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Home » DevOps Chats » Mainframe and DevOps in Traditional Enterprise, With ASG Technologies
Mainframe and DevOps in Traditional Enterprise, With ASG Technologies
By: Mitch Ashley on October 9, 2020 Leave a Comment
The assumption that large, established enterprises—from insurance companies to government agencies—can't adopt Agile processes or DevOps is based on the falsehood that legacy technology stacks won't allow for it; that existing traditional mainframe applications or legacy applications that large enterprises are built on are incapable of adapting to these approaches.
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Accelerated Strategies Group recently released the new research report, "5 Crucial DevOps Strategies For Cloud and Mainframe 2020," sponsored by ASG Technologies. In this episode of DevOps Chats, Jeff Cherrington and Anna Murray with ASG Technologies joins Mitch Ashley, CEO of Accelerated Strategies Group, to explore how mainframe app teams embrace DevOps, its processes and tools to equip software teams so mainframe apps continue to provide businesses with vital systems and capabilities far into the future.
The audio file of the conversation is below, followed by a transcript. Enjoy!
DevOps.com · DevOps For Cloud and Mainframes, ASG Technologies
Mitch Ashley: Hi. I'm joined by some special people, some folks that I really enjoy working with from ASG Technologies—different from the ASG that I work with. [Laughter] So, I'm joined today by Jeff Cherrington and Anna Murray. Thank you, both, for being here.
Jeff Cherrington: Well, thank you very much, Mitch. I'm Jeff Cherrington, I'm Vice President of Product Management for Systems with ASG Technologies. Many of you may know ASG. We've been in enterprise infrastructure management software for over 40 years, and certainly hold a prominent position as well in enterprise content management. We're very keen to have the conversation today around how traditional infrastructure—meaning the mainframe—aligns with new DevOps initiatives in the enterprise.
Anna, if you would introduce yourself.
Anna Murray: Sure. Hi, my name is Anna Murray, and I'm a Senior Product Manager with ASG Technologies, and I work with Jeff Cherrington. And I have extensive experience with automation across platforms and data centers, as well as agile transformation for teams.
Ashley: Excellent. Jeff was saying before we started that he used to work in radio—you can tell. [Laughter]
Murray: [Laughter]
Cherrington: [Laughter]
Ashley: You're very comfortable behind a microphone—no doubt, no doubt. We were talking about everybody's on video these days, so that's awesome.
Murray: Right. [Laughter]
Ashley: Well, great. You know, we've been doing some work together and we do have a report coming out to kind of pre-announce that. We'll be talking about that a little bit later. But there's a lot of myth about DevOps and mainframes. I know even some analysts—I won't name any names—have said they're two different paths, you shouldn't try to do both. I think the jury has started to change their mind on that.
Why do you think some of those myths have existed of, "No, we can't do DevOps on mainframe environments?" Do you wanna start, Jeff?
Cherrington: I think I will, and then I'm sure Anna's got some thoughts that she'll want to contribute. You know, it's certainly a reality within the industry that we're going through a generational shift around our leadership or IT, whether it's infrastructure or application development. There are those who are still working daily, like myself, who represent the traditions of IT from the very beginnings back in the 1960s, and then there are others who are certainly much younger and certainly have much different experiences, which may not include any exposure to the mainframe. And, as a consequence, there might be some resistance, there might be a little bit of anxiety about the technology, and it can be formidable to approach if you don't have the appropriate background.
The things that we'd love to talk to, though, is that the mainframe as traditional technology still performs incredibly important roles within the enterprise. And at the end of the day, DevOps is much more about technique than technology, and it can apply as easily to mainframe and should as it does to any other part of the IT infrastructure.
Anna, do you have some thoughts to build on that?
Murray: Sure. You know, as I think about the generation gap that you're talking about, I kind of come on the other end, but I'm Gen X. And so, we were the generation that said, "Oh, the mainframe's dying," right? [Laughter] So, that—obviously, I've learned that's totally wrong, and the generation coming after us is coming in to learn the mainframe and realize how powerful it is, right?
And so, I think a lot of the leaders that are coming in are coming from this generation that didn't even think about mainframe for a while, right? And so, they did all their planning and their agile transformation and their DevOps transformations thinking about the cloud and all of their Windows and Linux and Unix servers and didn't even think about the mainframe.
And so, I think that's the other side of the gap that happens. As the younger leaders are coming up, you know, especially, I would say blame my generation the most, right? [Laughter] Because there's this gap, and—learn more and make sure you're talking to both ends of the spectrum and learn about crossing the gap.
Cherrington: And actually, the way I like to phrase it now is far less to use jargon like "generational gap," but instead talk about generational bridge, because that's what I'm seeing.
Murray: That's so much better, yeah.
Cherrington: We're seeing that the younger IT professionals are identifying that there's great opportunity to work with mainframe in the coming years. And so, we see Millennials, or is it Gen Y—the generation after yours, Anna—who are stepping forward and saying, "This is really interesting. The mainframe does all of the technologies, it supports all of the technologies that I learned in uni, university. I can do Java, I can do TCP/IP connections, I've got great sources for strong cryptography, it supports Unix, I can put Linux onto a mainframe LPAR—this is a good space to be in."
And so, more and more, we're seeing that the people we engage with are a mix of people that are my age with the white beard or the gray beard and a mix of young, fresh faces that are really eager and really excited to get involved, and who come predisposed to new techniques such as DevOps.
Murray: Mm-hmm.
Ashley: You know, there's so much important things that both of you said. One is that in DevOps, there is no technology definition of what it applies to, and it's very easy to associate it with Cloud Native and maybe newer applications, because that's where it sort of grew up initially.
But DevOps is really about how we create software, not what technology we use to create software. And it's about how teams collaborate, it's about how you share information, it's about how you get different functions from the business together in a collaborative team to kinda do things earlier in the process, do automation. All of that applies to the mainframe, of course, and there's tools to do much of what we've talked about. Maybe you can say a little bit about how people approach DevOps in the mainframe environment.
You wanna go, Anna?
Murray: Right? Well, you know, when you approach DevOps in the mainframe environment, it's not so much just about the mainframe environment, but the company. The whole organization has to be behind DevOps, and there has to be leadership saying, "Hey, this is something we need across silos," right? And then you have to look at the tools available to you. DevOps is a lot about the toolchain itself. There's hundreds of tools in that toolchain, and so, you have to start looking for solutions that are gonna meet your needs and help you cross those silos.
Cherrington: You know, it's certainly true that everybody resists change. I think that's an innate part of human nature, but both Anna and I have seen that things of this nature can come forward, can be used with teams that are mainframe-centric, perhaps have been doing things the way they've been doing them for 10 years or 20 years or 30 years.
And there's natural resistance. "Gosh, you know, I've done things the way I've done them successfully for so long, why should I change?" Certainly, I've seen agile adopted by mainframe development teams, sometimes kicking and screaming, but once the resistance curve is overcome, it becomes very productive and becomes very natural.
And I think we're at that stage now in terms of adoption of DevOps for the entire enterprise infrastructure, from Windows all the way to the mainframe and onto the cloud and even onto mobile, even as there are initial reactions of going, you know, "How can this apply? This is not something I learned when I went to my classes to learn more about the mainframe at SHARE in 1995 or 1985." But we have proof points.
We have large international enterprises, we have small regional enterprises that are coming forward and saying, "I must have mainframe. It plays a critical role for things that I need to do, particularly around payments processing, anything that needs highly available, real-time online absolute reliable performance. And it is only part of my infrastructure, and I need to treat how I develop there the same way I treat developing anywhere else."
Ashley: You were talking about, also—so many apps are not just a mobile app, right? There's a whole back end to it, oftentimes sharing data, even talking transactions between multiple systems, one of those or multiple may be mainframe applications. You know, and if I step back for a minute and think about our current environment and how much things have accelerated in doing sort of these digital transformation, digital experiences for customers, organizations are looking to both strategically move quicker, but also be able to react opportunistically and sometimes based on conditions. And it seems like some of the flexibility with DevOps makes it easier to coordinate some of those activities across multiple applications. So, if you do have to do three different release to make up one new capability, that comes together much easier.
Cherrington: It does. You know, the thing that I always look to as I engage with anything around business is, to use an old phrase, "why is the juice worth the squeeze?" And while we talk about DevOps a lot because of its elegance, because of its collaboration, because of the ways in which it makes development easier, the real juice of the squeeze is time to market. The whole reason to consider DevOps is how can we get something we need to get in terms of new technology enablement to market quickly, more quickly than we did before, but not sacrifice quality.
And that's what we see time and time again is, we have something we need to get to market. I want to present new capabilities to my customers through an app on the phone because that's where people live their digital lives. But at the back end, it's dependent upon the mainframe for things such as account balances, customer statuses—an unending list of capabilities that still remain on the platform as the best place for that type of activity to occur.
Ashley: Mm-hmm. You know, I'm thinking about just the recent experiences with the reactions to COVID and contactless delivery, inventory, product inventories are often something that's still on the mainframe, has been for a long time, and now, you know, retail stores, as well as a lot of others, have to be able to maintain a really accurate enough inventory and also present that to the customers so they know, what store can I go at to pick up whatever I'm looking at buying.
I'm curious, too—I know that ASG Technologies has some of your own products, your own technology around this idea of orchestration across platforms because you work both mainframe and non-mainframe environments. Talk to us a little bit about how you approached coming up with that product and maybe a little bit about how it works and what it does.
Murray: Sure, I'll jump in for a little bit here. You know, you talk about orchestration—that's combining your toolchain, right? You've got all the little pieces of your DevOps toolchain, and you need to figure out how to connect all the dots and bring it together and, you know, ASG has been doing automation and orchestration for a long time, but we've changed our focus into bringing in the development part of that toolchain, right?
Operations has been kind of a focus of automation for a long time, and now we have to pull in all of the development pieces that happen and the configuration management that happens, and all of those—there's lots of little tools there, right?
So, we haven't tried to come at the market as trying to provide all the tools, but we're trying to provide some of them, right, and we definitely want to orchestrate as many as possible, right, and cover the entire environment for the customer. On the mainframe, the most popular thing we've been working with recently is JCL Management. Every mainframe's running JCL, right? Nothing happens on the mainframe without it, and so making sure that there's a DevOps interface to your JCL Management solution is really important. And so, we've made an investment in making sure that ours has both an Eclipse plug-in that makes it easier for the developers to interface with that JCL as well as a RESTful web service API so that it can be integrated with building of the products and crossing across the silos to other products.
Ashley: Mm-hmm.
Cherrington: And certainly, in the approach that we've taken, we look to be a good citizen of the DevOps enterprise community, and the work that Anna and her team have done, we ensure that we support the most popular integrated development environments for doing this sort of work. So, the JCL quality assurance and management offerings that we have for the mainframe are also certified for the Compuware Topaz integrated development environment and for the IBM—what's the name of it again, Anna? It's—
Murray: IDZ.
Cherrington: IDZ. What was the rational development environment that's now rebranded?
Murray: Yes. [Laughter]
Cherrington: As well as any other Eclipse compatible IDE that a customer may want to use.
Ashley: You know, it's interesting, just thinking about all the, a number of the terms that you both used in just those last two comments, you know, mainframe 10 years ago, you wouldn't have been talking about, I don't think, RESTful IDE—all the tools that we kinda think of as sort of in cloud applications, much of it is the same toolset, a lot of the same ideas, just working with integrating some other different tools that are specific to the mainframe environment.
Cherrington: It is, and you know, I certainly want to encourage those who are listening and watching—and particularly, those who may be ASG customers now or are considering becoming ASG customers—to join us at our worldwide customer conference, a virtual conference this year, EVOLVE, that will be occurring on October 6th and 7th, because we will be making some significant announcements about extending support in this area, including opportunities for creating interfaces to mainframe applications that can extend all the way to mobile, if that's of use to a customer.
We've had a lot of excitement coming into this, we have a lot of partners and customers who are going to be presenting, and there's a great deal of energy that we'll be putting forth around our DevOps support and DevOps enablement.
Murray: And can folks sign up? How do they register to attend the virtual conference? Is that on your website?
Cherrington: It's on our website if you come to www.asg.com, I'm sure you'll find something right on the home page that says EVOLVE 2020 and it'll give you the opportunities to get, well, involved.
Ashley: [Laughter] EVOLVE and involved at the same time.
Cherrington: Exactly. [Laughter]
Ashley: You know, the fact that you get to work with so many organizations that are adopting DevOps, I'm kinda curious about two things. How does the mainframe teams approach wanting to learn about DevOps and coming up to speed and trying it, and then how do the existing practitioners maybe outside of the mainframe group that are also using DevOps—how do they see what's happening in the organization and how do they…do they want to participate, do they support it, are they kinda not sure? What do you see happening, there?
Murray: So, yeah, you know, there's a mixed feeling. You know, there's definitely differences between, you know, if it's led from the top down and people are being told they have to change, right, it depends on how you've adjusted the expectations in your team, right? Helping them learn what's coming and why instead of just telling people what to do makes a huge difference, right?
