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A Quick Recap of Rick Thornquist's Visit to My House for His Infocom Project
Sun, 03/21/2010 - 4:20pm — Bill Loguidice
Rick Thornquist, who is working on a wonderful book and companion DVDs on Infocom (with a particular focus on the individuals who made the company tick), stopped by today on his packed trip schedule to get some additional photos from my collection. We set up various systems, including the TI-99/4a, Mac Classic, Atari ST, etc., so he could photograph the Infocom classics running on them (due to their age of course, some of my systems, like the IBM PC 5150 and TRS-80 Model I refused to work properly for us). My house in New Jersey was one of many destinations on his trip, which started at his home in Canada and took (and will continue to take) him throughout the US to both gather material from and interview (in HD, of course), those involved with (and interested in) the company. It's a heck of a project, and from what I could see, he's doing everything exactly as any true fan would want, so the end product (probably a coffee table book with companion DVDs) is definitely one to look out for after it's completed, particularly based on some of the great stories he was telling me. Between this, and Jason Scott's soon-to-be-released, Get Lamp, documentary, both Infocom and text adventure fans in general have a great deal to look forward to. As always, we'll keep you posted on the latest with all of these projects.
Comments
I look forward to the final product. I bet it felt really fun to be a part of his journey and contribute to the eye candy. Thanks for sharing, Bill.
Hearing about things like this just makes me nod my head in agreement. Preservation of videogame knowledge is important, can be done, and should be done. I wish Rick the best of luck with this project.
It's great that your amazing retro collection has proved an invaluable resource to budding historians and authors. That's very generous of you.
What are your future plans for your collection? Keep it in the basement, start some sort of museum, sell it all of when the going rate is astronomical, or what? I'm just curious... :-)
Well, it's just hoarding (or should I say, worse hoarding) if I don't actively use it and contribute historical materials either for my own projects or for those of others. I just wish I had more time to do stuff like that. It's very difficult with a full-time job, family, other work, etc.
Future plans? Definitely not to sell it, though I will be weeding duplicates (and beyond) certainly, which is something I'd have done more of already if time permitted. Otherwise it will be to use and enjoy it for as long as I live (perhaps my kids can sell it off for good money after my passing). Even as a child, even when I didn't know it as such, collecting this stuff has always brought me great joy. The downside of course is the sheer volume I've acquired over the years, which makes my collection and actual usage unwieldy. I've certainly run into storage issues of late, which is something that definitely needs to be addressed at some point, though I have not figured that out as of yet.
I had planned the next AA TV episode to be on the Laseractive, but since the stuff I was working with with Rick is still out, I'll instead be focusing on those systems. It's all stuff I would have gotten to anyway. On the desk (in the arcade area) at the moment is my TRS-80 Model I setup, which I'm not really in the mood to do, but since it's there, it's probably as good as any. Also out (in the office) are the TI-99/4a, which has tons of fascinating things I want to get to (PEB, MBX, etc.), Atari ST/Ste/Falcon, Mac classic, IBM PC 5150, etc. I honestly don't know how I'll be doing the coverage though - at minimum each will need multi-parts - as the YouTube format lends itself better to single product focus rather than broad looks. |
Q:
How to simplify sorting in Primefaces p:dataTable component. Unexpected sorting icons founded
I want to incorporate simple sorting to datatable in Primefaces.
My code is:
<p:dataTable id="tbl" var="data" value="#{dataView.avaliableData}"
paginatorTemplate="{CurrentPageReport} {FirstPageLink} {PreviousPageLink} {PageLinks} {NextPageLink} {LastPageLink}"
paginator="true" rows="10" sortMode="simple" paginatorPosition="bottom">
<p:column headerText="#{msg.id}" sortBy="#{data.id}">
<h:outputText value="#{data.id}" />
</p:column>
<p:column headerText="#{msg.name}" sortBy="#{data.name}">
<h:outputText value="#{data.name}" />
</p:column>
<p:column headerText="#{msg.entity}" sortBy="#{data.entity}">
<h:outputText value="#{data.entity}" />
</p:column>
<p:column headerText="#{msg.date}" sortBy="#{data.date}">
<h:outputText value="#{data.date}" />
</p:column>
</p:dataTable>
But the result is so confusing. This picture illustrates it (I don't have enough reputation to post it here directly).
Click here for viewing the datatable anomaly example
Why do I see several sorting items? I just want to see only an icon which sorts in ascending or descending order.
A:
Apparently it was caused by the misapplication of the stylesheet incorporating background icon.
I gather that it was due to the version of Primefaces. I have overwritten the
.ui.datatable .ui-sortable-column-icon
entry in my stylesheet and the strange icons has disappeared.
|
Q:
Behavior of awaiting Promise Value
I am developing an application based on nodejs and electron, that has to retrieve data from an nedb-database. I have not fully understood the concept of Promises, or I think I have understood it far enough to use it, but it always ends up in a mess of a dozen nested callbacks because of the asynchronous nature of promises.
I am aware of threads like this one and the solutions brought up there. Using callbacks or the .then().method of Promises might be fine if that code path is a "dead end" (e.g. errorhandling), but for many sequential lines, it will end up in endlessly nested code.
I am also aware one should not use return await ...(), but I tried some ways to make an asynchronous method synchronous. The following code brought up some questions:
function getFromDatabase() {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
//do something with asynchronous database api
resolve('database element');
})
}
async function getSynchronous() {
var dbElement = await getFromDatabase();
console.log("before returning: " + dbElement)
return dbElement;
}
console.log("returned: " + getSynchronous());
The code will return:
returned: [object Promise]
before returning: database element
Why is the same object (dbElement) containing the string when logging it inside the function ('before returning: ...') and containing the promise when handed back through the return of the function
Why is the returned object logged to console before the one inside the function is?
A:
Why is the same object (dbElement) containing the string when logging it inside the function ('before returning: ...') and containing the promise when handed back through the return of the function
Every async function returns a Promise for its return value. So when you return a regular value from, an async function - you get a promise for that value.
It is perfectly fine (until we have top level await stable) to wrap your "main" code in an IIFE (immediately invoked function expression) and use await there though:
(async () => { // can use await here
console.log("returned: " + await getSynchronous());
})();
Why is the returned object logged to console before the one inside the function is?
A promise is value + time, the JavaScript execution model is that synchronous code always runs start-to-finish and you can only "register" things to run by the platform at a later time. So in this case getSynchronous returns synchronously but the await happens after all synchronous code is done.
While there is nothing asynchronous in this code - whenever you await something other synchronous code gets a chance to run first so that if you change the implementation of what you are awaiting to be truly asynchronous or something asynchronous you won't get a nasty race condition in your execution order. This is also true for the way Promise then callbacks execute generally.
|
The present invention relates to sound suppressors and silencers for firearms, and more particularly to a suppressor having a modular system of baffles, a blast tube and an expansion tube removably and detachably joined with one another to facilitate customization and repair of components of the suppressor.
Firearm suppressors, also known as silencers, reduce the audible noise or sharp report of a firearm by controlling and reducing the energy levels of propellant gases discharged from the muzzle of the firearm. Most conventional suppressors include a tube or “can” having a series of baffles therein that control and delay the flow, expansion, and exit of propellant gases from the silencer. In so doing, the silencers achieve a corresponding reduction in the noise produced by the exiting propellant gases.
Many conventional suppressors include baffles and internal components that are fixedly welded to the silencer can and/or one another. Over time, the baffles and components can become dirty from the gases and debris carried in them. Because the components are fixed, they can be difficult to clean. Further, if a silencer is misaligned with a muzzle, a bullet can damage one of the baffles or other internal components. Due to the fixed connections, it can be difficult if not impossible to replace the damaged component and repair the suppressor.
Some suppressors include cans that are welded or joined with threads to end caps or other tubes. Where welded, the cans can be difficult to replace or change out when damaged due to a misaligned bullet or external impacts to the can. Where solely threaded together, the threads sometimes might not offer a perfect seal to prevent propellant gases from escaping therethrough. This can result in the discharge of hot propellant gases and associated debris where the components are joined.
In operation, as mentioned above, most silencers include baffles inside the can that control the flow, expansion and exit of propellant gases from the silencer. These baffles generally direct the flow of gases from the muzzle along a single pathway toward the exit of the can. Along the way, the baffles can dissipate and redirect the gases, but generally the single gas pathway leads through bullet apertures defined at an interior of the baffles or center of the can. While effective in many cases, the single gas pathway might present issues in effectively dissipating the gases and controlling expansion.
Some silencers are outfitted with an over the barrel expansion chamber which is basically an extension of the can that extends rearward of the muzzle, over a portion of the barrel to which the silencer is joined. While this can offer more area within the can to control and dissipate expanding gases, it can present issues when a user utilizes the silencer with different weapons. For example, the silencer and in particular the over the barrel expansion chamber may readily fit over a standard government profile barrel, however, when the user tries to put the silencer on a firearm with a bull barrel or odd front handguard, the over the barrel expansion chamber might not fit. This can limit the versatility of the silencer and its compatibility with different weapon systems.
Accordingly, there remains room for improvement in the field of silencers and suppressors for firearms. |
Semen pH in patients with normal versus abnormal sperm characteristics.
The World Health Organization laboratory manual, last revised in 1992, states that the normal pH of semen ranges from 7.2 to 8.0. Our experience has been that values in our patient population are consistently higher than this range. To confirm this we reviewed >1100 semen records. All patient records from January 1994 to December 1998 that had semen pH measurements and sperm concentration and motility measurements recorded were included in this study. We also determined the semen pH in a subgroup of patients who underwent sperm preparations for intrauterine inseminations that resulted in documented pregnancies. Histograms were used to describe the populations and the Mann-Whitney test was used for group comparisons. For all patients (N = 1199) mean (+/-SD) semen pH was 8.2 +/- 0.3. The range was 7.3 to 9.5, with pH <8.0 in 32% of the samples. The semen pH among the patients with normal sperm concentration and motility values (n = 602) was not different from that among those with abnormal parameters (n = 597). Mean semen pH value was 8.2 for both groups. In a small group of patients (n = 19) whose sperm preparations had been documented to result in a clinical pregnancy after intrauterine insemination the semen pH was 8.3 +/- 0.3, with a range of 7.9 to 8.7. Our study questions the reference range defined by the World Health Organization for semen pH of 7.2 to 8.0. The mean values that we observed in our population, including those of samples from patients with normal sperm parameters, consistently lay outside that range. |
Remote endarterectomy versus supragenicular bypass surgery for long occlusions of the superficial femoral artery: medium-term results of a randomized controlled trial (the REVAS trial).
