text:
\section{Introduction}

Traffic performance measurement is incredibly beneficial to both transportation agencies, who use this data as a source of strategy for operations and management, and to the general public, as traffic patterns impact daily life. Many classical traffic performance metrics, including speed, volume, travel time, etc., provide relatively intuitive information about the traffic status of a roadway segment or a specific corridor. However, there are few existing metrics that can indicate network-wide traffic performance. This is especially true when the traffic network scale is large enough to cover an entire city. Further, because most existing traffic metrics only measure one element of traffic stream characteristics, they have difficulty distinguishing complicated traffic scenarios. For example, two roadways with the same traffic speed, one with a high volume and one low volume, at two different times, indicates two entirely different traffic scenarios. Therefore, to overcome the shortcomings of these classical traffic metrics, this study attempts to develop a measurement metric to indicate the network-wide traffic performance in a more comprehensive way.

The first COVID-19 case in the United States was reported in January 2020. Since that time, cases have occurred in all 50 U.S. states. By the end of May, 2020, the U.S. has more than 1,800,000 confirmed cases and more than 100,000 deaths \cite{DavidWelna2020}. This pandemic has not only dramatically influenced the social and economic activities, but also hugely affected the transportation system. Traffic patterns in most cities have been entirely reshaped since January, due to COVID-19. For example, historical traffic data indicates that the traffic volume in the Greater Seattle, Washington, area started to decline four weeks before the Washington State's stay-at-home order on March 23. On the week the stay-at-home order was released, traffic volume dropped significantly. Many other aspects of the traffic have also been affected by COVID-19, such as dramatic decreased in public transportation, traffic safety and traffic congestion. Since the pandemic reached the U.S., its influence on transportation has been extensively studied by agencies, researchers, and private companies. Although aspects of the impact have been quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed based on massive data, few studies have been able to measure the impact of COVID-19 on urban mobility from both a road segment level and a traffic network level. One of the targets of this study was to build and release a big data-based traffic performance measurement platform to assist in COVID-19 related analysis.

\begin{figure*}[t]
  \centering
  \fbox{\includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{TPS_website.png}}
  \caption{The web interface of the traffic performance score platform.}
  \label{fig:TPS}
\end{figure*}

To observe changes in traffic patterns due to COVID-19, interested parties can utilize public map services, such as Google Map and Apple Map, or review performance metrics from public agencies. However, in most cases, these traffic performance measurements only provide fine-grained (i.e. road segment-level) real-time traffic information or coarse-grained (i.e. network-level) long-term traffic analysis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, segment-level, long-term analysis and network-wide, real-time traffic performance information are vital to guide personal travel activities and support agency transportation operation management. To that end, this study analyzes both segment-level and network-level traffic performance based on a proposed traffic performance score and other existing traffic metrics, such as vehicle miles of travel (VMT). To measure the impact of COVID-19 on traffic, both short-term and long-term mobility patterns are analyzed.

The contribution of this paper can be summarized as follows:
\begin{enumerate}
    \item A traffic performance score (TPS) for measuring network-wide traffic is proposed. The TPS is also implemented on a public accessible TPS platform \footnote{TPS Platform: \url{ http://tps.uwstarlab.org/}} for the Greater Seattle area, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:TPS}.
    \item The network-wide traffic performance under the influence of COVID-19 in the Greater Seattle area is analyzed based on the proposed TPS and other metrics. The variations of TPS and VMT show that responses to the pandemic greatly affect urban traffic.
    \item The traffic changes of different road segments in the traffic network are analyzed from both travel demand and driving behaviour perspectives, to investigate how COVID-19 is reshaping the urban mobility.
\end{enumerate}

In the following sections, this paper first introduces the existing traffic performance metrics and COVID-19 related analysis in Section 2. Section 3 introduces the proposed TPS and describes the design principles and techniques used to develop the TPS platform. Then, the traffic performance changes in response to COVID-19 from network-scale perspective is presented in Section 3. Finally, road segment level traffic changes are analyzed in Section 4 to shed light on the changes to urban mobility due to COVID-19.

\section{Literature Review}

\subsection{Existing Traffic Performance Metrics}
Traffic performance metrics are based on various essential traffic parameters such as speed, travel time, delay, volume, density, and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). This section summarizes several traditional traffic performance metrics and discusses some recent related studies.

\begin{itemize}
    \item \textbf{Travel Time Index (TTI) \cite{bharti2013performance}}: compares peak (investigated) travel time and free-flow travel time, as defined by:\\
    \begin{equation}
    TTI = \frac{\text{Peak Period Travel Time}}{\text{Free-Flow Travel Time}}
    \end{equation}
    A large TTI value indicates a state of congested traffic. One of the limitations of TTI is that, while it has a lower bound, it does not have any upper bound.

    \item \textbf{Level of Service (LOS)}: one of the most popular traffic performance metrics. The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) \cite{manual2016guide} divides traffic operations into six levels based on traffic density: A (free flow), B (reasonably free flow), C (stable flow), D (approaching unstable flow), E (unstable flow), and F (forced or breakdown flow). While LOS is easy to understand, it also has the following limitations: (1) it is hard to measure traffic density; and (2) LOS is not a continuous metric.

    \item \textbf{Lane Mile Duration Index (LMDI) \cite{rao2012measuring}}: calculated by summing over the product of congested segment length and congestion time, as shown in the following equation:
    \begin{equation}
        LMDI = \sum_{i = 0}^m L^i*t^i
    \end{equation}
    where $L^i$ is the length of the segment $i$, $t^i$ is the congestion time of segment $i$, and $m$ is the total number of segments. One of the limitations of this metric is that it is not scaled and thus can not be used to compare the performances of different traffic networks, due to the fact that the total number of segments may be different in each network.
\end{itemize}

Recently, He et al. \cite{he2016traffic} proposed a framework to evaluate traffic performance of road segments and network. This basic metric is named speed performance index which simply averages speed divided by the free flow speed. To aggregate segment-based metrics to network scale, segment lengths were used as weights for aggregation. Lee and Hong \cite{lee2014congestion} proposed a traffic performance metric called Traffic Congestion Score (TCS) based on link travel speeds. The TCS is calculated as:
    \begin{equation}
        TCS_i = \begin{cases}
      {100} \% & v_i \leq 0 \\
      0\% & v_i \geq v_l\\
      (1-\frac{v_i}{v_l})\times 100\% & otherwise
   \end{cases}
    \end{equation}
    where $v_i$ is the average travel speed of link $i$, $v_l$ is the speed limit.

To summarize, there are several important limitations for the existing traffic performance metrics: (1) they consider only single, simple metrics such as speed or travel time, which cannot fully capture the state of traffic; (2) most of the performance metrics can only investigate individual segments rather than corridors or entire traffic networks; and (3) the above summarized methods have not incorporated VMT to reflect the total travel demands. In this work, to overcome these limitations, a metric to measure network-wide traffic performance is proposed.

\subsection{Impact of COVID-19 on Transportation}

Since COVID-19 first appeared, most cities around the world have implemented varying degrees of lock-down policies for their residents, which has had a direct impact on human mobility. Accordingly, many recent studies have sought to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on transportation. Further, many organizations and companies, such as INRIX, TomTom, Google, and Mapbox, have provided significant amounts of data and tools for COVID-19 related research.

Most research that investigates COVID-19's impacts on human mobility is based on traffic volume or VMT. Daniel\cite{Daniel2020} shows how traffic data can help inform policy decisions by visualizing residual mobility along side new cases of COVID-19, based on data from TomTom. This work asserts that traffic data suffices as a measure of the policy because of its time and space attributes. Another report \cite{Andy2020} investigating the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on mobility reveals that the top ten cities with the highest traffic reductions worldwide all saw reductions of over 80\%. Shi et.al. \cite{shi2020temporal} examined the time-lagged effect between outbound traffic from Wuhan, China, and the status of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other COVID-19-related research  has focused on traffic safety metrics such as incident numbers and implications of social distancing. C2SMART, \cite{Gao2020} University Transportation Center at New York University, released a white paper on the impact of COVID-19 on the transportation system, which uses the New York metropolitan area as a case study to analyze transit ridership, subway turnstile entries, traffic on bridges and tunnels, travel time, and the number of crashes during COVID-19. Zhang et al. \cite{zhang2020interactive, UMPlatform} developed an interactive COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform introducing nine metrics related to human mobility and social distancing, and fifteen metrics on COVID-19 and health at the nation-, state-, and county-levels. The social distancing index introduced in this research provides meaningful support for decisions on travel and social distancing policies.

Other recent research explores the impact of COVID-19 on traffic congestion. A congestion index \cite{Sean2020} based on the traffic index from TomTom was introduced to compare congestion during peak hours in 2019 and 2020. After the COVID-19 lockdown policies were announced, the congestion indices of cities around the world declined to varying degrees. David \cite{David2020} also proposed a traffic congestion index defined as the percent difference between drive times and the average baseline drive time. Based on the data collected from Google Maps Distance Matrix API, the daily and hourly congestion levels were analyzed. This study found that reduced congestion is also related to the weather. Finally, Maricopa Association of Governments in Arizona, released a report \cite{MAG2020} tracking traffic congestion during COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions based on traffic volumes from INRIX data.

