text:
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}
For a given object displayed in a rectified stereo pair of images, the disparity is defined as the horizontal pixel distance of the object in the left and right images. Disparity estimation is an ill-posed problem due to occlusion, as not all the objects displayed in the left image are visible in the right image and vice versa. Classic approaches for depth / disparity estimation rely on stereo matching, multiple view stereo, or single or multiple defocus map \cite{Malik2008ANA}. These methods rely on multiple images to perform feature matching, triangulation, or texture measurement with limited performance. On the other hand, even early supervised learning approaches have demonstrated superior results \cite{ZbontarL15, neuralfields} for binocular and monocular inputs respectively.

\subsection{Supervised disparity estimation}
Deep learning approaches have been extensively studied for supervised disparity estimation. For the stereo inputs case, the early work of Zbontar \cite{ZbontarL15} focused on learning the similarity measure between two patches from the left and right images. For the monocular case, Liu et al. \cite{neuralfields} devised a deep convolutional neural field (DCNF) model for supervised depth estimations by exploring conditional random fields and super-pixel pooling. None of these previous methods provided an end-to-end learning architecture. Instead of comparing local patches, Mayer et al.\cite{mayer} adopted the fully-convolutional FlowNet \cite{flownet} architecture for dense supervised stereo matching, called the DispNet. This kind of auto-encoder architecture would become common for future disparity estimation networks. Jie et al. \cite{recsm} proposed a recurrent architecture that learns potentially erroneous areas that guide the model to focus on these regions for subsequent refinement. Their model is fully supervised, takes stereo inputs and needs 5 iterations during test time, making it too slow for real-time (4 seconds). Atapour et al. \cite{adastyle} leverage fully annotated synthetic data to train a monocular depth estimation network. They apply style transfer to convert natural images into the synthetic domain during test time. While their approach unlocks the use of big synthetic data for real applications, according to their paper, their method struggles from false objects and depth holes arising from shadows post style transfer. Xie et al. \cite{singleviewsm} combine monocular and stereo input approaches using a Deep3D model to generate a synthetic right view, followed by 1D correlation, and a full resolution DispNet architecture to perform stereo matching. Deep3D \cite{deep3d} produces a probabilistic disparity map to blend multiple versions of the left view with different left and right shifts.

Recent works on disparity estimation have the tendency to combine other low-level and high-level tasks like motion estimation, scene flow, and object segmentation \cite{occmondep, segstereo}. Chen et al. \cite{stereo_style} formulate the style transfer problem for the binocular input case. Their intermediate disparity is trained for simultaneous bidirectional disparity and occlusion mask estimation in a fully supervised fashion.

\begin{figure}
  \centerline {\begin{tabular}{p{2.4cm}p{2.4cm}p{2.4cm}}
  Training inputs & Disparity maps & Ambiguity masks
  \end{tabular}}
  \includegraphics[width=0.48\textwidth]{input_output.jpg}
  \vspace*{-7mm}
  \caption{Using the left view as input and the right view only for supervision during training, our model estimates bidirectional disparity and ambiguity masks.}
  \label{fig:inputoutput}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure*}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{model.jpg}
  \vspace*{-8mm}
  \caption{Our full model with ambiguity mask estimation, rectangular convolutions and domain transformation blocks.}
  \label{fig:model}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{Unsupervised disparity estimation}
\label{ssec:subhead}
Previously mentioned methods require dense ground truth disparity. Obtaining such annotated data is a challenging task. On the other hand, unsupervised techniques rely on additional views to estimate depth from a scene, for which, capturing monocular video or stereo images is a relatively simpler task. Zhou et al.\cite{sfmlearner} exploited the relative pose information in a monocular video to train a disparity network and a pose estimation network in an unsupervised manner by performing view synthesis of the center frame (source image) to the different reference frames (target images). In \cite{unflow}, Zou et al. proposed a cross-task consistency loss to jointly train for optical flow estimation and disparity estimation from a video in an unsupervised fashion. Even though these kinds of approaches achieve good results for the additional task (camera motion and optical flow estimations), their performance for disparity estimation is very limited.

Given only the stereo pair, unsupervised disparity estimation can benefit from exploiting the geometrical relationships between the left and right images. Garg et al. \cite{garg} trained an encoder-decoder architecture for unsupervised monocular depth estimation by synthesizing a backward-warped image using the estimated left disparity map and the right image. The warped images are used to calculate the reconstruction error. We use the state-of-the-art work of Godard et al. \cite{godard} as the baseline for our work. Their Monodepth network estimates the left and right view disparity maps and incorporates a photometric loss, a disparity smoothness loss and a consistency loss for unsupervised training. Even though their consistency loss term greatly improves the performance of the network, they fail in the following three points that we attack in our work, which we call the rrdispnet\_dtm (residual rectangular masked disparity network with left to right domain transformations):

(i) Incorporation of full resolution features from the encoder into the decoder. We add a convolution layer with full resolution features to the auto-encoder architecture;
(ii) Fusion between "Left-domain" encoder features into "Left-Right-domain" decoder features. We fuse the skip connections from the encoder into the decoder using domain transformation blocks and rectangular convolutions with 3x5 kernels instead of 3x3 kernels. Rectangular convolutions facilitate the conversion from Left-domain to Left-Right-domain;
(iii) Accounting for "ambiguities" in the loss function. By letting the network learn an ambiguity mask for each view, we effectively re-weight the loss functions, which results in a selectively decreased learning rate for occluded and complex cluttered disparity areas, which improves accuracy and robustness. In addition, accounting for ambiguities allows our network to estimate full disparity maps in a single pass.

These contributions greatly improve the quality of the disparity maps. Moreover, in combination with residual blocks \cite{resnet} in the encoder section, we can reduce the numbers of parameters from 31 to 14 million. Parameter reduction is achieved by having less numbers of channels in the intermediate stages of our auto-encoder architecture, we trade quantity for quality of features.

\section{Method}
\label{sec:method}
We propose a novel learning pipeline that accounts for occlusions and complex/cluttered areas or "ambiguities". Given a single image, our model outputs bidirectional disparity and ambiguity masks as depicted in Figure \ref{fig:inputoutput}. The works of Godard \cite{godard} and Garg \cite{garg} model depth estimation as image reconstruction by $\Tilde{I}_L = g(I_R, D_L)$, where the backward warping operation $g(I,D)$ is a fully differentiable bilinear sampling function for right image $I_R$ and left disparity $D_L$. However, these approaches do not take ambiguities into account. Our  pipeline handles ambiguities by including them in the reconstruction model, as depicted in Eqs.\ref{eq:lrec} and \ref{eq:rrec} for left and right view reconstruction respectively.
\begin{equation} \label{eq:lrec}
\Tilde{I}_L = \Tilde{a}\_mask_L \odot g(I_R, D_L) + (1 - \Tilde{a}\_mask_L) \odot I_L
\end{equation}
\begin{equation} \label{eq:rrec}
\Tilde{I}_R = \Tilde{a}\_mask_R \odot g(I_L, D_R) + (1 - \Tilde{a}\_mask_R) \odot I_R
\end{equation}
where $\Tilde{a}\_mask_L$ and $\Tilde{a}\_mask_R$ contain the information about the dis-occluded left and right border areas that cannot be reconstructed by the warping operation. To model these areas the ambiguity masks are element-wise multiplied, denoted as $\odot$, by the dis-occlusion masks, yielding $\Tilde{a}\_mask_L = a\_mask_L \odot dis\_occ_L$ and $\Tilde{a}\_mask_R = a\_mask_R \odot dis\_occ_R$. The later are defined as
\begin{equation} \label{eq:disocc_maskL}
dis\_occ_{Lij} =
\left \{
  \begin{tabular}{cc}
  $0$ & $if\ j < 0.15W$ \\
  $1$ & $o.w.$ \\
  \end{tabular}
\right.
\end{equation}
\begin{equation} \label{eq:disocc_maskR}
dis\_occ_{Rij} =
\left \{
  \begin{tabular}{cc}
  $0$ & $if\ j > 0.85W$ \\
  $1$ & $o.w.$ \\
  \end{tabular}
\right.
\end{equation}
where $W$ is the image width.

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.35\textwidth]{resdt.jpg}
  \vspace*{-3mm}
  \caption{Residual(left) and domain transform(right) blocks.}
  \label{fig:blocks}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Network architecture}
\label{ssec:loss}
Our network architecture is depicted in Figure \ref{fig:model} where we adopt a UNET-like architecture with several additions. After each strided convolution layer, a residual block (Figure \ref{fig:blocks}) further refines the features and increases the numbers of non-linearities in the network, increasing its representation power. The bottleneck features in our network are upscaled using nearest upsampling and concatenated with encoder features in order to include global and local information. The features from the encoder are concatenated to the decoder side via direct skip connections and domain transformations. The number of channels is then reduced by a fusion layer. This process repeats until the feature maps reach the input resolution. Since the encoder processes spatial information from the left input image and the decoder outputs left and right disparities and masks, a mechanism is needed to convert from the "Left domain" encoder features to the "Left-Right" domain decoder features. The domain transformation blocks (Figure \ref{fig:blocks}) and 3x5conv fusion layers facilitate the conversion from the Left domain features to the Left-Right domain features. Similar to \cite{godard}, we take multiscale outputs for training at the four finest scales. The intermediate outputs are upscaled using nearest upsampling and concatenated to the next decoder stage. Output disparities and ambiguity masks are preceded by a sigmoid activation. Disparities are limited to $30\%$ of the image width.

