor DWI; convicted January 6, 1971; sentencefine and 30 days in county jail.
(2) William Howard Key
(a) Felony theft; convicted March 12, 1948; sentencetwo years. (b) Carrying a pistol; convicted February 25, 1949; sentence90 days. (c) Felony theft; convictedJuly 13, 1953; sentencefive years. (d) Carrying a pistol; convicted April 3, 1964; sentence90 days. (e) Burglary, five counts, and felony theft; convictedJune 10, 1964; sentence on eacheight years, concurrent. (f) Robbery, enhanced; convicted May 21, 1971; sentencelife.[2]
(3) Bobby Joe Bridger
(a) Burglary; convictedOctober 4, 1955; sentencefive years, probated. Probation revoked March 28, 1956. (b) Felony theft and burglary; convictedMarch 28, 1956; sentence in each casefive years, all sentences to run concurrent.
(4) Christopher Lee Warren
(a) Robbery; convictedAugust 6, 1971; sentencefive years, probated. Probation revoked April 13, 1972.
(5) Stephen Dwight Thompson
(a) Burglary of a private residence at night; convictedSeptember 9, 1971; sentence49 years.[3] (b) Assault with intent to murder with malice, kidnapping, and felony theft; convictedAugust 25, 1972; sentence in eachten years to run concurrent.[4]
At the guilt stage of the trial, it was before the jury that the codefendants were legally confined in the jail from which they attempted to escape.
Marshburn, appellant, had been convicted on February 4, 1971, of robbery and sentenced to 75 years. He was awaiting the results of his appeal.[5] Key was awaiting transfer to the Texas Department of Corrections to serve his life sentence for robbery that was affirmed by this Court. Bridger had been convicted on March 21, 1972, of robbery and sentenced to life.[6] Warren had just been convicted of robbery by assault on March 7, 1972, and his punishment was finally assessed at twenty-eight years on July 20, 1972. He withdrew his notice of appeal. Thompson was awaiting the results of his appeal upon his conviction of burglary of a private residence which was affirmed before the trial in this cause. Thus, the above information formed a basis of the State's argument on the amount of punishment the jury should assess for each defendant.
In his initial argument at the punishment stage of the trial, the assistant district attorney requested that the jury make examples of these defendants. He said:
"Your verdict is going to mean one of two things. * * * [T]he simple thing would be to sit down and write life on each one of these cases, but that hasn't drawn any attention to the defendant's mind before. * * * [T]he only thing you can do that's going to do any of these people any good is to put them away for a long time, just prevent them from getting out there and raising havoc and hell in Dallas County. "The Judge told you you can't consider how long these people are going to serve when they are in the penitentiary. I *904 would suggest to you the only way that you are going to do any good and help us here in Dallas County is to make examples out of each and every one of the five. . . . "I think you will have to search long and hard to sayyou know the big verdicts you hear about are not reasonable. I mean, they are really not, but you are not to consider how long a person can live, but you know no person has lived two thousand years. I mean that's just reasonable. You know no man can live that long, but I say you have to do something to draw attention, to make these people different than the rest of the people in the jail, to make somebody, somebody who decides how long they are actually going to serve, say this is different than the rest of the life cases that we see. There is something special about this case. I can see right hereby the verdict it stands out, I'd better look into this." (Emphasis supplied)
There was no objection by any of the defense attorneys to these arguments.
Each defense attorney then made a closing argument to the jury. Steve Halsey, attorney for co-defendant Key, said:
". . . and I can kind of tell by the arguments of Mr. Zimmermann [assistant district attorney] that the district attorney's office is kind of setting their sights on a new record here, a new record meaning number of years and when the Judge says that the maximum number was not life, I'm not quite sure what the maximum is. It's any term of years, and I guess you could write down there infinity and that would be impressive and that would be newsworthy. You could write down a million; of course, a million wouldn't be a maximum, or you could write down four thousand. Four thousand I think is a record here in Dallas County, so you could do that, but again, this is appealing to your emotions, . . ." ". . . I think you have seen the records, that there are several cases. I think my man pled out for eight years for about five cases or so, all running concurrently for eight years during one portion of his life, but you know that the State has its pound of flesh on this man as you can see from the records before you. He was reindicted as an habitual criminal, which means they find the elements, that he has been convicted before and he's guilty of the robbery offense in 1971, then it's automatic life. You know they have got their pound of flesh."
Later, Tom Boardman, appellant's attorney, said in his argument:
"I will say right now, Ladies and Gentlemen, it's asinine to consider anything else because really when he's talking about a hundred years or five hundred years or a thousand years, all you are doing is bolstering the egos of these men right here; that's what you would be doing. "Now, if you are going to punish, punish, but don't lose your reason. "Now, I anticipate, because I have tried several cases in my time, the last man to talk, and I don't get to talk any more, is going to get up here and kinda straighten himself up a little bit and say Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the considered opinion of Mr. Henry Wade, or of the district attorney's office, you know, like we have given this great thought and then try to impress upon you that it's come down from on high that you ought to give these men some ridiculous figure for robbing Deputy Smart knowing full well that they are going to get their third shot one of these days."
Finally, during the prosecution's closing arguments, the following occurred:
"[Assistant District Attorney]: . . . The Judge has told you in his charge that you have no control over the exact time of years that these men will serve; that's to be determined by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and you will look in these *905 judgments and you will find being sentenced from anywhere from two to five years and you say five years and two years later they are out committing another offense. Look at the records. (Emphasis supplied). "MR. McLAUGHLIN [Warren's attorney]: At this time I would object to the District Attorney's argument. The court specifically instructed the jury that they are not to consider how long the defendant will actually have to serve. Now the district attorney is going into it. "* * * "THE COURT: Well, the jury is not to consider how long the defendants would be serving any time they decide to assess.[7] (Emphasis Supplied) "MR. McLAUGHLIN: Will you rule on my objection? "THE COURT: I overrule your objection."
The majority apparently would leave the impression that defense counsel properly objected to all statements quoted in its opinion. This was not the case. The statements by the prosecuting attorney in his opening argument were made without objection by any of the defense counsel. An objection must be made to preserve error upon appeal. The failure to object waives error. Bryant v. State, 455 S.W.2d 235 (Tex.Cr.App.1970); see also, Vela v. State, 516 S.W.2d 176 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).
Defense counsel did, however, object to the statement made in the prosecuting attorney's final arguments which are underlined above. If, as appellant contends, such argument is inviting the jury to apply the parole law and to take into consideration how long the defendants would actually serve, such argument is improper. Graham v. State, 422 S.W.2d 922 (Tex.Cr.App.1968).