Based the work described above, it appears traffic metrics are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic from multiple perspectives. Based on this assertion other research has investigated changes in travel patterns due to changing traffic scenarios. Rachel et.al \cite{Rachel2020} analyzed changes in public transit, bicycling and scootering, air travel, driving, ride-hailing, and delivery vehicles based on stay-at-home policies. Michelle \cite{Michelle2020} compared traffic patterns from January 13 to April 27 in Seattle based on GPS mobile device data collected by Mapbox. This work finds that traffic on major highways and freeways declined, while traffic on neighborhood streets increased. However, the methods employed were not sufficient to show detailed data and the trend of the change.

Beyond the present, COVID-19 is likely to have long-term effects even as cases and deaths wane. INRIX published a United States National Activity Re-Emergence Map to track the trend of city activities recovering from COVID-19 \cite{INRIX2020}. Hu et.al analyzed the travel mode shift effect on traffic caused by COVID-19 \cite{hu2020impacts, Huplatform}. This work predicted travel time, post pandemic, across the United States with an interactive Rebound Calculator. It analyzed shifts from transit commuters to single occupancy, from carpool to single occupancy, job loss, and shifts to remote work. The findings indicate that the long term effects of the pandemic on travel may result in increased travel time as communities reopen. Alessio et.al.\cite{tardivo2020covid} published work on COVID-19's impact on railway system. This paper illustrates the effect on global travel manners and the possible rebound of traffic activities after the COVID-19.

In summary, many studies have analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on transportation from various aspects, including impacts on average speed, traffic volume, traffic congestion, traffic patterns, the future effects and so on. However, few researchers have developed indices to intuitively show traffic variation. Those who have developed indices, narrowly focused on one aspect of the impacts but not comprehensive changes to the network. Thus, this study proposes a traffic performance score to measure traffic conditions, and also analyzes how COVID-19 is reshaping urban mobility from road segment and network perspectives.

\section{Traffic Performance Score}

Performance monitoring is critical for roadway operations, including real-time applications and operational planning, and transportation planning. According to \cite{turner2004lessons}, travel time is the basis for defining mobility-based performance measures. To that end, many performance measures have been designed, such as average travel speed, travel time, travel rate index, and delay per VMT. However, most of the existing performance measures are road segment or trip-based measures. These existing metrics cannot measure performance over a complicated road network. In this section, this paper outlines a traffic performance score to measure performance from the road network perspective.

\subsection{Data Source}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \fbox{\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{images/Datasource.png}}
  \caption{The spatial distributions of the loop detector sensors in the Greater Seattle area.}
  \label{fig:data}
\end{figure}

The TPS is calculated based on data collected from roughly 8000 inductive loop detectors deployed on the freeway network in the northwest region in Washington State. The freeway network mainly includes several major freeways, such as I-5, I-90, I-99, I-167, I-405, and SR-520. The raw data comes from the online Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Traffic Data Archive Folder \footnote{Website: \url{ http://data.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/}}. Representative detectors are shown by blue dots in the map in Figure \ref{fig:data}.

The raw data contains lane-wise speed, volume, and occupancy (density) information collected by each loop detector. Each detector's meta data includes detector category, route, milepost, director, direction, address. Based on the consecutive detectors' location information, freeways can be separated into tiny road segments, each of which contains one loop detector per lane. A road segment's length is then considered as the corresponding detector's covered length. The time interval of the data is one-minute.

Other data sources includes public agencies, public accessible datasets, and official COVID-19 related datasets. In this study, the COVID-19 datasets come from the Wikipedia page of COVID-19 pandemic in Washington \footnote{\url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Washington_(state)}}.

\subsection{Definition}

Normally the physical properties of road segments are invariant, but the traffic stream parameters on each segment, including volume (Q), speed (V), and density (K), keep changing. In order to measure the traffic performance of the traffic network, these traffic parameters at each road segment should be taken into account. Since volume, speed, and density are all related to each other, only two of them need to be incorporated. Thus, volume and speed, which are more general and intuitive parameters are adopted in the design of TPS. The length ($L$) of the road segment is also taken into consideration by multiplying $L$ with the volume $Q$, which ($Q \cdot L$) basically represents the vehicle miles of travel (VMT) of the road segment. Then, the TPS is defined as:

\begin{equation}
TPS_{t} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^n V_t^i \cdot Q_t^i \cdot L^i}{\sum_{i=1}^n V_f \cdot Q_t^i \cdot L^i} \times 100\%
\end{equation}

\noindent where $V_t^i$ and $Q_t^i$ represent the speed and volume of each road segment $i$ at time $t$. $L^i$ is the length of $i$-th detector's covered road segment. $V_f$ is the default free-flow speed.

In this way, the TPS is a value ranging from 0\% to 100\%. Overall network-wide traffic condition is best when the TPS is 100\% and worst when TPS is 0\%.

\begin{figure*}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{images/Architecture.pdf}
  \caption{Architecture of Traffic Performance Score Platform}
  \label{fig:architecture}
\end{figure*}

\subsection{System Design}

Based on multi-source real-time data, the network-wide and segment-level traffic performance measurement analytical functions and applications are implemented on an interactive publicly accessible web-based traffic performance score platform (\url{ http://tps.uwstarlab.org/}). This platform integrates real-time data streaming, data source pre-processing, data storage, data modeling, and analytical data visualization using the Streamlit tool \footnote{\url{https://www.streamlit.io/}} which is typically employed to build highly interactive machine learning and data science web applications. The architecture of the platform contains three primary layers is shown in Figure \ref{fig:architecture}.

The first layer is the data streaming and pre-processing layer. The real-time inductive loop detector data from WSDOT API is cleaned, archived, and processed in parallel to calculate network-wide and segment-level traffic performance metrics. The second layer of the platform is mainly responsible for storing traffic raw data and calculated intermediate traffic performance metrics into the database, and building the connections between different datasets based on their spatial-temporal properties. Specifically, each road segment's traffic data is linked to the segment's geospatial properties based on the roadway segment's GIS information, i.e. the WSDOT 24K map \footnote{\url{https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/mapsdata/geodatacatalog/maps/NOSCALE/DOT_TDO/LRS/WSDOT_LRS.htm}}. In the third layer, advanced interactive spatial-temporal data visualization tools are employed to demonstrate a variety of network- and segment-level traffic performance measurement analysis results.

\section{Traffic Changes in Response to COVID-19}

In this section, the impact of COVID-19 on traffic changes reflected by different traffic performance metrics is discussed. Firstly, government responses to COVID-19 in Washington State are investigated, as well as some responses from large employers in and around Seattle, listed as follows:
\begin{itemize}
    \item March 6: Major tech companies ask Seattle employees to work from home. Amazon and Facebook shut down individual offices as well.
    \item March 9: University of Washington (UW) suspends on-site classes and finals.
    \item March 13: Washington state governor announces statewide school closures, expansion of limits on large gatherings.
    \item March 16: Washington state governor announces statewide shutdown of restaurants, bars and expanded social gathering limits.
    \item March 23: Washington state governor announces "Stay Home, Stay Healthy" order.
    \item April 2: Washington state governor extends "Stay Home, Stay Healthy" through May 4.
\end{itemize}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{images/COVID19.png}
  \caption{COVID-19 cases in Washington State and network-wide traffic performance score in the Greater Seattle area.}
  \label{fig:covid19}
\end{figure}

\subsection{Impact of COVID-19 on TPS}

\begin{figure*}[]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{images/COVID19_TPS.png}
  \caption{Weekday rush hour TPS of freeway general purpose (GP) lanes.}
  \label{fig:covid19tps}
\end{figure*}

Since the first death from COVID-19 in the U.S. was announced in Kirkland, an east-side suburb of Seattle, on February 29, 2020, the traffic pattern in the Greater Seattle area has gradually changed along with the public response to COVID-19. COVID-19 cases and the calculated daily network-wide TPS are displayed on the TPS platform, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:covid19}. The red, yellow, and black dotted lines shows cumulative confirmed cases, daily new cases, and cumulative deaths, respectively. Although the values of TPS on weekends generally approach  100\%, it can be observed that the TPS dramatically increased on weekdays in March. The weekday TPS reached its peak in early April and then gradually decreased, though it still had not recovered to its pre-COVID-19 status as of early June 2020.

In Figure \ref{fig:covid19tps}, the government and major employer responses to the pandemic are illustrated in order to demonstrate their influence on the TPS. Figure \ref{fig:covid19tps}, only shows the weekday rush hour TPS on freeway general purpose (GP) lanes. Based on the preliminary analysis, the average weekday TPS during the rush hour was 83.5\% before COVID-19 (from Jan. 21 to Feb. 28). By March 2, the TPS began to increase, implying that residents started to decrease or stagger their traveling activities. After tech companies shut down offices on March 6 and UW moved classes online on March 9, the TPS increased to 92.7\%. The orders of statewide school closure and restaurants/bars shutdown led the further increase of the TPS to 95.9\%. Finally, once the governor's stay-home order was announced, the TPS leveled out at its highest point around 98\%.