To investigate the optimal surgical treatment, remote superficial femoral artery endarterectomy (RSFAE) or supragenicular bypass, for Transatlantic Inter-Society Consensus (TASC) C and D lesions of the superficial femoral artery. Medium-term results will be presented. The study randomized 116 patients, 61 to RSFAE and 55 to supragenicular bypass surgery. Indications for surgery were claudication in 77, rest pain in 21, or tissue loss in 18. Primary patency after 3 years of follow-up was 47% for RSFAE and 60% for bypass (p = 0.107), assisted primary patency was 63 and 69% (p = 0.406), and secondary patency was 69 and 73% (p = 0.541), respectively. For venous (n = 25) and prosthetic grafts (n = 30) at 3-year follow-up, primary patency was 65% and 56 versus 47% for RSFAE (p = 0.143), assisted primary patency was 84% and 56 versus 63% for RSFAE (p = 0.052), and secondary patency was 89% and 59 versus 69% for RSFAE (p = 0.046), respectively. Limb salvage was 97% after RSFAE and 95% after bypass surgery (p = 0.564). RSFAE is a minimally invasive option for surgical repair of TASC C and D superficial femoral artery obstructions, with assisted primary and secondary patency rates comparable with bypass surgery. Venous bypass grafting is superior to both RSFAE and polytetrafluoroethylene grafting, but only 45% of patients had a sufficient saphenous vein available. If the saphenous vein is not applicable, RSFAE should be considered because it is less invasive and prosthetic graft material can be avoided. |
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
April 23, 2009
No. 08-60368 Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Petitioner
v.
GRENADA STAMPING AND ASSEMBLY INC.
Respondent
On Petition to Enforce the Orders of the
National Labor Relations Board
26-CA-22031, 26-CA-22041, 26-CA-22077
Before JONES, Chief Judge, and WIENER and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) petitions for enforcement
of its order compelling Respondent 1 Grenada Stamping and Assembly, Inc.
(“Grenada”) to bargain with the United Steel, Paper & Forestry, Rubber,
Manufacturing, Energy, Allied-Industrial and Service Workers International
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR . R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not
be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR .
R. 47.5.4.
1
5 TH CIR . R. 15.2 denominates Grenada the petitioner for purposes of briefing and oral
argument, but we refer to its true party position in the opinion.
Union (“the Union”) as the presumptive collective bargaining agent of Grenada’s
employees. The NLRB issued its order after affirming the ruling of the
Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) in a proceeding filed by the Union against
Grenada in which the Union complained that the poll of employees conducted by
Grenada and a ban by Grenada on discussions about the Union on the plant floor
violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”). The
Union also claimed that Grenada and its predecessors (all respondents before
the ALJ) violated Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the Act by (1) refusing to
recognize the Union as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of its
employees, to bargain with the Union, and to provide the Union with necessary
and relevant information requested by the Union, and (2) improperly making
changes to its employees’ benefits.
Ruling in favor of the Union, the ALJ concluded that (1) the poll conducted
by Grenada to determine whether the Union still enjoyed the support of a
majority of the employees was not, as required, conducted by a secret ballot, (2)
the poll was conducted in a coercive atmosphere or otherwise as an unfair labor
practice, (3) adequate assurances against reprisals were not given, and (4)
reasonable advance notice of the poll was not furnished to the Union. In this
regard, the ALJ ruled — and Grenada cannot and does not seriously challenge
— that Grenada was the “perfectly clear successor” to its predecessor, Grenada
Manufacturing LLC, from the bankruptcy estate of which Grenada had acquired
all assets. The ALJ concluded that Grenada’s successor status required it to
recognize the Union and to bargain with it.
On appeal, the NLRB addressed only the ALJ’s rulings that (1) Grenada
was a perfectly clear successor to its predecessor, (2) Grenada failed to give the
Union reasonable advance notice of the poll, and (3) Grenada did not conduct the
2
poll by secret ballot. The NLRB did not address other findings and rulings of the
ALJ regarding the poll.2
After so ruling, the NLRB timely petitioned us for enforcement of its order.
Grenada opposes enforcement, and the Union, as intervener, supports it.
1. Standard of Review
We review the NLRB’s findings of facts for substantial evidence, its
conclusions of law de novo, and its reasonable construction of labor laws with
deference.3 A factual finding is supported by substantial evidence if there is
“more than a scintilla” of evidence supporting it, so that the relevant evidence
permits a reasonable mind to accept the NLRB’s conclusions.4 The evidence is
reviewed for sufficiency in light of the record as a whole, including any evidence
that fairly detracts from the NLRB’s findings.5
2. Applicable Law
To withdraw recognition of a union, an employer must have actual proof
that the union has lost the support of a majority of its employees.6 One method
by which an employer may make this determination is by conducting a poll of its
employees after the employer has formed a good-faith doubt about the union’s
majority status.7 “Stated another way, an employer that could lawfully
2
The NLRB affirmed the ALJ’s holding that Grenada committed unfair law practices
by prohibiting discussion of Union matters on the floor of the plant, refusing to furnish
necessary and relevant information requested by the Union, and improperly making changes
to employee benefits, none of which rulings are contested here by Grenada.
3
Sara Lee Bakery Grp., Inc. v. NLRB, 514 F.3d 422, 428 (5th Cir. 2008).
4
Id.
5
Sanderson Farms, Inc. v. NLRB, 335 F.3d 445, 448 (5th Cir. 2003).
6
Levitz Furniture Co. of the Pac., Inc., 333 NLRB 717, 723 (2001).
7
Id. at 717.
3
withdraw recognition [because of objective evidence of the union’s loss of
majority support] should be able to lawfully poll its employees, provided it
complies with the procedural safeguards articulated [by the NLRB] in
Struksnes.”8 Like the Supreme Court,9 we have recognized that polling is an
important tool by which an employer may gauge a union’s majority support;10
polls help companies avoid liability for bargaining with a union that does not in
fact enjoy majority support.11
The procedural safeguards listed by the NLRB in its Struksnes opinion
require that: (1) The poll be directed to determining the truth of the union’s
claim of majority support; (2) the purposes for the poll be communicated to the
employees; (3) assurances against reprisals be given to the employees; (4) the
poll be conducted by secret ballot; and (5) the employer not engage in any unfair
labor practices or create a coercive atmosphere.12 To the five Struksnes
safeguards we have added a sixth, viz., that the employer must provide
reasonable advance notice to the union of the time and place of the poll.13
3. Analysis
We decline to address at length the numerous bases given by the ALJ for
invalidating Grenada’s activities in relation to the Union, and likewise decline
to address each of the rulings of the ALJ that the NLRB chose to consider in
8
Unifirst Corp., 346 NLRB 591, 595 (2006).
9
See Allentown Mack Sales & Serv., Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U.S. 359, 367 (1998).
10
NLRB v. A.W. Thompson, Inc., 651 F.2d 1141, 1145 (5th Cir. 1981), overruled on
other grounds by Allentown Mack, 522 U.S. at 364.
11
S.M.S. Automotive Products, 282 NLRB 36, 41 (1986).
12
Struksnes Constr. Co., 165 NLRB 1062, 1062-63 (1967).
13
Tex. Petrochem. Corp. v. NLRB, 923 F.2d 398, 402-03 (5th Cir. 1991).
4
affirming the ultimate holdings of the ALJ. Rather, in the interest of brevity, we
grant the petition of the NLRB for enforcement of its order after considering but
one of the reasons it proffered for affirming the ALJ’s invalidation of the poll:
Grenada’s failure to provide reasonable advance notice to the Union of the time
and place of the poll, in violation of Texas Petrochemicals Corp. v. NLRB.14 We
do so within the indisputable framework that (1) Grenada is, indeed, the
perfectly clear successor to Grenada Manufacturing LLC by virtue of Grenada’s
acquisition of that bankrupt company’s business and assets to conduct
essentially the same operations using essentially the same work force to perform
essentially the same jobs; (2) as conceded by the NLRB’s general counsel,
Grenada had a good faith basis for polling its employees to ascertain the extent
of their support for the Union; and (3) Grenada had the burden of proving that
it complied with the required procedural safeguards for polling, given that polls
of union sympathies are presumptively invalid.15 We conclude that there is
substantial evidence in the record to support the conclusion of the ALJ, as
affirmed by the NLRB, that Grenada failed to give the Union reasonable
advance notice of the poll.
Two weeks after the bankruptcy court approved Grenada’s purchase of its
predecessor’s assets, Grenada polled the employees at the plant. It was not until
the afternoon of the previous day, however, that Grenada first notified the
Union’s representatives, near the end of their shift, that the poll of the
employees regarding their support for the Union would commence at 7:00 a.m.
the following morning; this, despite the fact that a full week earlier Grenada had
14
Id.
15
E.g., Wisc. Porcelain Co., Inc., 349 NLRB 151, 151-52 (2007); see Tex. Petrochem.
Corp., 923 F.2d at 401-02 (describing the duty of the employer to rebut the presumption of
majority status by conducting a poll in accordance with the required procedural safeguards).
5
retained local attorney Tarik Johnson as the person to supervise the poll. We
perceive no viable argument in support of Grenada’s contention that its notice
to the Union was reasonable. Grenada had informed Johnson of the date and
time of the poll six days beforehand, yet did not notify the Union until a scant
18 hours before the poll was scheduled to begin. Even then, notice was not
furnished until the afternoon on the day preceding the next morning’s 7:00 a.m.
poll, thereby making it virtually impossible for the Union to seek legal guidance,
communicate with the employees, or arrange for the presence of observers or
third-party administrators before the poll became a fait accompli.
In defense of its claim of reasonable notice, Grenada first offers that the
NLRB has reached contradictory results in other cases about the amount of
advance notice needed, so this court should remand for an explanation of which
line of precedent controls.16 As we explain below, the instant case is not
inconsistent with the cases cited by Grenada, so remand is unnecessary.
In its further efforts to support its contention that it provided reasonable
advance notice of the poll, Grenada cites Unifirst Corp., a case in which the
union was given only a few days’ advance notice of the poll by mail, but
employees were informed of the poll at a company-wide meeting several days
before the poll was conducted.17 In Boaz Carpet Yarns, which preceded Texas
Petrochemicals,18 the NLRB did hold that one day’s notice to a union was
16
See, e.g., NLRB v. Rolligon Corp., 702 F.2d 589, 592 (5th Cir. 1983).
17
346 NLRB 591, 606 (2004) (meeting held on August 28; poll conducted on August 31).
18
It is true, as Grenada points out, that some case law established a requirement of
advance notice prior to Texas Petrochemicals. See, e.g., Hutchinson-Hayes Int’l, Inc., 264
NLRB 1300, 1308 (1982), overruled on other grounds by Laidlaw Waste Sys., Inc., 307 NLRB
1211 (1992); NLRB v. A.W. Thompson, Inc., 651 F.2d 1141 (5th Cir. 1981), overruled on other
grounds by Allentown Mack Sales & Serv., Inc. v. NLRB, 522 U.S. 359 (1998). Nevertheless,
Texas Petrochemicals was our first clear statement that such an independent requirement
6
sufficient, but there the union had received notice of the employees’
dissatisfaction via a petition signed by a majority of employees a full month
earlier.19 Further, the Boaz employees received at least three days’ advance
notice of the poll via a posting in the workplace; here, the notice to employees
was not posted until less than twenty-four hours before the commencement of
the poll. Finally, the fact that Texas Petrochemicals involved absolutely no
advance notice is not dispositive. Although no advance notice is obviously not
reasonable advance notice, it does not follow that a mere 18 hours notice is
reasonable advance notice per se.