But the majority opinion fails to reveal the full story. Following the argument in question, one of the defense attorneys objected. The court then specifically instructed the jury that they were not to consider how long the defendants would actually serve. Following the instruction, the court overruled the objection.
The proper instruction to the jury following an objection to such argument is tantamount to sustaining an objection and renders the error, if any, harmless. See Hughes v. State, 493 S.W.2d 166 (Tex.Cr. App.1973), and Dorsey v. State, 450 S.W.2d 332 (Tex.Cr.App.1970). Normally, the defense attorney will make his objection, the court will sustain that objection and, upon motion by the defense counsel, instruct the jury to disregard the argument. Here, before actually ruling on the objection, the trial court instructed the jury not to consider how long the defendants would actually serve any time that they assessed, then he overruled the defense objection. In effect, he instructed the jury to disregard any implication by the prosecution to apply the parole law.
Even so, the argument was not reversible.
In Hoover v. State, 449 S.W.2d 60 (Tex. Cr.App.1969), we said:
"Generally, to constitute reversible error because of argument of the prosecution there must be a violation of some mandatory statute or some new fact has been injected into the case or the argument must have been manifestly improper and harmful."
None of those criteria were violated here. The majority cites Alejandro v. State, 493 S.W.2d 230 (Tex.Cr.App.1973), saying that proper jury arguments must be within the areas of a proper summation of the evidence, a reasonable deduction from the evidence, *906 an answer to argument of opposing counsel, or a plea for law enforcement.
The whole thrust of the prosecution's argument here was to make an example out of these defendants. This was a plea to deter others who might want to commit similar crimes.
The argument complained of was in answer to argument of opposing counsel. They were the ones who spoke of the district attorney's office seeking a new maximum record. They were the ones that mentioned:
"I think you have seen the records that there are several cases. I think my man pled out for eight years on about five cases or so, all running concurrently for eight years during one portion of his life, but you know that the State has its pound of flesh on this man as you can see from the records before you."
The subject of examining the records to see how long the defendant had actually served was first injected by the defense. See Hughes v. State, supra. The prosecution was answering defense counsel's argument.
The jury had before it evidence of quite a number of records detailing the information set out above. It is proper for the prosecuting attorney to summarize the evidence placed before the jury. This was what he was attempting to do. The remarks did not constitute a comment about the length of the sentences that would be served but were only a summation of a portion of the evidence before the jury. See Dorsey v. State, supra.
In Dorsey, the argument complained of was as follows:
"`The Judge in his charge tells you that you are not to consider, comment or anything else upon the length of the sentence you decide to impose that this Defendant will be required to serve. This is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Governor of the State of Texas and I'll say this that if you do not give him life or 99 years in the penitentiary they will not be able to hold him down there until he has rehabilitated, until they themselves decide he is rehabilitated, until they decide that he has been trained and come out into the free world and take his place in society'". 450 S.W.2d 332, at page 335.
This Court held that such remarks did not constitute a comment upon the length of term that would be served.
The argument complained of was not improper but even if considered as improper, the judge's instruction following the objection by defense counsel rendered any error harmless.
The judgments should be affirmed.
DISSENTING OPINION ON STATE'S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DOUGLAS, Judge.
The State's motion for rehearing has been overruled without written opinion. The majority still refuses to discuss the fact that the argument of the prosecutor was directly from the penitentiary records and other evidence. The majority apparently believes that regardless of the record certain arguments are always reversible.
When facts are in evidence and have a bearing on the outcome, they should be discussed in the opinion. This writer does not believe that an isolated statement should be taken out of the record and show reversible error. Prosecutors have always been able, before this case, to discuss matters in evidence. When two rules of law are applicable, both should be discussed and weighed.
Recently this Court reversed a case even though no objection was made because the trial judge in his charge did not apply the law to the facts. See Harris v. State, 522 S.W.2d 199 (1975).
Is the majority opinion in the present case failing to apply the law to the facts? *907 Without facts the law cannot be applied. Courts do not or should not operate in a vacuum. What happened in the trial in nearly all cases is important to the decision on appeal.
The majority in holding the argument reversible is apparently doing so under the belief of the fiction that jurors do not know that convicts receive credit for good time.
The majority should be consistent in its holdings. The cases against the other defendants arising from the same trial where the same objections were made were affirmed. At least the same cases should have the same result, especially where no error has been shown.
The State's motion for rehearing should be granted and the judgment affirmed.
[1] We recognize from the dissent's desire to set out all the facts of this case, although they are of no relevance to the disposition of this ground of error, that it is concerned with the fact that two senseless crimes were committed. We were never unmindful of that fact. What is regrettable is that a prosecutor, who certainly must have been aware of the vice in his chosen line of argument, should pursue a path which could only lead to reversal and the waste of time, energy, and state funds by the requirement of a retrial of these cases. No useful or legitimate purpose was served by the argument pursued. See Boyde v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 513 S.W.2d 588; Lopez v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 500 S.W.2d 844. See also Renn v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 495 S.W.2d 922; Stein v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 492 S.W.2d 548.
[1] Bobby Joe Bridger appealed his conviction; it was affirmed by this Court in a per curiam opinion. Stephen Dwight Thompson appealed his conviction and it was affirmed at 514 S.W.2d 275 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).
[2] Affirmed 486 S.W.2d 958 (Tex.Cr.App. 1972). Reported as Keys v. State, but throughout this trial the name used by himself and others was Key.
[3] Affirmed 486 S.W.2d 343 (Tex.Cr.App. 1972).
[4] Affirmed per curiam, June 6, 1973.
[7] Also, in its charge, the court instructed the jury: "In determining the punishment in this case you are instructed that you are not to discuss among yourselves how long the defendant will be required to serve any sentence you decide to impose. Such matters come within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Governor of the State of Texas and are no concern of yours."
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text:
Q: Spring Rest controller returns 404 not found for POST method invocation I am getting a  404 NOT found for my Spring boot rest controller invocation
Following is my rest controller class:
    @RestController
    @RequestMapping("/v2")
    public class PassengerController {