\subsection{Loss Functions}
\label{ssec:loss}
We adopt a multi-scale loss function at the four finest scales as described by Eq. \ref{eq:mscale}. For each scale, the loss function takes the shape of the weighted sum of five terms: reconstruction loss, edge preserving smoothness loss, perceptual loss, ambiguity loss, and left-right consistency loss. The loss function at each scale is depicted in Eq. \ref{eq:one_scale} (each term has a right and left component $l_x^L$ and $l_x^R$).
\begin{equation} \label{eq:mscale}
l = \sum_{s=0}^{4} l_s
\end{equation}
\begin{equation} \label{eq:one_scale}
l_s = a_{rec}l_{rec} + a_{ds}\dfrac{0.1}{2^{s-1}}l_{ds} + a_pl_p + a_al_a + a_{lr}l_{lr}
\end{equation}
The selection of the coefficients for ambiguity and perceptual loss terms in Eq. \ref{eq:one_scale} was critical for the correct training of the networks. The weights during training are set to $a_{rec}=1$, $a_{ds}=0.1$, $a_p=0.1$, $a_a=0.2$ and $a_{lr}=1$. In contrast with \cite{godard}, all our loss terms are directly or indirectly modified by the ambiguity masks.
\textbf{Reconstruction Loss}. The reconstruction loss enforces the image $\Tilde{I}_L$ to be similar to the input image $I_L$, and can be defined by the weighted sum of the $L1$ and $SSIM$ losses (a weight of $\alpha = 0.85$ was used). The reconstruction loss is defined as
\begin{equation} \label{eq:rec_loss}
l_{rec}^L = \alpha||I_l - \Tilde{I}_L||_1 + (1 - \alpha)SSIM(I_L, \Tilde{I_L})
\end{equation}
\textbf{Disparity smoothness Loss}. Similar to \cite{godard}, the smoothness loss is set up to put less penalty on image gradients, which is given by
\begin{equation} \label{eq:smooth_loss}
l_{ds}^L = ||\partial_x D_L \odot \exp^{-|\partial_x I_L|}||_1 + ||\partial_y D_L \odot \exp^{-|\partial_y I_L|}||_1
\end{equation}
\textbf{Perceptual Loss}. Occluded areas will normally be represented by highly deformed regions in the reconstructed images. Perceptual loss \cite{perceptual} is ideal to detect this deformation and to put more penalty on it. The use of perceptual loss allows for learning the ambiguity masks properly. Three layers ($relu1\_2, relu2\_2, relu3\_4$) from the pre-trained $VGG19$ \cite{vgg} on ImageNet were used to have our perceptual loss as
\begin{equation} \label{eq:vgg_loss}
l_p^L = \sum_{l=1}^{3} ||\phi^l(I_L)-\phi^l(\Tilde{I_L})||_1
\end{equation}
\textbf{Ambiguity Loss}. Cross entropy loss is used to encourage ambiguity mask elements to be close to 1. Without this term the ambiguity masks would collapse to zero. So we have the ambiguity loss as
\begin{equation} \label{eq:a_loss}
l_a = ||\log a\_mask_L||_1 + ||\log a\_mask_R||_1
\end{equation}
\textbf{Left-Right (LR) consistency Loss}. Similar to \cite{godard}, a LR consistency term is used. Consistency loss encourages coherence between left and right disparities. Another interpretation is that consistency loss allows the network to use each view's disparity map as weak ground truth for the other view. In contrast with \cite{godard}, our LR consistency loss is re-weighted by the $\Tilde{a}\_mask$ ambiguity masks. The ambiguity masks allow the LR consistency loss to penalize less those areas where disparities are not good enough to be used as the ground truth for the other view's disparity. The LR consistency loss is defined as
\begin{equation} \label{eq:rec_loss}
l_{lr}^L = ||\Tilde{a}\_mask_L \odot (D_L - g(D_R, D_L))||_1
\end{equation}

\begin{table*}[t]
    \centering
    \input{table.tex}
    \vspace*{-3mm}
    \caption{Network Performance Metrics. D, network uses domain transformation block; R, network uses rectangular convolutions; F, network estimates full disparity map. Inference time is in seconds (s), tested on a Titan Xp GPU. Numbers of parameters is in millions.}
    \label{tab:performance}
\end{table*}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.48\textwidth]{three_result.jpg}
  \vspace*{-8mm}
  \caption{From left to right: Input, Incomplete disparity map (Monodepth) and our complete result (rdispnet\_m).}
  \label{fig:monovsours}
\end{figure}

\section{Results}
\label{sec:results}
We perform extensive experiments to verify the effectiveness of each of our contributions and compare against the state-of-the-art unsupervised monocular depth estimation, the Monodepth \cite{godard}, on the Kitti2015 \cite{kitti2015} dataset which contains 200 stereo frames and sparse disparity ground truth from velodyne laser scanners and CAD models. We train and test our network with and without domain transformations and rectangular convolutions, and name them accordingly, as shown in Table \ref{tab:performance}. Performance is measured in terms of the Kitti metrics from \cite{eigen}. Additionally, we test the Monodepth pp and our best model on our own dataset, captured with a cellphone camera.

\begin{figure*}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.96\textwidth]{four_result.jpg}
  \vspace*{-4mm}
  \caption{Qualitative comparison on the Kitti2015 dataset. From left to right: Input, Monodepth pp, rrdispnet\_m and rrdispnet\_dtm. Our networks succeed at detecting thin structures and suffer less from lateral side artifacts.}
  \label{fig:qualitative}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{Implementation details}
For a fair comparison, we adopted the training settings from \cite{godard}. Adam \cite{adam} optimizer is used with default betas and the models are trained for 50 epochs with an initial learning rate of 0.0001. The learning rate is halved at epochs 30 and 40. The same data augmentations were performed: random crop (256x512), random horizontal flips, random gamma, brightness and color shifts \cite{godard}. All models are trained on the KITTI Split \cite{godard} only, which consists of a selection of 29,000 stereo pairs from the Kitti2012 dataset \cite{kitti2012}, comprising a total of 33 scenes.

\subsection{Kitti2015}
Our simplest network, rdispnet\_m, does not include domain transformations nor 3x5 convolutions, but still manages to outperform the Monodepth baselines in all metrics. Monodepth post processing (pp), runs a second forward pass with a flipped input and combines the two outputs into a full disparity map. In contrast, our network is able to generate a complete disparity map in a single forward pass as depicted in Figure \ref{fig:monovsours}, even with the higher overall quality, as confirmed by results in Table \ref{tab:performance}.
We compare our more complex networks with rectangular convolutions and domain transformations against Monodepth pp in Figure \ref{fig:qualitative}. Again, our networks outperform Monodepth pp in all metrics in Table \ref{tab:performance}. The additional complexity of 3x5 kernels and domain transformations makes our rrdispnet\_dtm slower than our rdispnet\_m but still faster than Monodepth pp. The rrdispnet\_dtm yields the lowest rmse and has intermediate values for the other Kitti metrics, which exhibits the best performance among all our networks. As can be observed in Figure \ref{fig:qualitative}, our rrdispnet\_dtm generates sharper and more accurate disparity maps. It is also more robust against thin structures and does not produce lateral side artifacts as the Monodepth pp does. In addition, the rrdispnet\_dtm has the lowest warp rmse, which tells how similar the generated right-from-left view to the ground truth right view is. The warp rmse is a rough indicator for the quality on the estimated right disparity. The estimated right disparities and the generated right views are depicted in Figure \ref{fig:rightview}. Interestingly, our network does a good job at estimating the full right disparity map under the case that the right view is unknown at test time.
\subsection{Own dataset}
To prove our models generalize well, we test the rrdispnet\_dtm on our own dataset, and compare it against the Monodepth pp baseline (Figure \ref{fig:own}). Since the ground truth disparity is not available for our dataset, we evaluate the quality of the disparity maps by the feasibility of the generated outputs. Our network generates more feasible disparity maps where details are very well preserved, thin structures better detected, and far away object disparities better estimated.
\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.38\textwidth]{rightview.jpg}
  \vspace*{-4mm}
  \caption{Left column: Input left view, Monodepth and rrdispnet\_dtm output right disparities. Right column: Ground truth right view, warped left view using disparities in left column.}
  \label{fig:rightview}
\end{figure}

\section{Conclusions}
\label{sec:conclusions}
In this paper, by using residual blocks, full resolution features, rectangular convolution fusion and domain transformations between the Left-domain and Left-Right-domain features combined with the estimations of ambiguity masks, we achieved superior qualitative and quantitative results on the Kitti2015 benchmark over the Monodepth baseline. Furthermore, using our own dataset we showed that our method generalizes better in comparison to the baseline. The design of our novel loss function allows for end-to-end unsupervised learning of binocular disparity and ambiguity masks. We presented three networks that generate full disparity maps in a single pass at higher speeds than the Monodepth pp baseline. While other recent works are focused on fully supervised disparity networks, we demonstrated a significant improvement in the unsupervised class of algorithms by modeling depth estimation as an ambiguous image reconstruction problem.
\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.47\textwidth]{own.jpg}
  \vspace*{-4mm}
  \caption{From left to right: Input, Monodepth pp and rrdispnet\_dtm.}
  \label{fig:own}
\end{figure}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEbib}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Nejdelší řeky v Rusku (rusky řeka ). Tabulka obsahuje řeky, které mají na území Ruska délku 1000 km a více a také některé kratší.