The policy behind advance notice — allowing a union time to have contact
with the employees and to disseminate information — was certainly not
furthered by the very short time in which to act that Grenada afforded to the
Union. Unavailing is Grenada’s contention that, because employees could
question Grenada’s representative who was conducting the poll (Johnson), the
Union did not need time to consult with its members and lawyers. Grenada’s
logic is obviously flawed: Johnson could provide employees information about
the polling process, but not about the merits of union representation or the
possibly impermissible manner in which the poll was being conducted. Further,
as Texas Petrochemicals specifically noted, “[a]dvance notice is particularly
exists.
19
280 NLRB 40, 45 (1986). Grenada argues that the Union in this case had advance
notice that its support was flagging, a finding supported by the concession that Grenada had
a good faith doubt about the majority status of the Union. Therefore, Grenada argues, its poll
falls within the Boaz exception. Nothing as formal as that which has occurred in Boaz (where
a petition was presented) occurred here. Further, as noted, Boaz predates Texas
Petrochemicals; and the Grenada employees did not receive the several days’ advance notice
here that they did in Boaz. Even if it remains good law, Boaz is inapplicable here. To hold
otherwise would eviscerate the advance-notice requirement by equating the belief that an
employer must hold before conducting a poll with notice to the Union. Logic does not support
such a conclusion, and Allentown Mack rejected it.
7
important when a successor employer seeks to poll its employees shortly after
taking over the company and contemplates negotiating with the union.”20
4. Conclusion
We are comfortable in granting the NLRB’s petition to enforce its order
invalidating the poll for Grenada’s failure to satisfy the reasonable-advance-
notice requirement expressed in our Texas Petrochemicals opinion.21 Under the
discrete facts of this case (to which this opinion is limited), Grenada’s contention
that the time and timing of the first and only notice to the Union of the poll —
at mid-afternoon of the day before the 7:00 a.m. commencement of voting — was
reasonable, rings hollow. This is particularly so when viewed in the light of
Grenada’s planning of the event no less than a full week prior to the poll, as
evidenced by its retention of Johnson that far in advance as the person to
conduct it. There can be no serious question that the notice was not furnished
a reasonable time in advance because, inter alia, that timing eliminated any
chance that the Union might otherwise have had to contact its members or take
steps to ensure that the poll would be conducted in compliance with the
requirements of Struksnes and in such a manner as not to constitute an unfair
labor practice.
We grant the petition of the NLRB to enforce all aspects of its order in this
action.
PETITION GRANTED.
20
Tex. Petrochem. Corp. v. NLRB, 923 F.2d 398, 403 (5th Cir. 1991).
21
Id.
8
|
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of transmitting bursts in a digital broadcasting network, particularly, but not exclusively, to a method of transmitting bursts in a digital video broadcasting (DVB) network.
The present invention also relates to a network element for preparing bursts to be transmitted in a digital broadcasting network, particularly, but not exclusively, to a multiprotocol encapsulator (MPE) for use in a DVB network.
The present invention further relates to a terminal for receiving data from a digital broadcasting network, particularly, but not exclusively to a mobile, handheld terminal for receiving data from a DVB network
2. Discussion of Related Art
ETSI EN 302 304 “Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Transmission System for Handheld Terminals (DVB-H)” V1.1.1 (2004-06) specifies a system for delivering multimedia services via DVB networks to mobile, handheld terminals. The system is based on DVB data broadcasting specified in ETSI EN 301 192 “Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); DVB Specification for data broadcasting” V1.4.1 (2004-06).
In DVB data broadcasting, data is delivered to a terminal in datagrams, which are placed in sections using Multi-Protocol Encapsulation (MPE). MPE sections in turn are mapped into MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS) packets in accordance with ISO/IEC Standard 13818-1 “Information Technology-Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: Systems” for transmission.
It is more difficult to receive data at a mobile, battery-powered terminal, than it is to a static, mains-powered terminal. For example, mobile reception is particularly prone to impulse noise. Furthermore, terminal battery power is limited.
DVB-H employs forward error correction (FEC) to provide robustness against noise and uses time slicing to allow a terminal to conserve battery life.
Data and associated FEC parity data may be prepared in a data frame known as an MPE-FEC frame and reference is made to Clause 9.3 in EN 302 304 ibid.
A conventional MPE-FEC frame is arranged as a matrix with 255 columns and a flexible number of rows. The number of rows is signaled in service information (SI) and can have a value of up to 1024. Each position in the matrix holds a byte of data and so an MPE-FEC frame can hold up to almost 2 Mbits of data.
The left part of the MPE-FEC frame, consisting of the 191 leftmost columns, is dedicated to OSI layer 3 (in other words, Network layer) datagrams, such as Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams, and possible padding, and is called the application data table. The right part of the MPE-FEC frame, consisting of the 64 rightmost columns, is dedicated for the parity information of the FEC code and is called the RS data table. Each byte position in the application data table has an address ranging from 0 to 191×no_of_rows−1. Similarly, each byte position in the RS data table has an address ranging from 0 to 64×no_of_rows−1.
Layer 3 datagrams are introduced datagram-by-datagram, starting with the first byte of the first datagram in the upper left corner of the matrix and going downwards to the first column. The length of the datagrams may vary arbitrarily from datagram to datagram. Immediately after the end of one datagram, the following datagram starts. If a datagram does not end precisely at the end of a column, it continues at the top of the following column. When all datagrams have entered the application data table any unfilled byte positions are padded with zero bytes, which makes the leftmost 191 columns completely filled.
With all the leftmost 191 columns filled it is now possible, for each row, to calculate the 64 parity bytes from the 191 bytes of data and possible padding. The code used is Reed-Solomon RS (255,191,64). Each row then contains one RS codeword. Some of the rightmost columns of the RS data table may be discarded and hence not transmitted, to enable puncturing. The exact number of punctured RS columns does not need to be explicitly signaled and may change dynamically between frames. Thus, the RS data table is filled and the MPE-FEC frame is completed.
IP datagrams are mapped into MPE sections and RS columns are mapped into MPE-FEC sections.
The datagrams are carried in MPE sections in compliance with the DVB standard, irrespective of whether MPE-FEC is being used. This makes reception fully backwards compatible with MPE-FEC ignorant receivers. Each section carries a start address for the payload in the section header. This address indicates the byte position in the application data table of the first byte of the section payload. In case the datagram is divided over multiple MPE sections, each MPE section indicates the byte position in the application data table of the first byte of the datagram fragment carried within the section. The receiver will then be able to put the received datagram in the right byte positions in the application data table and mark these positions as “reliable” for the RS decoder, provided the section CRC-32 check shows that the section is correct.
The last section of the application data table contains a table boundary flag, which indicates the end of the datagrams within the application data table. If all previous sections within the application data table have been received correctly the receiver does not need to receive any MPE-FEC sections and, if time slicing is used, the receiver can be switched off without receiving and decoding RS data. If MPE-FEC sections are also received, the number of padding columns (columns filled with padding bytes only) in the application data table is indicated with 8 bits in the section header of the MPE-FEC sections; this value is used if RS decoding is performed.
RS columns are carried in MPE-FEC sections. Each section carries exactly one column of the RS data table. Punctured columns are not transmitted and not signalled explicitly.
Data can be transmitted in time-slicing bursts and reference is made to Clause 9.2 in EN 302 304 ibid.
Time slicing involves sending data in bursts using significantly higher bit-rate compared to the bit-rate required if the data was transmitted using conventional bandwidth management. Within a burst, the time before the start of the next burst (delta-t) is indicated. Between the bursts, data of the elementary stream is not transmitted, allowing other elementary streams to use the bandwidth otherwise allocated. This enables a receiver to stay active only for a fragment of the time, while receiving bursts of a requested service.
Conventionally, the contents of one MPE-FEC frame is transmitted in one time-sliced burst. However, this arrangement suffers at least two drawbacks.
Firstly, the interleaving length of the application data and RS data is short and so the burst is still prone to noise. One solution is to lengthen the duration of the burst. However, this reduces the benefit of time slicing.
Secondly, if a burst carries data for more than one service, then the same level of error protection is used. |
Leave campaigners have hit back after Tony Blair suggested 'rational' voters would listen to US president Barack Obama's warnings about the dangers of Britain leaving the European Union.
In an outspoken intervention in the referendum campaign, the former prime minister also insisted the wave of immigration from eastern European countries that took place under his premiership had not been a problem for the country because the migrants contributed more in taxes than they took in benefits.
Tony Blair, seen at a conference in Beverly Hills yesterday, has said he believes Britons will do the 'sensible' thing and vote to say in the EU
But Brexit campaigners attacked the ex-Labour leader for consistently failing to secure a good deal for Britain during his time in No 10 and accused him of 'irresponsibly' opening up the UK's borders.
It comes as David Cameron prepares to be quizzed on the June 23 referendum by the powerful Commons Liaison Committee.
Chairman Andrew Tyrie said the Prime Minister would face 'careful scrutiny' in the 1hr 30min session later.
'The Prime Minister is uniquely well placed to provide this evidence,' he said. 'The decision to call the referendum was his. He led the renegotiations. So it is his views and explanations that matter most, and are most worthy of careful scrutiny.'
Mr Obama used a visit to London last month to warn that Britain would be at ''the back of the queue'' for American trade deals if it quit the EU.
After talks with Mr Cameron, he insisted the UK would not be able to strike a free trade deal with the US 'any time soon' because Washington's focus would be on reaching agreement with Brussels.
The comments sparked a furious backlash from the Brexit camp, which claimed the president was 'doing the bidding of Cameron' and accused him of 'hypocrisy' for intervening in the British campaign.
But Mr Blair said Mr Obama's views 'count' and it was 'important' that voters know what he thinks.
In an interview for Bloomberg TV in Los Angeles, he said: 'When you look at the polls, they're pretty evenly matched. But my best instinct about this is that the country will do the sensible thing and stay in the EU.
Mr Blair catching a flight in the US yesterday
'If we were to leave it would put a level of economic insecurity into the ordinary family household that I think most people would think is a foolish risk to take. But I have to say I look at politics round the world these days and it's in an unpredictable state.
'If you're rational, the view of the president of the most powerful country in the world and our biggest ally should matter. When someone like President Obama comes, I think it's important we know his view. It does count.
'Personally, I do not feel that the immigration from eastern Europe was a problem for Britain. I think those people contribute far more in taxes than they ever take in benefits. They're hard-working people, they're good members of our community. And the benefit of having eastern Europe in the EU is enormous.'
A Vote Leave spokesman said: ' Tony Blair consistently failed to get a good deal for Britain from the EU, squandering our rebate and irresponsibly opening up our borders. |
Kolumba
Kolumba is the art museum of the archbishopric of Cologne. As combination of place, collection and architecture it allows the visitor to experience two millennia of western culture in one building housing art from late antiquity to the present. The architecture combines the ruins of the late Gothic church St. Kolumba, the chapel “Madonna in the Ruins” (1950), the unique archaeological excavation (1973-1976), and the new building designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The warm grey brick of the massive building unite with the tuffs, basalt and bricks of the ruins. A secret garden, stone ruins, a uniquely dense archaeological site: the ruins of the gothic church in the center of rebuilt Cologne are the most impressive symbol of the city’s almost complete destruction during the Second World War. Kolumba allows visitors to immerse themselves in the presence of their memories and offers them their own experiences on their way. |
A gay couple looking to find a flat share in London got a shock when they were turned down by prospective flatmates for not being “a regular couple”.