\subsection{Impact of COVID-19 on VMT}

\begin{figure*}[]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{images/COVID19_VMT.png}
  \caption{Daily VMT changes on weekdays.}
  \label{fig:covid19vmt}
\end{figure*}

\begin{figure*}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{images/VMT_weekly_change.png}
  \caption{Weekly VMT changes with respect to that of the previous week.}
  \label{fig:vmtweekly}
\end{figure*}

VMT is another important metric measuring the amount of travel for all vehicles in a geographic region over a given period of time. Given the lane-level loop detector data, the VMT of the freeway system in the Greater Seattle area can be calculated. Figure \ref{fig:covid19vmt} shows the variations of daily VMT on weekdays before and during the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the outbreak, VMT on the freeway system in the Greater Seattle area was steadily around 16 million per weekday. In correlation with rises in new cases and deaths, and the government and large employer responses, the VMT began to decrease. When Gov. Inslee announced the stay-home order on March 23, the daily VMT dropped by more than half compared to the daily VMT before COVID-19. On March 30, the daily VMT reached the lowest value around 7.1 million.

While the variations of daily VMT are small, weekly VMT clearly reflects the impact of the government and large employer responses to COVID-19. Figure \ref{fig:vmtweekly} shows the percentage of the weekly VMT change with respect to the week prior from early February to late April 2020. It is apparent that weekly VMT remained relatively constant before March, but began to noticeable decline in early March. When the stay-home order was announced in the week starting from March 23, the weekly VMT decreased by its largest single drop, showing a 28.5\% decline w.r.t. to that of the previous week. It continued to decline until early April. The weekly VMT started to increase from the week of April 6, but the growth rate is relatively low compared to the rate of decrease through the month of March, staying around 7\%.

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{images/VMT_baseline_change.png}
  \caption{VMT changes with respect to baseline. The baseline is the averaged VMT on each day of the week from Jan. 19 to Feb. 22, 2020.}
  \label{fig:vmtbaseline}
\end{figure}

The TPS platform also provides a comparison function to contrast the daily VMT with a baseline, i.e. the averaged VMT on each day of the week during a specific period. Figure \ref{fig:vmtbaseline} shows the daily VMT by the blue line and VMT changes w.r.t. the baseline from January 19 to February 22 by the green line. The VMT variation in Figure \ref{fig:vmtbaseline} shows a similar trend to that in Figure \ref{fig:covid19vmt}, where the VMT dropped rapidly at the beginning of COVID-19 and gradually increased after the stay-home order was announced. However, the green line in Figure \ref{fig:vmtbaseline} also shows greater detail with regard to weekdays vs. weekends. Namely, weekends showed a much larger drop in the VMT as compared to weekdays, which suggests that weekday traffic during COVID-19 was closer to normal, pre-COVID-19 traffic as compared to weekends. One potential explanation may be that non-essential trips over the weekend  reduced significantly during COVID-19, but the necessary trips taken on weekdays for supporting essential social and economic operations, remained more consistent with pre-COVID-19 patterns.

\begin{figure*}[]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/SegmentRank.pdf}
  \caption{Road segment rank based on volume per lane per hour (VpLpH) of the freeway network in the Greater Seattle area. The header shows the time periods, in which the first period (01-19 to 02-29) is considered as the baseline. The values in table cells indicate a segments' VpLpH during each respective period.}
  \label{fig:segmentrank}
\end{figure*}

\section{How is COVID-19 Reshaping Urban Mobility?}

Although TPS and VMT reflect different aspects of traffic performance characteristics, they both measures the network-wide traffic performance. The traffic performance changes reflected by these two metrics show similar trends during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, because road segments in the traffic system distribute vehicles in different spatial regions and have differing functional properties, the impacts on road segments might differ from one another. Thus, to better get at more detailed traffic changes, it is also beneficial to analyze road segment-level traffic performance.

In the Greater Seattle area, four major connected freeways, including I-5, I-90, I-405, and SR-520, form a large network connecting the City of Seattle, the City of Bellevue, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and many other important functional areas. To analyze segment-level traffic performance, this traffic network, consisting of more than 180 miles roadways, is separated into small road segments with the length of two miles. In this way, traffic performance metrics for each segment can be calculated. In this section, the traffic changes of different road segments are analyzed to investigate how COVID-19 is reshaping urban mobility.

\subsection{Reshaping Travel Demand}

As articulated in the previous section, the traffic volume over the entire freeway network decreased. However, because each road segment serves different functions, the volume of some segments during COVID-19 reduced more dramatically, while others did not. To quantify the relative volume changes of road segments during COVID-19, the volume per lane per hour (VpLpH) of road segments is caluclated during a specific period and then ranked. Figure \ref{fig:segmentrank} shows 40 segments, using different colors to visual their respective rank during the time period from January to May 2020. The value in each cell represents the VpLpH of the corresponding segment during a specific period, and the headers show the time periods, where the first period, or column, (from Jan. 19 to Feb. 29) is considered the baseline. It can be observed that the ranking is in order from red to green in the first column (the baseline) but then does not stay constant throughout each time period. This shows that although the VpLpH of all the segments decreased, the ranks did not remain constant. The ranks of several segments noticeably increased while the ranks of several others decreased, which is why columns other than the baseline column do not maintain the clear gradient from red to green. The relative increase in VpLpH suggests an increased importance of those road segments marked with red color. Conversely, those road segments (rows) that move to a darker green suggest those segments are less important during the COVID-19 pandemic. The change of ranks, or say the relative importance of road segments, results due to the change of travel demand under the influence of COVID-19. The stay-home order caused many residents to reduce daily travel. But the trips made by the people who maintain essential services likely did not see the same drop. As Figure \ref{fig:segmentrank} shows, the decreased travel demand is not evenly distributed across the traffic network. This presents an opportunity to further analyze the functional role of each road segment. Interestingly, the VpLpH changes of road segments at I-5 from milepost 161 to 163 in each direction, which located between the City of Seattle and the Sea-Tac Airport, flip; where the southbound segment gets greener over time, suggesting it is of less importance during COVID-19, while the northbound segment gets redder, suggesting it is of more importance. The rank of the northbound segment increased from around 20 to top 2, but the rank of the southbound segment gradually decreased from around 10 to around 30. These significant rank changes reflect the shift in the respective roles of each road segments on the network during COVID-19 as compared to normal traffic scenarios.

\subsection{Reshaping Driving Behaviour}

\begin{figure*}[]
     \centering
     \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
         \centering
         \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/speeding_5_NB_154_181.pdf}
         \caption{I-5, Northbound, Milepost from 154 to 181}
         \label{fig:residual_dow_pems}
     \end{subfigure}
     \hfill
     \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
         \centering
         \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/speeding_5_SB_154_181.pdf}
         \caption{I-5, Southbound, Milepost from 154 to 181}
         \label{fig:residual_hod_pems}
     \end{subfigure}
     \\
     \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
         \centering
         \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/speeding_405_NB_0_30.pdf}
         \caption{I-405, Northbound, Milepost from 0 to 30}
         \label{fig:residual_dow_metr}
     \end{subfigure}
     \hfill
     \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
         \centering
         \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/speeding_405_SB_0_30.pdf}
         \caption{I-405, Southbound, Milepost from 0 to 30}
         \label{fig:residual_hod_metr}
     \end{subfigure}
    \\
     \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
         \centering
         \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/speeding_520_EB_0_12.pdf}
         \caption{SR-520, Eastbound, Milepost from 0 to 12}
         \label{fig:residual_dow_inrix}
     \end{subfigure}
     \hfill
     \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.48\textwidth}
         \centering
         \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/speeding_520_WB_0_12.pdf}
         \caption{SR-520, Westbound, Milepost from 0 to 12}
         \label{fig:residual_hod_inrix}
     \end{subfigure}

    \caption{Percentages of speeding vehicles on major freeways in the Greater Seattle area before - and during - COVID-19.}
    \label{fig:speeding}
\end{figure*}

Because travel demand during COVID-19 has changed, the traffic scenarios for drivers has also changed. Thus, an individual's driving behavior might also be influenced by COVID-19. News \cite{SULLIVAN2020, Kaji2020} reported a rise in speeding in many States in the U.S. These conclusions in the news are traditionally drawn from officers' observations or based on the statistics of fatal crashes. In this section, we analyze and compare the speeding rates before, and during, COVID-19.

Here, the percentage of speeding vehicles on a specific corridor or the road network based on the lane-level loop detector data is calculated with one-minute time interval using the following equation
\begin{equation}
    Speeding Rate = \frac{\sum_{V_i > V_{TH}} Q_i}{\sum Q_i}
\end{equation}

\noindent where $V_i$ and $Q_i$ are the detected speed and volume of a loop detector and $V_{TH}$ is the speeding threshold. Figure \ref{fig:speeding} shows the percentages of speeding vehicles on three major freeways, I-5, I-405, and SR-520, in the Greater Seattle area during each week before, and during, COVID-19 (from Jan. 19 to May. 10). Each sub-figure plots the time-varying percentage curves with different speeding thresholds ranging from 65 miles per hour (mph) to 85 mph. The percentages of speeding vehicles on I-5 and I-405 on both directions, as shown by Figure \ref{fig:speeding} (a) to (d), have similar trends.
The speeding rates reached a peak before COVID-19 around mid-February. In March, the speeding rates gradually reduced and reached their lowest points at the end of March. Since then, the speeding rates have started to increase. Ultimately, Figure \ref{fig:speeding} clearly shows that speeding rates during COVID-19 were significantly less than those before COVID-19. The reduction in speeding rates on SR-520, as shown in Figure \ref{fig:speeding} (e) and (f), are even dramatic than those for I-5 and I-405  after the stay-home order, as they suddenly reduced close to zero and did not rebound like the percentage curves on I-5 and I-405.