Murray: We're all much more interested in solving problems and learning new things together. So, it's really important conversation is held properly, right?
So, we have some that are really excited that they want to learn and they want to jump in from the mainframe side and grow, and then there's others that are really just struggling and pulling their mainframe teams along, right? So, one customer I think of, you know, is standardized on Compuware Topaz Workbench, but the developers are less interested in switching over. They have some of the older generation who's very comfortable with the green screen and they think, "Why bother switching to Topaz?" You know? They just don't even get it.
Murray: And so, you know, the truth is, we really need to have solutions that meet the needs of all of the people that are part of the DevOps environment, right? So, it isn't—you know, a very experienced mainframe programmer doesn't have to use Eclipse, right? They can be quite happy on the green screen and we should let them stay there, right? [Laughter] And we do, our JCL Management solutions have a very robust green screen interface, and then we bridged the gap, as Jeff was talking about earlier, with having those APIs, right?
And so—yes, so the DevOps toolchain is still brought together with something like our ASG Enterprise Orchestrator pulling in the code and grabbing with the API the JCL and making sure that the standards are applied and then bringing them across for compiles and distribution into another environment, right? Not that you compile JCL, but there's other parts that are related.
Murray: So, you know, you asked—it's kind of a mixed bag. And we see that, too, right? And as the conversation becomes more common, right, I think we'll have more people who are more comfortable having that conversation and learning together.
Ashley: Excellent. Well, Jeff has been bitten by the Zoom bug, so he had to call in from his call dropping, so glad you're still with us, Jeff.
Cherrington: Mm-hmm.
Ashley: You know, we were just talking about the adoption process, and Anna, you were talking about how mainframe teams kind of approach this. I'd like the other side of it. DevOps teams that maybe aren't in the mainframe group that have been practicing this for a while, maybe a few months, a few years—how do they see this happening, and is there collaboration? Do they pitch in, do they tend to work together or not? How does it go?
Cherrington: Well, some of the things I've seen actually goes to either end of the spectrum. For the teams working with the more modern technologies and have to adopt DevOps very frequently, we find evangelists, those who have gotten to the point where they believe in the techniques and the approaches so passionately that they're out there actually promoting them everywhere they can. It's much like what we saw with the adoption of agile in the last decade. We're seeing that same sort of passion surround this approach to development in this decade.
You know, it's one of those things, we have to keep in mind—DevOps was not even a term within the industry until 2009. I mean, it's barely a decade old, and it's in these last five years that we have seen the acceleration for adoption.
Now, having said that, you know there certainly are always going to be pockets within any enterprise where, again, there's resistance. There are those who are not looking for change and those that, perhaps, while they have embraced the DevOps approaches for their distributed systems or cloud development, look at the ideas of what they have to change or adapt to on the mainframe side and really don't want to go there. The idea that there might be a long compile that has to be done on the mainframe before the next step in the DevOps process can occur will cause some—a little bit of agita.
And that's why it's so important we need to take a look at the strategies that are necessary for DevOps success. I think that's something that you speak to very eloquently, Mitch. And out of those steps, the one that I think is so critically important is culture shift. Just like with agile adoption, DevOps adoption needs support from the top, and it needs to be constantly vocal support to help people pull through these resistance curves. Resistance curves are natural and the quicker an enterprise gets through them, the quicker they get to a point that they're delivering new capabilities to market much more quickly.
Murray: Right.
Ashley: Thanks for your kind words about the culture, too, and I want to get your thoughts on this, Anna. Culture is a lot of things, but I think we're all human at the end of the day and none of us want to look dumb, right? We don't want to tackle something we don't know if we can learn or maybe not kinda look so good in front of our peers if we're the ones behind the curve.
And I think something that can help combat that is, one of the principles of DevOps is sharing, is really—it's collaborating, but it's also sharing. Sharing scripts, process, tools, content, methods—all of those kinds of things which, if you truly adopt DevOps, as you said, Jeff, you can become an advocate and then also help with that transition and very quickly, you know, they kinda get over that curve of, "Okay, alright, I'm not—I'm familiar with this," as you mentioned, Anna, I can still use my green screen or many of the tools that I'm already using and I'm just adding to kinda what I've been doing.
So, your thoughts, Anna?
Murray: Right, well, I've recently been having other conversations with partners about this culture shift and it's become really clear with other companies that are supporting DevOps and those initiatives that you really have to have not just buy-in from your senior management, you've got to have active support. You know, they have to sponsor the change.
Because we've also seen companies who don't go through the change, they fail. If it's from the bottom up only and the senior leadership says, "Okay, yeah, sure, that's a great idea," but they're not actually investing in it themselves, the team, when they hit road bumps—because they will. It's not, you know, switching to DevOps doesn't happen overnight. I think we all know that. And over time, you're gonna hit roadblocks and you're gonna get discouraged. And who is it that's gonna lift you up?
Now, hopefully, there's evangelists that'll help keep pulling you through and encouraging you, but at the end of the day, if your senior management isn't coming back in to say, "Hey, guys, we believe in this process, it's worth fixing, we're gonna invest in whatever it takes to solve this problem," then they're encouraged to keep moving forward, right?
But, you know, there is the difference happening out there where the leadership isn't always invested in it. And so, that's what we're really encouraging when it comes to that culture shift that has to happen, make sure that you get not just buy-in but investment from your senior leadership.
Ashley: Mm-hmm. Hugely important and it goes back to the, "Why are we doing this question?" that you talked about also, Jeff. You talked about really responding quickly and getting software out to market or quickly in today's situation with COVID and uncertain as well as very quickly changing conditions, you know, something could very easily come down from Product Management or whoever to the development teams and say, "Okay, we need to add this capability or change how we're doing something." And the team's ability to react quickly—I mean, they already do today, but even more quickly under these circumstances, I think, demonstrates the value not only of DevOps, but also those teams.
Cherrington: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's always a virtue to be able to get to market quickly. And in the current period of the pandemic, it's a virtue that actually can impact lives on a broad scale.
As the different national governments are taking the steps that they need to take to provide stimulus and secure the safety of their populations during all of this disruption, one of the things we've seen is that there have to be changes to critical traditional mainframe systems for all of this to happen. Certainly, the unemployment compensation that was distributed here in the U.S. touched legacy traditional systems at the state level that perhaps have not been actively developed for some period of years.
And certainly, those government enterprises or commercial enterprises that were pre-prepared to apply their DevOps techniques to making those changes to their traditional offerings, traditional applications were better prepared to deal with this and to deal with the ongoing change as our government's tried to figure out how to stabilize economies and get us through this challenging time.
Ashley: You're absolutely right, and that's one example of many. I mean, there's insurance claims processing to get your request fulfilled quickly, you know, new medicines—all of that kind of thing. There's so many areas where mainframe technology is involved today.
Well, I wish we could keep going. Maybe I have to come to the conference to continue the conversation. [Laughter]
Murray: Yeah, we would love that.
Cherrington: You would always be welcome.
Ashley: Well, I appreciate that very much. And so, just a reminder for our audience, the EVOLVE conference is on October 6th and 7th. Go to the ASG.com website to find out how to register; I absolutely recommend doing that. And as I mentioned earlier, we have a research report coming out and the working title of that report, I think, was "Five Critical Strategies for DevOps and Mainframe." So, we'll see, maybe that title will stick or something close to that. I'm excited to get that out because that's been a great effort working with you.
Well, Anna Murray, thank you very much; Jeff Cherrington, also—thank you for joining us today.
Cherrington: Thank you so much.
Murray: Thank you, Mitch.
Cherrington: And folks—stay safe.
Murray: Yeah.
Ashley: Alright.
Murray: Alright, thank you.
Ashley: You bet.
Filed Under: Blogs, DevOps Chats, Enterprise DevOps, Podcasts Tagged With: devops, devops chat, mainframe
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Optic 2000 in financial trouble after €30 million fine
Optic 2000, France's largest optical chain, has asked for deferred payments after a commercial court gave the company a 29.5 million euro fine, to be paid to its competitor Optical Center.
"Billing fraud" to scam health insurance
Optic 2000 was fined because of a billing scam dating back to 2008, when its competitor Optical Center had sent mystery shoppers to Optic 2000. In a dozen cases, these mystery shoppers received a bill that did not reflect the initial quote, which proved - according to Optical Center - that Optic 2000 manipulated the pricing of its glasses and frames to get larger health insurance refunds.
The company, which has 1,200 stores in France, maintained it was a "mistake" by several of its members and that it could not be held accountable for that. The judge however accepted Optical Center's reasoning and considered it a case of "deliberate, organized fraud". The judge felt Optic 2000 could and should have intervened.
Appeal without suspensory effect
Optic 2000 immediately appealed the ruling, but that has no suspensory effect, which means it will have to pay the fine immediately. It has called for the "procedure de sauvegarde" (deferred payment), so that it can spread payments up to 10 years. The group also emphasized that this is not equal to "redressement judiciaire" (guardianship).
This particular case is not Optical Center's first court battle. It wants to become France's largest optician chain and has already engaged in judicial battles with Afflefou, Krys and Atol.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
West Africa Region and Selected Countries
Risk, Preferences, & Decision-Making
(-) Remove Risk, Preferences, & Decision-Making filter Risk, Preferences, & Decision-Making
(-) Remove West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter West Africa Region and Selected Countries
(-) Remove Risk, Preferences, & Decision-Making filter Risk, Preferences, & Decision-Making
Crop Value Chains: Bananas and Plantains in West Africa
This research brief provides an overview of the banana and plantain value chains in West Africa. Because of the greater production and consumption of plantains than bananas in the region, the brief focuses on plantains and concentrates on the major plantain-producing countries of Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria. The brief is divided into the following sections: Key Statistics (trends in banana and plantain production, consumption, and trade since 1990), Production, Post-Harvest Practices and Challenges, Marketing Systems, and Importance (including household consumption and nutrition). West Africa is one of the major plantain-producing regions of the world, accounting for approximately 32% of worldwide production. Plantains are an important staple crop in the region with a high nutritional content, variety of preparation methods, and a production cycle that is less labor-intensive than many other crops. In addition to plantains, bananas are also grown in West Africa, but they account for only 2.3% of worldwide production. Bananas are more likely than plantains to be grown for export rather than local consumption. Major constraints to banana and plantain production include pests and disease, short shelf life, and damage during transportation.
Crop Value Chains: Sweet Potatoes in Ethiopia
This report provides a genderal overview of the sweet potato value chain in Ethiopia. The first section describes trends in sweet potato production and consumption since the early 1990s. The second section describes the uses and importance of sweet potatoes in Ethiopia. The final section discuss major issues in production, post-production, and marketing. The literature available on sweet potetoes in Ethiopia was quite limited and draws on the wider literature on sweet potatoes in East Africa where needed. We find that Ethiopia ranks fifteenth in the world in terms of sweet potato production. Production has been rising quickly since 2008, following a period of slow decline in the early 2000s. Yields have also been rising slowly since 2008, but are below their peak from 2001. Sweet potato roots are consumed domestically, mostly by poor rural households. The vines also provide an important source of feed for livestock during the dry season. Major constraints to sweet potato production in Ethiopia include a lack of quality planting materials, pests and disease, and underdeveloped markets.
Crop Value Chains: Sweet Potatoes in Uganda
Uganda is the biggest sweet potato producer in Africa in terms of area harvested and production, although Burundi, Rwanda and Madagascar have significantly higher yields. Sweet potato is a major crop in Uganda, ranking third in cultivated area following plantains and cassava. Sweet potato ranks fourth in gross agricultural production value. The Government of Uganda has recognized sweet potatoes as an important crop for the country and a research priority, especially through establishing the National Agricultural Research Organization potato center. This report provides a general overview of the sweet potato value chain in Uganda. The first section describes trends in sweet potato production and consumption since 1996. The second section describes the varieties grown and their uses. The final section summarizes current practices and constraints in production, processing, and marketing.
China Agricultural Machinery
This desk study reports on the small-scale machinery sector in China and a selection of SSA countries: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Uganda. The report is organized into three sections. Section 1 discusses the current state of small-scale agricultural machinery in SSA for crop and livestock production in each of the SSA countries identified. It also seeks to identify major areas of need in terms of agricultural mechanization and major constraints to agricultural machinery adoption, dissemination and maintenance. Section 2 focuses on the agricultural machinery sector in China and Chinese Africa relationships in agricultural development. It also identifies the major government players in the Chinese agricultural machinery sector. Section 3 is a "directory" of small-scale agricultural machinery manufactured in China with potential relevance for SSA smallholder farmers. We divide machines by function (e.g. threshing) although many Chinese machines are multi-function and can serve multiple purposes. We also note applicable crops, if listed by the manufacturers, and technical specifications as available.