        @RequestMapping(value="/addPassengerDetails", method=RequestMethod.POST)
        public Passenger addPassenger(@RequestBody Passenger p) {
            System.out.println("in Passenger Controller");
            // logic to return Passenger Type response
        }

I am seeing the following logs and the SYSO statement itself does not get printed.
    o.s.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet        : POST "/v2/addPassengerDetails", parameters={}
     DEBUG 1252 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.s.w.s.handler.SimpleUrlHandlerMapping  : Mapped to ResourceHttpRequestHandler ["classpath:/META-INF/resources/", "classpath:/resources/", "classpath:/static/", "classpath:/public/", "/"]
   DEBUG 1252 --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.s.w.s.r.ResourceHttpRequestHandler     : Resource not found
    --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.s.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet        : Completed 404 NOT_FOUND
    --- [nio-8080-exec-1] o.s.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet        : "ERROR" dispatch for POST "/error", parameters={}

Here is my Request Body for the POST invocation:
{
    "name":"xyz",
    "age":"10",
    "gender":"female"
}
What am i missing?

A: I added @ComponentScan and then it worked. But my package structure  of my Application class is com.xyz.main and my controller class is com.xyz.controller. Why  it requires  explicit declaration here?
Any pointers? As per spring documentation  @SPringBootApplication does a scan across its package and all its subpackages right?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


As a part of a successful Kaizen strategy, "improvement" goes beyond the dictionary definition of the word. Improvement is a mindset of maintaining and improving standards. In a still broader sense, improvement can be defined as Kaizen and Innovation, where a Kaizen strategy maintains and improves working standards through small, gradual improvements, and innovation calls for radical improvements as a result of large investments in technology, processes, and/or equipment. The Kaizen strategy clearly delineates responsibilities: workers are to maintain standards, and managers are to improve standards. The Japanese perception of management boils down to one precept: maintain and improve standards.
A person who is involved in the manufacture of product but does not directly participate in the transformation of that product. Indirect workers may either be doing physical work (receiving, shipping, moving, etc.) or may be doing knowledge work (supervising, scheduling, engineering, etc.).
Raw: material sent by suppliers but not yet worked on by internal personnel/processes.
Work In Process: raw material which has had some value added (it has been through some transformational steps).
Finished Goods: final product(s) completed and on the shelf, waiting customer orders.
A measure of the capital efficiency of an operation. One turn is equal to the complete consumption and replenishment of the inventory in question. The number of inventory turns is usually based on a calendar year and is a commonly used indicator for the lean-ness of an organization.
A set international standards on quality management and quality assurance developed to help companies effectively document required quality system elements. The standards are not specific to any particular industry, product, or service. They were developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an agency composed of the national standards bodies of ninety-one countries.
A manufacturing philosophy that seeks to make exactly what is needed, when it is needed in the current quantity with no waste. The groundwork for JIT was based on work by Kiichiro Toyoda who studied Henry Ford's methods and tried to adapt them to small lot production.
Principles that are fundamental to Time-Based Competition are waste elimination, process simplification, set-up and batch-size reduction, parallel processing, and layout redesign, and are critical skills in every facet of the lean organization. The key elements/concepts of JIT are Flow, Pull, Standard Work, and Takt.
A production scheduling concept that calls for any item needed at a production operation - whether raw material, finished item, or anything in between, to be produced and available precisely when needed, neither a moment earlier nor later.
A system of managing production processes that result in line- balancing, one-piece flow, little or no excess material inventory on hand at the plant site and little or no incoming inspection. This system was developed at Toyota under the leadership of Taiichi Ohno and is sometimes referred to as "The Toyota Production System".
The art of something (i.e., 'leanjutsu: the art of lean production').


Wanna sleuth your way around a tech giant's Mountainview campus? Google has embedded this retro text adventure game and all you need is a web browser (and infinite patience) to play.
Launch your Chrome, Firefox or Edge browser.
CLICK the Console tab. The text "Would you like to play a game?" appears.
Cheers (with special thanks, to Di, for passing this along)!


Applause : Hunt Companies, Inc.
Thank you for the kind words expressed for my involvement with your new store in Peru. As the Codes/Zoning Enforcement official, the project couldn't have progressed more easily due to two key people, Chris Boyea of Bohler Engineering and Dennis Hunt of Hunt Companies. The preparation and professionalism of these two individuals showed consistently throughout the project. Chris' attention to all details during the preconstruction phase made the Planning Boards function much easier. Dennis displayed an impressive ability to control all aspects of construction even with the demanding schedule and kept me informed at each proper stage. Daily I receive complimentary comments on the new building. I wish you continued success in the Town of Peru.