Tabulka řek

Odkazy

Poznámky

Reference

Externí odkazy

Rusko
Rusko
Rusko
Rusko
Řeky
Zeměpisné rekordy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Lausanne Global Conversation Archives
About the Lausanne Global Conversation
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Orality And Storytelling – Matters Of The Heart
By Steve Evans Topic: BlogKeywords: change, community, convictions, experience, friendship, heart, identification, knowing, network, orality, passion, storytelling, worldview
"Why story and storytelling?" Thomas Boomershine asked in his book Story Journey. "Story is a primary language of experience. Telling and listening to a story has the same structure as our experience," he said. "The episodes of our lives take place one after another just like a story. One of the ways we know each other is by telling our stories. We live in stories." He continued: "Storytelling creates community. Persons who tell each other stories become friends. And men and women who know the same stories deeply are bound together in special ways. Furthermore, good stories get retold and from an ever-expanding storytelling network. There is something about a good story that virtually demands retelling. New connections are established between persons who have heard and identified with the same stories. And the deeper meaning of the story, the deeper are the relationships that are formed by the sharing."
"The heart does not respond to principles and programs; it seeks not efficiency, but passion," said authors Brent Curtis and John Eldredge in their book The Sacred Romance. "Art, poetry, beauty, mystery, ecstasy: These are what rouse the heart. Indeed, they are the language that must be spoken if one wishes to communicate with the heart. … Life is not a list of propositions, it is a series of dramatic scenes. Story is the language of the heart. Our souls speak not in the naked facts of mathematics or the abstract proportions of systematic theology; they speak the images and emotions of story."
Without intellectual assent or intentional behavioral change, the stories enter the heart and affect change. Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, said that much later, after one hears a story, he or she proclaims "what are these doing here?" but then finds oneself embracing the truths embedded within the stories. "All of a sudden we see things and people we had never noticed before," he said. "We hear words and sentences that make sense of what we've had intimations of but couldn't quite place." Curtis and Eldredge conclude, "The deepest convictions of our heart are formed by stories and reside there in the images and emotions of story."
Cultural anthropologist Charles Kraft said, "For solid changes to happen throughout a culture, people must make basic changes in the worldview of that culture. Just as a tree can only grow as the roots allow it to, so a culture and the society that lives by that culture can only function as well as their 'worldview-habits' allow them to." However, he warned that change in worldview-habits needs to be accompanied by a change in behavior. "Changes in both the cultural structuring of the basic assumption and in the personal living out of those assumptions need to take place," he said.
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A dark manicure is traditionally considered the prerogative of the autumn-winter season, when the bright fruit tones is not appropriate and look ridiculous on a background of yellow foliage or the white snow. With the onset of cold weather comes the busy time of the dark manicure.
If pastel manicure is suitable for all the girls, without exception, with the dark design will be much harder. Dark colors like confident girls, who through shades of nail Polish «shout» about their awesomeness and uniqueness. Manicure in a dark color holds a special place in nail design. The lacquer requires an approach to the selection of the main image and details of the design.
Dark manicure gives nails a expressive, noble and graceful look. Continuous development and improvement of technologies and materials to create nail art has transformed the classic dark manicure into an art form where tone plays a significant role. What equipment manicure look in a dark performance most effectively? What mistakes does not forgive the dark color? About all this, read our detailed review.
Choosing the future color for nail art, you need to consider such a thing as the length of the nails. If we are talking about short nails, here there are several contradictions. On the one hand on short nails will look more appropriate pastel hues, visually elongating the nail plate. On the other – that on short nails dark shades look the most elegant and subtle.
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As for crystals, the maximum number of stones on one nail should not exceed 2-3. Decorate them basal the hole, or repeat the contour of the tips of one or two nails. Correctly and tastefully placed stones in the overall design will create a charming and noble nail art.
Matt varnish just created under the dark shades, where it will show all its splendor and amazing views. Velvety surface of your nails especially spectacular in black, dark gray, dark blue color. Combine a matte surface with a glossy, complementing the design of the acrylic with sand or a handful of small crystals.
Matte nail Polish in dark color looks noble and aristocratic. Follow this design for a special occasion, dinner party or other event that requires the utmost attention to every detail. Believe me, with a matte nail art charming, the image you provided.
The lace pattern is popular not only in nail art, but the decor is dressy and casual clothing. Delicate flowery patterns are able to soften even the most strict shades of nail Polish. Until recently, white lace can be found only on wedding nail art. Today delicate patterns are present in everyday designs, adding a way of sophistication, lightness and accuracy.
The color of the lace can be white and black. Play with contrast by choosing different shades of the nail Polish.
To draw lace on nails can be your own. For example, apply a natural openwork material on the nail and go over it with a brush and varnish. Through the fine mesh lace will show through the varnish and will transfer the pattern on the nail plate.
Speaking about dark manicures not to mention the latest technology – the «cat» eyes, which is incredibly popular among girls. Using gel Polish with magnetic particles, it is possible to obtain the original effect with a mesmerizing overflow. To strengthen the effect nail Polish «cat» eyes, you can use stained gel Polish.
The right combination of colors can affect the overall perception of nail art. Selection of related hues depends on the length, nail forms, selected techniques of manicure. We offer you the most successful color combinations that you can confidently use to create your own designs.
Deep blue color is elegance and nobility. The dark blue shade looks great in solid compositions or in combination with decorative elements. To blue manicure didn't look too gloomy and monotonous use of the gradient technique, which in addition to the primary colors may include shades a few shades lighter blue.
Burgundy color – a classic that is out of fashion. Maroon manicure perfectly combined with white and black color. Elegant is the combination of Burgundy with Golden and silver hue.
You can combine purple color with such versatile options as black and white. For summer and holiday nail art you can try more daring combinations: yellow, blue, crimson, gold.
Dark manicures are fastidious enough to combine with lighter shades. However, if you learn to pick up the rich tones of appropriate shades of varnish, the technique of dark nail Polish would submit to you, allowing you to create a charming and noble nail arts.


text:
Diabolical Age is the third studio album by Norwegian black metal band Ragnarok, released on January 31, 2000, under Head Not Found record label. It is the final album with vocalist Thyme (Dag Ronny Hansen). Arcturus guitarist Knut Magne Valle was the engineer on the recording sessions.

Track listing
All music and lyrics by Ragnarok, except lyrics for track 3 by Lillith Demona and music for track 8 written and performed by Jørgen Ø. Andersen.

Personnel

Ragnarok
Thyme: Vocal
Rym: Guitars
Jerv: Bass
Jontho P.: Drums

Additional personnel
Jørgen Ø. Andersen - Keyboards (track 8)

Production and engineering
Recorded during October 1998 and February 1999 at Endless Studio in Oslo.
Produced by Tore Moren, Knut Magne Valle and Ragnarok.
Mastered at Strype Audio by Tom Kvålsvoll and Ragnarok.