It is important to note here, that when using loop detector data, the speed values of different vehicles within the one-minute time interval observed by a loop detector are averaged. Thus it is possible that one vehicle passing a detector may be driving at excessive speeds, but the observed averaged speed of the detector within one minute does not capture that outlier. While a small number of drivers may have driven at much higher speeds, the analysis results indicate that the overall speeding rate of freeways in the Greater Seattle area during COVID-19 is noticeably less than that before COVID-19.

\section{Conclusion and Discussion}

In this work, the traffic performance score to measure network-wide traffic performance is proposed. Based on real-time loop detector data and other data sources, a traffic performance score platform to display both network-level and segment level freeway traffic performance in the Greater Seattle area is developed. Based on real-time traffic data and the calculated traffic metrics, the impact of COVID-19 on traffic before and during COVID-19 are analyzed. The results show that both TPS and VMT have similar patterns. Namely, that the urban traffic has been greatly influenced by COVID-19, especially after the governors stay-home order was announced. The road segment-level travel demand changes and driver behavior changes are also measured, which reflects the ways COVID-19 is reshaping urban mobility.

The traffic patterns, travel demands, and driving behaviors in different segments of the region have greatly changed following the outbreak of the pandemic. These impacts could be considered temporary. However, many large, regional employers, such as technology companies, have begun planning to allow employees to work from home permanently. If COVID-19 ultimately results in a work-from-home revolution as many are hypothesizing, urban mobility will likely not return to pre-COVID-19 patterns. Thus, the newly developed methods described in this work will be vital for quantifying changing traffic patterns into the foreseeable future. Because the TPS platform is built for scalability, it can easily be extended to cover more cities and regions across the country and the globe, and can facilitate more comprehensive analysis functions. It will be an important tool for agencies as they consider new policy directions moving forward.

\section{Acknowledgements}

This work is support by the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans) and the Smart Transportation Applications and Research Lab (STAR Lab) at the University of Washington. We would like to recognize the help from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for providing the loop detector data.

\bibliographystyle{unsrt}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Turbonilla salinasensis is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Pyramidellidae, the pyrams and their allies.

References

External links
 To USNM Invertebrate Zoology Mollusca Collection
 To World Register of Marine Species

salinasensis
Gastropods described in 1928

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Trump says Democrats' convention was 'gloomiest' in history
By The Citizen on August 21, 2020
ARLINGTON, Va. — President Donald Trump sought to put a more positive light on his presidency Friday after four days of bashing at the Democratic National Convention, saying that where Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sees "American darkness," he sees "American greatness."Trump was anxious for his turn in the spotlight after the four-day Democratic National Convention, which was culminated by Biden describing "a perfect storm" hitting the nation under Trump's […]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


DL-Methionine is an essential amino acid used in animal feeds for poultry and pigs, as well as in diets for cats and dogs.
Since 1990 Welding is the exclusive marketing and sales channel of DL-Methionine feed grade, manufactured by JSC Volzhsky Orgsynthese outside the CIS region (ex USSR). Sales to the animal feed manufacturers in Europe and all overseas markets. Customers in more than 50 countries on 6 continents.
This is just a small selection of our product portfolio. Click here to view our complete product list.


17" Harmony Western Dressage saddle. This saddle tree is composed of a rigid fork and cantle assembled together with elastomer bars that move with the horse (Not a "flex tree"). The bars are molded of a specially developed elastomer - a material similar to a strong, rubber like work boot sole. The rigid fork and cantle are necessary to prevent pinching and spine irritation caused by tree spread or flattening. The flexible, molded bars have just the right amount of flare to allow for unrestricted movement of the horses shoulders and hips while still providing equal distribution of weight down the horses back. The clear tunnel design also provides total spine freedom from any pressure. The panels are made from patented SilCush which molds to the horses shape as the shoulders move and the back muscles work, distributing pressure evenly for a no pressure point fit! The memory foam seat and Silcush lined stirrups of this saddle afford the rider the same luxury feel and support. SilCush is ultra durable and anti-microbial. It gives a "bouncy" feel contouring to the horse's back instead of a "dead or stiff" feel like gel. It is also breathable unlike gel.
In excellent condition with minimal signs of use. Comes with match head stall, breast collar, wool pad and cover.


text:
Q: "Dumb" log-loss for a binary classifier I am trying to understand how I can best compare a classifier that I have trained and tuned against a "dumb" classifier, particularly in the context of binary classification with imbalanced classes.
Here's a summary of my experiment: suppose I have a dataset that I have split in training/validation/test sets.
My classifier (random forest or gradient boosted trees here) is trained on the training set and then the best hyperparameters are selected by evaluating the log-loss on the validation set and choosing the model with the lowest log-loss. I am choosing here to minimise the log-loss because I want the model to incur a very high penalty when it confidently predicts the wrong class.
Suppose now that I want to compare my classifier against a dumb classifier on the test set and suppose that I have the following class proportions in the test set:
55% class 0 and 45% class 1.
Suppose also that the accuracy of my classifier is 60%.
A particularly dumb classifier is one that would for example classify everything as 0, which would result in an accuracy of 55%. This would be of course a poor benchmark to use, even as a dumb baseline.
Say I want to compare my classifier against a random one, for example a biased coin.
How do I calculate the log-loss of the biased coin?
I thought initially that I should use the proportion of classes in the test set as the probabilities of the biased coin i.e.
$$P[X=0]=0.55 \text{ and } P[X=1]=0.45$$
This would result in a log-loss of :
$$-\frac{1}{N}\sum_{i=1}^{N}(y_i\log(p_i) + (1-y_i)\log(1-p_i))=-(0.55\log(0.55) + 0.45\log(0.45))=0.6881$$
In doing so, I feel like I am making a mistake since it would be like this random classifier already knows the distribution of my test set?
Is the correct thing to assume that the probabilities of my biased coin classifier are the ones observed in the training set (for example 51% class 0 and 49% class 1) and simulate randomly the choice of either class 0 or 1 on my test set using those probabilities so as to calculate a log-loss?
Thanks!

A: You are correct, your if your "dumb" classifier knows the frequency of successes in the test set, it in fact works as an oracle, and is not that dumb. You're leaking the data from test set. It is easy to imagine an extreme case with big discrepancy between train and test set where such "dumb" classifier would in fact outperform the model trained using only the train set.
What you should do is to base your "dumb" classifier on the distribution of the train dataset. In fact, for binary data predicting the mean, or probability of success, is the best single-value prediction you can make assuming squared error or log-loss, so it is a pretty nice benchmark of the simplest but not completely useless model.

A: I like my explanation of $R^2$ here and how it relates to a naïve model. You would be looking for the McFadden's $R^2$ that I mention, as that compares the log loss of your model to that of one that naively predicts the prior probability every time, much as linear regression $R^2$ naively guesses the pooled/marginal mean $\bar y$ every time in the "denominator".
$$R^2_{McFadden}=
1-
\dfrac{
\sum \big(
y_i\log(\hat p_i)+
(1-y_i)\log(1-\hat p_i)
\big)
}{
\sum\big(
y_i\log(p_{train})+
(1-y_i)\log(1-p_{train})
\big)
}
$$
The denominator is (proportional to) the log loss of the biased coin that you described.
Positive values of this quality represent an improvement over the "dumb" classifier. We take the $p_{train}$ in the denominator to use our knowledge of the training set without cheating and looking at any of the out-of-sample data.
EDIT
If you see me write about $R^2$ on here, you'll see me use that word "naïve". I see it this way:
You have to predict the probability that a photo is of a dog or a cat. The obvious move would be to look at the photo and decide how likely it is to be of a dog or of a cat. I, however, will not show you the picture, but I will tell you that there are as many dog photos as cat photos (or ten times as many dogs as cats, or whatever the ratio is).
Knowing nothing about the photo, the sensible, even if naïve, guess is that class ratio (the "prior" probability of being a dog or being a cat). If there are as many dog pictures as cat pictures, guess that there's a $50/50$ chance of either. If there are nine dog photos for every one cat photo, guess that there is a $90\%$ chance of being a dog and a $10\%$ chance of being a cat.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Travel for learning journeys or choose to go for an overseas internship.
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Acquire foundational business knowledge in accounting and finance, business law, economics, statistics, as well as essential functions of management and organisation.
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Go on a six-month enhanced internship at local or overseas companies such as Carousell, DBS, IBM, Keppel Logistics and Lufthansa Cargo. Apply your skills on a capstone project.
To be eligible for consideration, candidates must have the following GCE 'O' Level examination (or equivalent) results.
You must also have sat for a Humanities subject or Art / Music or Principles of Accounts or a relevant OSIE / Applied Subject and fulfil the aggregate computation requirements.