George Poole, and his boyfriend tweeted a screenshot of the brief exchange which took place after they enquired about a flat share.
In response the received the message: “Hi guys, sorry but we are looking for a regular couple. Thanks for understanding.”
Text: Not a ‘regular couple’
Poole tweeted his disbelief at the response, but not before firing back: “FYI we are a regular couple. Homosexuality is not irregular! Thanks for being ignorant.”
The image of the text messages was retweeted by British gold-medal winning Olympian Greg Rutherford, who said: “A friend of my GF is moving to London. He’s gay. He, with his boyfriend, enquired about a house share. The response?”
Mr Poole told PinkNews: “The message arrived early yesterday morning and it did take me back slightly, to the point I didn’t really know how to respond.
“I did get a response saying they were busy and that they were not thinking and hoped no offence was taken.
“Regardless of the arena whether it’s public or private – this ‘mistake’ should not occur.
“I know they didn’t mean it in a homophobic way, but their wording had homophobic repercussions, regardless of how subtle they are. It’s those subtleties which can be most dangerous to a society.”
Discriminating against a couple in such a way could be in breach of the sexual orientation regulation of Equality Act.
Poole also later tweeted: “Finding accommodation in LDN is more stressful than it should be. Someone pass me the port.” |
Introduction
============
Primary cutaneous tuberculosis results from the direct inoculation of *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* into the skin of a person with no previous history of tuberculosis infection [@b1]. Cutaneous tuberculosis is considered predominantly an occupational disease and is a challenging diagnosis to make, especially in low-income countries due to a wide array of differential diagnoses, for example, fungal infections, leishmaniasis [@b2],[@b3].
Case Presentation
=================
A 27-year-old previously healthy African male medical intern sustained a needle-stick injury from a wide bore needle (gauge 18) to his little finger while performing a lumbar puncture on a HIV-infected patient. He sustained a small lesion that bled a little and he immediately washed it with water and soap. He was immediately started on postexposure prophylaxis Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs): Zidovudine, Lamivudine and Kaletra for 28 days as per the Kenya National AIDS Control Program protocol. His initial rapid HIV test (Determine) test was negative and so was a PCR done on completion of the ARVs. He had no significant past medical history.
The patient source, an African Female, was WHO clinical stage 4, not on ARVs and was being investigated for meningitis died soon the lumbar puncture and her results were not followed up until several months later.
Two weeks after the injury, the intern had swelling of the little finger associated with a persistent dull ache for which he sought surgical intervention. Pus was aspirated from the finger and incision and drainage were done under local anesthesia. Culture of the pus grew *Staphylococcus aureus* sensitive to flucloxacillin on which he was started.
His little finger now had an open wound that persisted for several months despite debridement and different antibiotic regimens: levofloxacin, clindamycin, ceftriaxone, and vancomycin. The intern continued to clean and dress his wound daily.
He developed painless axillary lymphadenopathy 6 weeks after the injury. For the next 6 months, there was persistent swelling of the little finger which seemed to be spreading to the hand (Fig.[1](#fig01){ref-type="fig"}). This was accompanied with low-grade fever, night sweats, and subjective weight loss. He underwent a surgical debridement 6 months after the injury and was started on levofloxacin. Intraoperatively necrotic debris was found.
{#fig01}
Radiographic examinations done during the course of illness showed no bone involvement. Serial blood counts done in the course of illness showed persistently elevated lymphocytes and a raised ESR. Liver function test and renal tests were normal.
Ten months later and with no improvement of symptoms, he underwent yet another surgical debridement. Histological examination of the tissue taken revealed a chronic inflammatory process (Fig.[2](#fig02){ref-type="fig"}), granulomatous tubercles with epithelioid cells (Fig.[3](#fig03){ref-type="fig"}), giant cells of Langerhans (Fig.[4](#fig04){ref-type="fig"}), and a mononuclear infiltrate but no acid-fast bacilli (AFB) were demonstrated on Ziehl--Nelson stain.
{#fig02}
{#fig03}
{#fig04}
He was started on rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol for duration of 2 months to be followed by a 4-month course of rifampicin and isoniazid. The intern had complete recovery by the end of the 6 months. A rapid HIV test done at the end of the anti-TB treatment was negative.
Discussion
==========
This is a case of primary cutaneous tuberculosis by direct inoculation. Tuberculosis continues to pose a significant public health problem and kills about 3 million people annually [@b4]. It is largely an airborne infection, but skin manifestations may be caused by hematogenous spread or contiguity from foci of infection which may be active or latent. Primary inoculation, another mode of transmission [@b5], results from direct inoculation of *M. tuberculosis* into the skin of a person who has no previous exposure and subsequently no immunity to the organism [@b6]. Cutaneous tuberculosis is rare and accounts for 0.1% of dermatology cases and only 1.5% of extra pulmonary tuberculosis cases [@b7],[@b8].
Once the traumatized skin of a previously uninfected person is inoculated with *M. tuberculosis,* a tuberculous chancre develops at that site within 3 weeks. A painless regional lymphadenopathy becomes prominent 3--6 weeks after inoculation, and a previously negative, intradermal, intermediate-strength purified protein derivative (PPD) test converts to a positive test [@b1].
Cutaneous tuberculosis is commonly seen amongst young adults because of their likelihood to sustain workrelated injuries and inoculation of tubercle bacilli [@b9]. It is also common amongst hospital personnel [@b10],[@b11].
The diagnosis of tuberculosis in this case was masked by an initial culture growth of *S. aureus* which led to a delay in diagnosis and several months of morbidity for the medical intern. This is comparable to a case report by Opara et al. on tuberculous arthritis of the knee with staphylococcus super infection in which a delay in the diagnosis led to adverse outcome [@b12].
Diagnosis requires correlation of clinical and histopathologic findings but a Mycobacterial culture is the most reliable method of detecting mycobacteria and monitoring treatment response. An absolute diagnosis can be made when AFB is visualized on a Ziehl--Nelson-stained slide of a smear prepared from material from lesions [@b13]. Cutaneous tuberculosis that occurs by direct inoculation is a paucibacillary disease, sparse bacilli seen on histology and microorganisms are difficult to isolate [@b2]. Smears, Ziehl--Nelson staining, and mycobacterial cultures in Lowenstein--Jensen and BACTEC media are frequently negative [@b14]. Typical features of a tuberculous chancre of tuberculosis include granulomatous tubercles with epithelioid cells, Langerhans giant cells, and a mononuclear infiltrate [@b15]. Useful diagnostic tools in the diagnosis of cutaneous tuberculosis include histopathologic findings of tubercles, isolation of *M. tuberculosis* in cultures of biopsy material, or by polymerase chain reaction [@b16].
Management of cutaneous tuberculosis is the treatment with four-agent regimen given for 2 months followed by a two-drug regimen for the next 4 months as per tuberculosis treatment guidelines for tuberculosis in other organs [@b13].
Conclusion
==========
Primary cutaneous tuberculosis is rare and should be suspected in all patients who present with skin lesions that do not respond to antibacterial treatment. Health care workers are at risk of direct inoculation of tuberculosis. A high index of suspicion is required to make the diagnosis of cutaneous tuberculosis because diagnostic methods are not sufficient and may lead to a delay in starting appropriate methods. Complete microbiological tests should be carried out for any persistent nonhealing wound or ulcer. Early management should be initiated to minimize morbidity.
We acknowledge the staff members of the histopathology lab at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital for the support with specimen preparation. We also acknowledge the affiliate institution Moi Teaching and Referral hospital in Eldoret, Kenya for allowing us access to patient information.
Conflict of Interest
====================
None declared.
[^1]: **Funding Information** No funding information provided.
|
European Central Bank president says threat of market collapse in the eurozone is the 'worst since the second world war'
This article is more than 9 years old
This article is more than 9 years old
The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, vigorously defended his controversial decision to buy up Italian and Spanish bonds, saying the European debt crisis held the potential for the worst market collapse for almost a century.
"It is the worst crisis since the second world war and it could have been the worst crisis since the first world war if leaders hadn't taken the important decisions," Trichet said in an interview with the French radio station Europe1 on Tuesday.
As the borrowing costs of the latest countries to be caught up in Europe's debt crisis fell for a second day running, Trichet implicitly confirmed that the ECB was behind a surge in purchases. "We are in the secondary market," he acknowledged.
The rise in demand lifted the prices of Italian and Spanish bonds, cutting their yields which represent the return to investors and the cost to the governments issuing them.
The news from the debt markets, however, did little to prevent turmoil on Europe's stock markets which extended their earlier, heavy losses before climbing back in response to the positive opening on Wall Street. Sentiment was initially depressed by the release of data showing a slowdown in German export growth.
The Federal Statistical Office said exports in June were up by 3.1% to €88.3bn($126bn) on the year, the lowest increase in 16 months. Since the introduction of the euro, Germany's export-led economy has become even more crucial to European growth than it was before.
"In June we got to feel the first indications of the decreasing global economic dynamism," said Anton Börner, the head of Germany's exporters' association, who warned that the effect of a slowing US economy would "be felt in the coming months".
The Bank of France's monthly industrial survey showed both corporate order books and factory utilisation rates falling for the second month in a row in July.
A slowdown in growth in the eurozone's two core economies would only encourage speculation that they are next in line to be contaminated by the debt crisis.
Bloomberg reported that, for the first time in three years, the cost of insuring against a German default on its bonds had risen to more than was asked for insurance against a British default.
By early evening, the spread – or gap – between the yield on Spain's benchmark, 10-year treasury bonds and their notionally safe German equivalents, had shrunk to 2.72%.
The spread on Italian bonds was down to 2.78%, reflecting a growing market perception that Italy, with its heavier debts and a government that is apparently less keen on reform, carries higher risks.
Trichet said: "In the past few days, we have asked the Italian government very clearly to take a certain number of decisions... and in particular to speed up the return to a situation of normal balance [between spending and revenue]."
He added: "The same thing has been asked of the Spanish government."
His remarks went some way towards confirming a report on Monday that he and his designated successor, the Italian central bank governor, Mario Draghi, had sent Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, a detailed "shopping list" of reforms they wanted in exchange for supporting Italy's bonds.
On Friday, Berlusconi announced that he was bringing forward to 2013 the date by which he intended to eliminate Italy's budget deficit.
The ECB's reported intervention has ignited political controversy, with opposition leaders claiming Berlusconi has surrendered control to Frankfurt.
Antonio Di Pietro, head of the Italy of Principles party, claimed that the prime minister had been "dragged by the ear by the EU and international economic institutions" into making last week's announcement.
Further evidence that the crisis is pushing the eurozone towards centralised policy-making came from Germany's economy minister and vice-chancellor, Philipp Rösler. He proposed the creation of a new "stability council" that could penalise member states that lived beyond their means and oversee competitiveness tests, which could look at, among other things, the flexibility of labour markets.
With some analysts expressing scepticism about the long-term effectiveness of the ECB's bond-buying spree, the bank's president refused to say how long it planned to remain in the market.
"What we expect is that the governments do what we consider to be their job," Trichet said.
It was agreed last month that the ECB should hand over its debt-purchasing role to the eurozone governments' bailout vehicle.