References

External links
 Allmusic listing
Metallum Archives
Discogs.com

2000 albums
Ragnarok (Norwegian band) albums
Head Not Found albums


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Palestinians gather to call for Assad departure
August 14, 2011 - 11:00pm
Hundreds of Palestinians streamed into the streets of Ramallah on Sunday evening to demand Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad stand down. The mass demonstration in support of the Syrian people came hours after news broke of Syrian military shelling the port city of Latakia, killing 26. Human rights groups said Palestinians living in a refugee camp in the district of Ramel were among the dead.
Abbas-Dahlan spat undermining Fatah, bolstering Hamas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh - August 14, 2011 - 11:00pm
As he prepares to submit a request to the UN in September for recognition of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has also found time to wage a relentless war against his former ally and friend, Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan. The rivalry between the two men, which reached its peak last month when Abbas ordered his security forces to raid Dahlan's villa on the outskirts of Ramallah, has caused severe damage to Fatah and will only serve Hamas's interests, Fatah officials warned.
Paranoia and intrigue on the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - August 13, 2011 - 11:00pm
Juliano Mer-Khamis' legacy weighs heavily on the internationally acclaimed youth theatre he founded inside this turbulent Palestinian refugee camp, where some suspect his killer still lurks. In April, a masked gunman shot dead the 52-year-old Israeli actor and filmmaker, born to a Jewish mother and Palestinian father, as he sat in a car in front of his Freedom Theatre in Jenin.
Hamas-Fatah talks: Is Palestinian unity an illusion?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from BBC News
by Jon Donnison - August 4, 2011 - 11:00pm
Palestinian political leaders seemed to be listening. Within weeks, somewhat out of the blue, a reconciliation deal was announced. Orchestrated by the new leadership in Egypt, it was meant to end four years of bitter and sometimes violent division between the two main Palestinian factions. Three months on, Abu Yassin is angry: "Nothing has changed. "We're really disappointed. This deal was just signatures on paper. We wanted real change on the ground."
The blunders of Palestinian leader Abbas
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Jackson Diehl - (Opinion)	July 20, 2011 - 11:00pm
Back in May, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas adopted a new and radically different political strategy. Turning his back on the United States and peace talks with Israel, he signed a "reconciliation" agreement with the Hamas movement and announced his intention to appeal to the United Nations in September for recognition of Palestinian statehood. September is still six weeks away, but already it's becoming clear that Abbas committed a monumental blunder, one that will leave his movement at a dead end — and possibly lead to an eruption of violence in the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinian factions settle comfortably into limbo
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Edmund Sanders - July 16, 2011 - 11:00pm
Reporting from Jerusalem— A proposed Palestinian unity government that was touted two months ago as a potential Mideast game-changer has been stalled by familiar political realities and lingering antagonisms. Since rival factions Fatah and Hamas announced a reconciliation after four years of feuding, the promised coalition government remains unformed due to disputes over who will serve as prime minister. Other goodwill measures, such as mutual prisoner releases, have also gone unfulfilled since May, and public attacks against one another have resumed.
Is Palestine Next?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from London Review of Books
by Adam Shatz - (Book Review)	July 13, 2011 - 11:00pm
No one in the Arab world was watching the news more closely than the Palestinians during the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. The first emotion they experienced was disbelief; the second – particularly when they saw Palestinian flags being raised in Tahrir Square – was relief that they were no longer alone. Arab lethargy has been a virtual article of faith among Palestinians, who felt that their neighbours had betrayed them in 1948 and had done nothing to help them since.
Hamas: No Palestinian reconciliation if Fayyad remains PM
by Associated Press - July 12, 2011 - 11:00pm
A senior Hamas official said a planned reconciliation with Fatah will be deeply threatened if the rival Palestinian movement insists Western-backed economist Salam Fayyad stays on as prime minister. President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah thinks keeping Fayyad as prime minister is key to maintaining the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in Western aid. Hamas sees Fayyad as too close to the West. Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk was quoted Wednesday by the Palestinian daily Felesteen as saying Abbas' position is "unacceptable and unreasonable."
Hamas: Abbas obstructing reconciliation deal over PM
July 11, 2011 - 11:00pm
Hamas official Mohammed Nasr said Tuesday that President Mahmoud Abbas was responsible for obstructing the completion of a Palestinian national unity government. "Abbas clings to Salam Fayyad as prime minister during the interim government but we refuse this nomination and we affirmed to Fatah that we have a veto against Fayyad," Nasr told the London based Al-Hayat newspaper.
Reconciliation First
(Editorial)	June 30, 2011 - 11:00pm
Much hope was pinned on the initial agreement between Fateh, the main Palestinian faction, and Hamas, the movement ruling Gaza, to forge a united Palestinian front at this critical time. The Palestinians need a unity government in order to push forward their plan to seek recognition by the UN General Assembly as an independent state. Unfortunately, so far, the two Palestinian factions failed to seal their initial accord by agreements on several fronts, including holding presidential and parliamentary elections, and forming a national unity government.


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Kaloom Raises $10 Million in Series A1 Funding To Drive Global Expansion Français
Kaloom Inc
Fonds de solidarité FTQ and other existing investors participate in new round of financing
MONTREAL and SAN JOSE, CA, Nov. 15, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Kaloom, an emerging leader in the fully automated data center networking software market, today announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A1 funding round. The latest financing was led by the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and Somel Investments, with the participation from MBUZZ Investments. This cash infusion brings Kaloom's total investments to $20.7 million.
Kaloom is based in the heart of the Quartier de l'innovation in Montreal, Quebec and in the Silicon Valley. The company was founded by its CEO, Laurent Marchand, with the vision of providing the industry's most automated and programmable data center networking fabric, one that will disrupt how data centers are built and managed by cloud providers, telcos and enterprises.
The new funding will advance the development and sales of Kaloom's innovative automated Software Defined Fabric (SDF), an industrialized software solution for open networking white boxes, including Accton, Delta and others. Kaloom's SDF is ideally suited for hyperscale as well as distributed data center environments that have a need for low latency, low cost, programmable solutions. The company will also use the funds to expand its employee base from 70 to 100 by the end of the year.
"We see a strong need among current beta and other potential customers to do something 'bottom up' with the networking fabric, where the switches self-discover and self-provision themselves automatically in a network that ultimately supports programmability," said Laurent Marchand, CEO and founder of Kaloom. "The latest funding round is validation of Kaloom's approach and where we believe the industry is moving; enabling us to grow faster than planned and respond to growing customer demand."
"In a very short period, Kaloom has developed world class software for data centers. We are excited to see such strong interest in the company and its solution and see a bright future with Kaloom. After our initial investment for Kaloom's launch in 2017, we are pleased to continue to support the company's growth," said Gaétan Morin, President and CEO of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ.
The transaction is subject to standard closing conditions.
Kaloom Expands Executive Team with VP of Sales and VP of Marketing
During the past two months, Kaloom has bolstered its already experienced leadership team by appointing Mike Rymkiewicz as the new vice president of sales, and Thomas Eklund as Kaloom's vice president of marketing. Rymkiewicz has a proven track record of bringing new products to market and ramping up sales at Amazon, Google and Oracle. Eklund oversees Kaloom's product vision, strategy and marketing. He comes to Kaloom after working with companies recognized as leaders in AI, automation, analytics and fully closed-loop systems, and with a successful track record from previous companies including Xelerated, Jolata, Cipherlex and SwitchCore, as well as Ericsson.
About Kaloom
Kaloom is an emerging company developing a fully automated, programmable data center networking software solution that will disrupt how cloud and data center networks are built, managed and operated for enterprises, cloud providers, gaming companies, data center operators and 5G wireless providers. Kaloom comprises technology veterans with proven track records of delivering large-scale networking, analytics and AI-based solutions for the world's largest networks. The company is backed by leading investors including Fonds de solidarité FTQ and Somel Investments. Kaloom is based in the heart of the Quartier de l'innovation in Montreal, Quebec and in the Silicon Valley. For additional information visit www.kaloom.com.
About Fonds de solidarité FTQ
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ is a development capital investment fund that channels the savings of Quebecers into investments. As at May 31, 2018, the organization had $14.3 billion is net assets, and through its current portfolio of investments has helped create and protect 194,746 jobs. The Fonds is a partner in 2,839 companies and has 667,417 shareholder-savers. Find out more at www.fondsftq.com.
SOURCE Kaloom Inc
For further information: Press Contacts: Jeannette Bitz, Witz Communications for Kaloom, [email protected], +1.510.599.5499; Thomas Eklund, Vice President Marketing and Strategy, Kaloom, [email protected]
http://www.kaloom.com
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ is a development capital investment fund that channels the savings of Quebecers into investments. As at May 31, 2017, the organization had $13.1 billion in net assets, and through its current portfolio of investments has helped create and protect...
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ Suspends Lump-Sum Payments And New...
Fonds de solidarité FTQ Posts 11.0% Return for First Six Months...
Over $2 Million Invested in Microbrasserie Le BockAle...
Somel Investments


Exiled for horrific dark side experiments, a group of Dark Jedi made a last stand against the Jedi Order on Corbos, where they were ultimately defeated. The survivors fled beyond the borders of Republic space and, seeking a refuge, they discovered the planet Korriban--home to the red-skinned Sith species. The Sith looked on the Dark Jedi's Force abilities with awe, and worshipped them as gods.
Led by the fabled warrior and tactician Ajunta Pall, the Dark Jedi began forging the Sith into a glorious civilization, built on the principles they had established after breaking with the Jedi Order. They ordered the construction of great monuments on Korriban--vast cities that did not survive the ages, glorious temples and elaborate tombs.
As time passed, the Dark Jedi and the Sith species intermarried, until there were few true purebloods remaining. Eventually, there were only small physical differences between them. There were only the Sith, strong in the dark side of the Force, and their new Sith Empire.
The Republic had enjoyed a long period of peace during the Manderon Period, but the Koros system was rapidly becoming a problem. Although the planet Koros Major was stable, growing wealthy on carbonite exports, the other six worlds of the system were poor and increasingly lawless.
The task of uniting the Koros system was accepted by a noble famed for her military achievements. Empress Teta was the heir to Koros Major and was determined that the rest of the Koros system would share its prosperity. To that end, Teta began the Unification Wars, hoping to bring the entire system under her rule. She was ultimately successful, though she had to fight a long and bloody campaign to conquer the planet Kirrek.
Empress Teta would become known as one of the Republic's boldest commanders. The Koros system was eventually renamed after her.
As the Sith Empire grew in power, few Sith inspired such fear as Marka Ragnos, a tyrant who ruled for a century. His death created a power vacuum, leaving the Sith Lords Ludo Kressh and Naga Sadow vying for supremacy.
During Marka Ragnos's funeral on Korriban, Sadow and Kressh fought a duel, each claiming he was more fit to be Dark Lord of the Sith--the then-unique title of the Empire's ultimate ruler. But the spirit of Ragnos himself appeared, claiming a golden age of the Sith was coming. Moments later, the funeral assembly was alerted: A Republic ship had been captured.
The ship belonged to two hyperspace explorers, the siblings Gav and Jori Daragon, who had stumbled on Korriban. As the Sith Council debated the Daragons' fate, Naga Sadow saw opportunity. The hyperspace routes leading to the Republic had been lost; the Daragons were his chance to rediscover them.
For years, the Sith Lord Naga Sadow had been arguing unsuccessfully that the Sith Empire needed to expand. His chance came when Gav and Jori Daragon, two hyperspace explorers, accidentally discovered Korriban. With the Daragons sentenced to death, Sadow helped them escape, planning to use them to rediscover the hyperspace routes to the Republic. He then claimed to the Sith Council that Republic agents had freed the prisoners. Surely invasion was imminent?
Naga Sadow's rival, Ludo Kressh, grew suspicious. As Sadow began to train Gav Daragon as his protege, Kressh raised a force against Sadow, hoping to expose his treachery. But Sadow crushed Kressh's armies and declared himself Dark Lord of the Sith. In the confusion of the battle, Jori Daragon fled back to the Republic, not realizing her ship carried a homing beacon for the Sith to follow.
The Sith had never forgotten their first exile from Republic space. With a trail unwittingly laid by the hyperspace explorer Jori Daragon, Sith Lord Naga Sadow saw a chance for revenge and to expand the borders of the Sith Empire. He had tricked the Sith Council into believing the Republic was about to attack and united several Sith factions into a massive invasion fleet.
Meanwhile, Jori Daragon had done her best to warn the Republic of an impending Sith invasion, but only the warlord Empress Teta believed her. Teta was still gathering her armies when Sadow's entire fleet arrived in the Koros system and opened fire.
Jedi and Republic forces rallied quickly, but strengthened by Sith sorcery, Sadow's attacks were unpredictable and devastating. The conflict quickly spread throughout the galaxy, until even Coruscant was threatened. The Great Hyperspace War became the first conflict on a truly galactic scale.
Taris was once a city-world like Coruscant. Three centuries ago, however, it was bombarded by the Sith Lord Darth Malak and left a toxic ruin. The years since have not been kind to Taris, as vegetation and animal life struggle to gain a foothold in the shattered skeleton of a planetary metropolis.
The Republic began to recolonize Taris less than a decade ago, and has suffered innumerable setbacks--everything from pirate attacks to the strange "rakghoul plague". Nonetheless, the reconstruction effort continues, its proponents determined to prove that the Empire can never truly destroy greatness.