EWww no how about somewhere more realistic..
How is that 'more realistic' than Eglinton?
Because Eglinton is considerably warmer than me in winter when it comes to temps for Northern lreland. Their weather station is right beside the lough and I am not joking.
And if you don't believe me often it is snowing here and it is raining there and I am at a low altitude.
Which town are you closest to?
It doesn't matter the lough has a massive effect.
We can have ice days in November with blizzards etc. The fact that there are flowers inbud with 28c says it all. Even though it was well above average today with 19c the trees have turned and the leaves are falling.
Eh. Leaves are getting close to peak up in the hills here. I went for a drive and it was full of color. I wish I got out today, fall always makes me frentic that I'll miss the colors. A few hot days is meaningless for overall weather. Ever hear of Indian summer?
Yes we are having one now. It was almost 21c today.
I don't get you at all...you live in one of the mildest spots of the UK yet constantly try and put other peoples' weather (and posts) down.
You need to grow up. Maybe get outside once in a while.


This Review contains major "Hand"- related terms, short phrases and links grouped together in the form of Encyclopedia article.
Hand: a hand of poker is used to refer to the play of everything from the dealing of the cards to the awarding of the pot.
At the same time, rotate the right arm up so the hand is level with your forehead and the palm faces out (18h).
Hand Multimedia - Developers of self-maintained multimedia software, interactive websites, screen savers and promotional games.
Kun Tao being the empty hand phase and Silat being the blade phase.
The FMA teach the interrelationship between empty hand skills and weapons.
He takes you through footwork, angulation, striking patterns, fakes, improvised weaponry, empty hand vs blades, and blade vs blade.
You begin the game with three cards in your hand.
Another lets you draw cards from an opponent's hand.
- Chin jab: Similar to a palm-heel strike, it involves first positioning your hand as though you were clutching a grapefruit.
Then, with the marshal's revolver in his hand, he lay down and slept.
In the final analysis, 90% of poker is about showing down the best hand.
The weapons and empty-hand martial art of Arnis makes up the second major component of Vee-Arnis-Jitsu.
Modern Arnis, Renegade JKD and NSI really have to go hand in hand as the transitions between the lines, the flow of movement all becomes one.
Get rid of all the cards in your hand by placing them in the discard pile.
The discard is always one card from the hand placed face up on the discard pile.
At the base of each tube foot is a fluid-filled sac that act as a valve.
Inayan Largo Mano - Largo Mano translates to "long hand" and is a long range system of Eskrima.
For each hand one player is the dealer.
Short staff also named as Bi ā n 鞭 G ā n 杆 (whip staff) has a length of 13 times the width of practitioner's hand.
A hand of Cribbage is played in two phases.
For the second hand each player gets two cards.
The perfect hand is one that totals nine in the first two cards.
This hand is good for two tricks in Hearts and the ace of Clubs might walk,.
This procedure is a very barbaric punishment in which the first joint of the little finger on the sword hand would be amputated.
These are "pass hand" cards.
The player may not meld any cards before the hand ends.
The widow is then four cards, and no extra hand is dealt.
The set of cards dealt to a player is known as his or her hand.
Crucible-s head instructor and CEO, J. Kelly McCann, got an early start in unarmed combat from his father, a former hand-to-hand instructor.
At Crucible Security Specialists, the ax hand, or downward chop, is a self-defense staple.
The book Kill or Get Killed, written by Colonel Rex Applegate, became a classic military treatise on hand-to-hand combat.
Fist Echanis system of fighting was established and based on Korean Hwarang-Do, which he developed into a somewhat hybrid military hand-to-hand combative.
Modern militaries are typically trained in only the most basic of hand-to-hand combat skills.
A poker hand, with two aces and two eights.
Poker hand is valued based on its five card ranking.
The winner of one hand is the dealer of the next.
The player to the left of the dealer deals the next hand.
The deal rotates clockwise, so the dealer's left-hand opponent will deal next.
Following the 2 No Trumps enquiry, opener-s 3 No Trumps rebid shows the strong minor hand.
Notrump. A declaration that offers to play the hand without a trump suit.
If (and only if) playing hand: schneider, schwarz or ouvert can be announced after bidding, and their being announced adds another one to the trump count.
You must end your turn with exactly five cards in hand.
Straight flush : a hand that has five cards of the same suit in sequence.
Any bid of a new suit by the responding hand is forcing on the opening bidder for one round.
The deck includes one joker and is reshuffled after every hand.
Execute a right cross to his right mitt, with your left hand in the guard position.
As you strike through your target, keep your opposite hand in the guard position.
He snaps a left jab into the striking paddle while keeping his right hand in the guard position (2).
The high bidder names the trump, and each player then discards all cards but trumps from his hand.
This variant plays hand size from 4 to Y3 cards, high bidder names trump, point loss for missing your bid, and even bids are not allowed.
Our current, new project 4 handed, partnership Hand Foot.
Hung Ga has many hand techniques and gings, such as the twelve bridges.
Hung Ga inch ging techniques are: the side single hand biu gee.
Grab the wrist of the hand reaching for your holster.
With a hacksaw, hand drill, file and blowtorch, I made the first "Emerson" Knife.
Use your other hand to hold his head down both to limit his ability to sit upright and to guard against his using it to headbutt you.
Target games, in which players aim at a target, are tests of hand-eye coordination.
Melded cards score points, and a round ends when one player has no more cards in hand.
Holding. The cards in a player's hand.
Run with your weak and tempted faith to the foot of the cross.
This means that playing a weak hand well is worth more than playing a powerful hand badly.
In Ambition, a balanced hand is the most desirable type, and there are two types of difficult hands: Very strong hands, and very weak hands.
All remaining cards go to the hand pile.
The goal is to be the first player to meld all 11 cards in his hand.
The game goes on until either someone has no cards left in their hand or the draw .
Foot reflexology chart from world renowned reflexology practitioner and teacher Ann Hollanders.
This blade and stick style translates well into empty-hand applications.
-The first move in pinan yondan is an open-hand block that represents the wings of a crane,- Hancock explains.
Daniel Puder, an American mixed martial artist, raised his hand and challenged Angle.
Originally created: November 09, 2006.