The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) cannot start to intervene in the markets, however, until its terms of reference have been adjusted and its new powers ratified by eurozone parliaments, which are in recess.
By most estimates, the process can be finished by mid-October. |
Stu Sternberg has stated it simply: without a new stadium, the Rays won’t be playing any baseball in Tampa Bay much longer.
It really isn’t any change from what’s the franchise owner been saying for the last decade, as he’s threatened in no fewer than a half-dozen different ways relocation if the region doesn’t help (read: $$$) build the Rays a new ballpark.
But today’s stance is a stark difference from what Sternberg told the editorial board for the then-St. Petersburg Times back in 2005, when he purchased majority ownership of the team:
“You will never — and I will say it now and hopefully I can say it and you’ll follow up — you will not hear the words, ‘We need to have a new stadium,'” Sternberg was quoted as saying by the Times. “We might like to have a new stadium. We can work with the authorities to have a new stadium and work with businesses to have a new stadium, but it won’t be from a sense of ‘need.’”
Well, Sternberg wanted someone to follow up …
So more than nine years after Sternberg started saying the Rays “need” a new stadium, it’s clear he made a miscalculation with his original promise.
Sternberg may have also made a slight business miscalculation, and every pro sports owner has the right to run his or her team as a business. But many fans would contend profits aren’t their responsibility.
Furthermore, from what we know about Major League Baseball’s business model — wildly-robust with lucrative broadcast and digital revenues — it would seem that Sternberg and other MLB owners are all making profits. We just don’t know that for a fact because none will agree to open their books to the public.
We also know the profits are flowing, because the value of Sternberg’s investment has skyrocketed.
He reportedly bought control of the team at a franchise valuation of $176 million, a bargain-basement price that was largely a result of poor attendance and the team’s contract handcuffing it to Tropicana Field.
According to Forbes, the Rays are now worth more than $1 billion, appreciation of 380 percent at a time the Dow Jones average grew just 250 percent.
So, while Sternberg may have miscalculated his words in promising he wouldn’t demand a new stadium, it doesn’t seem he miscalculated his investment. And a guy who is that savvy with investments likely isn’t miscalculating much about his next business move, either. |
Q:
Which Apex classes & Objects must be enabled in a Permission Set?
I'm still a bit unsure which Apex classes I have to enable in a Permission set.
I guess I don't need to enable Test classes
I definitely need to enable Controller and Controller extensions for enables VF pages
But do I also need to enable all the classes that are indirectly called by those classes
Does the with sharing tell me anything about whether or not to enable a class?
Does it matter wether the class is static or not?
Do I need to enable abstract super classes that are indirectly used?
What about Trigger Handler classes (= classes that hold the triggers code)?
The same in a way applies to Objects and their fields:
If I use a purely technical SObject that is created and deleted by trigger code only. Do I need to enable in the users permission set?
A:
that's a lot of questions!
1) No, you don't need to enable test class access permissions for users
2) Controllers and their extensions do need to be assigned by permissions (https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=users_profiles_apex_access.htm&language=en_US&release=180.7)
3) No, all classes required by a class to which a user has permission can then be accessed by the user.. (https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewHelpDoc?id=pages_page_level_security.htm&language=en_US)
4) "With sharing" affects only the record access (and SOQL) on a controller, "with sharing" means the class runs with the record access levels of the calling user, not the system. (http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/Content/apex_classes_keywords_sharing.htm) - it bears no relation to whether a user should have access to an Apex class.
5) No, Static has no affect on permissions, however, a lot of static classes/methods end up being called from other classes (in my experience) and so, with point 3 above, they will often find themselves "accessible" due to the cascading effect.
6) Nope, see 2 above!
7) Trigger events are executed at a system level every time they are required, so users do not need permissions for their code, or their associated utility classes
1a) Again, no because as per 7, the Trigger is executed by the system and so will have all the permissions needed to complete DML etc. (note the user may well not have access to the record that has been created though.)
|
If the 11 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and independent schools decide to incorporate the existing Bowl Championship Series bowl games into a four-team playoff, the sites of the two national semifinal games might be determined by the conference affiliations of the two highest-ranked teams.
Under a plan proposed during BCS meetings this week in Hollywood, Fla., BCS officials discussed having the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and Rose bowls serve as rotating sites for two semifinal games.
Conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick are leaning heavily toward offering a national championship game to the highest bidder, which might include host cities of the current BCS bowls, or new hosts such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Indianapolis, sources familiar with the discussions told ESPN.com.
After three days of meetings, college football certainly seems headed to a four-team playoff. A final decision might come before the end of the summer, if not sooner, but the postseason changes wouldn't take effect until the 2014 season.
The current BCS system, which pits the two highest-rated teams in the final BCS standings in a national championship game, will remain in place during the next two seasons.
Sources told ESPN.com that the commissioners are leaning toward incorporating the existing BCS bowls into a playoff. Instead of designating two BCS bowls as the host sites for two semifinal games before a particular season, the sites wouldn't be determined until the four participating teams were named.
In an effort to maintain a sense of tradition, conferences would keep their relationships with BCS bowl games -- the highest-ranked ACC team would play in the Orange Bowl, Big 12 in the Fiesta, Big Ten and Pac-12 in the Rose Bowl, and SEC in the Sugar Bowl.
For instance, if Alabama finished No. 1 in the retooled BCS standings, the Crimson Tide would host the No. 4 seed in a national semifinal game at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. If Oregon finished No. 2, the Ducks would host the No. 3 seed in the Rose Bowl Game presented by VIZIO in Pasadena, Calif.
A source familiar with the discussions said he preferred this particular plan because it "preserves tradition and the regional tie-ins."
The source said it also solved the "Rose Bowl problem" -- Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott have maintained their leagues' desire to play in the Rose Bowl every season.
Under this proposed plan, if a Big Ten or Pac-12 team finished in the top two spots, it would automatically play in Pasadena. And if a Big Ten or Pac-12 team didn't finish in the top two, teams from those leagues might still play in the Rose Bowl, as long as they were among the teams included in the BCS pool. The source said the plan maintained those leagues' relationships with the Rose Bowl, without giving them an "obscene consideration."
Sources told ESPN.com that conference commissioners were still weighing the positives and negatives of the proposed plan. One potential issue is that based on historical results, the Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl might host national semifinal games more frequently than the Orange Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. As a result, financial considerations among the BCS bowls would have to be negotiated for the plan to work.
The proposed plan also would give fans less than a month to arrange travel plans to cities if their teams are selected to play in the national semifinals and then travel for a championship game a week later if their team wins.
Additionally, sources told ESPN.com that BCS officials also would like to maintain the number of teams selected to play in BCS bowl games. Under current BCS rules, 10 teams are selected to play in BCS bowl games -- the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC champions are automatic qualifiers, along with four at-large selections. FBS conference commissioners have decided to eliminate designating conferences as "AQ" or "non-AQ" leagues, meaning any team in the top 10 of the final BCS standings would be eligible to play in a BCS bowl game, regardless of its conference affiliation.
If BCS officials decide to maintain a pool of 10 teams playing in BCS bowl games, a fifth bowl game probably would be elevated to BCS status, possibly the Cotton Bowl in Dallas or Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta.
Commissioners also discussed having the host city of next season's national championship game host a BCS bowl game as a "dry run" to a title game. |
The role of multi-disciplinary teams in decision-making for patients with recurrent malignant disease.
It is mandatory in many countries for decisions for all new patients with cancer to be made within multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs). Whether patients with disease recurrence should also routinely be discussed by the MDT is unknown. This study investigated the role of an upper gastro intestinal (UGI) MDT in decision-making for patients with disease recurrence. A retrospective review of prospectively kept MDT records (2010 to 2011) was performed identifying patients discussed with recurrence of oesophagogastric cancer. Information was recorded about: i) why an MDT referral was made, ii) who made the referral and iii) the final MDT recommendation. Implementation of the MDT recommendation was also examined. All patients discussed with recurrence of cancer at a central UGI cancer MDT were included. During the study 54 MDT meetings included discussions regarding 304 new patients and 29 with disease recurrence. Referrals to the MDT for patients with recurrence came from outpatient clinics (n=19, 65.5%) or following emergency admission (n=10). Most referrals were made by the surgical team (n=25, 86.2%). MDT recommendations were best supportive care (n=11, 37.9%), palliative chemotherapy (n=9, 31.0%), stent (n=5, 17.2%), palliative radiotherapy (n=3, 10.3%) and further surgery (n=1, 3.4%), with 25 (86.2%) of these implemented. UGI MDTs focus on new referrals and only a small proportion of patients with recurrent disease are re-discussed. Many patients go on to receive further treatments. Whether such patients are optimally managed within the standard MDT is uncertain, however, and warrants further consideration. |
Q:
Complex Numbers $\stackrel{?}{=} \mathbb{R}^ 2$
Suppose we have a vector field over real numbers $\mathbb R^2$. In additon to vector field proporties define inner product $(x,y) = x_1\cdot y_1 + x_2\cdot y_2$, where $x_1,x_2,y_1,y_2$ are real numbers.This structure is called $2$-dimensional Euclidean Space. ( call it $\text{E-2}$ ).
I want to define complex number field from $\text{E-2}$. I have to satify $5$ addition axiom, $5$ multiplication axiom and a distribution axiom. The problem is although addition axioms are trivial, for multiplication I have to define; $xy = (ac-bd,ad+bc)$ where $x = ( a,b )$, $y = (c,d)$ as an extra axiom.
My questions are:
Is there any natural way to define complex numbers without such
additional axioms, by using inner product ?
By defining complex numbers from $\text{E-2}$, there is no need to use inner
product between two numbers, this bothers me as well, am I missing
something ?
A:
I will denote the (standard) inner product by $\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle$ and consider the elements of $\Bbb R^2$ as column vectors. Put $$A=\begin{bmatrix}1 & 0\\0 & -1\end{bmatrix}$$ and $$B=\begin{bmatrix}0 & -1\\1 & 0\end{bmatrix}.$$
We define an operation $\otimes$ on $\Bbb R^2$ by $$\vec w\otimes\vec z:=\langle\vec w,A\vec z\rangle\vec e_1+ \langle\vec w,BA\vec z\rangle\vec e_2,$$ where $$\vec e_1=\begin{bmatrix}1\\0\end{bmatrix}\text{ and }\vec e_2=\begin{bmatrix}0\\1\end{bmatrix}.$$
It's rather contrived, but it does the job. Note that left-multiplication by $A$ is the operation of complex conjugation, that $\vec e_1$ is the $\otimes$-identity, and that left-multiplication by $B$ is the same as $\otimes$-multiplication by $\vec e_2,$ which serves as our "$i$".
Let me see if I can shed some light on the connection between inner product and complex multiplication (and how I developed the peculiar operation above).