text:
Summit County Rescue Group responds to three close calls
Summit Daily staff report
Summit County Rescue Group responded to several emergencies this week, including a report of an avalanche slide triggered by a telemark skier on Loveland Pass. Although a tuber was sent to Denver by a Flight for Life helicopter, no fatalities were reported.
Colorado Avalanche Information Center | Summit Daily News
Two close avalanche calls on Friday, Dec. 27 kept the Summit County Rescue Group on high alert throughout the day.
In both cases, the riders either escaped or were rescued.
The first avalanche occurred during the early afternoon on Loveland Pass, which was first reported by Arapahoe Basin ski patrol, according to a SCRG news release. The slide was a remotely triggered large slab avalanche initiated from around 200 feet away, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. A-Basin patrol could see tracks in and tracks out, and no response was required from SCRG.
Not long after — at about 2:30 p.m. — SCRG rescuers were called to assist Alpine Rescue Team for the rescue of a telemark skier caught and completely buried in an avalanche above the Loveland Ski Area. The skier reportedly exited the ski area to a saddle about 11,800 feet at altitude.
Fortunately, the slide was witnessed by a boarder who traversed a significant distance over to the debris field, the release stated. The skier was located quickly only because his ski pole was partially sticking out of the snow.
"A tragedy was averted by the heads up response of this one individual who was in the area," said Charles Pitman, SCRG Public Information Officer, in the release. "The skier was not wearing an avalanche beacon and was skiing solo.
"Were it not for some considerable luck, the outcome could easily have been so much worse."
Around the time the avalanche response was winding down, a report came in of a person on an inner tube who had sustained serious injuries, again in the vicinity of Loveland Ski Area. The tubing run apparently started on the ridgeline high above the ski area.
Three SCRG responders were able to get to the patient, along with ski patrol from Loveland Ski Area, the release stated. There was a Flight For Life helicopter still in the vicinity after the avalanche call. The helicopter was able to land in the vicinity of the call and take the injured person to Denver. The extent of the injuries to the tuber is not known, the release stated.
"The snowpack appears to be especially sensitive right now, and more snow is on the way," said Pitman in the release. "Route selection is critical, but a person needs to maximize their chance of survival if caught in an avalanche."
Pitman recommended backcountry skiers and riders should always ski with a companion and have the necessary equipment to effect an extrication if one is necessary. A beacon, shovel and probe pole could be the difference between life and death, the release stated, and riders should never venture into the backcountry alone.
"Without these, you might not be as fortunate as the skier yesterday," Pitman said in the release.
The Summit County Rescue Group is an all-volunteer, nonprofit search and rescue organization that responds to backcountry emergencies in all weather conditions and all times of the year. In 2012 they dedicated more than 3,500 hours to respond to calls for assistance and more than 3,900 hours in training.
SCRG depends on grants and donations for training, equipment and to cover expenses. For more information, or to donate, visit http://www.scrg.org.


I can't help but question. How can I be happy when the people I love the most have absolutely no security before God, no atonement for their sin, no confidence to approach his throne, no hope of existing eternally with him? How can I be happy when I think of flames of fire and then their faces?
How can I be happy when I watch the oppressive power of sin imprisoning and corrupting the people closest to me? How can I be happy when my personal relationships and relationships around me are falling apart because of our sin?
How can I be happy when my friends endure pain and heartbreak and confusion and sadness with no hope beyond themselves? How can I be happy when physical, emotional, and psychological problems afflict people I know?
How can I be happy when every single day my own sin rages and roars and wrangles me in its grip, leaving me feeling weak, defeated, and ashamed?
Perhaps most aggravating of all: how can some Christians go about exhibiting their seemingly-perfect lives, only ever publicizing the polished parts, pretty pieces, envious photos, prideful accomplishments? How can they go about deceiving the world and perpetuating the prosperity gospel with portraits of their pain-free and pleasurable lives?
How insensitive! How can some people continue posting about their perfect and joyful lives when there is an entire world out there suffering? If I didn't know God and was constantly bombarded by their posts, I would want nothing to do with God. What kind of a God would ignore my sufferings and turn a blind eye to my hurts and pains, all the while continuing to send joy and happiness and cheer and laughter and prettiness and perfection to these Christians? This cannot be God! Where is the comfort in that?
Do you know how many people scroll through social media in the midst of their own depression? What are we supposed to make them think by constantly posting about happiness? "Come to God, and everything will be perfect"? "Believe in Jesus, and you can have this awesome life too"? No!! The Christian life is an ugly war against sin and darkness and evil, and wars are filled with nothing less than pain, and to show the world otherwise is utterly deceiving.
These words used to be monuments to me – a mere preservation and commemoration of Paul's experiences. Yet now, they are coming to life, breathing their breath and staking their claim upon me.
I was simultaneously torn with such torment and grief over and on behalf of [this person], and yet such comfort and joy in Christ. Yes, joy. I was sobbing, but so overjoyed in knowing the glory of Christ – that he is trustworthy, that he is a rock, that he works all things for his glory, that I can trust him, that he saves, that he is powerful to save, that he is willing to save. It was the weirdest thing – the two most contradicting emotions existed within me at the same time and in equal force. Is this what it means to rejoice in our sufferings?
This message has, for me, been like a spoonful of medicine that has not gone down easy but is starting to change me. The world needs our joy! Perhaps what has been most troubling for me has been seeing people's joy without seeing or knowing their sorrow – it feels unfair, unrealistic. But how much more powerful to see the sorrow and the joy?
I'm sharing an excerpt of this message below, though I recognize it will make my post uninvitingly long. It's very much worth the read, though, and even more so the listen.
We are a happy people. But we are not what you might call "chipper." There is a plaintive strain in the symphony of our lives. I think Jesus was the happiest man who ever lived. And O how sorrowful! A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
I turn with dismay from church services that are treated like radio talk shows where everything sounds like chipper, frisky, high-spirited chatter designed to make people feel lighthearted and playful and bouncy. I look at those services and say to myself: Don't you know that people are sitting out there who are dying of cancer, whose marriage is a living hell, whose children have broken their hearts, who are barely making it financially, who have just lost their job, who are lonely and frightened and misunderstood and depressed? And you are going to try to create an atmosphere of bouncy, chipper, frisky, light-hearted, playful worship?
No. What they need is to see and feel indomitable joy in Jesus in the midst of suffering and sorrow. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." They need to taste that these church people are not playing games here. They are not using religion as a platform for the same-old, hyped-up self-help that the world offers every day. They need the greatness and the grandeur of God over their heads like galaxies of hope. They need the unfathomable crucified and risen Christ embracing them in love with blood all over his face and hands. And they need the thousand-mile-deep rock of God's word under their feet.
10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;.