Month: December 2013 - ThirtySevenWest ThirtySevenWest - Creative ideas about personalized custom ribbons, woven tags and labels, personalized gifts and more!!!
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Bring in the New Year in style this season with personalized ribbon for New Year's celebrations. What an exciting way to add a personal touch to your holiday party! This custom crafted personalized ribbon is an excellent choice for decorating ceilings, walls, windows, and lighting fixtures with your own unique style, and it's available in a wide variety of designs, colors, and textures to make this year's holiday party one to remember.
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Add your personalized logo, name, or message, such as Happy 2014!
Countdown the seconds to the New Year with a customized style that's all your own this season when you order personalized ribbon for New Year's celebrations!
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Lijst van ministers van Justitie van Aruba (soms in combinatie met andere ministeries of portefeuilles) vanaf 1986.

De minister van Justitie van Aruba is verantwoordelijk voor rechtshandhaving, openbare orde en veiligheid, grensbewaking, wetgeving van alle ministeries, advies over administratieve en juridische zaken van alle ministeries en de vertegenwoordiging van het Land Aruba in rechtelijke procedures.

Zie de lijst van ministers van Justitie van de Nederlandse Antillen voor de periode 1955-1985.

Arubaanse
Politiek in Aruba
Ministers


This one is for the girls - boys wont use a pink soap.
Same highly absorbent charcoal to keep your skin clear with a nourishing pink clay added for skin conditioning.
Goats Milk. Saponified Oils: Organic Coconut, Olive, Rice Bran & castor Oil enriched with Shea butter. Charcoal & Pink Clay.


The first two burials of the victims from last week's mosque shootings in New Zealand are scheduled to take place on Wednesday morning.
Christchurch City Council spokeswoman Jocelyn Ritchie says the Muslim burial ceremony for the two of the 50 people killed will take place at 11.30am.
She said she did not know the identities of the two bodies to be buried first.
It is uncertain how many of the victims will be buried there.
Officials have received some requests to send bodies to the native countries of those killed.
The alleged Australian gunman who opened fire inside the mosques last week was a self-proclaimed racist.
About 60 men in Muslim attire held meetings at the grave site ahead of the burials to survey the area.
New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said police have now formally identified and released the bodies of 21 people out of the 50 who were killed in last week's mosque attacks.
Mr Bush said that releasing the bodies was a priority for family reasons, compassionate reasons and cultural reasons.
Islamic law says that people should be buried as soon as possible after death, preferably within 24 hours.


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Hjärntvätt (engelska: brainwashing) är ett psykologiskt begrepp för en handling som syftar till att förändra en människas attityder, lojaliteter och värderingar eller att genom manipulation framkalla en alternation (det vill säga förändrad verklighetsuppfattning) hos någon.

Begreppet uppstod under Koreakriget. Ordet hjärntvätt används ofta synonymt med tankekontroll, men innebörden skiljer sig. Det senare ordet har innebörden att den utsatte medverkar frivilligt, som till exempel en medlem i en sekt eller ett företag som bedriver nätverksförsäljning.

Journalisten Edgar Hunter myntade termen hjärntvätt år 1951 för att beskriva hur amerikanska soldater i fångenskap bytte sida och bekände påhittade krigsbrott. Detta fenomen studerades av psykologer och psykiatriker som Margaret Singer, Robert Lifton, Louis West och Edgar Schein.

Det finns inte några egentliga bevis för att hjärntvätt fungerar. USA försökte själva utveckla ett hjärntvättningsprogram med Project MKUltra under nästan 20 år utan att lyckas. I efterhand har man konstaterat att de förment hjärntvättade amerikanska krigsfångarna efter frisläppandet tog tillbaka sina bekännelser och att deras tidigare uttalanden med all säkerhet hade tvingats fram genom de inhumana förhållanden de utsatts för i lägren. Som konspirationsteori har hjärntvättande dock levt vidare i många sammanhang, till exempel i spelfilmen The Manchurian Candidate från 2004.

Engelska synonymer
I Margaret Singers i bok Cults in Our Midst presenteras ett flertal olika termer för engelskans hjärntvätt:
Thought struggle (Mao Tse-tung, 1929)
Brainwashing (Hunter, 1951)
Thought reform (Lifton, 1956)
DDD-syndrom - Debility, Dependency and Dread (Farber, Harlow och West 1957)
Coersive Pesuasion (Schein, 1961)
Mind control (oklart, ca 1980)
Systematic manipulation of psychological and social influence (Singer, 1982)
Coordinated Programs of coersive influence and behavioral control (Ofshe och Singer, 1986)
Exploitative persuasion (Singer och Addis, 1992)

Forskning
Den forskning som gjorts har visat att  systematisk isolering (sensorisk deprivation),  vilket innebär "reduktion av sinnesintryck och kontakt med kamrater, allmän informationsbrist och viss undernäring" leder till att alla människor drabbas av en medvetandestörning kombinerat med  depression, förvirring och hallucinationer. Slutsatsen är att detta i sin tur leder till stark hunger efter information och att den person som utsätts kan acceptera felaktiga argument och erkänna påstådda illdåd. Bland teoretiker på området hittas exempelvis Kurt Lewin, Robert J Lifton, Margaret Singer och Steven Hassan.

Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin beskriver i Edgar Scheins bok Coersive Persuasion hur förändringen av amerikanska krigsfångar i Korea (se ingressen) gick till i tre steg:
"Unfreezing" = skaka om, desorientera, bryta ner referensramar -
"Changing" = förändra till ny identitet
"Refreezing" = befästa den nya identiteten

Robert J Lifton
Robert J Lifton beskriver i boken Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism åtta faktorer för hur hjärntvätt kan gå till:

Kontroll av miljön
Mystisk manipulation
Krav på renhet
Bekännelser
Helig vetenskap
Laddat språk
Doktrin över person
Existensuppdelning

Margaret Singer
Margaret Singer presenterar en teori bestående av sex kriterier för tankereform i sin bok Cults in Our Midst (1995, ny upplaga 2003):

Hålla en person ovetande om vad som pågår och vad som händer.
Kontrollera en persons tid och om möjligt dennes fysiska miljö.
Skapa en känsla av maktlöshet, hemlig rädsla och beroende.
Undertryck mycket av personens gamla beteende och attityd.
Ingjuta nya beteenden och attityd.
Föra fram ett slutet system av logik, inte tillåta kritik.

Steven Hassan
Hassan beskriver i sin avhandling The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law en modell för att identifiera oetiska och destruktiva grupper och relationer. Den så kallade BITE-modellen (Behaviour, Information, Thoughts and Emotions) innefattar kontroll av:
Beteende
Information
Tankar
Känslor

Jämförelse mellan olika modeller
Margaret Singer har gjort en modell för hur hennes, Liftons och Lewins/Scheins beskrivningar av hjärntvätt förhåller sig till varandra.