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Home » Traders, citizens have yet to see Venezuela's Petro crypto
Traders, citizens have yet to see Venezuela's Petro crypto
Paul How
Although Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has demanded for the national Petro cryptocurrency to be accepted by the country's banks, no one seems to know where or how they can get ahold of it.
News agency Reuters reported that its news team traveled to Venezuela, seeking to locate the cryptocurrency that is supposedly backed by the country's oil reserves.
The Bolivar Soberano, intended to ease hyperinflation by being set at 100,000 the value of its predecessor the Bolivar Fuerte, was issued on August 20, backed by the Petro, which Maduro claims raised $5 billion during its pre-sale. Yet the oil that supposedly backs the Petro, remains untapped, with sparse infrastructure for extracting the supposed 5.3 billion barrels in the town of Atapirire. The cost of tapping such reserves has been estimated at $20 billion.
During a period of four months, Reuters consulted with cryptocurrency and oil field specialists, who expressed skepticism that the Petro is what Maduro says it is. Hugbel Roa, minister of Science, Technology and University Education in the country, and who has participated in the Petro project, told the news outlet, "Nobody has been able to make use of the Petro… nor have any resources been received."
The agency tasked in the creation of the Petro, the Superintendence of Cryptoassets, could not be found in the Venezuelan Finance Ministry, where it is supposedly located. When asked, a receptionist said that the agency "does not yet have a physical presence here."
Based on interviews conducted by Reuters, there was no evidence of the Petro being traded, on a significant scale that is, on any exchange, contrary to Maduro's claim that 16 exchanges were to trade it. Of the named exchanges, only one, Coinsecure from India, has publicly stated its interest in trading the Petro, in exchange for royalties from Venezuela.
The Petro has been seen as the last resort of the Venezuelan government in managing record levels of inflation and a slowdown in economic activity, largely a result of policies implemented since the presidency of Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013. The International Monetary Fund has estimated an inflation rate of 1 million percent in the country by the end of the year.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto's original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.


"To the Toer wharf," said McWhirr.
With indomitable energy, Rubio peddled his bicak and sang Unchained Melody for all he was worth. For reason I've yet to fathom, Indonesians consider the Righteous Brothers to be the apex of musical accomplishment. We soon arrived at the dock to see a steamship being loaded by scrawny Malays carrying heavy sacks of rice. She was an absurdly stout vessel of Victorian pedigree, whose small wheelhouse perched on her coach roof like a petite hat on a frumpy, lady dowager. On the ornate paddle boxes were emblazoned the words: The East India Company. The thick cloud issuing from her smokestack showed she was building up a head of steam for immanent departure.
He fell silent and gazed out the wheelhouse windows. The dawn light shone violet, as though the dirty chaos of the waterfront had been suddenly transfigured by the celestial Light of Glory.
This was our engineer, Thaddeus Budge, and a wackier coot I've never known. But Hans had assured us that he would keep the old Polly steaming past mud banks and typhoons; the first we were to strike in short order, the latter, we were to find, swept through the middle reaches of the Ciliwung with all the frenzied vehemence of doomsday.
"Full ahead, Mister Budge," McWhirr called into the speaking horn by the wheel.
With a creaking shudder, the paddle wheels began to churn the water into brown froth, and we bore away from the wharf into the gently flowing waters of the River.
We chugged past endless shacks and mountains of rusty, flattened cars. It was as though alluvial deposits had washed up all the planned obsolescence of millennia; and the foundering hulk of Pantijasila– those lofty 5 principles of the new Indonesia–had fetched up on a reeking bank of industrial wast and these half-naked laundresses whopping sarongs in the stagnant waters of the canal were singing an eerie monody for some dimly descried apocalypse.
The only charts we had were from the 20th century. I searched for sailing directions to the upper reaches of the Ciliwung in vain and ransacked the tattered tomes that lined the mahogany shelves of the wheelhouse for any clue that might disclose the real purpose of the voyage we were fated to undertake.
"Aye, on top of that, the very guards appointed by the museum trustees who sponsor these excavations deal in the illicit trade of artifacts. Their collusion with Javanese authorities can land innocent shippers like us in jail.
Like some portly, winded spinstress, the Polly steamed past camps of water buffalo herders, laptop recyclers, and armed horsemen whose dark eyes followed her wake with unconcealed contempt.