First, I observed that, if there was some function $f:\Bbb C^2\to\Bbb R$ satisfying $$f(a+bi,c+di)=ac+bd$$ for all $a,b,c,d\in\Bbb R$ (that is, if $f$ acts like our inner product), then $$w\overline z=(w_1+iw_2)(z_1-iz_2)=w_1z_1+w_2z_2+i(w_2z_1-w_1z_2)=f(w,z)+i(w_2z_1-w_1z_2)$$ and similarly $$\overline wz=f(w,z)+i(w_1z_2-w_2z_1),$$ whence we find that $$f(w,z)=\frac12\left(w\overline z+\overline wz\right).$$ Readily, then, we have that $$f(w,\overline z)=\frac12\left(wz+\overline w\overline z\right),$$ and (a bit less obviously) that $$f(w,i\overline z)=\frac12\left(-iwz+i\overline w\overline z\right)=\frac1{2i}\left(wz-\overline w\overline z\right).$$ Therefore we have that $$f(w,\overline z)\cdot 1+f(w,i\overline z)\cdot i=wz.\tag{$\star$}$$ All that remains, then, is to decide what the equivalents to $1$ and $i$ would be in $\Bbb R^2$ (which was fairly natural), and how to express conjugation and multiplication by $i$ as linear transformations on $\Bbb R^2$ (not too tricky).
Added: We have some freedom in the representatives we can choose, but we can't just pick any two vectors. Let's call our vector representatives of $1$ and $i$ by the names $\vec 1$ and $\vec i,$ respectively. Let's first find some necessary conditions for them.
First of all, note that we obviously need $\vec 1$ and $\vec i$ to be linearly independent. Assume for the moment that there exist $2\times 2$ real matrices $C$ and $R$ corresponding to complex conjugation and multiplication by $i$ (the latter of which rotates the plane). In particular, this means that the following hold:
$C\vec 1=\vec 1$
$R\vec 1=\vec i$
By our work in the above section--in particular, by translating $(\star)$ into the desired terms--we find that we need $$\langle\vec w,C\vec z\rangle\vec 1+\langle\vec w,RC\vec z\rangle\vec i=\vec w\otimes\vec z\tag{$\heartsuit$}$$ for all $\vec w,\vec z\in\Bbb R^2.$
Now, since $\vec 1$ needs to be our $\otimes$-identity, then in particular, $$\vec 1=\vec1\otimes\vec1=\langle\vec 1,C\vec 1\rangle\vec1+\langle\vec1,RC\vec1\rangle\vec i=\langle\vec1,\vec1\rangle\vec1+\langle\vec1,R\vec1\rangle\vec i=\langle\vec1,\vec1\rangle\vec1+\langle\vec1,\vec i\rangle\vec i,$$ whence linear independence shows us that $\langle\vec 1,\vec1\rangle=1$ and $\langle\vec1,\vec i\rangle=0.$ Another property we need is that $\vec1=-\vec i\otimes\vec i,$ from which we can further deduce that $\langle\vec i,\vec i\rangle=1.$ Therefore, we require that $\left\{\vec1,\vec i\right\}$ be an orthonormal basis for $\Bbb R^2.$
From this, we can conclude that $$\vec1=\begin{bmatrix}\cos\theta\\\sin\theta\end{bmatrix}$$ for some $\theta\in\Bbb R.$ Now, having chosen such a vector, we have two choices for $\vec i.$ (Can you see why, and what they are?) This might seem a bit alarming, but many constructions of $\Bbb C$ run into precisely this same problem, as discussed for example here and here. Regardless, it turns out that we must have either $R=B$ or $R=-B$ (with $B$ as given earlier), which depends on $\vec1$ and on which of the two options we choose for $\vec i.$
One final observation I will make (omitting the proof) is that we require $$C=\begin{bmatrix}\cos2\theta & \sin2\theta\\\sin2\theta & -\cos2\theta\end{bmatrix}.$$ In the case that $\theta$ is an integer multiple of $2\pi$--that is, that $\vec1=\vec e_1$--we have $C=A.$
I leave it to you to verify that the necessary conditions derived above are also sufficient to make $\otimes$ behave on $\Bbb R^2$ exactly the way we want complex multiplication to work. Observe, though, that there are uncountably-many different ways that we could define $\otimes,$ depending on our choice of $\theta$ and subsequent choice of $\vec i.$ The definition I gave above is about as close to canonical as you can get.
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Q:
Processing huge text files
Problem:
I've a huge raw text file (assume of 3gig), I need to go through each word in the file
and find out that a word appears how many times in the file.
My Proposed Solution:
Split the huge file into multiple files and each splitted file will have words in a sorted manner. For example,
all the words starting with "a" will be stored in a "_a.dic" file. So, at any time we will not execeed more than 26 files.
The problem in this approach is,
I can use streams to read the file, but wanted to use threads to read certain parts of the file. For example, read 0-1024 bytes with a separate thread (atleast have 4-8 threads based on the no. of processors exist in the box). Is this is possible or am I dreaming?
Any better approach?
Note: It should be a pure c++ or c based solution. No databases etc., are allowed.
A:
You need to look at 'The Practice of Programming' by Kernighan and Pike, and specifically chapter 3.
In C++, use a map based on the strings and a count (std::map<string,size_t>, IIRC). Read the file (once - it's too big to read more than once), splitting it into words as you go (for some definition of 'word'), and incrementing the count in the map entry for each word you find.
In C, you'll have to create the map yourself. (Or find David Hanson's "C Interfaces and Implementations".)
Or you can use Perl, or Python, or Awk (all of which have associative arrays, equivalent to a map).
A:
I don't think using multiple threads that read parts of the file in parallel is going to help much. I would expect that this application is bound to the bandwidth and latency of your harddisk, not the actual word counting. Such a multi-threaded version might actually perform worse because "quasi-random" file access is typically slower than "linear file" access.
In case the CPU is really busy in a single-threaded version there might be a potential speed up. One thread could read the data in big chunks and put them into a queue of limited capacity. A bunch of other worker threads could operate each on their own chunk and count the words. After the counting worker threads finished you have to merge the word counters.
A:
First - decide on the datastructure for saving the words.
The obvious choice is the map. But perhaps a Trie would serve you better. In each node, you save the count for the word. 0 means, that it's only part of a word.
You can insert into the trie using a stream and reading your file characterbased.
Second - multithreading yes or no?
This one is not easy to answer. Depending on the size the datastructure grows and how you parallelize the answer may differ.
Singlethreaded - straitforward and easy to implement.
Multithreaded with multiple reader threads and one datastructur. Then you have to synchronize the access to the datastructure. In a Trie, you only need to lock the node you are actually in, so multiple readers can access the datastructure without much interference. A self-balancing tree might be different, especially when rebalancing.
Multithreaded with multiple reader threads, each with their own datastructure. Each thread builds it's own datastructure while reading a part of the file. After each one is finished, the results have to be combined (which should be easy).
One thing you have to think about - you have to find a word boundary for each thread to start, but that should not pose a great problem (e.g. each thread walks it's start until the first word boundary and starts there, at the end each thread finishes the word it's working on).
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For ease of organisation, it is anticipated that most of the matches will initially be played to the existing Laws of the Game as played between Scotland and Wales currently. The final however could be played up to 31 points. The Welsh Quoiting Board would welcome contact from players of other versions of the game, including youngsters, with a view to incorporating games played over shorter distances. |
Falmer Stadium: Brighton & Hove Albion
Farmer Stadium is the home of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, though it’s known as The American Express Community Stadium because of sponsorship reasons. It’s also known as The Amex for simplicity reasons! It’s located near to the village of Falmer, which is where it got its original name from. The Amex replaced the club’s former stadium, the Goldstone Ground, owing to the fact that the club’s former owners sold it to developers.
Because the old owners didn’t line-up a replacement ground for Brighton they ended up bouncing around a number of different stadiums whilst they looked for their own home. Originally they ground-shared with Gillingham at Priestfield Stadium before using Withdean Stadium for a time. The location that would eventually be the building area for Falmer Stadium was actually identified as early as 1998. However delays in planning permission meant that Brighton had to wait over a decade until their new stadium was officially opened in 2011.
Falmer Stadium Seating Plan & Where to Sit
Like most new stadiums, The Amex is constructed in a bowl style. It still has four distinct sections, though, somewhat imaginatively called the North, South, East and West stands. The East Stand has two tiers and The West Stand has three, whilst the North and South Stands are single-tiered.
The North Stand - With room for over 2,500 supporters, this stand is the one that houses the club’s most vocal supporters. Unlike with The South Stand behind the opposite goal this are of the ground is not joined up to the other sections by corner seating.
The East Stand - Over 5000 supporters can sit in this part of the stadium and it is considered to be the most family friendly area of the ground. If travelling supporters ever get an increased allocation of tickets then this is the part of the ground that they’ll sit in.
The South Stand - With a central seating section as well as seating in the corners to connect it to the rest of the stadium, this is a touch larger than The North Stand. It’s also where the travelling fans are normally accommodated.
The West Stand - The three tiers of The West Stand allow it to hold over 11,000 supporters, making it the largest section of the stadium.
Brighton & Hove Albion Ticket Prices
As is the case with most clubs in the country, Brighton & Hove Albion categorise their games depending on the opposition they face. Prices also differ within each category depending on where in the ground you are looking to sit. The ticket also includes free bus and rail travel from within a subsidised zone. Here are the cheapest and most expensive ticket prices for adults and concessions in each category:
Category A: £32-£42 / £24-£30
Category B: £30-£40 / £22-£28
Category C: £25-£35 / £20-£28
How To Get Brighton & Hove Albion Tickets
Brighton & Hove Albion have an excellent website with easy to understand ticket pricing. That would be your first port of call if you’re hoping to buy tickets to see the club play live. You can also call the club’s ticket office directly to discuss your ticketing options or you can call in at the ticket office at the ground itself.
Getting To Falmer Stadium
How you would go about getting to The Amex was one of the chief concerns that was taken into account when the stadium was built, so access is surprisingly easy and well thought out. Here are some of the more conventional methods you’ll want to consider!
Train - Falmer Railway Station is just 150 metres from the ground, so you’ll be able to walk it in about a minute. It’s on the East Castaway Line and Southern Railways operate services there about four times an hour. Brighton itself is, of course, a little bit out of the way from the rest of the country. A train from London can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and half, whilst a journey from further North will take however long it takes you to get to London plus the time it takes to change trains.
Bus - There are two bus stops really close to the ground that you can get to on bus numbers 23, 25 and 84. There are also services that run from the University of Sussex campus as well as match day services put on by the club.
Car - The club is conscious of its environmental footprint, so it positively discourages people from driving to the ground. There are Park & Ride options available from both The University of Brighton and Mill Road as well as Brighton Racecourse.
If you’re driving from London then you’ll want to get onto the M25 before taking the M23 to the A27. From there you’ll get onto the B2123 and this is the road on which you’ll find the Amex. If you’re travelling from somewhere up North, Manchester for example, then you’ll take the M6 (or M6 toll) to the M40 before getting onto the London Orbital and following the route outlined below.
By Air - All of the London airports are within easy distance of Brighton, so if you’re coming from abroad then you’ll want to consider which of those airports is best for you and take it from there. Gatwick, as an example, is just half an hour away from Brighton by train. There is an airport called Shoreham, or Brighton City, but this is typically the reserve of private light aircrafts.
Taxi - A taxi from Brighton Train Station to The Amex will set you back something in the region of about £20 and your journey will take about the same amount of minutes to complete. Obviously if you end up travelling at a busier time then you will inevitably end up paying more money!