His Excellency General The Hon. David Hurley AC DSC (Ret'd) is the Governor of NSW.
Jack Manning-Bancroft is a Champion of Just Reinvest NSW and CEO of AIME. He believes justice reinvestment just makes sense. "I know the talent, potential and value that young Indigenous people have, and if we can support them to build the skills to harness that power in the right way, it will be of huge benefit not only for Indigenous people, but for the nation as a whole," said Mr Manning-Bancroft.


Every company should have access to professional and affordable website design and services.
Set up in 2017, Refresh Websites is a St. Helen's based partnership made up of two freelance website design and development consultants.
Together, we offer a combined 10 years experience to clients looking to build (or Refresh) their companies website and improve their companies online presence.
We offer a range of extra core products and services that go hand in hand with any website development project.
Take a look at our services below, and for more information please use the contact form at the bottom of this page to speak to a member of the team.
"It has been a pleasure to work with James on consultation and implementation of our fantastic new website.
His experience and knowledge of web design and marketing is second to none and listened to ideas of how we wanted our website to be presented and helped to create stand out pages relevant to our business requirements.
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After I unexpectedly lost my job,I decided to go freelance and set up two different businesses.
Both my websites were up in no time, Peter and James helped with designing logos and picking colour schemes, they are very reactive in case of problems and never stopped until the websites were just the way I wanted them.


text:
Deadpool is a Slave to Celine Dion in New 'Deadpool 2' Music Video (VIDEO)
brian-mcgee - May 4, 2018
Hearkening back to the mid-90s when superhero movies had torch ballads sung by the likes of Taylor Dayne, R. Kelly, and Seal, this new music video for "Ashes" by Celine Dion off the Deadpool 2 soundtrack will make you wistful for that bygone era...
Until Deadpool shows up in heels to kick things into a whole other level. Never afraid to take the piss out of anything at all, Deadpool's music video—which appears to have been shot on the set of Celine's Vegas Spectacular—is parodying a niche within a niche, and it's glorious.
Like I've said many times, the marketing campaign for this film has been brilliant. Yes, it's disappointing that they've been giving away far too much recently, especially when the early campaign was built around blatant non-reveals, but moves like this prove that the team behind selling this film to the public is doing a bang up job.
Honestly, I'm more excited about Deadpool 2 than either of the blockbusters book-ending it—Infinity War and Solo—so at this point I'm glad they moved its release up. Though it will make me sad that the ad campaign will come to an end at that time, which is two weeks from today when Deadpool 2 hits theaters.
Tagged in: celine dion, deadpool , deadpool 2 , funny , music video , ryan reynolds , video ,
Jordyn Jones as Madison Beer!
Zoey Deutch's Mom Approved Thirst Trap!
Guess the Nude Celeb and Other Fine Things!
Tex Hollywood
Hailey Baldwin Wants YOU to Vote!
Kendall Jenner Looses her Limbs for Garage Mag


Agile Product Solutions is a cloud-based employee management platform which offers applicant tracking, employee onboarding and performance management modules on an integrated or a standalone basis.
Agile's applicant tracking system provides users with candidate management and job requisition modules. Performance-based profiles help users track expectations and results. Requisitions can be created and published directly on multiple job boards. Fresh applicants and open jobs can be managed from a single screen.
The onboarding application allows employees to complete new paperwork, access company facility and organization charts and watch onboarding videos on the employee portal. Office space procurement and IT requirements are automated through the system.
Reporting capabilities can be used to generate reports with OFCCP, EEO-1 and time-to-fill metric analytics. Agile has developed proprietary costing calculators to track and analyze cost per hire and time to fill. Within the onboarding application, the reporting module can track TTP, workflow agent status and employee status reports.
Agile HR provides an excellent solution for our needs. Instead of overpaying for a bunch of fixed functionality we will never use, Agile has continually worked with us to develop the perfect solution for our unique industry and business model. The only reason for 4 as opposed to 5 stars regarding use and features is that there is still functionality being developed. Agile HR has aptly named their company, they are flexible, responsive and incessantly working to evolve and expand their platform.
Flexibility, simplicity in design, responsiveness and customer service.
Improvements take change, change always comes with wrinkles. I will take the ability to change and improve with a few wrinkles (that are always attended to) as opposed to stagnate functionality cemented-in for main stream uses - as opposed to our specific needs.
Agileats has SAVED us from a mountain of manual on-boarding processes and work; we absolutely LOVE this system. We outgrew our former ATS, which we've had for over 6 years because it was incapable of making some minor enhancements that would help us (HR), work much more efficiently and after repeated requests for this upgrade falling on "deaf" ears, we decided to research other ATS systems and thankfully, we found AgileHR......we have not looked back since. From the communications and conversations with our sales rep. Melanie Webster to their implementation team, they have been TRUELY service oriented; it is an absolute pleasure working with them on our implementation, maintenance and customization for our needs....I cannot recommend this company and this system more....we are very pleased with our decision to partner with Agile, and am convinced you will be as well!
After reviewing about a dozen ATS products, we landed with Agile HR. You simply won't find a better ATS for the price. If you're frustrating with the customer service you've been receiving with your current ATS product, wish you had better reporting, or wanted a more updated look for your applicants, do yourself a favor and give Agile HR a call.
The ease of use and the customer service.
The email component is sometimes a little fickle, but still works well, especially compared to what we had been using before this.
recruiting software should do more than jost post open poitions.
This company consists of HR people, so they know there business.
Has a great showcase for KPI dash boarding. It eliminates bunches of paperwork, leaving more time to actually be productive.
The learning curve is tough if you are not tech savvy. Although the system is intuitive, you still ne to be techie.
This system has helped streamline our human capital needs and practices. We were able to reduce our cost, and streamline services.
The functionality is great so we are fully satisfied. We find the system to be user-friendly, and feel that all the programs work well for our organization.
The Agile system has been easy to learn but is lacking some of the basic features of an ATS. Customer support is great but slow to implement some of our requests. The price is excellent so we are giving it another year to work out the kinks.
A lot of time is wasted because the system does not remember any time you "sort" so you have to constantly re-sort after you click on something. Very cumbersome and time-consuming! Reports are unable to generate by entire year if you have a lot of data, so you have to run one month at a time and combine all the excel spreadsheets! Those are just the few that come to mind.
I work in HR and a system that can provide tracking, onboarding, and employee performance management is great! Agile HR allows me to automate certain tasks, remind me of my tasks and overall become more efficient. It's easy and Agile provides support and customization.
This gives us a personalized service that is worth the money and so no cons right now. It is easy to use but maybe more training manuals.
time attendance dependent payroll system. employee performance chart.
In spite of its long range of different and easy to use features, it is very expensive, a small business or an organisation would not be able to pay for the complete software. Kindly reduce the rates.
Overall, we are satisfied with the product. It is pretty easy to use, and Agile offers a broad range of products. I think that the customer service response time or availability could be improved, as well as a few of the features that are not intuitive or obvious. Overall, I think it is a 4/5.
I like that it looks good on our website, and provides a good candidate experience.
The support of the software could improve and some of the features could be made more obvious.
I like the flexibility and the above and beyond approach they have towards their customers. It's local. Custom reporting was a big factor and came in very handy when they created reports for us.
We still have a few things on our wish list, but they have quickly checked them off. There's no doubt that in the future, the rest of our list will be completed.
Agile ATS is everything I want and need.
I highly recommend Agile ATS.
Agile is easy to learn and easy to use. They are building new functions into the product everyday. They listen to their customers and if you need a report, a templete or a tweak, they can have it to you with no hassle within days. Agile doesn't charge for these updates like some of the other companies. They are very responsive to the needs of their customers and have outstanding customer service!
My experience with Agile has been overwhelmingly the best! Everything from the start of our journey with getting things setup to following up just to check in has been the best. I have never worked with staff that have made me feel so secure in knowing that they are just an email or phone call away. There are not enough stars to give them. I would recommend them if you want the best for your company.
The software is very user friendly even if you are not a techy person.