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Fazlur Rehman to chair important meeting of PDM today
Published On 13 April,2021 05:32 am
After the meeting, PDM chief Fazlur Rehman will brief the media on decisions taken at the meeting.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman will preside over an important meeting of PDM today (Tuesday), Dunya News reported.
The meeting will be held at the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) supremo Maulana Fazlur Rehman's residence in Islamabad and will be attended by heads and leaders of opposition parties.
According to sources the issue of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP) will come under discussion during the meeting. The meeting will also review the future strategy of PDM.
Sources said that after the meeting, PDM chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman will brief the media on the decisions taken at the meeting.
Fazlur Rehman PDM Pakistan Pakistan Politics
Awami National Party part ways with PDM
Nawaz, Zardari phone Maulana Fazlur Rehman to inquire about health


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<!doctype html>

Google

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Wikipedia

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Glitch dolls are glitch variations of the doll decorations in Pokémon G/S/C.
In order to 'own' a particular glitch doll the player may enter either GameShark code 01XX5ED9 to place a doll on the leftmost side of the table, or the code 01XX5FD9 to place a doll on the rightmost side of the table. Below is a table of some of the possible values that the player can use in Pokémon Gold/Silver.
This page was last edited on 17 June 2016, at 20:10.


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My client who is a developer has two multi family zoned sites of 100 units each. He is willing to build out to suit as part of deal as apartments upscale and or town homes in the fast growing Columbia County Ga.
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Why should you become a WATERAX dealer?
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The mission of Shelter 37 was inspired by the personal journey of its founder, James Washington, whose life experiences are a story of triumph over adversity.
Under James' leadership, Shelter 37 attempts to address the root cause of school and personal challenges by providing guidance and support that is rooted in compassion and a deep understanding of the difficult environments in which many young Angelenos find themselves.
Shelter 37 does this by implementing a values-based, real-world curriculum that assists students in setting goals that can be immediately applied to their own lives as students, employees, parents, community leaders, and strong, empowered individuals.


From the menswear experts at the Puccini Design House, this Cotton Necktie with Forest Green Plaid Design is just the ticket for a dapper look. This piece features a classic plaid pattern of hunter green, navy, and white and is handcrafted for a narrow 2.75 inches.
This piece is expertly woven from premium cotton on a jacquard loom. Wear it with a crisp white dress shirt and a sharp navy suit for a dapper ensemble.


Following competitive procurement, CFM have been awarded the Fit Out contract of the impressive Docklands Apartments in Belfast. Fit out works include wooden flooring, carpets, kitchens, bathrooms, decoration along with M&E commissioning.
Works programme has been agreed and we look forward to working with the client to deliver a high quality finish to these apartments which enjoy a fabulous view over Belfast's skyline.


If you're ready to give your Orrington-area home a new look with brand new, top-of-the-line flooring, look no further than Carpet One. Orrington-area Carpet One stores near you are your Maine destination for the top selections of flooring materials, professional installation, and flooring protection in the industry. We have everything from quality ceramic tile to laminate flooring and everything in between.
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Q: Best way to visualize attrition using R? Thru this site I've recently discovered Sankey Diagrams, a great way to visualize what is happening in a traditional flow chart.
Here is a good example of a Sankey Diagram by George M. Whitesides and George W. Crabtree,

Source; Don't Forget Long-Term Fundamental Research in Energy, Science 9 February 2007:Vol. 315. no. 5813, pp. 796 - 798.
After I realized that there was no Sankey R-package I found an R script online, unfortunately this script is quite raw and somewhat limited. With high hopes I asked for a Sankey R-package or a more mature function at stackoverflow, but to my surprise it seems as we do not have a mature function for building Sankey Diagrams in R.
After I posted a bounty Geek On Acid was kind enough to suggest a small hack on the existing script which made it work more or less for my specific purpose.
The improved R-script produced this diagram,

Source; stackoverflow.com.
But, does the lack of a R package indicate that Sankey Diagrams isn't such an amazing way to visualize attrition using R in a data flow à la the one presented in the diagram above (see initial stackoverflow question for data and R code. Maybe there's a better way to visualize attrition.
What do you think is the best way to visualize attrition in a data flow using R?

A: I agree with @gung. The Sankey diagram you posted is, I think, a pretty good example of where the technique can help. While it is complicated, the context (energy input and output) is complex too and it is hard to think of a nicer way of visualizing the paths of inputs-to-outputs-acting-as-new-inputs across multiple categories of usage.
Now then, for the attrition example you posted, as others have noted it is not helpful to use a Sankey diagram. I think you need to post your full set of variables if you want a good recommendation on alternative visualizations though. If you simply want to show differences in attrition sources between sites and clinicians, a small-multiples series of dot plots may be the easiest for your audience to understand and for you to implement (see this example, where in your case the groups could be the sites, the elements within the groups would be the causes of attrition, and the horizontal axis would be 0-100%).
If the Sankey diagram is something you want to use, and you are willing to dabble in another high level language, there is a nice example (with code) on the gallery for the Python plotting package, matplotlib.

A: I wouldn't necessarily assume the lack of a method implies that method is unimportant or not useful.  After all, for all the methods that currently exist in R, there was a time (quite possibly recent--R is only ~10 years old) when there was no package for it.
However, I should think there are any number of ways to visualize data such as attrition.  My first thought looking at your chart, is that it could be represented with a dot plot.  Other possibilities exist as well.  The extra functionality of the Sankey Diagram is going to come into play when you have some attrition due to a particular cause at one point, and then more due to the same cause later with other inputs and outputs in between.  That would be more complicated to represent by standard plots (it's also harder to follow even with a Sankey diagram--for example, the one at the top of the page takes quite a bit of work to read).  Since you don't seem to have that, the Sankey diagram seems to be pretty, but overkill.

A: How about using R code to write an SVG file with the arrow widths set according to your data, and a simple layout. Then load into Inkscape and bend the arrows around, add labels etc etc to your heart's content to make something pretty.
Obvious problem: you need to redo all your prettification in Inkscape if your data changes (although you might be able to use your pretty SVG from Inkscape as a template and just substitute new arrow widths in).
But honestly, if that multi-coloured mess of straggling squiggles at the top is a good Sankey diagram, I'd hate to see a bad one on a full stomach [although staring at it for a few more minutes has given me a clue about what it's about, a good graphic shouldn't need that].

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Karl Otto Maier (* 14. Juli 1901 in Stuttgart; † 18. Juli 1934 in Rommelshausen) war ein deutscher Politiker (NSDAP).

Leben und Wirken
Nach dem Besuch der Oberrealschule in Stuttgart war Maier Praktikant im Elektro-Maschinenbau. Anschließend studierte er von 1920 bis 1923 Elektrotechnik an der Technischen Hochschule Stuttgart. Danach arbeitete er bis 1928 als Berechnungsingenieur im Cannstatter Werk der Maschinenfabrik Esslingen, gefolgt von einer Stellung als Versuchsingenieur im Elektromotorenwerk der Siemens-Schuckertwerke in den Jahren 1928 bis 1930. 1930 wurde er Assistent an der Technischen Hochschule in Stuttgart für den Bereiche Theorie und Untersuchung elektrischer Maschinen.

1928 trat Maier in Berlin in die NSDAP (Mitgliedsnummer 85.661) ein. Im Juli 1930 übernahm er erste Funktionärsaufgaben als Ortsgruppenleiter und ab Oktober 1932 als Kreisleiter in Stuttgart. Maier wird als befähigter und kämpferischer Ortsgruppenleiter charakterisiert; Nationalsozialisten schildern ihn als bisweilen starrsinnig und fanatisch, aber auch aufrichtig.

Von 1932 bis zur Auflösung dieser Körperschaft im Herbst 1933 war Maier Mitglied des Württembergischen Landtages. Ab November 1933 war er Abgeordneter für den Wahlkreis 31 (Württemberg) im nationalsozialistischen Reichstag. Nach der Machtergreifung der Nationalsozialisten übernahm Maier in der NSDAP Aufgaben als Gauinspekteur und Leiter des Personalamtes im Gau Württemberg-Hohenzollern.

Maiers Freitod im Juli 1934 ging eine Niederlage in Konflikten um die Aufnahme hoher Beamter in die NSDAP als sogenannte Märzgefallene voraus. Dabei vertrat Maier die Position, dass nur solche Beamte in die Partei aufgenommen werden sollten, die vor der Machtübertragung NSDAP gewählt und sich "mindestens im engeren Kreis" für die Nationalsozialisten eingesetzt hatten. Dies stieß auf Widerspruch des württembergischen Innenministers Jonathan Schmid, dem an einer möglichst vollständigen Übernahme des Verwaltungsapparates gelegen war, um diesen für die Ziele der Nationalsozialisten instrumentalisieren zu können. Als politisches Motiv für Maiers Suizid wird die Ermordung Ernst Röhms und weiterer SA-Führer im sogenannten Röhmputsch genannt, die verdeutlichte, dass Hitler auf ein Bündnis mit den alten gesellschaftlichen Eliten setzte. Als möglicher Auslöser des Freitods gilt eine Rede des Führers der Deutschen Arbeitsfront, Robert Ley, in Stuttgart am 16. Juli. Dabei soll Ley in angetrunkenem Zustand erklärt haben, die NSDAP habe den Arbeitern nichts versprochen, dies aber werde sie halten.