Parking Near Falmer Stadium
As well as the excellent park and ride options the club also offers parking at two sites near to the ground. Parking there needs to be pre-booked, so do bear that in mind. You can head to either Sussex University’s Stanmer Park or Bridge Car Park. There is no on-street parking near to the ground and if you attempt to do that you may well end up with a fine or your car being towed away.
Located in Woodingdean, about one and a half miles from the stadium, this hotel sits above a restaurant-cum-bar and has a garden, barbecue grills and a picnic area. There’s also free Wi-Fi in the reception area, free parking and a free breakfast included with your stay. More details.
Brighton’s Jurys Inn can be found about a mile from the beach and a little over three miles from The Amex. It’s got over 200 rooms, a restaurant and bar, nine meeting rooms and a conference space. There’s also free Wi-Fi and multilingual staff for those of you coming from abroad or who just like to test your GCSE French on an unsuspecting hotelier. More details.
Three and a half miles from Brighton & Hove Albion’s home ground and within walking distance of the city’s Sea Life Centre is this charming guest house. With just seven rooms, free wi-fi and free breakfast you know you’ll get a very personal experience if you choose to spend your pre-match night here. More details.
Pubs & Bars Near Falmer Stadium
Just as the nearby sea front means there are plenty of hotels to choose from in Brighton, so there are also a huge amount of bars and pubs for your consideration. We’ve tried to pick some that are particularly welcoming to sports fans for you here:
The Swan Inn
Middle Street, Falmer, BN1 9PD (01273 681842)
This is the closest pub to the stadium and us such is pretty much the sole consideration of the home supporters, with away supporters encouraged to consider having a drink elsewhere. It shows all of the sport that you might be hoping to watch and it also serves delicious food. You can get a drink there too, obviously.
The Evening Star
55/56 Surrey Street, Brighton, BN1 3PB (01273 328 931)
This is the home of The Dark Star brewing company, the place where it all began. Because of that it’s fair to say that you’ll be able to pick up a decent real ale or two here!
The Post & Telegraph
155-158 North St, Brighton BN1 1EA (01273 827540)
This is a JD Wetherspoon pub, so don’t be expecting anything too spectacular. That said you’ll get cheap food, cheap booze and sport on televisions dotted around the place, so it’s not a bad place to head for a pre-match pint or two!
Facilities
The facilities at The Amex are excellent, with padded seats, excellent views and good legroom on offer for all supporters within the stadium. The concourses behind the scenes are large and welcoming, with numerous stalls offering food and drink options before the match and at half-time. For those that care about such things there are also tremendous acoustics within the ground, meaning that there can be quite an atmosphere during matches that the supporters get ‘up’ for.
Prices
Programme: 3.50
Pie: 4.10
Cup of tea: 2.10
Hospitality
Nominated in four different categories in the 2015 Stadium Events and Hospitality awards, it’s safe to say you’ll get a brilliant experience if you choose to take advantage of one of the hospitality packages available at The Amex. The stadium boasts ten lounges as well as 21 executive boxes, so your options are numerous should you wish to watch the match from a position of comfort and luxury.
Lounges typically open about two and a half hours before the game is due to kick off and they close at 11pm. There are different menus available depending on which lounge you have tickets for and what type of hospitality package you have selected. In the East and South lounges you will typically be offered ‘pub’ style food of burgers, ribs, curry or a vegetarian selection. Hospitality at The Amex comes under the name of The 1901 Club, so this is what you’ll be looking for it you want to seek out some more specific information.
Private Hire
Those ten lounges and 21 executive boxes aren’t only there to cater to supporters hoping to enjoy a nice bite to eat before the game. They’re also the idea place to hold meetings, parties and even weddings for those hoping to hold such an occasion in Brighton.
You can hire out the board room if you’re hoping for a professional looking, intimate affair, or you can opt for one of the larger lounges in order to host a dinner dance for up to 500 people. Whatever you opt for you’ll benefit from state-of-the-art equipment such as plasma screens, PA systems and wireless internet access. You can even combine two of the executive boxes for a larger meeting that still feels intimate or as a breakout space from a larger meeting, should that be what you’re looking for.
Stadium Tours & Museum
Whether or not you’re a fan of The Seagulls, a tour of The American Express Community Stadium is well worth your time if you ever find yourself at a loose end in Brighton. They run on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, even if there’s a 3pm kick off, and the tour lasts for about an hour and three quarters.
Whilst on the tour you’ll take the upper part of The West Stand, the trophy room, the hospitality lounges, the press area, both sets of changing rooms and the dug-outs on the side of the pitch. Access to the club’s new museum, located next to Dick’s Bar, is also included in your ticket price. The whole thing costs £13 for adults and £6.50 to people under 16 or over 65.
About Brighton & Hove Albion
Souvenir postcard of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, celebrating their Southern League title and Southern Charity Cup win in the 1909-1910 season -By Upload: Rugby pioneers Original: Ebenezer Pannell of Church Road, Hove, the official photographer to Brighton & Hove Football Club. See Ebenezer Pannell - Brighton & Hove Photographer, which confirms Mr Pannell died in 1934. [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Brighton & Hove Albion, commonly referred to as simply ‘Brighton’, has been in existence as a football club since 1901. Nicknamed either The Seagulls or The Albion, they were elected to the Football League proper in 1920, having previously taken part in the Southern League.
The club enjoyed its most successful spell in the early ‘80s, playing their football in the top-tier of English football and reaching the final of the FA Cup. They lost out on the trophy to Manchester United after a replay, though not before they picked up a number of admirers. Their main rival is, strangely, Crystal Palace, despite the fact that the clubs are more than 40 miles apart from each other.
Brighton nearly went into liquidation after a number of years of mismanagement. They were nearly relegated out of the Football League and into the Conference before a boardroom takeover saved them and they ended up returning to the country’s Second Division. They have spent the past fourteen years moving between the second and third tiers of English football.
Falmer Stadium History
The stadium is one of the newest in the South coast area, opening as it did in 2011. The first game played there was between Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton, with the London club running out 3-2 winners. The first competitive match took place between the home side and Eastbourne Borough in the final of the Sussex Senior Cup. A strange quirk of fate meant that the stadium’s first home game came against Doncaster Rovers - the same team against whom the last match at the club’s previous permanent home had been played.
Despite being a young stadium the record attendance has already changed a number of times. The first record was 21,897, set when Liverpool came to play The Seagulls in the League Cup in 2011. The Merseyside club were also the first away team to win a competitive match at The Amex. In 2012 the stadium’s capacity was increased and a new record attendance of 26,684 was set when Brighton saw out a goalless draw against Nottingham Forrest. The current record attendance of 30,278 was set when Arsenal played Brighton in the fourth round of the FA Cup in January of 2015.
Future Developments
There are no current plans to expand The Amex any further, even if the club gain promotion to the Premier League in the future. There are plans to continue to develop the region around the ground, though, with hopes that it will become something of a gateway between the area near the stadium and the town centre. |
Modulation of expression of LDH isoenzymes in endothelial cells by laminin: implications for angiogenesis.
Endothelial cell (EC) matrix interaction is critical in angiogenesis. Although matrix components can regulate the process of angiogenesis by acting as a reservoir of various cytokines, it is not clear if extracellular matrix (ECM) can modulate the production and activity of angiogenic cytokines. Investigations were therefore carried out to study the influence of the basement membrane (BM) protein, laminin (Ln) on the activity of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), the major angiogenic cytokine, using isolated human umbilical vein ECs (HUVECs) in culture. Analysis of the biochemical markers of angiogenesis confirmed proangiogenic effect of Ln. The levels of VEGF protein and mRNA were not different in cells maintained on Ln, collagen I or polylysine substrata. Chorioallantoic membrane assay using VEGF isolated from cell extracts however revealed that Ln increased its angiogenic potency. Immunoblotting and HPLC analysis showed considerable reduction in poly adenosyl ribosylation of VEGF associated with a significant decrease in the levels of NAD+, in cells maintained on Ln substrata. Further, a shift in the isoenzymic pattern of LDH towards the B rich forms and an upregulation of LDH B gene were observed in cells maintained on Ln. Ln modulates expression of LDH gene through alpha(6)beta(4) integrin mediated downstream signaling involving p38 mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK) pathway. It thus appears that Ln can affect aerobic metabolism of ECs by modulating the expression of LDH isoenzymes resulting in a decrease in the level of NAD+ that can cause a reduction in the poly adenosyl ribosylation of VEGF altering its angiogenic potency. |
[Suitability of current selective media for the detection of Staphylococcus aureus in food].
Three solid media (Baird-Parker-Agar (BP), BP with pig plasma instead of egg-yolk (BPP) and modified BP according to Devriese (BPA) as well as three liquid media (Brain-Heart-Infusion with 7.5% NaCl (BHIS), Liquid Baird-Parker-Medium (LBP) and Giolitti-Cantoni-Medium) were tested with regard to their suitability for the detection of Staph. aureus in foods. The following criteria were assessed: productivity for vital and thermally stressed Staph. aureus; selectivity against undesired microorganisms; practicality in routine examination. The microorganisms used in these studies were: Staph. aureus (vital and thermally stressed), "non-aureus" staphylococci, Streptococcus spp., Pseudomonas spp., Proteus spp., Bacillus spp. Using vital strains of Staph. aureus no significant differences in the productivity of the three solid media could be observed. On the other hand BPA showed a remarkable lower productivity than BP and BPP when thermally stressed cultures of Staph. aureus were examined. LBP was the most productive liquid enrichment medium. The selectivity of BPA was distinctly superior to BP and BPP, whereas no differences could be observed between the latter ones. The selectivity of LBP and GC against coagulase negative staphylococci and gramnegative microorganisms tested was relatively poor. Each culture under examination grew in BHIS. The combination of LBP and BPA yielded better results for enumeration of thermally stressed Staph. aureus from dried milk products than the other possible combinations of media. In view of their practicality dehydrated culture media are commonly preferred in routine examination. The additional time required for the preparation of LBP or BPA (which are not commercially available as dehydrated media) is negligible and is compensated by better productivity and selectivity of these media. At present BPP is not recommendable due to the problems in providing pig plasma. On the other hand this medium has the great advantage that further testing of suspicious colonies is not necessary as it is in the case of BP and BPA. |
OSA is common and independently associated with hypertension and increased arterial stiffness in consecutive perimenopausal women.