Se även
 Ackulturation
 Indoktrinering
 Psykologisk manipulation
 Rekrytering

Referenser

Sociologi
Koreakriget
WP:Projekt Kina
WP:Projekt Korea
Psykologi


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HomeUncategorizedQuality Sports Games Created By EA Sports
Quality Sports Games Created By EA Sports
Leave a Comment on Quality Sports Games Created By EA Sports
EA Sports, could be the manufacturer of Electronic Arts, which creates and develops sports games. Over time they've released games like, NBA Live, FIFA, NHL, Madden NFL and Nascar. Lots of the games are distinguished by the season in which they turn out (IE: Madden 09, NHL 11 and etc!) EA Sports, also determined to help make the gameplay as realistic as you possibly can, uses real athletes names and likeness, along with adding feature's to the game that already exist in the live sport. In so doing, EA Sports games might be very addicting, with the ability to immerse you totally to the game.
Madden 12 and NHL 12 are another two sports games ready for market with release dates of 8/30/11 and 9/13/11, respectively. EA Sports has added a fresh dimension to each game, bringing live action from the game, to the game. 안전놀이터 Examples of this are as follows: Madden 12 has added Real Time Physics and Customizable Playbooks. The Real Time Physics provides crushing hits, while guaranteeing that no 2 tackles could be the same. The Customizable Playbooks is for the coach in every one of us. It will bring a fresh experience and excitement to the game. NHL 2012 now has Full Contact. Which means everything in the arena is live. At this point you have the ability to shatter the glass with body checks, knock opposing players to the bench, knock off helmets and so much more. Goalies are live now for the first time. This enables the goalies to produce sprawling saves, have the crease crashed by opposing players, knock the web off its moorings and last although not least…..Goalies Can Fight! If this isn't already enough, they added the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh on New Years Day! The overall game is played outdoors and the elements conditions can be changed. You obtain everything that you could possibly want in these games, except a ticket.
EA Sports continues to create quality sports games, which are so realistic, that you feel your area of the action. Each year they add the mandatory elements to maintain with whatever sports game they're creating at that time. With all the current sports games being created, I'm that EA Sports is miles in front of the competition. The degree of fun, excitement, competition and just how that they can immerse you into the game is second to none. For a superior quality sports gaming experience, EA Sports for me, are at the top of the class.
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Q: Category theory with multisets An alternative to the notion of multiset introduced in Section 2.2 of Aluffi Chapter 0 is obtained by considering sets endowed with equivalence relations; equivalent elements are taken to be multiple instances of elements 'of the same kind'. Define a notion of morphism between such enhanced sets, obtaining a category MSet containing (a 'copy' of) Set as a full subcategory. (There may be more than one reasonable way to do this! This is intentionally an open-ended exercise.) Which objects in MSet determine ordinary multisets as defined in Section 2.2 and how? Spell out what a morphism of multisets would be from this point of view. (There are several natural notions of morphisms of multisets. Try to define morphisms in MSet so that the notion you obtain for ordinary multisets captures your intuitive understanding of these objects.)

A: NOTE: I first thought of posting this as a reply to @JohannasHahn's answer, but it got too long.
At the risk of being too pedantic, I would say that our morphisms must be triplets: $(f,\sim_A,\sim_B)$, since technically sets of morphisms should be disjoint [Aluffi, Def. 3.1 on pg.19]. Alternatively we can define a morphism $(A,\sim_A)\rightarrow(B,\sim_B)$ to be a map $f:(B/\sim_B)\rightarrow(A/\sim_A)$.
The last (and vaguest) part of the question remains unanswered:

Which objects in $\mathsf{MSet}$ determine ordinary multisets as defined in §$2.2$ and how? Spell out what a morphism of multisets would be from this point of view. (There are several natural notions of morphisms of multisets. Try to define morphisms in $\mathsf{MSet}$ so that the notion you obtain for ordinary multisets captures your intuitive understanding of these objects.)

The definition for multisets given in §$2.2$ is a map, $m:A\rightarrow\mathbb N^*$, from a set $A$ to the positive integers. This map can be viewed as a multiset, where every element $a\in A$ appears $m(a)$ times.
I have not been able to answer the above in a satisfactory way with either of the two definitions for morphisms in $\mathsf{MSet}$ we have presented here. Any thoughts?

A: Well the obvious definition works: If $(A,\sim_A)$,$(B,\sim_B)$ are sets with equivalence relations, then define a morphism $(A,\sim_A)\to(B,\sim_B)$ to be a map $f:A\to B$ which respects the relations, i.e. $x\sim_A y \implies f(x) \sim_B f(y)$. It is readily verified that the composition of such morphisms is again a morphism and that the identity on $A$ is a morphism so that we get a category out of this.
The category of sets is embedded in this category of multisets by associating $A$ with $(A,=_A)$ where $=_A$ is the equality relation on $A$, i.e. all distinct elements are unrelated by $=_A$. Any map $A\to B$ obviously respects these relations such that $A\mapsto (A,=_A), f\mapsto f$ become a functor. This functor is the desired embedding of Set into MSet

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Once Naomi was going to make a cake while I was out doing something else. She called me—panic was in her voice—and said: I think I did something wrong. I put one cup of vanilla and a tablespoon of sugar in the cake. I think it should have been the other way around. The bottle of vanilla was empty and the cake didn't turn out that great. Since then Naomi has baked a lot and she always makes sure she reads the recipe well.
Naomi generally stays away from vanilla these days.
Today Steve was going to bless me by making a coffee cake. He has never made a cake before. And while I was suffering at the dentist's, he was suffering in the kitchen.
He picked me up and said: I forgot to double the amount of baking powder.
I said: Why did you have to double it?
He said: Because you had written Double the recipe next to the recipe.
To which I replied: Uh oh. That was something I wrote many years ago when I had a huge pan. The pan you used doesn't need that much batter.
My loving man's jaw dropped: Oh, shoot. Also, that was A LOT of butter.
I felt like my crown came loose. Steve, did you use 3/4 of a Norwegian pack of butter?
He looked at me with his puppy dog eyes. Of course, that is what you had written.
I looked him with my Betty Crocker eyes. Yes, but I wrote that many years ago, and it was 3/4 of a Thai pack of butter, about 1/2 cup.
He sighed, like a knight who just got stabbed with a sword. Seriously? I think I put about two cups of butter in the cake. Crap. Is there a way to take butter out from cake batter?
The cake had to bake for quite a bit longer than the recipe said. It's a little salty and greasy. But it was made with love—and a lot of butter.
Cake made with love, sweat and butter.
The lesson one can learn from these two stories that are accounts of unfortunate incidents that happened to two of the people I love the most in the world: Read the recipe well and follow the directions to a tee. Ignore the handwritten notes in the margin unless you know what you are doing.
This is how we should live too.
Your story was so inspiring that I just threw together a recipe-less coffee cake for us. We will see if faith is enough to guide us to culinary success! Steve still rocks in my book!
Ha, ha, that is great, Greg. Let me know how the cake turned out! Probably better than Steve's.
Aww, those are such cute stories Oddny!
AWWWWWW Only the Mom to this man can say awwwwwwwwwww with the rest of you! Love it. Heck I never had recipes, perhaps that may have contributed to some of this. I always cooked from memory and I was constantly changing it up.
Those stories are sooo funny! Thanks for the "good medicine"…laughs!
I had to start reading these blogs because my daughter and friend are such fans!!!
If this picture taken five minutes out of the oven, I think Marcus gives it two forks up with a side of milk!
Yes, please……..I would like a piece of Steve's cake. Can one ever have too much butter?


I used dnfdragora to uninstall chromium, but in the applications drop down menu chromium apps are still in the list even after I restarted my laptop. I've tried rpm -qa | grep chromium nothing happened. I know their is a way to purge I tried sudo dnf --purge chromium but was returned' "no such command chromium," I've tried sudo yum -y erase google-chrome, sudo yum -y erase chrome, sudo yum -y erase chromium, sudo dnf -y erase chromium, I get the reply No match for argument: (fill in the blank) Error: No packages marked for removal. I did rpm -qa | grep chrome and found these: mathjax-winchrome-fonts-2.7.4-2.fc28.noarch, xorg-x11-drv-openchrome-0.6.0-4.fc28.x86_64, python3-chromecast-2.2.0-1.fc28.noarch if I uninstall these will the following apps go away? these files really don't apply to what is left over in the drop down menu they are "Chromebook recovery tool," Yes my wife has a chromebook and it was synced with the chromium browser, HP print is in the list along with mahjong and scanner tool.
Check the directories /usr/share/applications and ~/local/share/applications for the .desktop file related to chromium.
dnf does not have a purge function; that is an Ubuntu thing.


The Union Public Service Commission declared final result of the Combined Defense Services Examination (II), 2012. The candidates are selected on the basis of interviews conducted by the Services Selection Board of the Ministry of Defence.
The Union Public Service Commission declared final result of the Combined Defense Services Examination (II), 2012. The candidates are selected on the basis of interviews conducted by the Services Selection Board of the Ministry of Defence. A total of 372 candidates were selected including 294 men and 78 women.
The list declared is provisional and the candidates are called for verification of Date of Birth and Educational Qualification will be done by Army Head Quarter. The selected candidate will get admission to listed courses.