Für Maier rückte Gustav Oexle in den Reichstag nach; sein Nachfolger als Kreisleiter wurde Adolf Mauer.

Literatur

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Reichstagsabgeordneter (Deutsches Reich, 1933–1945)
Landtagsabgeordneter (Volksstaat Württemberg)
NSDAP-Mitglied
Württemberger
Deutscher
Geboren 1901
Gestorben 1934
Mann
Kreisleiter (NSDAP)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Die Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris (CMP) war ein französisches Eisenbahnunternehmen, das in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in Paris die meisten U-Bahn-Strecken betrieb. Sitz der Gesellschaft war am Quai de la Rapée.

Vorgeschichte
Der Ingenieur Jean-Baptiste Berlier hatte der Stadtverordnetenversammlung von Paris bereits 1887 ein Projekt unterirdisch verkehrender elektrischer Straßenbahnen unterbreitet. Deren Strecke sollte vom Bois de Boulogne im Westen der Stadt unter der Avenue des Champs-Élysées und der Rue de Rivoli zum Bois de Vincennes an der östlichen Stadtgrenze führen. Am 4. Juli 1892 erteilte die Stadt die Genehmigung, der Staatsrat erhob jedoch Einspruch. 1895 konnte sich die Stadt gegen den Staat durchsetzen und begann 1898 mit dem Bau einer normalspurigen Unterpflasterbahn, deren Trasse weitgehend dem von Berlier vorgeschlagenen Verlauf folgte. Die Linie A wurde zwischen den Endpunkten Porte Maillot und Porte de Vincennes gebaut, bei ihrer Inbetriebnahme erhielt sie die Liniennummer 1.

Geschichte bis 1930

In einem Gesetz vom 30. März 1898 wurde festgelegt, dass die Tunnel, Einschnitte, Viadukte und Bahnsteige von der Stadt Paris errichtet werden sollten. Der Bau der Betriebswerkstätten und der Kraftwerke, das Verlegen der Gleise, der Erwerb der Fahrzeuge und der Streckenausrüstung oblag dem künftigen Betreiber. Vorgesehen war ein aus den sechs Linien A bis F bestehendes, 65 km langes Netz für die Beförderung von Fahrgästen und deren Handgepäck. Die Züge sollten elektrisch betrieben werden. Die Konzession ging für 35 Jahre an die Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris, ein Gemeinschaftsunternehmen der Établissements Schneider in Le Creusot und der Compagnie générale de traction.

Der Bau der ersten Strecke begann noch im selben Jahr. Unter der Leitung des Ingenieurs Fulgence Bienvenüe, der bereits 1896 zum Leiter des Projekts berufen worden war, sollte sie bis zum Beginn der Weltausstellung am 14. April 1900 fertiggestellt sein. Von Porte de Vincennes kommend sollte sich die Linie am U-Bahnhof Étoile in drei Äste auffächern, die nach Porte Maillot, Porte Dauphine und Trocadéro führten. Von diesem "Londoner Modell" wurde letztlich aber abgesehen, die beiden letztgenannten Strecken wurden zu den Keimzellen der heutigen Linien 2 und 6. Westlicher Endpunkt der Linie 1 wurde bis 1937 die Station Porte Maillot.

Trotz aller Bemühungen konnte der vorgesehene Eröffnungstermin nicht eingehalten werden. Immerhin erfolgte die Inbetriebnahme der 10,3 km langen Linie 1 noch während der laufenden Weltausstellung am 19. Juli 1900. Bereits im Dezember jenes Jahres war die Zahl von nahezu vier Millionen Fahrgästen erreicht. Bis 1910 wurden fünf weitere Linien fertiggestellt. Das so entstandene Netz war so angelegt, dass kein Punkt der Stadt weiter als 400 m von einem U-Bahnhof entfernt war und zum Erreichen des Zielbahnhofs maximal zweimal umgestiegen werden musste. Das Hochwasser der Seine im Januar 1910 überflutete Teile des Métronetzes und legte den Verkehr auf weiten Strecken lahm, nur die Linie 2 konnte in voller Länge weiter verkehren. Der letzte Abschnitt der Linie 6 ging erst nach drei Monaten Unterbrechung wieder in Betrieb.

Am 5. November 1910 – zeitgleich mit der Eröffnung der Linie 7 – erwuchs der CMP Konkurrenz durch die Société du chemin de fer électrique souterrain Nord-Sud de Paris (Nord-Sud). An jenem Tag nahm diese ihre erste Linie A, eine Nord-Süd-Verbindung von Notre-Dame-de-Lorette bis Porte de Versailles in Betrieb. Anders als die CMP finanzierte und baute die neue Gesellschaft ihre Strecken selbst. Die CMP betrachtete die Nord-Sud als unliebsamen Konkurrenten, zumal deren neue Linie wie die im selben Jahr vollendete CMP-Linie 4 die Stadtteile Montmartre und Montparnasse – wenn auch auf unterschiedlichen Wegen – miteinander verband. Erst nach langen Verhandlungen wurde ein Kompromiss bezüglich der Umsteiger zwischen den beiden Netzen gefunden, der die Nord-Sud zu jährlichen Zahlungen in Höhe von 150.000 Franc an die CMP verpflichtete.

Zu Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs war das Netz der Métro – einschließlich der beiden Linien der Nord-Sud – auf 91 km angewachsen. Die CMP betrieb 1914 die folgenden Linien:
 Linie 1: Porte Maillot – Porte de Vincennes
 Linie 2: Porte Dauphine – Nation
 Linie 3: Porte de Champerret – Gambetta
 Linie 4: Porte de Clignancourt – Porte d'Orléans
 Linie 5: Étoile – Place d'Italie – Gare du Nord
 Linie 6: Place d'Italie – Nation
 Linie 7: Opéra – Louis Blanc – Porte de la Villette bzw. Pré-Saint-Gervais
 Linie 8: Porte d'Auteuil – Opéra

Der Krieg wirkte sich zunächst störend auf den Betrieb der Métro aus, da viele Mitarbeiter eingezogen wurden. Die Lage normalisierte sich aber innerhalb weniger Monate, vor allem durch den Einsatz von Frauen. Die ehrgeizigen Bauprojekte der Vorkriegszeit konnten aber nicht verwirklicht werden, bei der CMP ging lediglich eine kurze Streckenverlängerung um zwei Stationen in Betrieb.

Die ersten Nachkriegsjahre waren von Finanznöten seitens des Betreibers wie auch der Fahrgäste geprägt. 1921 verlor die CMP daher ihre finanzielle Autonomie zugunsten der Stadt Paris, die dafür ihrerseits für die Defizite aufkam. Zudem wurde die Métro wieder ausgebaut: Strecken wurden verlängert und die Linien 9 und 10 geschaffen. Am 1. Januar 1930 ging die Nord-Sud in der CMP auf, die unter Beibehaltung des Kürzels fortan nur noch "Chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris" hieß. 1931 wurden die Linien A und B der ehemaligen Nord-Sud in Linie 12 und 13 umbenannt.

Chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris

1930 waren die mittleren Abschnitte der Linien 1, 3, 4, 7 und A am stärksten frequentiert. Alle Linien endeten damals an oder unweit der Stadtgrenze. 1928 wurden Verlängerungen in einige Vororte beschlossen, von denen im Februar 1934 als erste die der Linie 9 bis Pont de Sèvres in Boulogne-Billancourt realisiert wurde. Bis 1939 konnten noch sechs weitere derartige Erweiterungen in Betrieb genommen werden. Zudem übernahm die CMP 1938 die Vorortstrecke Ligne de Sceaux vom Pariser Endbahnhof Luxembourg bis Massy von der Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans (P.O.).

Der Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs führte wegen Personalmangels aufgrund von Einberufungen zu vorübergehenden Unterbrechungen mehrerer Linien. Zahlreiche U-Bahnhöfe wurden geschlossen, einige darunter erst nach Jahrzehnten bzw. gar nicht mehr wiedereröffnet. Während der deutschen Besetzung der Stadt veranlasste das Vichy-Regime 1941 den Zusammenschluss der Société des transports en commun de la région parisienne (STCRP), die im Département Seine die Straßenbahnen und Busse betrieb, mit der CMP unter der Federführung der Letzteren. Zugleich übernahm der französische Staat die Rolle, die bislang die Stadt Paris bei der CMP innehatte.