D&C health reporter to 'Walk with a Doc' Join Democrat and Chronicle health reporter Patti Singer during the "Walk with a Doc" Tuesday night at the Westside Farmers Market.
The Wall Street Journal features WWAD!
"Walk with a Doc" Program at Holyoke Mall Dr. Jefferson Dickey from Holyoke Medical Center joins ABC40′s Emily Volz to talk about the push to raise health awareness in Western Mass by joining an international program called "Walk With a Doc".
Dr. Allison Bailey is on TV!
Walk with a Doc to improve area's fitness We need to get moving, Louisville. As The Courier-Journal recently reported, Louisville ranked 49th for fitness among the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas in the 2014 American Fitness Index conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine.
Walk with a Doc Kennedy Health Alliance Dr. Richard Weiss has been writing an unusual prescription lately. The Kennedy Health Alliance family physician wants his patients to walk. And since he can't follow them home to make sure they comply, he's offering to walk with them – at no cost.


text:
Saint Lucia commemorates Inaugural JetBlue Mint service
Prime Minister, Honorable Allen Chastanet and acting Chief Executive Officer of the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, Mrs. Tiffany Howard are among officials set to welcome the inaugural JetBlue Mint service on Saturday November 3, 2018. The flight originating out of Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) is expected to land at the Hewanorra International Airport (UVF) at 12:39 p.m.
The Saint Lucia Tourism Authority is ecstatic about the new service. While it is not a new flight, JetBlue has added its premium Mint service to the route, which allows passengers the luxury of kicking back and relaxing on fully lie-flat seats. Each seat features cushions with adjustable firmness and a massage feature, a comforter and pillow, and ergonomic touches. In addition, the Mint service provides individualized seatback TVs and unlimited snacks.
The Acting CEO at the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, Mrs. Tiffany Howard, said; "This is exciting news for our destination as the introduction of the JetBlue Mint service from Boston shows continued growth in our luxury sector out of Northeast United States. Our goal at the SLTA is to continue welcoming more visitors to Saint Lucia and JetBlue, as a partner, continues to complement our marketing efforts."
The SLTA has planned a welcome ceremony to commemorate this new service with a pannist, and masqueraders who are expected to greet passengers on the tarmac followed by a short reception in the VIP Lounge of the Hewanorra International Airport.
Also expected to attend the ceremony are SLTA Director of Marketing for the USA, Kelly Fontenelle–Clarke; General Manager for JetBlue Airways, Marcelline Palton; and Regional Manager for LATAM/Caribbean – Product, JetBlue and JetBlue Vacations, Wendy Jurngerkes.
Read the full article: https://www.eturbonews.com/237030/saint-lucia-commemorates-inaugural-jetblue-mint-service
Strong Seychelles delegation attends World Travel Market in London led by Minister Dogley
Air Astana: Strong traffic and revenue growth in first half of 2018
The Colony Hotel in Palm Beach appoints new General Manager
Newer PostJamaica's Tourism Minister presides over first Resilience Center Board of Governors meeting
Older PostInternational Tourism Investment Conference launch: Two key partnerships key to success?
Poland drops passport illustrations plan after Ukraine, Lithuania object
HongKong spent US$ 22.9 billion on international travel
JW Marriott setting the stage for modern design and luxury in Music City
The Travel Marketing Network: Zero respect for any status quo
Caribbean: One year after the hurricanes
FAA shuts down New York's LaGuardia Airport, all incoming flights halted
Vancouver International Airport welcomes Hong Kong Airlines


text:
\section{Introduction}
Linearly constrained problems are widely  discussed through various disciplines  such as image sciences, signal processing and machines learning, to name a few. The classical algorithm for the linearly constrained problems is the Alternating Direction Method of Multiplier (ADMM); and the previous literature has paid their attention to the convex case \cite{eckstein2015understanding,fortin2000augmented,gabay1976dual,glowinski1985numerical}. In recent years, nonconvex ADMM has been developed for the nonconvex problems \cite{xu2013block,wang2015global,hong2016convergence,wang2015convergence}.
 \subsection{Motivations}
 Although ADMM can be applied to the nonconvex Total Variation (TV) deblurring problem, several drawbacks still exist.  We point out three   of them as follows.
\begin{enumerate}
\item   The convergence guarantees of nonconvex ADMMs require  a very large Lagrange dual multiplier.  Worse still, the  large multiplier   makes the nonconvex ADMM  run slowly.
\item    When applying nonconvex ADMMs to the nonconvex TV deblurring model, by direct checks, the convergence requires TV operator to be full row-rank; however, the TV operator cannot promise such an assumption. This point has been proposed in \cite{sun2017iteratively}.
\item   The previous analyses show that the sequence converges to a critical point of an auxiliary function under several assumptions. But  the relationship between the  auxiliary function and the original one is unclear in the nonconvex settings.
\end{enumerate}
Considering these drawbacks, from both computational and theoretical perspectives, it is necessary to consider novel and efficient solvers.   The main reason why nonconvex ADMMs have these drawbacks is due to the dual variable; in the convergence proof of the nonconvex case, the  dual variables are just simply processed by   Cauchy inequalities; the deductions in the proofs are then somehow loose. Therefore,   we consider employing the penalty method to avoid using the dual information.

\subsection{Contributions and organization}
In this paper, we consider using the penalty method for a class of nonconvex linearized constrained minimizations. Different from the nonconvex ADMM, determining the penalty  multiplier in the proposed algorithm is very lowly-costly. Although  the penalty  multiplier is also large, we can use a continuation method, i.e., increasing the penalty  multiplier in the iteration. The alternating minimization methods \cite{beck2015convergence,sun2017little} are fit for solving this penalty problem. Directly applying the alternating minimization for the penalty problem encounters an  issue: the subproblem may have no closed form.  To overcome this problem, combining the structure of the problem, we use the linearized techniques for the regularized part in the algorithm. In this way, all the subproblems are convex and can be minimized numerically globally even without enjoying a closed form solution. We proved the square-summability    of the successive differences of the generated points. We apply our algorithm to the nonconvex image delurring problem and compare it with the nonconvex ADMM. The numerics show the efficiency and speed  of the proposed algorithm.