I have been a follicular lymphoma patient since 2008. One of the strangest things about this disease is the kind of "in-between-ness" that it can put some patients into. You're not really cured, but you're not really sick, either. (Terrilyn McCormick writes about this very well.) You learn to live with the uncertainty.
Way in the back of my refrigerator, there's a bottle of beer: Three Judges Barleywine-style ale, brewed in 2004 by the New England Brewing Co. The top is dipped in fancy red wax. When the brewery put out the limited special run 15 years ago, I bought a bottle. The flavor is supposed to improve with age, so I tucked it in the back of the refrigerator. I figured I would leave it there for a year or two and then drink it.
Fortunately, my wife is much better at cleaning the refrigerator than I am. Every time she emptied the fridge for cleaning, she'd find the bottle and ask, "Is this still good? Are we keeping this?" And I'd say, "Yes, we are." After a while she stopped asking and just put the bottle back. And I forgot about it.
And I said, "Well, at this point, it seems like we should wait for a special occasion to open it." I was a year or so past my diagnosis with follicular lymphoma. I was still watching and waiting. Follicular lymphoma is slow-growing, and my disease hadn't progressed enough to need treatment. That would come a year after we had this conversation.
We agreed to wait for that special occasion: when I danced with NED.
NED stands for "no evidence of disease." People in my online support group said "Dancing with NED" when a scan showed that the lymphoma was all gone.
It's been 11 years now, and I still haven't danced that dance.
My watching and waiting ended in 2010. My left leg swelled up because of the growing lymph nodes near my hip. My oncologist and I decided it was time to treat. I had six rounds of Rituxan (rituximab), and the swelling went down.
The post-treatment scan showed huge improvement, but it didn't show that the disease was completely gone. No dance with NED.
I've had a few scans since then, and not one of them has shown NED. There's always been a little bit of cancer still there. Sometimes, the disease is stable. Sometimes, it grows very slowly. Sometimes, it even gets a little smaller on its own.
Indolent cancers like follicular lymphoma can require a special kind of thinking. I've learned to live with the in-between — not being in remission, but not needing treatment, either. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. I've drunk a lot of beers, but not a Three Judges Barleywine-style ale, brewed in 2004 by the New England Brewing Co. Not yet, as much as I'd love to.
Sometimes, it's tempting to ignore the things we don't want to think about — to push the bottle to the back of the fridge and clean around it.
And sometimes, we think about them a lot. We think about them and talk about them and write about them.
That's how hope becomes a habit. Not by ignoring the things we fear but by confronting them. And sometimes learning to live in-between.
The post Living In-between appeared first on Lymphoma News Today.


Houses or firms are not whole without a garage. Because of our dependence on vehicles and our demands for storage, so it is vital that you make an educated decision concerning your vehicle and the space other things will be stored. Past the design and implementation of the doors you may find a need in the future for repairs. When in the market for this kind of door repair, there are things that you ought to consider.
An error of your own doors may force you to fall behind in your scheduled daily events and also to miss appointments. We depend on the functioning of our doors every single time we proceed to use them. Because of this, we're disappointed and thrown off track if they malfunction. Locating professionals that will fix prompt your garage door is important. A number of the service providers are sure to provide trucks that have tons of if not all of the parts available. Due to the nature of doors, many require pieces that are different. Locating garage door repair fair oaks professionals with these parts on hand could increase the ease of the support they supply.
Timeliness of these garage door repair rancho cordova service providers which you choose is a factor which equally has to be considered. Ensure that they've got an understanding that your timing is critical. They could come in handy and save you time and have the work done properly as mentioned before, using parts on hand. These services are sure to offer round the clock call services so you will have the ability to get in touch with them with matters regarding repairs, especially in the event that you suffer a malfunction at an unexpected time. Many are certain to provide really experienced repairmen who have complete knowledge on all types of doors. These professionals may set up and repair most brands of doors. Finding professionals with experience and this kind of expertise can be of great help.
Another key element to consider is the sort of relationship they have with their customers. Many providers are certain to provide you with doors recommendations and inspections. This may include info pertaining to client value, security and cost-effectiveness. Professionals with experience with doors may offer sorts of services you might be interested in. They have the capability to work together with you to locate the best options for your needs. They may have the ability to offer solutions for a few of the situations you might be interested in. This aspect may be of advantage.
Not only should you be certain the technicians will be experienced, but you ought to be sure that they are educated and competent. Technicians with vast experience and proper training ensure it is done quickly and can make certain it is that done right. Providers are sure to present hardware that is exceptional and parts that are of premium quality. Be sure that you think about these details of services when you're in the market for garage doors.


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From Copacabana we took a bus to La Paz. The bus was rather old and we were quite happy that it didn't fall apart before we reached our destination. But the ride had several hurdles that we needed to overcome: Shortly behind Copacabana we had to leave the bus for a short passage on Lake Titikaka. While we took a small passenger boat, the bus was transferred on a small pontoon, moved by manpower through poling and a tiny motor.
The bus was crossing Lake Titikaka in a tiny pontoon
We had to leave the bus and take a boat to the other side
Some hours later, as we thought we made it to La Paz, the bus started to take tiny roads in really bad condition, either to avoid some tall fees or to stop at the abandoned terminal of El Alto, which is part of the metropolitan area of La Paz. In any case, the last 15 km took us about an hours time, reaching the final terminal in the middle of the night. Luckily the hostel we had chosen was right around the corner and had space for us.
La Paz has different levels all over town
We used the next day to discover more of this vibrant city. We strolled along the busy streets until we reached the yellow "teleferico", part of a gondola system that connects the city high above the roofs. It's not only much easier and cheaper to build than a metro system, but it's also quite easy to cover the large differences in height between the different parts of the city. As a bonus there is a wonderful view of the city with majestic snow-capped mountains in the back.
The snow-capped mountains can be seen from the "teleferico"
Discovering La Paz with Daniela and Kristina
These mountains were our destination for the following day. We got picked up early in the morning, along with two slightly hungover Israelis and Rick from the Philippines. The minibus took us up to about 4700m, where we got our safety equipment and the bikes. In the distance we could still see some traces of snow from two days ago, when the tour had to start at a lower altitude for safety reasons.
We started the "Death Road" at about 4700m (photo by Altitude Adventure)
The first part of this 50 km downhill ride was on smooth asphalt. We had the chance to get used to the bikes and take in some of the amazing landscape around us. We were surrounded by a bare alpine flora with waterfalls dropping off the cliffs everywhere. And just when we had gotten used to the easy biking we turned off the road for a short section to avoid a tunnel. Afterwards we boarded the bus again and were taken to the beginning of the actual "Death Road".
The first part of the road was paved and led through an alpine terrain (photo by Altitude Adventure)
One of many stops along the way (photo by Altitude Adventure)
The "Death Road" was built in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners to connect the Yungas region, part of Bolivia's rainforest, with La Paz. Many prisoners died during the construction period, but it didn't get any safer once was finished. About 200-300 people per year died in accidents on this narrow and winding road up to 2006, when a new road replaced the most dangerous section. Nowadays it is only used by very few locals who live along the way and by adventure tourists like us.
The beginning of the old road to the Yungas region
The second part of the journey leads us through a thick rainforest
The further we descended on the road, the hotter it got. By then we were surrounded by a dense rainforest with occasional waterfalls across the road. Of course we got wet, but it dried pretty quickly and was all part of the adventure. At the end of the road (1200m) our hands and arms were hurting from the constant vibration on the gravel road and we were happy to relax a bit in paradise – a hostel with pool in the middle of the jungle – before the minibus took us back to La Paz.
Getting wet while crossing some waterfalls along the way
The "Death Road" ends in paradise
In La Paz we still had the evening to explore the city by night. While walking around we found an area with several esoteric shops, which were selling different herbs, alternative medicine and dead llama babies, probably for sacrifices or other superstitious rituals. It's interesting to see that even this modern city has its more traditional side, hidden among hundreds of high-rise buildings.
One of the many esoteric shops in La Paz, which are selling dead llama babies
La Paz by night
BoliviaDeath RoadLa PazTeleferico
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The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver starts in a matter of hours, and I will be watching some events with attention. I have a seriously weird taste in sports as a spectator, and the Winter Olympics is no exception. The two events I will try to watch on television are: cross-country skiing classical style, and curling. I think cross-country skiing is one of the most physically demanding sports, and there is something very attractive about a sport in which atheletes battle with the nature as much as against other competitors. Curling is a very strategic game, often called chess on ice, and I really like the fact that while you need to be physically fit, you don't have to be young and physically fit.