Der Betrieb der Métro hatte in jenen Jahren unter Bombenangriffen und Stromabschaltungen zu leiden. Dennoch konnten im Oktober 1942 zwei neue Streckenabschnitte mit jeweils zwei Stationen in Betrieb genommen werden. Im Mai 1944 wurde die 1935 eröffnete Linie 11 von der Wehrmacht beschlagnahmt, die die Gleise teilweise demontierte und in die Tunnel kriegswichtige Betriebe verlegte. Erst siebeneinhalb Monate nach der Befreiung von Paris konnte der Betrieb auf dieser Linie wieder aufgenommen werden.

Ende
Der Umstand, dass sich die Führung der CMP konziliant gegenüber den Behörden der deutschen Besatzer verhalten hatte, führte am 3. Januar 1945 zu deren Absetzung durch die französische Regierung. Eine provisorische Verwaltung (Administration Provisoire des Transports Parisiens; APTP) wurde eingesetzt, die sich mit schwierigen Aufgaben konfrontiert sah. Die Rückkehr der zahlreichen Gefangenen und Verschleppten, die überlebt hatten, und der Mangel an Autobussen – die Straßenbahnen hatte man in Paris 1937 abgeschafft – führte mit 1,6 Milliarden Fahrgästen im Jahr 1946 zu einem nicht mehr erreichten Höchststand. Mit einem Gesetz vom 21. März 1948 trat an die Stelle der ATPT das neugeschaffene Staatsunternahmen Régie autonome des transports Parisiens (RATP).

Anmerkungen

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Schienenverkehr (Paris)
U-Bahn-Gesellschaft
Métro Paris
Gegründet 1899
Aufgelöst 1948
Verkehrsgeschichte (Paris)
Ehemaliges Verkehrsunternehmen (Frankreich)


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Still time to Get Your Tail on the Trail with D&L/St. Luke's 165 Challenge
By xxxxblockus and %Gary Blockus%
(From left) Kenneth Szydlow, Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations for St. Luke's University Health Network, Bonnie S. Coyle, MD, MS, Director of Community Health for St. Luke's University Health Network, and Elissa Garofalo, President/Executive Director of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, the creators of the Get Your Tail on the Trail program, display the "National Trails for Health" award the program won from American Trails. (Terri Monserrat / CONTRIBUTED BY)
The Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor and St. Luke's University Health Network recently celebrated their award-winning Get Your Tail on the Trail program.
The groups got together to recognize the National Trails for Health award from American Trails during a special reception July 24 at the National Canal Museum in Easton's Hugh Moore Park.
"We are currently halfway through our Get Your Tail on the Trail Summer 165 Challenge and would like to see if we can get the word out and encourage more people to sign up," said Terri Monserrat, research and development assistant for the D&L.
American Trails recognized the D&L and St. Luke's initiative to encourage activity in nature for better health through a committed program.
"Regular physical activity of 150 minutes a week can help you maintain and build healthy bones, muscles and joints, improve psychological well being, reduce risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, and maintain a healthy weight," Monserrat said.
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The 165 in the "165 Challenge" denotes the length of the D&L, from Bristol, Bucks County, to Mountain Top, Luzerne County. The first "165 Challenge" launched in 2013 with the hope that 250 people would sign up. Instead, 2,455 people signed up and logged 255,392 miles.
This year, the Get Your Tail on the Trail has 5,250 participants who have collectively logged more than 1.12 million miles.
"What we really want to get across is that it's not too late for them to sign up for the challenge, which ends Nov. 1 with our half marathon that people can run or walk," Monserrat added. "We want people to log miles whether they do 165 or not, just to get fit."
You can register for the 165 Challenge by going to www.tailonthetrail.org. The free program includes incentives for reaching certain goals.
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Even during the recent heat wave, the trail was a good place to log miles because the tree canopy provides a lot of shade along stretches to keep the temperatures cooler.
"Even on the hot days, the trail is probably 10 degrees cooler, so it's a great place to get out in the summer," Monserrat said.
The program will also be celebrated at the Fall Frolic Along the Towpath at the Walnutport Canal on Lehigh St., Walnutport from 10 a.m. to noon on Oct. 17 featuring the Walnutport 6K Towpath Trot. The final celebration will be the Nov. 1 half marathon from Northern Lehigh High School in Slatington to Canal Park in Northampton.
To register for those events, go to http://delawareandlehigh.org/, click on the upper left corner and select Events.
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Pan Am bound: Four homegrown cyclists have been selected by USA cycling to represent the United States at the 2015 Pan American Continental Track Championships Sept. 1-6 in Santiago, Chile.
Two-time U.S. Olympian Bobby Lea of Topton, and Emmaus native Kim Geist lead the list of four men and nine women who will represent the U.S. at the annual games, where points can be earned toward qualifying spots for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Reigning U.S. sprint champion Matt Baranoski of Perkasie and Dana Feiss of Telford round out the list of Lehigh Valley products who will compete in Chile. David Espinoza of Florida, who has trained at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center for many years, along with frequent Trexlertown visitors Sarah Hammer and Jennifer Valente of California, are also on the team.
Lea, a bronze medalist in the scratch race at the 2015 World Championships, will compete in the omnium, scratch race and Madison.
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Geist, a bronze medalist in the points race at the 2105 World Championships, will ride the points race.
Both Lea and Geist were left off the U.S. team that competed at last month's Pan Am Games in Toronto, Canada, but both looked at it philosophically. The Pan Am Championships in September carry more weight for accumulating points toward the 2016 Olympics.
Baranoski and Espinoza will compete in the sprint and keirin for men, while Feiss will compete in those events for the women.
Hammer and Valente are on the team pursuit with Hammer also competing in the omnium and Valente in the individual pursuit.
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The rest of the U.S. squad includes Jacob Duehring of California, Kelly Caitlin and Missy Erickson of Minnesota, Tela Crane of Washington, and Beth Hernandez and Ruth Winder of California.
Lehigh Wheelmen events: The Lehigh Wheelmen like to bring sanity to bike riding with group rides and helpful members to get you away from the television and out onto some of our better riding roads.
They have two events coming up in September that are actual delights. As someone who once participated on the Donut Derby, I can highly recommend the 2015 Lehigh Wheelmen Donut Derby at 9 a.m. on Labor Day, Sept. 7.
The 36-mile ride follows the same back roads as the famed "Derby" rides pro cyclists use for training heading out to Fleetwood and back from the Valley Preferred Cycling Center in Trexlertown.
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What makes this ride such a fun event on Labor Day is that there are doughnut stops at miles 12 and 24. For every doughnut a rider eats — and you can eat quite a few — three minutes get knocked off your overall time. Various age groups win by doughnut-adjusted time. The ride is just $25, and you can probably eat that much in doughnuts, let alone the post-ride lunch. You have until Aug. 31 to register online at www.bikereg.com/lwa-donut-derby.
On Sunday, Sept. 20, the organization moves the start and stopping points to DeSales University in Center Valley for the 2015 Lehigh Wheelmen Gap Gallop. This one is without doughnuts.
Riders can choose one of five routes — 33, 50, 70, 83 or 103 miles — to ride that take you out to the Delaware River, up to Portland, Pa. and back again, with the longest rides including the hill climb of Fiddler's Elbow.
This ride is $35-40 depending on your route, plus $10 for the post-ride meal. Register online at www.bikereg.com/lwa-gap-gallop.
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gary.blockus@mcall.com
Twitter @gblockus
Sarah Hammer
Bobby Lea
Most Read • Outdoors
Lions and tigers ... and crocs and rhinos?! Wind Gap man who took Africa's 'Dangerous 7' with a crossbow...


The Big Bus Tour Paris guides you through the many major iconic landmarks and attractions which reveals the city's colorful history for a truly, memorable experience. The hop on hop off ticket allows you to indulge yourself in the destination. Choose a recorded multi-lingual commentary or a live commentary delivered by entertaining and knowledgeable guides.
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My recommended package for anyone who wants to feel completely nurtured during their babymoon. Fantastic for first time parents or those with multiples to receive support over the first three months! The Babymoon Bliss package also includes three ready made meals and a snack pack as well as being able to borrow items from my cloth nappy and babywearing library. You will get unlimited phone and email support to answer your questions and offer support and encouragment throughout your postnatal period.