In Section 2, we present our problem and algorithm, and the convergence results of the algorithm. Section 3 contains the applications and numerics. And then Section 4 concludes the paper.
\section{Problem formulation and algorithm}
In this paper, we consider a broad class of nonconvex and nonsmooth problems with the following form:
\begin{equation}\label{model}
    \min_{x,y}\{\Psi(x,y):=f(x)+\sum_{i=1}^{N}h(g(y_i)),~\textrm{s.t.}~Ax+By=c\}.
\end{equation}
where $x\in \mathbb{R}^M,y\in \mathbb{R}^N$, and functions $f$, $g$ and $h$ satisfy the following assumptions:
\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{A.1} $f:\mathbb{R}^M\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a closed proper convex function and $\inf_{x\in\mathbb{R}^M}f(x)>-\infty$.
\item \textbf{A.2} $g:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a convex function, and the proximal map of $g$ is easy to calculated.\footnote{We say the proximal map of $g$ is easy to calculate  if the minimization problem $\textbf{Prox}_{g}(d):=\textrm{arg}\min_{t\in\mathbb{R}}\{g(t)+\frac{1}{2}|t-d|^2\}$ can be solved very easily for any $d\in\mathbb{R}$.}
\item \textbf{A.3} $h:\textrm{Im}(g)\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is a concave function and $\inf_{t\in\textrm{Im}(g)}h(t)>-\infty$.
\end{itemize}

A very classical problem which can be formulated as \eqref{model} is Total Variation $q$ (TV-$q$) deblurring \cite{hintermuler2013nonconvex}
\begin{equation}\label{tvq}
    \min_{u}\{\frac{1}{2}\|H(u)-B\|_F^2+\lambda\|T(u)\|_q^q\},
\end{equation}
where $H$ is the blurring operator, $T$ is the well-known total variation  operator and $q\in(0,1)$. By defining $v:=T(u)$, the problem then turns to
\begin{equation}\label{ctvq}
    \min_{u,v}\{\frac{1}{2}\|H(u)-B\|_F^2+\lambda\|v\|_q^q~~\textrm{s.t.}~~v=T(u)\}.
\end{equation}

\subsection{Algorithm}
We consider the penalty function as
\begin{equation}\label{almodel}
   \min_{x,y}\{\Phi_{\gamma}(x,y):=f(x)+\sum_{i=1}^{N}h(g(y_i))+\frac{\gamma}{2}\|Ax+By-c\|_2^2\}.
\end{equation}
The  difference between problem (\ref{model}) and (\ref{almodel})  is determined by the parameter $\gamma$. They are identical if $\gamma=+\infty$.
Assume that $(x^*,y^*)$ is the solution to problem (\ref{almodel}), and $(x^{\dag},y^{\dag})$ is the solution to problem (\ref{model}),  and $(\hat{x},\hat{y})$ is any one satisfying $A\hat{x}+B\hat{y}=c$, we then have the following claims.
\begin{equation}\label{claim1}
    \Psi(x^{*},y^{*})\leq \Psi(x^{\dag},y^{\dag})
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}\label{claim2}
  \|Ax^{*}+By^{*}-c\|_2^2\leq\frac{2}{\gamma}[ \Psi(\hat{x},\hat{y})-\underline{f}-\underline{h_{g}}],
\end{equation}
where $\inf_{x\in\mathbb{R}^M}f(x)\geq \underline{f}$ and $\inf_{t\in\textrm{Im}(g)}h(t)\geq \underline{h_{g}}$. These two claims can provide the errors between (\ref{model}) and (\ref{almodel}).
We present brief proofs for claims \eqref{claim1} and \eqref{claim2}.
First,  with the definition of $(x^{*},y^{*})$, we have
\begin{equation}\label{diff-t1}
    \Phi_{\gamma}(x^{*},y^{*})\leq\Phi_{\gamma}(x^{\dag},y^{\dag}).
\end{equation}
Noting $Ax^{\dag}+By^{\dag}=c$,
 we then have
 \begin{equation}
    \Psi(x^{*},y^{*})+\frac{\gamma}{2}\|Ax^{*}+By^{*}-c\|_2^2\leq \Psi(x^{\dag},y^{\dag}).
 \end{equation}
 Thus, we are led to
 \begin{equation}
   \Psi(x^{*},y^{*})\leq \Psi(x^{\dag},y^{\dag}).
 \end{equation}
 Similarly, we derive
  \begin{equation}
    \Psi(x^{*},y^{*})+\frac{\gamma}{2}\|Ax^{*}+By^{*}-c\|_2^2\leq \Psi(\hat{x},\hat{y}).
 \end{equation}
  With the fact $\Psi(x^{*},y^{*})\geq \inf_{x\in\mathbb{R}^M}f(x)+\inf_{t\in\textrm{Im}(g)}h(t)$,
we then get \eqref{claim2}.

We apply the claims to the    TV deblurring problem \eqref{ctvq}, we can see $\inf_{u}\|H(u)-B\|_2^2\geq 0, \inf_{v}\|v\|_q^q\geq 0$; and we can choose $\hat{u}=\textbf{0}$ and $\hat{v}=\textbf{0}$. Then, it holds
$$\|Tu^{*}-v^{*}\|_2^2\leq\frac{2\|B\|^2_2}{\gamma},$$
where $(u^{*},v^{*})$ is the minimizer of the penalty problem.
Thus, to achieve $\varepsilon$ error approximation, we just need to set $\gamma=\frac{2\|B\|^2_2}{\varepsilon}$.