The period of rapid cortical expansion during fetal and early neonatal life is a crucial time over which the brain's surface transforms from a smooth sheet to a highly convoluted surface. During this time, the cellular foundations of our advanced cognitive abilities are mapped out, as connections start to form between distant regions, myelinating, and later pruning, at different rates. Alongside the development of this neural infrastructure, functional brain activations start to be resolved, reflecting the development of cognition.
Much of what is currently known about the early human connectome has been learnt from models of preterm growth . Whilst invaluable, it is known that early exposure to the extra-uterine environment has long-term implications For this reason, the Developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) seeks to image emerging brain connectivity for the first time in a large cohort of fetuses and newborn infants.
Within the next few months the dHCP will make a second, more substantial release of healthy term-born, and preterm neonatal images. This comprehensive data sets reflects morphological, functional and micro-structural development, including 0.5mm3 reconstructed T1 and T2 structural images, 15 mins resting state functional MRI (fMRI), and and 300 volumes of diffusion MRI (dMRI) acquired using a multi-shell (b=400, 1000 and 2600 s/mm2) High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) protocol. All data has gone through, carefully refined, reconstruction, artefact correction and image processing protocols (see Makropoulos and Robinson et al. 2018, Bastiani et al 2018, Fitzgibbon et al 2017.); surface mesh models of the cortex have been estimated as a target for morphological, micro-structural and functional analysis; and all stages of the processing have faced robust quality control (QC) and manual checking by expert observers.
In delivering this it is important to stress that neonatal data presents unique challenges relative to adult data sets (such as the adult HCP cohort) as our babies are imaged during natural sleep. Data is thus susceptible to high levels of motion (Fig. 1). In addition. scan times are limited as it is unethical to scan babies for comparable lengths of time to adults (the dHCP neonatal total scan time is approximately 1 hour, whereas the adult HCP total scan time is 4 hours). Limited scan times impact image resolution and whilst significant effort has been made to push image resolution through novel acquisition schemes, ultimately babies brains are much smaller than those of adults leading to a lower relative resolution; this results in significant partial volume (blurring of intensities across tissue boundaries – Fig 2). Maturing brains have inverted image contrast on T2's relative to adults, meaning that standard protocols for cortical surface mesh modelling such as FreeSurfer are not applicable. Finally over the period of dHCP data collection (20-44 weeks gestation), the brain undergoes rapid growth and development – leading to much more dramatic changes in brain morphology, function and microstructure that would be observed in an adult cohort.
For these reason, we (the dHCP consortium) have developed a series of specialised image reconstruction and processing protocols that differ significantly from adult pipelines, such as those described by the HCP.
Specifically, to first address the concerns of motion, images are acquired in stacks of 2D slices which are subsequently combined and reconstructed with motion correction, and dedicated corrections for spin history and diffusion effects for fMRI and dMRI.
Tailored tissue segmentations have been developed that are specially designed to accurately recover tissue boundaries in the face of partial volume and white matter hyperintensities (see Makropoulos 2014, Makropoulos and Robinson et al 2018, ). These form the basis of a surface reconstruction algorithm, which equally takes into account intensity values from the original T2 algorithm. This allows for correction of segmentation errors that are very specific to neonatal data (i.e. mis-segmentation of CSF cortical white matter, as a result of CSF and white matter both being high intensity in neonatal T2 Figs 3, 4).
The high resolution T1 and T2 structural images, and refined surfaces have then formed the basis of advanced volume and surface templating approaches, generating sets of spatio-temporally evolving atlases spanning the age range 36-44 weeks.
In the case of the volumetric template, advanced SVFFD (stationary velocity field free-form deformation) based registration and refined atlasing procedures has led to the generation of arguably the sharpness, and most temporally-consistent neonatal template available at this time (Fig 5). On the other hand, surface templating procedures have incorporated advances made to the MSM multimodal surface matching algorithm (first developed for alignment of multi-modality cortical imaging data from the HCP) to generate biologically plausible, evolving templates reflecting changes in cortical morphology, thickness and T1/T2 myelination over the same time period (Fig 6, 7). Further advances to MSM have allowed for the estimation of smooth and biologically plausible deformation fields for longitudinal cortical growth. These have been used to evaluate evolving trends in cortical expansion for preterm babies between 28 and 36 weeks PMA (Fig 8).
Fig. 8. Statistical modelling of neonatal cortical growth, generated from quantifications of surface expansion estimated from the new aMSM method. Results show that rates of expansion change over the period (of pre-term development) from 28-38 weeks post-menstrual age (PMA). Figure from Garcia et al. PNAS 2018.
In parallel, dMRI and fMRI pipelines (papers in preparation) have been developed utilising advances in artefact and distortion correction (provided through extensions of FSL's eddy algorithm) to generate sensitive local models of local diffusion, microstructure and function at each voxel. Residual noise in fMRI data has been reduced through classifying and regressing out nuisance signals from the data using specially trained ICA FIX.
Examples of the scale of advances to the neonatal fMRI are shown in Fig. 9 which demonstrates 17 strongly recognisable functional modes, reconstructed from 242 co-registered neonatal data sets, and decomposed using FSL's PROFUMO approach.
For dMRI major white matter fasciculi are automatically estimated from the data using virtual in vivo dissection. In this, all data is registered to the spatio-temporal template space (Fig 5) in which seed, target, exclusion and waypoint masks for 30 tract bundles were drawn. These masks are then projected back into each subject's native diffusion space where probabilistic tractography was run. The results, averaged across subjects, binned across different weeks are shown in Fig. 10 (right). Separate estimates of local tissue microstructure (intra/extra neurites compartments fractions, isotropic compartment fraction and estimates of neurites' dispersion – all estimated using NODDI) are shown in Fig. 10 (left).
All this is due to be released for a large batch of data, within the next few months. For those interested in using or viewing the data once it is released, please register for the mailing list at https://neurostars.org/tags/developing-hcp . For those interested in applying the structural pipelines to their own data, these are already available here https://github.com/BioMedIA/dhcp-structural-pipeline.
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Tag Archives: paganism
February 6, 2020 by The Blog of Baphomet
Review: Hine's Varieties Chaos and Beyond by Phil Hine
Cover by Strutz & Hine
As a latecomer to Chaos Magic in the mid-1990's, Phil Hine's Condensed Chaos provided an excellent guide to the Neophyte Steve Dee. Having been spiritually burnt out by my previous struggles with belief and attempts at religious faith, the iconoclastic approach of Chaos Magic articulated in that work felt like an invigorating breath of fresh air.
In this latest collection spanning over 40 years of magical practice and reflection, Phil has brought together not only a rich smorgasbord of his writing that has previously been featured in Zines, collections and his on-line presence, he also intersperses these pieces with illuminating snapshots of magical autobiography and reflections on his inspirations at the time they were written. In addition to Phil's written work, the book also features evocative linocuts by Maria Strutz at the beginning of each of its major subsections.
He provides us with a vivid recollection of his own beginnings in Magic that reference the impact of Austin Osman Spare, Theosophy and some bold experimentation with the pantheon of HP Lovecraft. Early occult group work came in the form of a rather bumpy experience with a Wiccan Coven, and we also see him giving his playful and non-conformist streak expression via more experimental work with the Discordian Goddess Eris. Things clearly lit-up during his involvement in the vibrant Pagan/magical scene in the North of England during the 1980's and his involvement with the enigmatic Lincoln Order of Neuromancers provides a Segway into the books first major section containing writing on Chaos Magic.
Even with the passing of time, Phil's writing from this period still contains both a vibrancy and a relevance. Pieces such as the channelled Erisian Stupid Book and the brutally honest Fracture Lines provide clear insight into the magician both at work and struggling with the emotional realities of being a human being. In Cthulhu Madness he challenges the sanitised safety of our overly psychologised magic and our attempts at control. "Real Magic is Wild" insists Hine and yet he also asks us to use on whole of our beings in balancing magic and mysticism, work and play:
"Chaos Magic is a process of mutation…the deconstruction of Identity from the beleaguered Ego into the legion of Selves requiring only self-love"
In his section on Paganisms, we find Phil in full activist mode using both his writing and group ritual to challenge the hysteria of alleged satanic child abuse and the ecological threat posed by industrialisation. This a Paganism unbolted from the politeness of social conservatism and in his writing for Pagan News we see a clear embodiment of the magician-shaman as social disruptor. In his Must we Love the Golden Bough? I sensed the beginnings of Phil's role as erudite historian of religion and critic of Western Occultisms lazy reliance on the Universalistic assumptions that reflect an insensitivity to cultural context.
Phil's section on Practice provides some rich anecdotes and some very down-to-earth principles for magical practice. He provides valuable thoughts regarding the power dynamics present within the student-teacher relationship and how the paradigm of mentorship might provide a less lopsided model. I was especially struck by his piece on Leaving Magical Groups and was aware of the parallels in my own experience of how such departures can have long lasting impacts on friendships, personal psychology and the shape of on-going spiritual work.
Phil throwing down some organic Tantra Portrait by Asa Medhurst
Somewhat organically Hine takes us with him on a voyage into his exploration of Tantra. We are treated to tales of his meeting his Guru, involvement with the AMOOKOS tradition and a description of a deeply personal embodied Kundalini experience. Phil openly wrestles with what it might mean to let the complex traditions of South Asia speak for themselves and inform his efforts to create a "hybridised Tantra". Through a number of nuanced pieces of writing he invites us to become detectives with him in trying to experience the complex layers of meaning of Tantra's twilight language rather than coarsely pillaging concepts around rebellion, antinomianism and sacred sexuality. However these concepts are present, they need to be able to speak on their own terms.
His sub-section on Sexualities was a personal favourite of mine, as Phil provides a robust challenge to much of the heteronormativity and phallo-centrism that is still present within certain quarters of western occultism. In exploring the fluid and evolving concept of Queer Paganism we encounter Baphomet as an "unfinished" deity who contains "a multiplicity of shifting planes and horizons". These aren't merely theoretical constructs but rather profound explorations of when the personal is the political and pieces such Sodomy and Spiritual Fulfilment and Biography of a Kiss provide us with some truly tender insights on how we unfold in becoming more human.
The final two sections of the book are given over to Histories and Fiction and in this juxtaposition we see Hine in both his most incisive and playful modes. In his analysis of the work of Lobsang Rampa and Elizabeth Sharpe's writing on The Secrets of the Kaula Circle we have Phil in full religious historian mode challenging us to stay sensitive to context and to appreciate the complexity of contributions within the timeline. In Fiction (probably the section that appealed to me least), we see the blurring of the lines between story and history and the weird tales described could quite feasibly be chapters from his own biography.
In his writing on Masters, Mentors, Teachers and Gurus Hine advises us to let go of our fixation in seeking parental authority figures and to "seek friendship instead". Finding such magical mentors can take time but I feel that Phil has provided us with a warm and authentic version of this albeit in print. This collection provides us with a rare, raw and at times hilarious insight regarding what it might mean to be a magician in the 21st century. While playful and irreverent it also contains a moving story of the search for meaning, the fluid nature of identity and also a desire to find the Goddess in all their multiplicity of forms.
Book Launch of Hine's Varieties
At Treadwell's Books, London on 13th February.
Deep Magic Spring Retreat
Cultivating Connection
Last few days to secure your place at the early-bird price. Details HERE
Posted in books, occult history, steve dee
Tagged AMOOKOS, biography, chaos magic, paganism, phil hine, queer