Home » Annual Roundups » 2013 Liveries: The Verdict!
2010 feels so long ago, doesn't it? A few short years after one of the best livery seasons in living memory, we're now at a stage where almost every car's look can be, in the main, predicted weeks before launch. There are still a few decent liveries on the grid, but in general there's a quite "samey" feel to proceedings, and a disappointing general lack of good colour. It's also notable just how few cars are based around a particular sponsor's corporate identity these days.
Colours: Have the team just stuck a few pins in a Pantone chart, or have they actually picked hues that look good on a car and complement each other?
Design: Racing car livery, or spray-painted nightmare?
Sponsors: Not just whether there are any (although there bloody should be at least a few), but also whether they're integrated into the colour scheme or not.
Originality: Ferrari need not apply.
Thoroughly splendid vector images of the cars from from Pieczaro, by the way.
Good blue, good red, good yellow, good GRIEF WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THAT PURPLE?
A simple and effective batch. Interesting that the words "Red Bull" don't appear at all in profile view, now.
Last year, I said it was "only missing a dose of black". Well, hello. And I'm sure that's a much closer approximation of rosso corsa than previous years.
It'd be even better without the white separating the black from red, but this is definitely up on last year. Italian flag stripe on the nose a great touch, too.
Badly-placed UPS logo and that godawful fake Marlboro thing ruin an otherwise good portfolio.
One up on last year for actually being a little bit different.
number stuck on it instead. Sorry about that.
It's not just me, is it? The gold is less, well, gold than last year, isn't it?
The clashing yellow Lotus logo has gone, but it's overcrowded placement of others that now stops this being spot on.
Great shade of silver, great shade of turquoise. As I said last year, they have no right working together, but they do.
Knocking a point off last year's score for the unnecessary spray-painted sliver on the nose.
BlackBerry a good addition to the portfolio. Still wish that Petronas logo looked a bit better, though.
I'd rather it be closer to full-on black, but this is a pretty cool combo.
Stylish lines. A bit plain on the nose and rear, but pretty inoffensive.
Another area improved, in as far as integration into the livery. Feels wanting for a single major sponsor, however.
It's new! Okay, it's not a total revolution, rather a vast improvement of the existing idea, but: it's new!
Still a great combo. Love orange on an F1 car.
As pleasant-yet-slightly-dated as it was a year ago.
Blue logo on the airbox is a misstep. Also, despite having lots of names, are any of them not Mallya-owned brands?
Exactly the same as last year – but at least it's very distinctive to them.
Can't go wrong with a nice dark racing blue and white, with red hints. Simple and classic.
This design seems to get flatter and duller with each successive year's tweaking, sadly.
Depressingly few. Where would they be without Maldonado? All look good on the car, mind.
Diminishing returns, really. Would have appreciated more tweaks to last year than the swapping of the Renault/PDVSA engine cover strips.
Love that shade of blue, like that shade of gold, less keen on the pinky-red.
A lot of the extraneous nonsense is gone, and for the better. As with last year, though, more gold at the rear and/or more red at the front would balance it better.
Only a handful of names, but prominently-displayed and well integrated.
Looks exactly as you'd expect a Toro Rosso to look.
Point lost for the slightly lighter green. Point regained for the excellent retro dark grey wings.
Only oddity is the lack of yellow in the front view compared with the profile: it should be either in both, or neither. Again, though, the wings save it.
Definite improvement on last year, and all colour integration spot on, but the placement of a few of them is a bit odd.
The same basic template of the last two years gets a slight freshening thanks to – you guessed it – those wings, plus a new kind of nose stripe.
Seriously, get a better shade of red, guys.
Bland and F3000-ish. A disappointment compared with previous efforts. Dangerously close to Midland territory.
Would still prefer Marussia to move away from the Virgin Racing colour scheme, but at least they do make effort to change the design year-on-year.
So, despite taking victory last year, Mercedes' unwillingness to change things up much has led to them being overtaken by Caterham, who take the F1 Colours crown for 2013 with 15 points out of 20. Kudos as well to Ferrari, Sauber and Toro Rosso, who have all made improvements – albeit to varying degrees – that have impressed me this year.
All in all, though, it's not what I'd call a vintage batch – and I'd see that as continuing a trend from last year. The average score for each livery across the 11 teams in 2012 was 13.45, and with HRT removed from the equation this time out, the 10 remaining teams make for an average of 13.00. There's nothing out there that looks particularly awful – save perhaps the Lotus – and McLaren's low score of 10 is largely due to the sheer (and almost insulting) lack of invention or effort.
So that's enough of my yakking. What do you think?
5 Comments on 2013 Liveries: The Verdict!
BTW, where did you get those illustrations? They're amazing.
Mentioned at the top, but a quite superb guy on DeviantArt.
Seems about right. Could there be a light blue Telmex McLaren next year? Or will they insist on sticking with the chrome?


Business Activities You Can Outsource to Save Time & Money | Fusion Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Whether you are a budding enterprise or a well-established brand, time is the greatest asset one can have! When you are working 24*7, there are so many tasks which keep your business/company running. Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule, you might tend to miss out on something or the other. Besides, you have to spend a huge amount of money on resources highly required to streamline all the monotonous tasks. This also leaves you with a very little time for other core important duties.
What can be the solution for the above-mentioned issues? Outsourcing! There is a myriad of business activities and chores that one can outsource to save time as well as money. This shall give you ample amount of time for cooking up some new ideas for your business.
Thinking about what all tasks can you outsource? Let us make it easier for you. Enlisted are the services you can outsource.
This is not just a very time-consuming errand, but the most outsourced one too! A lot of people are already outsourcing customer service and if you aren't one, it's time to consider it. An adroit person can help not only for giving support to the customers but also can convert the leads into sales. Especially for product-based companies, customer service can be outsourced instead of deploying a huge staff.
From a simple task like making a logo to social media graphics, there always will be a need for graphics for your business. Instead of hiring a highly-paid graphic designer you can outsource this work, especially if you are a startup. Small businesses tend to outsource designing a lot as this saves time, money and also a bunch of brain-storming.
Tasks like accounting and book-keeping are things one can easily outsource. This would be beneficial especially for bigger businesses. Outsourced services would include book-keeping, invoicing and accounts payable and receivable, as well as financial reporting, analysis, and planning.
Your Human Resource can easily be maintained by an outside firm. There are firms which are quite equipped with plans for advertising, filtering applications and employee acquisition. Employing an HR to manage employee benefits can also be wise, but you can always outsource these services for greater benefits.
Business process outsourcing companies alone can save a lot of your hours and money. There are numerous requirements, regulations and tax laws in payroll processing and if these are done by your business, might consume a lot of your expense. Not just this, a single mistake with payroll can generate tax audits and cost your business a ton of money.
This service is highly outsourced and a lot of companies do this. Outsourcing content generation can help you in saving hours and money, as the content is a cumbersome task. Not just this, content is the king for any business to grow. Giving it to the experts would make more sense rather than doing something which incurs a loss.
You can outsource all these business activities and save your time, money, and efforts. Global business consulting services or outsourcing companies will help you release workload and concentrate on other essential tasks.


This event is part of the Stock Market Game Workshops. It is open only to participants of TGIF's 2012-13 Stock Market Game. Due to space constraints, other TGIF members can not be accommodated.
Please register only once. Not sure if you have registered already? Please look for 53318 in your mailbox - it is the mail code for the acknowledgement e-mail you should have received if you have registered.


text:
Harvest Team Members
Gary Eilerts
James Verdin, USAID
Kiersten Johnson, USAID
Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS)
Sub-National Agricultural Production Archive
Members for a project
USAID - Feed the Future intersections with NASA Harvest
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Feed the Future, the U.S. Government's Global Food Security initiative, takes an integrated approach to combating the root causes of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. This program intersects with NASA Harvest to promote and further the use of Earth observations data for addressing food insecurity.
How Satellites Make This Work
Feed the Future, the U.S. Government's Global Food Security initiative -- takes an integrated approach to combating the root causes of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. This integrated approach is reflected in Feed the Future's results framework, which brings together its three main objectives of inclusive and sustainable agriculture-led economic growth, strengthened resilience among people and systems, and a well-nourished population, especially among women and children.
Various types of evidence are needed to inform the design and implementation of Feed the Future programs and activities, and effective monitoring and evaluation of its work also requires robust qualitative and quantitative evidence. With increasing launches of Earth-observing satellites, data policies allowing broader access to moderate and high-resolution Earth Observation (EO) data, and rapid advances in cloud and high-performance computing, EO data are increasingly seen as essential inputs to support Feed the Future's work throughout the program cycle, from design to implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive decision making.
USAID and its partners are using EO data and applications in ways that directly correspond to Feed the Future's strategic approach and results framework, and to do so in an accessible way. This approach provides an opportunity to open doors for a wider engagement with these data by the entire range of decision makers, from farmers in their plots, to researchers in universities, to decisionmakers in governments and multilateral institutions. NASA Harvest's work on Earth observations for food security and agriculture aligns with this goal of engagement across the spectrum of decision makers.
In May 2019, Agrilinks held a month theme on Earth Observations for Food Security and Agriculture. Read more in the news item below or click here for the Agrilinks blogpost overview.
On May 30, Agrilinks hosted a webinar on Rainfall, Greenness, and Temperature Indicators in Feed the Future: What they are and how to use them with NASA Harvest partners Brian Barker and Ritvik Sahajpal, part of the Feed the Future MEL Webinar Series. Watch the full webinar (Adobe Connect).
Gary Eilerts, Independent Contractor
Agrilinks website
The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor for Agricultural Market Information System: Providing Timely Information on the World's Largest Crop Producers and Exporters
May Issue of the Crop Monitor for Early Warning and April's FEWS NET Outlook Contain Concerning News for East Africa and Yemen
Earth Observations Help to Monitor the Impacts of Cyclone Idai on People and Food in Eastern Africa
> View All NASA Harvest Projects
Kiersten Johnson
James Verdin


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