The classical algorithm solving this problem is the Alternating Minimization (AM) method, i.e., minimizing one variable while fixing the other one. However, if directly applying AM to model (\ref{almodel}), the subproblem may still be nonconvex; the minimizer is hard to obtain in most cases. Considering the structure of the problem, we use a linearized technique for the  nonsmooth part $\sum_{i=1}^{N}h(g(y_i))$. This method was inspired by the reweighted algorithms \cite{chartrand2008iteratively,candes2008enhancing,chen2014convergence,sun2017global}. To derive the sufficient descent, we also add a proximal term. We call it as  iteratively reweighted penalty alternating minimization (IRPAM) method  which can be described as
\begin{equation}\label{scheme}
    \left\{\begin{array}{c}
             x^{k+1}\in \textrm{arg}\min_{x} \{f(x)+\frac{\gamma}{2}\|Ax+By^k-c\|_2^2\},\\
             y^{k+1}\in \textrm{arg}\min_{y} \{\sum_{i}^N w^{k}_i g(y_i)\\
             +\frac{\gamma}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By-c\|_2^2+\frac{\delta\gamma\|y-y^k\|_2^2}{2}\},
           \end{array}
    \right.
\end{equation}
where $w^{k}_i\in -\partial(-h(g(y_i^k)))$, $i=1,2,\ldots,N$. If $h(t)=t$, $-\partial(-h(g(\cdot)))=1$; the algorithm is actually the AM. In the algorithm, all subproblems are convex. If the proximal maps of $g$ and $f$ are easy to calculate, both  subproblems are easy to solve. If $B=I$, the minimizer of the second problem reduces to the following form
\begin{equation}
    y^{k+1}_i=\textbf{Prox}_{w_i^{k+1}g/(1+\delta)\gamma}(\frac{\delta y^k_i}{1+\delta}+\frac{c_i}{1+\delta}-\frac{A_i x^{k+1}}{1+\delta}),
\end{equation}
where $A_i$ is the $i$-th row of $A$, and  $i=1,2,\ldots,N$. Actually, in the TV deblurring model, $B$ is identical map.
When implementing the algorithms, we increase $\gamma$ in each iteration and set an upper bound $\bar{\gamma}$. This  continuation technique was used in   \cite{hale2008fixed,sun2016convergence,sunhard}. In the continuation version, we use  $\gamma_k$ rather than   constant $\gamma$ in the $k$-th iteration.  And the scheme of IRPAM(C) can be presented as follows.
\begin{algorithm}
\caption{Iteratively reweighted penalty alternating minimization  (with continuation)}
\begin{algorithmic}
\REQUIRE   parameters $\bar{\gamma}>0,a>1,\delta>0$ \\
\textbf{Initialization}: $z^{0}=(x^0,y^0)$, $\gamma_0>0$\\
\textbf{for} $k=0,1,2,\ldots$ \\
~~~ $x^{k+1}\in \textrm{arg}\min_{x} \{f(x)+\frac{\gamma_k}{2}\|Ax+By^k-c\|_2^2\}$ \\
~~~ $w^{k}_i\in -\partial(-h(g(y_i^k)))$, $i\in[1,2,\ldots,N]$ \\
~~~ $y^{k+1}\in \textrm{arg}\min_{y} \{\sum_{i}^N w^{k}_i g(y_i)+\frac{\gamma_k}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By-c\|_2^2+\frac{\delta\gamma_k\|y-y^k\|_2^2}{2}\}$ \\
~~~ $\gamma_{k+1}= \min\{\bar{\gamma},(a\gamma_k)\}$\\
\textbf{end for}\\
\textbf{Output} $x^k$\\
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}
In Algorithm 1, if we set $a=1$, the algorithm is indeed the IRPAM; and if  $a>1$, the algorithm is then the IRPAMC.  When   IRPAMC being applied to the TV-q deblurring problem, the subproblems just involve  with FFT and soft-shrinkages which can be solved fast. More details can be founded in \cite{wang2008new}.

Variants of IRPAMC can be developed by using linearization for the quadratic term, or adding the term $\frac{1}{2}\|x-x^k\|^2_2$  in the minimization in the $k$-th iteration, or even  by hybrid way. In  \cite{sun2017little}, the authors introduced various AM schemes which  can be modified for IRPAMC to propose variants.

We have shown that for any given $\varepsilon$, $\gamma$ can be set explicitly. And the convergence of IRPAMC is free of the requirement for the full-rank of $T$. Then,  compared with the nonconvex ADMM, IRPAMC can overcome the three drawbacks pointed out in previous section.
\subsection{Convergence}
In this part, we present the convergence of IRPAMC.  Specifically, we prove that the square of the difference of the generated point is summable. For technical reasons, we need an extra assumption.
\begin{itemize}
\item \textbf{A.4} $f(x)+\frac{1}{2}\|Ax\|^2_2$ is strongly convex with $\nu$.
\end{itemize}
Now, we discuss the validity of Assumption \textbf{A.4}. For the deblurring model \eqref{ctvq}, \textbf{A.4}   actually requires $\|H(u)\|^2_F+\|T(u)\|^2_F$  to be strongly convex.  With basic linear algebra, we just need to verify $\textrm{Null}(H)\bigcap \textrm{Null}(T)=\textbf{0}$.  Direct computing gives us $\textrm{Null}(T)=(1)_{M\times N}:=\textbf{1}_{M\times N}$. For the blurring operator $H$, $H(\textbf{1}_{M\times N})\neq\textbf{0}$. That means \textbf{A.4} holds for the  deblurring model.
\begin{theorem}\label{descend}
Assume that $(z^{k})_{k\geq 0}$ is generated by IRPAMC and Assumptions \textbf{A.1}, \textbf{A.2}, \textbf{A.3} and \textbf{A.4}  hold, and $\delta>0$. Then we have the following results.\\

(1)  It holds that
\small
\begin{align}\label{descend1}
    &\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^k,y^k)-\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k+1},y^{k+1})\nonumber\\
    &\quad\quad\geq \min\{\bar{\gamma},\nu\bar{\gamma}\}\cdot\|x^{k+1}-x^{k}\|_2^2+\frac{\delta\bar{\gamma}\|y^{k+1}-y^k\|_2^2}{2}.
\end{align}
\normalsize
for $k>K$ with   $K=\ulcorner\log_{a}(\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{\gamma_0})\urcorner$.