November 5, 2019 by The Blog of Baphomet
Do you believe in magic?
Happy belated Halloween!
I've just returned home from a family holiday in Barcelona staying within sight of the magnificent Sagrada Familia. Over the previous 25 years I've seen this remarkable building grow, having visited it several times (once with Rodney Orpheus during a particularly dramatic electrical storm) . It's quite something to encounter such a multi-generational project, a fitting setting to reflect on ideas of ancestors and families.
Upon my return to Britain I'd been asked to speak and MC an evening of talks at Real Magic, part of the Do you believe in magic? exhibition at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. This was a delightful way to spend my birthday, with over 720 people attending. The evening featuring wonderful presentations from speakers Esther Eidinow, Kurt Lampe, Vikki Carr and Ronald Hutton. Do you believe in magic? is a very engaging exploration of the occult and it's relationship with science and religion, do go along to see it if you have an opportunity.
Mind manifesting in the Enlightenment Gallery at Bristol Museum
Ronald Hutton and me chatting before his magnificent presentation on The Wheel of the Year.
Here's the text of my talk that evening on Psychedelics, Shamanism and Magic – enjoy!
We live in interesting times, one sign of which is perhaps the renewed engagement by academia and museums with the subject of magic. We have interdisciplinary conferences, most recently Trans-States at the University of Northampton, bringing together magical practitioners, artists and academics. The Victoria & Albert, Ashmolean and now Bristol Museums are working to widen the cultural conversation about what have often been excluded or even forbidden aspects of the human experience.
Tonight I'll be speaking about an aspect of the human experience which has, until quite recently, remained occult, hidden, and even forbidden, namely the use of psychedelic drugs.
witches and alchemists
The role of mysterious substances is deeply embedded in the iconography of western magic. Where would the witch be without her bubbling cauldron, or the alchemist without the arcane paraphernalia of their laboratory? In European herbalism correspondences between plants and astrological forces informed diagnosis and treatment. Malevolent witches were imagined by some to make use of poisonous plants; henbane, datura and deadly nightshade. Scattered references in the grimoires of ceremonial magic suggest the use of mind-altering incenses.
While ongoing research gathers together these fragments of our indigenous tradition, it is primarily through the encounter between European culture and the peoples of the New World that the modern story of psychedelic substances emerges.
The term psychedelic 'literally mind manifesting', was coined in 1956 by the psychiatrist Humphry Osmand in conversation with writer Aldous Huxley to refer to a particular class of drugs. Their principal effect is to radically transform awareness, inducing a state of consciousness with some very curious, some might even say magical properties. The word Osmand coined was first applied to the effects of a cactus.
Classic psychedelic people and plants
The peyote cactus has been used for over 5000 years by communities in the Americas. The principle psychedelic alkaloid in peyote is mescaline, isolated and identified by western chemists in 1897, and first synthesized in 1918. Two other cacti also containing mescaline are used in the Americas for a variety of purposes which could be described as medical, religious and magical. Mescaline can include visionary phenomena, synesthesia-like effects where music might be perceived as visual patterns as well as evoking a range of very profound feelings including personal insight, euphoria and peak mystical experience. The effects of mescaline, like all psychedelics, are highly responsive to what has become known as 'set and setting' that is the mindset of the person taking the substance and the setting or environment in which the drug is consumed. Ritual specialists use ceremony to curate the set and settings for specific purposes, such as divination or healing. While these practitioners use various words to describe their work and social role their practice is often labelled as 'shamanism'. Shamanism is a complex and contested term which some feel should be limited to the Siberian and central Asian areas from which it derives. For others, the word has a broader pan-cultural use and indicates a certain style of what we could call 'magical' practice that often includes interactions with spirits and the use of altered or 'ecstatic' states.
In some shamanic traditions these ecstatic states are induced by practices such as long periods in darkness or solitary mediation, or through the use of drumming or chanting. All these methods are effective but psychedelic substances provide one of the most reliable ways of inducing ecstatic states and perhaps for that reason are central to many of the shamanic traditions of the Americas. This doesn't only mean states that are pleasurable, though they may be. The etymology of the word 'ecstasy' points to a feeling of being 'outside of ourselves', to be 'out of one's mind'. In the psychedelic state we are propelled outside of our usual way of thinking into a form of cognition that is rich and strange.
Mind the drugs
We can see this change in these two brain scans made during research in 2014 at Imperial College London, using the psychedelic psilocybin found in magic mushrooms and also used in New World Shamanism. On the left we see the brain in it's 'default mode network' state. This arrangement is, in some respects, our sense of self, our egoic identity, the pattern that consciousness habitually adopts when we are alone, ruminating on the past and thinking about the future. The right hand image shows the same brain on psilocybin. We see that the self-identity pattern is turned down and novel connections between previously discrete systems in the brain emerge. We remain conscious and aware but our perception of reality is dramatically transformed. To use the language of shamanism – we might take flight and soar over an innerworld landscape, looking down from this new vantage point to gain new insights about the world. We might encounter spirits such as ancestors or mythological figures. We have a sense of going on a journey, a trip.
On our return to everyday awareness we can bring these insights with us, leading to transformations in our social relationships and effects such as the healing of sickness. In the psychedelic state we experience the deep truth that all things are interconnected or, as the Hermetic magicians would say; 'As Above, So Below'.
Beastly rites
In the early 20th century the use of psychedelic substances, began to filter into European culture. Aleister Crowley dosed the audience at his Rites of Eleusis, a series of publicly performed rituals, with mescaline. His rituals, which included music, clouds of incense and epic poetry, were performed in London in 1910 making them one of the first attempts to formulate a ceremonial setting in which to ingest a psychedelic sacrament outside of the Americas. Crowley's rituals can also claim to be the first psychedelic art-happening. In this sense Crowley's rites were the forerunner of the Be-In's of the beat generation and the LSD enhanced concerts of the Grateful Dead and Hawkwind.
The trickle of interest from artists, medics and researchers exploring mescaline became a flood in the mid 20th century with the discovery by Albert Hoffman in 1943 of LSD Hoffman's new psychedelic substance initiated seismic changes in culture. These included the development of the rock music festival which aimed to provide a cultural container for the psychedelic state which had suddenly become available to thousands of people.
Within European occulture of the late 20th century, while psychedelics informed the cultural context, they were not central to the emerging esoteric styles of Wicca and neo-paganism. However they were enthusiastically integrated into the practice of some occultists, notably those influenced by the work of Crowley.
Peyote circle and Castlemorton festival
A third wave of psychedelic exploration occurred in the late 20th century as a novel chemical, closely related to mescaline, began to hit the headlines; MDMA or ecstasy. The development of the rave, like the emergence of the music festival decades earlier, provided a setting in which the psychedelic state could be held. The emerging rhythms of acid house music (a term arguably coined by the occultist Genesis P.Orridge) matched those used by other 'shamanic' psychedelic communities such as Native American Church.
The Native American Church developed in the late 19th century in North America. The central sacrament of the Church is peyote consumed during an all night vigil which features singing, drumming, prayer and other ritual activities. The Native American Church flourished because one of the effects of psychedelics is healing. In the context of the plains dwelling First Nations people this healing was a response to the genocidal damage caused by European colonialism. In particular many Native Americans sought to self-medicate their pain with whisky and this lead to much suffering. The peyote ceremony had the power to help people see things from a different perspective and this often led to them stopping drinking. The medicine of the ritual; that is the intention of the participant, the structure of the ceremony, and the psychedelic cactus – or more succinctly the 'set, setting and substance' came together to effect radical personal and social transformation.
Humphry Osmand and his colleague Abram Hoffer attended a Native American Church peyote ceremony in 1958 and this inspired them to wonder if LSD could be used to help people escape their additions. Their informed speculation was correct and, until the advent of Richard Nixon's War on Drugs, many hundreds of people underwent successful psychedelic therapy using LSD.
In Britain, one might suggest that the emerging popularity of MDMA served to address the cultural wounds caused by post-industrial dislocation. This was the time of Margaret Thatcher, mass unemployment, the ever present threat of nuclear war and the miners strike. The emerging traveller communities and rave culture came under censure in much the same way that the Native American Church had done in the USA. The difference was that without an identifiable 'shamanism' or indigenous psychedelic tradition there was little possibility of legally defending the right to party, the sacred music defined in the UK Criminal Justice bill of 1994 as "…sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats" was driven underground.
Healing the harm
But the times are changing. Whether we consider the remarkable transformations that a suitable set, setting and psychedelic substance can generate as magic, shamanism or science matters very little. For these mind-manifesting materials are being re-discovered as allies in healing a range of illnesses that are present at epidemic levels in our culture.
Today MDMA is being used in Bristol within licensed settings to help people overcome chronic alcohol addiction. In the USA it is being licensed to treat Post-traumatic stress disorder. Other psychedelics such as cannabis, ayahuasca and psilocybin are also being recognized as having potent healing effects on conditions ranging from depression and anxiety to autoimmune illnesses. The current wave of research, often described as the Psychedelic Renaissance, a term coined by Dr Ben Sessa who works in Bristol doing MDMA therapy, includes studies on the potential of psychedelics to aid creative problem solving, to helping us face death with equanimity, and to develop ways to resolve interpersonal and social conflicts.
To the Mexican Curandera or the Siberian Shaman the discovery that ecstatic trance carries with it magical transformative potential isn't news, but for European culture this is a radical change. For European, and by extension much of Euro-American culture was disconnected from the use of substances that could safely induce ecstatic states when the great Temple of Eleusis closed in the 4th century AD.
Mystery trend
Eleusis was the principle Mystery initiation of the Ancient World sacred to the goddess Demeter. In her temple 3000 initiates at a time would experience was many regard as the core elements of the shamanic process. They would undertake ritual purification, they would make a pilgrimage, they would fast and, crucially, they would ingest a sacred potion before descending into a vast darkened temple full of drumming and chanting. There they would face their fears and emerge into the light for a party to celebrate their rebirth. This annual ritual went on for thousands of years with its participants being drawn from all ranks of society. This shared psychedelic experience of crisis and rebirth shaped the pre-Christian pagan world. After Eleusis and the loss of the shamanic psychedelic experience European culture, one might suggest, started to behave just like an addict, rampaging across the globe in search of tranquilizers like opium and stimulants like tobacco and cocaine. Later that culture would give rise to two World Wars, the creation of weapons of mass destruction, and the poisoning of the biosphere.
Connected future
While we celebrate the return of the magical to academia, to museums and to a wider cultural setting we may also like to consider that the return of the psychedelic state to mainstream cultural as part of the same movement. A movement to value again the importance of the subjective, the magical and the ecstatic if we are to successfully cultivate our individual wellbeing and find better ways to live together. To find a medicine in these difficult times that heals us and, as they say in the Native American Church, all our relations.
Do you believe in magic? is open until 19th April 2020 at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
Posted in entheogenics, julian vayne, magick
Tagged bristol museum, pagan families, paganism, psychedelics