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PerspectiveViewpoint: COVID-19
Reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2
Kimberly A. Prather1,
Chia C. Wang2,3,
Robert T. Schooley4
1Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
2Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 804, Republic of China.
3Aerosol Science Research Center, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 804, Republic of China.
4Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Email: kprather{at}ucsd.edu
DOI: 10.1126/science.abc6197
Kimberly A. Prather
Chia C. Wang
Robert T. Schooley
Correctly fitted masks are an important tool to reduce airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, particularly in enclosed spaces, such as on this Moscow Metro train in Russia.
PHOTO: SERGEI FADEICHEV/TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Respiratory infections occur through the transmission of virus-containing droplets (>5 to 10 µm) and aerosols (≤5 µm) exhaled from infected individuals during breathing, speaking, coughing, and sneezing. Traditional respiratory disease control measures are designed to reduce transmission by droplets produced in the sneezes and coughs of infected individuals. However, a large proportion of the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) appears to be occurring through airborne transmission of aerosols produced by asymptomatic individuals during breathing and speaking (1—3). Aerosols can accumulate, remain infectious in indoor air for hours, and be easily inhaled deep into the lungs. For society to resume, measures designed to reduce aerosol transmission must be implemented, including universal masking and regular, widespread testing to identify and isolate infected asymptomatic individuals.
Humans produce respiratory droplets ranging from 0.1 to 1000 µm. A competition between droplet size, inertia, gravity, and evaporation determines how far emitted droplets and aerosols will travel in air (4, 5). Larger respiratory droplets will undergo gravitational settling faster than they evaporate, contaminating surfaces and leading to contact transmission. Smaller droplets and aerosols will evaporate faster than they can settle, are buoyant, and thus can be affected by air currents, which can transport them over longer distances. Thus, there are two major respiratory virus transmission pathways: contact (direct or indirect between people and with contaminated surfaces) and airborne inhalation.
In addition to contributing to the extent of dispersal and mode of transmission, respiratory droplet size has been shown to affect the severity of disease. For example, influenza virus is more commonly contained in aerosols with sizes below 1 µm (submicron), which lead to more severe infection (4). In the case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), it is possible that submicron virus-containing aerosols are being transferred deep into the alveolar region of the lungs, where immune responses seem to be temporarily bypassed. SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to replicate three times faster than SARS-CoV-1 and thus can rapidly spread to the pharynx, from which it can be shed before the innate immune response becomes activated and produces symptoms (6). By the time symptoms occur, the patient has transmitted the virus without knowing.
Identifying infected individuals to curb SARS-CoV-2 transmission is more challenging compared to SARS and other respiratory viruses because infected individuals can be highly contagious for several days, peaking on or before symptoms occur (2, 7). These "silent shedders" could be critical drivers of the enhanced spread of SARS-CoV-2. In Wuhan, China, it has been estimated that undiagnosed cases of COVID-19 infection, who were presumably asymptomatic, were responsible for up to 79% of viral infections (3). Therefore, regular, widespread testing is essential to identify and isolate infected asymptomatic individuals.
Airborne transmission was determined to play a role during the SARS outbreak in 2003 (1, 4). However, many countries have not yet acknowledged airborne transmission as a possible pathway for SARS-CoV-2 (1). Recent studies have shown that in addition to droplets, SARS-CoV-2 may also be transmitted through aerosols. A study in hospitals in Wuhan, China, found SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols further than 6 feet from patients, with higher concentrations detected in more crowded areas (8). Estimates using an average sputum viral load for SARS-CoV-2 indicate that 1 min of loud speaking could generate >1000 virion-containing aerosols (9). Assuming viral titers for infected super-emitters (with 100-fold higher viral load than average) yields an increase to more than 100,000 virions in emitted droplets per minute of speaking.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for social distancing of 6 feet and hand washing to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 are based on studies of respiratory droplets carried out in the 1930s. These studies showed that large, ∼100 µm droplets produced in coughs and sneezes quickly underwent gravitational settling (1). However, when these studies were conducted, the technology did not exist for detecting submicron aerosols. As a comparison, calculations predict that in still air, a 100-µm droplet will settle to the ground from 8 feet in 4.6 s, whereas a 1-µm aerosol particle will take 12.4 hours (4). Measurements now show that intense coughs and sneezes that propel larger droplets more than 20 feet can also create thousands of aerosols that can travel even further (1). Increasing evidence for SARS-CoV-2 suggests the 6 feet CDC recommendation is likely not enough under many indoor conditions, where aerosols can remain airborne for hours, accumulate over time, and follow airflows over distances further than 6 feet (5, 10).
Masks reduce airborne transmission
Infectious aerosol particles can be released during breathing and speaking by asymptomatic infected individuals. No masking maximizes exposure, whereas universal masking results in the least exposure.
GRAPHIC: V. ALTOUNIAN/SCIENCE
In outdoor environments, numerous factors will determine the concentrations and distance traveled, and whether respiratory viruses remain infectious in aerosols. Breezes and winds often occur and can transport infectious droplets and aerosols long distances. Asymptomatic individuals who are speaking while exercising can release infectious aerosols that can be picked up by airstreams (10). Viral concentrations will be more rapidly diluted outdoors, but few studies have been carried out on outdoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, SARS-CoV-2 can be inactivated by ultraviolet radiation in sunlight, and it is likely sensitive to ambient temperature and relative humidity, as well as the presence of atmospheric aerosols that occur in highly polluted areas. Viruses can attach to other particles such as dust and pollution, which can modify the aerodynamic characteristics and increase dispersion. Moreover, people living in areas with higher concentrations of air pollution have been shown to have higher severity of COVID-19 (11). Because respiratory viruses can remain airborne for prolonged periods before being inhaled by a potential host, studies are needed to characterize the factors leading to loss of infectivity over time in a variety of outdoor environments over a range of conditions
Given how little is known about the production and airborne behavior of infectious respiratory droplets, it is difficult to define a safe distance for social distancing. Assuming SARS-CoV-2 virions are contained in submicron aerosols, as is the case for influenza virus, a good comparison is exhaled cigarette smoke, which also contains submicron particles and will likely follow comparable flows and dilution patterns. The distance from a smoker at which one smells cigarette smoke indicates the distance in those surroundings at which one could inhale infectious aerosols. In an enclosed room with asymptomatic individuals, infectious aerosol concentrations can increase over time. Overall, the probability of becoming infected indoors will depend on the total amount of SARS-CoV-2 inhaled. Ultimately, the amount of ventilation, number of people, how long one visits an indoor facility, and activities that affect airflow will all modulate viral transmission pathways and exposure (10). For these reasons, it is important to wear properly fitted masks indoors even when 6 feet apart. Airborne transmission could account, in part, for the high secondary transmission rates to medical staff, as well as major outbreaks in nursing facilities. The minimum dose of SARS-CoV-2 that leads to infection is unknown, but airborne transmission through aerosols has been documented for other respiratory viruses, including measles, SARS, and chickenpox (4).
Airborne spread from undiagnosed infections will continuously undermine the effectiveness of even the most vigorous testing, tracing, and social distancing programs. After evidence revealed that airborne transmission by asymptomatic individuals might be a key driver in the global spread of COVID-19, the CDC recommended the use of cloth face coverings. Masks provide a critical barrier, reducing the number of infectious viruses in exhaled breath, especially of asymptomatic people and those with mild symptoms (12) (see the figure). Surgical mask material reduces the likelihood and severity of COVID-19 by substantially reducing airborne viral concentrations (13). Masks can also protect uninfected individuals from SARS-CoV-2 aerosols and droplets (13, 14). Thus, it is particularly important to wear masks in locations with conditions that can accumulate high concentrations of viruses, such as health care settings, airplanes, restaurants, and other crowded places with reduced ventilation. The aerosol filtering efficiency of different materials, thicknesses, and layers used in properly fitted homemade masks was recently found to be similar to that of the medical masks that were tested (14). Thus, the option of universal masking is no longer held back by shortages.
From epidemiological data, places that have been most effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 have implemented universal masking, including Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. In the battle against COVID-19, Taiwan (population 24 million, first COVID-19 case 21 January 2020) did not implement a lockdown during the pandemic, yet maintained a low incidence of 441 cases and 7 deaths (as of 21 May 2020). By contrast, the state of New York (population ∼20 million, first COVID case 1 March 2020), had a higher number of cases (353,000) and deaths (24,000). By quickly activating its epidemic response plan that was established after the SARS outbreak, the Taiwanese government enacted a set of proactive measures that successfully prevented the spread of SARS-CoV-2, including setting up a central epidemic command center in January, using technologies to detect and track infected patients and their close contacts, and perhaps most importantly, requesting people to wear masks in public places. The government also ensured the availability of medical masks by banning mask manufacturers from exporting them, implementing a system to ensure that every citizen could acquire masks at reasonable prices, and increasing the production of masks. In other countries, there have been widespread shortages of masks, resulting in most residents not having access to any form of medical mask (15). This striking difference in the availability and widespread adoption of wearing masks likely influenced the low number of COVID-19 cases.
Aerosol transmission of viruses must be acknowledged as a key factor leading to the spread of infectious respiratory diseases. Evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 is silently spreading in aerosols exhaled by highly contagious infected individuals with no symptoms. Owing to their smaller size, aerosols may lead to higher severity of COVID-19 because virus-containing aerosols penetrate more deeply into the lungs (10). It is essential that control measures be introduced to reduce aerosol transmission. A multidisciplinary approach is needed to address a wide range of factors that lead to the production and airborne transmission of respiratory viruses, including the minimum virus titer required to cause COVID-19; viral load emitted as a function of droplet size before, during, and after infection; viability of the virus indoors and outdoors; mechanisms of transmission; airborne concentrations; and spatial patterns. More studies of the filtering efficiency of different types of masks are also needed. COVID-19 has inspired research that is already leading to a better understanding of the importance of airborne transmission of respiratory disease.
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., BMC Infect. Dis. 19, 101 (2019).
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, J. Fluid Mech. 10.1017/jfm.2020.330 (2020).
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., Clin. Infect. Dis. 10.1093/cid/ciaa410 (2020).
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., Nature 10.1038/s41586-020-2271-3 (2020).
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, Lancet 395, 945 (2020).
Acknowledgments: The authors thank S. Strathdee, D. Petras, and L. Marr for helpful discussions. K.A.P. is supported by the NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CHE1801971). R.T.S. is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01 AI131424). C.C.W. is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 108-2113-M-110-003) and the Higher Education Sprout Project of the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, ROC.
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By Kimberly A. Prather, Chia C. Wang, Robert T. Schooley
Masks and testing are necessary to combat asymptomatic spread in aerosols and droplets
PODCAST Stopping the spread of COVID-19, and arctic adaptations in sled dogs


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Horsehay Quarries is a  geological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Bicester in Oxfordshire. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.

These quarries expose rocks dating to the Middle Jurassic period. The sequence runs from the Northampton Sand Formation of the Aalenian about 172 million years ago to the Taynton Limestone Formation of the Middle Bathonian around 167 million years ago.

The site is private land with no public access.

References

Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Oxfordshire
Geological Conservation Review sites