(2) $\sum_{k}(\|x^{k+1}-x^{k}\|_2^2+\|y^{k+1}-y^{k}\|_2^2)<+\infty$, which implies  that
\begin{equation}
    \lim_{k}\|x^{k+1}-x^k\|_2=0,\,~\lim_{k}\|y^{k+1}-y^k\|_2=0.
\end{equation}
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
(1) The convexity of $-h$ and the fact $-w^{k}_i\in \partial(-h(g(y_i^k)))$ yield
\small
\begin{align}
    &[-h(g(y_i^{k+1}))]-[-h(g(y_i^{k}))]\geq \langle-w^{k}_i,g(y_i^{k+1})-g(y_i^{k})\rangle.
\end{align}
\normalsize
That is also
\begin{equation}\label{descend-t1}
   h(g(y_i^{k}))-h(g(y_i^{k+1}))\geq \langle w^{k}_i,g(y_i^{k})-g(y_i^{k+1})\rangle.
\end{equation}
It is easy to see that $K=\ulcorner\log_{a}(\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{\gamma_0})\urcorner$, $\gamma_k\equiv\bar{\gamma}$ if $k>K$. In the update of $y^{k+1}$, we have
\begin{align}\label{descend-t2}
&\sum_{i}^N w^{k}_i g(y_i^k)+\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By^k-c\|_2^2\nonumber\\
&\quad\geq \sum_{i}^N w^{k}_i g(y_i^{k+1})
             +\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By^{k+1}-c\|_2^2\nonumber\\
&\quad             +\frac{\delta\bar{\gamma}\|y^{k+1}-y^k\|_2^2}{2}.
\end{align}
Combining \eqref{descend-t1} and \eqref{descend-t2}, we then derive
\begin{align}\label{descend-t2+}
&\sum_{i}^N  h(g(y_i^{k}))+\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By^k-c\|_2^2\nonumber\\
&\quad\geq \sum_{i}^N h(g(y_i^{k+1}))
             +\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By^{k+1}-c\|_2^2\nonumber\\
             &\quad             +\frac{\delta\bar{\gamma}\|y^{k+1}-y^k\|_2^2}{2}.
\end{align}
That is also
\begin{eqnarray}\label{descend-t3}
\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k+1},y^k)-\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k+1},y^{k+1})\geq \frac{\delta\bar{\gamma}\|y^{k+1}-y^k\|_2^2}{2}.
\end{eqnarray}
With Assumption \textbf{A.4}, $f(x)+\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax+By^k-c\|_2^2$ is then strongly convex with $\min\{\bar{\gamma},\nu\bar{\gamma}\}$. While   $x^{k+1}$ is the minimizer, the strong convexity the yields
\begin{align}\label{descend-t2'}
 &\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax^k+By^k-c\|_2^2+f(x^k)\nonumber\\
 &\qquad-\left(\frac{\bar{\gamma}}{2}\|Ax^{k+1}+By^k-c\|_2^2+f(x^{k+1})\right)\nonumber\\
 &\quad\quad\geq \min\{\bar{\gamma},\nu\bar{\gamma}\}\cdot\|x^{k+1}-x^k\|^2_2.
\end{align}
The relation (\ref{descend-t2'}) also means
\small
\begin{align}\label{descend-t4}
&\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k},y^k)-\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k+1},y^{k})\geq \min\{\bar{\gamma},\nu\bar{\gamma}\}\cdot\|x^{k}-x^{k+1}\|_2^2.
\end{align}
\normalsize
Summing (\ref{descend-t3}) and (\ref{descend-t4}), we then get
\eqref{descend1}.

(2) From (\ref{descend1}), $(\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k},y^{k}))_{k\geq K}$ is non-increasing for large $K$. Noting $\inf_k\{\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k},y^{k})\}>-\infty$, we can see $(\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k},y^{k}))_{k\geq 0}$ is convergent. Hence, we can easily have
\begin{align}
&\sum_{j=K}^{k}(\|x^{j+1}-x^{j}\|_2^2+\|y^{j+1}-y^{j}\|_2^2)\nonumber\\
&\qquad\leq\frac{\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{K},y^{K})-\Phi_{\bar{\gamma}}(x^{k+1},y^{k+1})}{\min\{\bar{\gamma},\nu\bar{\gamma},\frac{\delta\bar{\gamma}}{2}\}}<+\infty.
\end{align}
\end{proof}
\section{Application to image deblurring}
In this part, we apply the proposed algorithm  to image deblurring and compare the performance with the nonconvex ADMM. The codes of all algorithms are written entirely in MATLAB, and all the experiments are
implemented under Windows  and MATLAB R2016a running on a laptop with an Intel Core
i5 CPU (2.8 GHz) and 8 GB Memory. The Lena
image  is used in the numerical experiments.

 We solve (\ref{ctvq}) when $q=0.5$, and use the nonconvex ADMM proposed in \cite{sun2017iteratively} for comparison.
The performance of the proposed deblurring algorithms is routinely measured by means of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
\begin{equation}
    \textrm{SNR}(u,u^*):=10\lg\left\{\frac{\|u-\bar{u}\|_2^2}{\|u^*-\bar{u}\|_2^2}\right\},
\end{equation}
where $u$ and $u^*$ denote the original image and the deblurring image, respectively, and $\bar{u}$ stands for
the mean of the original image.
 In the experiments, the blurring operators is generated
by the Matlab command   \verb"fspecial('gaussian',.,.)". The blurred image is generated by
\begin{equation}
    B=H(u)+e,
\end{equation}
where $e$ is the Gaussian noise with power of $\sigma$. In the experiment, we set $\sigma=10^{-8}$ and $\lambda=10^6$, and $\delta=10^{-6}$.
The proposed algorithms  are terminated after 200 iterations.
 The parameters are set as  $\gamma_0=10$, $\bar{\gamma}=1000$ and $a=1.1$. We compare IRPAMC with the nonconvex ADMM, in which the  Lagrange dual multiplier is also set as $1000$.  For both algorithms, the initializations are set as the  blurred image. The numerical results are shown in Fig. 1.
\begin{figure}[!htb]
  \centering
    \subfloat[]{
    \includegraphics[width=1.5in]{lena.pdf}}
  \subfloat[]{
    \includegraphics[width=1.5in]{t3lena.pdf}}\\
  \subfloat[]{
    \includegraphics[width=1.5in]{t3lenarc.pdf}}
      \subfloat[]{
    \includegraphics[width=1.5in]{t3lenaadmm.pdf}}\\
          \subfloat[]{
    \includegraphics[width=2.4in]{compare.pdf}}
\caption{Deblurring results for Lena under Gaussian operator by using the two algorithms. (a) Original image; (b) Blurred image; (c) IRPAMC 16.0dB; (d) nonconvex ADMM 14.4dB; (e) SNR versus the iterations.}
\end{figure}
\section{Conclusion}
In this paper, we propose an iteratively  reweighted alternating minimization algorithm for a class of linearly constrained  problems. The algorithm is developed from the perspective of penalty strategy. To speed up the iteration, we also employ a continuation trick for the penalty parameter. We prove the convergence of the algorithm under weaker assumptions than the nonconvex ADMM. Numerical results on the nonconvex TV deblurring problem are also presented for demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
LEDA/PGC 72057 ist eine Galaxie im Sternbild Aquarius auf der Ekliptik. Sie ist schätzungsweise 292 Millionen Lichtjahre von der Milchstraße entfernt. Gemeinsam mit vier weiteren Galaxien gilt sie als Mitglied der NGC 7727-Gruppe (LGG 480), ist dafür jedoch zu weit entfernt.

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