text:
Non-fiction: Ferda Atamanʹs "Iʹm from here. Stop asking!"
Less strident, more empathetic, please!
"I'm from here. Stop asking!" is the title of a recently published book in German by journalist Ferda Ataman. It contains quite a lot of appeals, summarises the latest debates on migration – and ignores the problems faced by an open society. By Canan Topcu
Since childhood, Ferda Ataman has been frequently confronted by strangers asking her "Where do you come from?" She is now voicing an appeal to those who are "exclusively German without a migration background" to stop asking people questions about their origins.
Ataman wants her book to be understood as a contribution to the debate – not "by a migrant but by a citizen who is worried about her country. A concerned citizen, so to speak." In two sections, each divided into five chapters, she deals with German society and today's migration policy and debates. In the first part she informs readers about five alleged misunderstandings in this country of immigration.
Clarifying five misunderstandings
Ataman sees the first of these as being that immigration is only desirable if it "benefits us", and that migrants are expected to be grateful. The title of the first chapter makes it clear what she thinks of this: "Migrants don't owe Germany anything. On the contrary."
The second misunderstanding is based on the assumption that only those who are descended from Germans can be "German". Ataman says it's time to distance ourselves from the nationalist/ethnic notion of what it means to be German.
The daughter of Turkish immigrants, journalist Ferda Ataman was born in Germany and is one of the many self-confident descendants of migrant workers – a generation that is desperate to be recognised as part of German society
A further misunderstanding she sees is that "integration" is not quite clearly defined with a single goal in mind, but is rather understood to imply some sort of obligation on the part of immigrants.
Ataman summarises the fourth misunderstanding as follows: migration is regarded as a "state of emergency" and conceived of as a problem, even though Europe has always been "a Mecca for the mobile".
The fifth misunderstanding arises from the fact that the actual cause of the problems in Germanyʹs immigration society is not being taken seriously: namely, the political shift to the right and the associated threat to democracy.
A plea for a new definition of being German
Using examples – mostly based on current events and debates – Ataman refutes what she considers to be the prevailing notions in the majority society about how migrants are supposed to behave and what is threatening Germany.
The author doesn't seem to mind that she, too, is sitting in judgement on others, over-generalising and making only the one side responsible for every problem.
"We are not interested in successful integration. We're talking above all about disintegration," she writes. Apart from the fact that it is not clear who is meant by "we", this statement is simply incorrect.
The fact that migration is not a new phenomenon is surely perfectly clear by now to all those who really want to know. That the open society needs a paradigm shift and a new "we", and that this "we" should be "without nationalist/ethnic ballast" is likewise not really new.
Much of what Ataman describes, laments, analyses and proposes sounds familiar. Particularly in recent years, a number of articles have been appeared in the media and books have been published that deal with the migration debates in a far more nuanced manner.
Empowerment for "Mihigrus" – people with a migration background
The daughter of Turkish immigrants, Ataman was born in Germany and is one of the many self-confident descendants of migrant workers, a generation that is desperate to be recognised as part of German society. Ataman made a name for herself as the columnist for Spiegel magazine who so angered the German Federal Minister of the Interior that he cancelled his participation in an integration conference.
The journalist went on to become the spokesperson for the debate, taking charge of framing the demands of "Mihigrus", the term she uses in her book to refer to people with a so-called migration background. She wants "Mihigrus" to be understood as an "affectionate" appellation.
It is not immediately obvious, on the other hand, how all the other terms she has coined are meant to be taken – such as "Exclusive German", "Standard German", "Root German", "Homoallemanen" and "Original Member of the People". And how should "Germans on Probation" and "Trial Germans" be understood?
Humour not immediately obvious
Is this wordplay meant to be witty? If so, then it is not readily recognisable as such, even though Ataman emphasises in the introduction how important it is to her that the dispute should not be conducted acrimoniously. Ataman's humour works when she speaks, but not really when written down.
Gauging from the reactions to the book so far, Ataman's cheeky tone, her demanding nature appeal above all to "Mihigrus", particularly those who are familiar with the discourse and share the author's opinions. It is precisely these readers who feel confirmed in their positions by what Ataman writes, so the book is certainly helpful in terms of empowering Mihigrus.
But will her proposals for a constructive discourse on migration reach those who do not believe in an open society? Probably not – due to the author's brash nature and demanding attitude. Who wants to be told in an insolent tone what his or her attitude should be towards migration and an open society? The book is therefore not exactly helpful in changing the minds of people opposed to immigration and those who want to see restrictive migration policies implemented.
Empathy for the perspective of "Mihigrus" is by contrast aroused by another book that came out simultaneously with Ataman's polemic: "I am Ozlem". Dilek Gungor, likewise a daughter of Turkish migrant workers, chose the literary form for pursuing the question of origins.
The author has her first-person narrator look back at her childhood and youth in her search for answers to questions that others ask her, but which above all she asks herself – including questions regarding her origins. Ozlem takes stock without accusations, without reproach. She tells of how her typecasting by others has influenced her (self-)perception, her thinking and her behaviour.
Empathy for a change in perspective
Gungor tells her story in quiet tones, giving the reader insights into the memories and thoughts of the novel's main character. And that is precisely why she manages to arouse empathy – something that is rarely spoken of in the discourse on migration. And yet, empathy is essential for a change in perspective and the ability to understand people with hybrid identities.
Gungor has written a book that speaks to everyone in this society. And Ataman? On one of the last pages of her book we read: "I am writing this polemic because I have the impression that the many decision-makers are not responding properly to the pressure from the right." A noble motive. Nevertheless, before writing, Ataman should have looked more closely at the question of whether humour, irony and exaggeration are suitable stylistic devices for a book that seeks to draw attention to the pressure from the right and to stand up to the critics of an open society.
Canan Topcu
Non-fiction: Aladin El-Mafaalani's "Das Integrationsparadox": Demanding a seat at the tableThe integration litmus test: Success for some means failure for othersIntegration in Germany: Finally growing up
Immigration, Islam in Germany, Islamophobia, Migration, Migration in Germany, Muslims in the West
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Canan Topçu