Perimenopause is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. OSA is an emerging risk factor for cardiovascular disease, particularly among men, but the independent contribution of OSA to cardiovascular risk in climacteric women is not clear. We evaluated 277 consecutive women (age, 56 [52-61] years; BMI, 28 [25-32] kg/m2) without manifest cardiovascular disease (heart failure, coronary disease, or stroke). All women underwent 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring, arterial stiffness evaluation (pulse wave velocity), and portable sleep study. OSA (apnea-hypopnea index ≥ 5 events/h) and moderate to severe OSA (apnea-hypopnea index ≥ 15 events/h) were diagnosed in 111 (40.1%) and 31 (11.1%) women, respectively. None of the participants had received a previous diagnosis of OSA. Women with moderate to severe OSA vs those without OSA had a higher prevalence of hypertension, were prescribed more medications for hypertension, had higher awake BP (systolic, 133 [125-142] vs 126 [119-134] mm Hg [P < .01]; diastolic, 82 [78-88] vs 79 [74-85] mm Hg [P = .07]), higher nocturnal BP (systolic, 125 [118-135] vs 115 [109-124] mm Hg [P < .01]; diastolic, 73 [69-79] vs 69 [62-75] mm Hg [P < .01]), and more arterial stiffness (pulse wave velocity, 11.5 [10.1-12.3] m/s vs 9.5 [8.6-10.8] m/s, P < .001). Oxygen desaturation index during the night was independently associated with 24-h arterial BP and arterial stiffness (per five-unit increase in oxygen desaturation index, β = 1.30 [95% CI, 0.02-2.54; P = .04] vs 0.22 [95% CI, 0.03-0.40; P = .02] in women with vs without OSA, respectively). OSA is common, underdiagnosed, and independently associated with high BP and increased arterial stiffness in perimenopausal women. |
In a fun bit of news, 49ers quarterback Alex Smith has been named NFC Offensive Player of the Week for Week 8. Smith put together one of the best performances of his career on Monday Night Football against the Arizona Cardinals, completing 18 of 19 passes for 232 yards and three touchdowns. His 12.2 yards per attempt improved his season total to 7.94, which is good for fifth in the NFL. This marks his first career Offensive Player of the Week honor.
Smith and his receivers were in tune most of the night as they were able to find big holes in the Cardinals defense, while taking advantage of poor tackling. The 49ers ended up with 107 yards after the catch, which was apparently their second highest total of the last five years.
I was particularly pleased with this performance because of the talk surrounding the Cardinals defense. Even after that performance, the Cardinals pass defense ranks No. 6 over at Football Outsiders. This wasn't the Bills or Lions who struggle to consistently stop any decent quarterback. This was a legitimate defense that decided they wanted to force Alex Smith to beat them. And beat them he did.
According to some tweets following the game, apparently some of the Cardinals defensive players had some confidence about putting the ball in Smith's hands and forcing him to beat them. It sounds like the 49ers offensive players took some offense to that. The Cardinals did get four sacks on Smith, all of which would appear to rest on his shoulders. However, it was not enough to slow down what proved to be a dynamic passing attack. The 49ers did not take crazy deep shots during the game, instead taking what the Cardinals gave them, as usual. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, they gave up way too much and suffered the consequences.
At this point, Alex Smith is on pace for career highs in yards, completion percentage, touchdowns and yards per attempt. There will continue to be some ups and downs as the 49ers move forward, but Alex has taken a nice little step forward in 2012. It will not satisfy everybody, but it is winning ball games and putting the 49ers in a strong position heading into the second half of the season. |
Méga-PixelsDe plus en plus de joueurs savourent la musique de leurs jeux fétiches lors de représentations dédiées, comme « The Legend of Zelda : Symphony of the Goddesses ».
Le concert "The Legend of Zelda : Symphony of the Goddesses" arrive à Paris, l'une de ses dernières dates. En tout, il aura parcouru vingt villes dans le monde. Ici, le 17 avril dernier, au Wembley Arena à Londres. Wembley Arena
Paris, 11 avril. Ils ont entre 15 et 35 ans pour la plupart, et trépignent d'impatience devant la salle de la Mutualité : ce soir, ils assisteront à « Press Start », un concert symphonique qui reprendra les musiques de leurs jeux vidéo préférés avec, comme invité d'honneur, Nobuo Uematsu, le compositeur des musiques des Final Fantasy.
Ce type d'événement est de plus en plus courant. Ce jeudi 23 avril, c'est The Legend of Zelda qui était à l'honneur lors d'un concert symphonique au Palais des congrès de Paris, dans le cadre d'une tournée d'une vingtaine de dates, de Londres à Tokyo, en passant par Boston, Mexico ou encore Stockholm. Et le succès est au rendez-vous : la plupart des concerts affichent complet malgré des tarifs allant, pour Zelda, de 64 à 119 euros.
Ce soir-là, pas moins de 1 500 personnes passeront les portes de la Mutualité pour « Press Start », alors que 1 500 autres avaient assisté, quelques heures plus tôt, à la première représentation. Et ce n'est rien par rapport à d'autres. Un concert entièrement consacré à Final Fantasy avait, il y a deux ans, réuni 7 500 spectateurs sur deux représentations.
Lire : Les musiques de jeux vidéo sortent des consoles
Shows à l'américaine ou concerts plus sobres
Que viennent-ils chercher auprès de ces orchestres de musique symphonique, dont l'univers pourrait paraître, au premier abord, bien éloigné de celui des jeux vidéo ? « J'y vais naïvement, je suis curieux de voir ce que ça va donner, confie Marc, doctorant en psychologie de 29 ans, à l'entrée de la salle. Il y a un côté "madeleine de Proust", on va se rappeler d'un moment de notre enfance en écoutant la musique du jeu auquel on jouait. » Cécile, étudiante de 22 ans, attend quant à elle « Final Fantasy, le gros classique ». Un « incontournable » selon elle, qui s'attend à « avoir la chair de poule ».
La nostalgie : c'est ce qui attire avant tout ce public, majoritairement composé de gamers. « Le plus important pour les spectateurs, ce n'est pas tant la musique que de retrouver des sensations », souligne Damien Mecheri, journaliste et auteur de Video game music : histoire de la musique de jeu vidéo. « On célèbre les jeux plus encore que la musique. » Un point de vue partagé par Julien Mombert, producteur de « Press Start » :
« C'est comme aller voir un concert de musiques de film. Sauf que contrairement aux films, quand vous jouez à des jeux comme Final Fantasy, vous pouvez passer 80, 100 heures dessus. Si vous appréciez la musique, vous avez envie de la voir jouée sur scène, comme un groupe de rock que vous aimez. »
Nobuo Uematsu, compositeur de la musique des Final Fantasy, est une véritable star auprès des gamers. Il sera acclamé en standing ovation à plusieurs reprises durant le concert. Cette série, ainsi que les jeux de rôle en général, ont beaucoup fait pour l'acceptation de la musique de jeux vidéo, comme l'explique Damien Mecheri :
« Ces jeux ont été les premiers à créer une narration aussi poussée et un lien aussi fort avec les joueurs, et c'est entre autres grâce à la musique. Elle est très mise en avant, très développée, sur des dizaines d'heures… Les musiques sont associées à des personnages, des phases de jeu et des événements. Les jeux de rôle permettent aux compositeurs de développer des univers très variés et très riches. »
Nobuo Uematsu, le compositeur de « Final Fantasy », acclamé au concert « Press Start », le 11 avril 2015 à Paris. Press Start
Cette carte de la nostalgie, beaucoup de concerts en usent et en abusent. Certains, comme « Video Games Lives », qui a eu lieu le 5 novembre au Palais des congrès, sont de véritables shows à l'américaine, avec des écrans géants, des jeux de lumières, des interactions avec le public, invité à monté sur scène. « Une bulle, adressée aux fans avant tout », décrit Damien Mecheri. Mais le vent tourne. « Aller à ce type de concert pour la qualité de la musique en elle-même commence petit à petit à faire son chemin », se réjouit-il.
« La musique de jeu vidéo est très proche de la musique classique »
« Press Start » est d'ailleurs un peu plus sobre. Sur scène, une soixantaine de musiciens, entourés de deux écrans, interprètent les musiques de Kingdom Hearts, Professeur Layton, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Castlevania ou encore Super Mario Bros., réarrangées pour orchestre symphonique. Et ils sont de plus en plus nombreux à interpréter des œuvres issues de jeux vidéo. Le prestigieux orchestre philharmonique de Londres y a par exemple consacré un album entier en 2011.
Certains orchestres se créent même spécialement pour cela. C'est le cas de l'Orchestre du jeu vidéo, fondé à Montréal, qui enchaîne les concerts à guichets fermés sur différents thèmes, comme « Super Nintendo » ou « Final Fantasy vs Star Wars ». « La musique de jeu vidéo est très proche de la musique classique », affirme Sébastien Wall-Lacelle, cofondateur de cet orchestre de 60 musiciens et par ailleurs joueur de trombone. « C'est le même genre d'interprétation, la structure harmonique est la même ». Mais des différences existent :
« La musique de jeux vidéo est plus grandiose, plus épique que la musique classique. Elle doit être plus efficace, plus animée, elle est faite pour accompagner l'action du joueur. C'est pour ça que les musiciens aiment la jouer, c'est excitant. La musique classique est, elle, plus nuancée. »
Malgré cela, la musique de jeu vidéo a longtemps souffert, et souffre encore, « de beaucoup de préjugés », regrette Damien Mecheri.
« Elle est souvent considérée comme une sous-musique symphonique, car elle a longtemps été générée par des consoles dont le rendu manquait de nuances. Mais quand elle bénéficie de vrais arrangements, je ne suis pas d'accord avec cette qualification. »
Il cite notamment le travail de Thomas Böcker, à l'origine du premier concert symphonique de musique de jeux vidéo en Europe en 2003. « Il propose des arrangements si poussés qu'on ne reconnaît pas toujours la musique d'origine, ce qui lui vaut les critiques de certains fans ! Mais avec lui, on atteint un niveau excellent, qui n'a pas grand-chose à envier à la musique savante. »
Une soixantaine de musiciens participaient au concert « Press Start ». Press Start
Liszt et « Final Fantasy »
Pourtant, il n'est pas facile d'adapter la musique de jeu vidéo en concert. Comme la musique de film, elle existe avant tout pour accompagner une image. « Mais contrairement à la musique de film, elle doit être plus ajustable, en fonction de l'action, qui change selon les choix du joueur », explique Sébastien Wall-Lacelle, de l'Orchestre du jeu vidéo. Par conséquent, complète Damien Mecheri, « le concert sort la musique de jeu vidéo de ce pour quoi elle a été créée ».
Des passerelles existent néanmoins entre la musique classique et la musique de jeux vidéo. Si des compositions de Mozart, de Beethoven ou de Wagner apparaissent dans certains jeux, les interprètes de musique de jeux vidéo aiment aussi tisser des liens. Le pianiste Nicolas Horvath a par exemple organisé des récitals mêlant Franz Liszt et Final Fantasy. Le compositeur du jeu Dragon Quest, Koichi Sugiyama, l'un des premiers à avoir organisé des concerts de musique de jeu vidéo au Japon dans les années 1980, avait mêlé lors de ses représentations des musiques de ses jeux et Le Carnaval des animaux de Camille Saint-Saëns.
« Ces concerts permettent à la musique savante d'explorer de nouvelles possibilités, et aux amateurs de jeux vidéo de découvrir la musique classique », assure Damien Mecheri. Le dernier sondage de la radio britannique Classic FM, réalisé auprès de 200 000 auditeurs, va d'ailleurs dans ce sens : dans le top 20 de leurs musiques préférées, trois sont issues des jeux vidéo.
Ce dont se félicite John Suchet, l'un des présentateurs de la station, dans un communiqué : « Ce que je trouve vraiment excitant, c'est l'augmentation continue d'une audience plus jeune pour la musique classique. Je ne m'attendais pas à devoir remercier l'industrie du jeu vidéo pour avoir initié une nouvelle génération à ce genre musical, mais c'est merveilleux. » |
Q:
Leaflet map keeps moving infinitely when using maxbounds
I created a crs leaflet map and I'm trying to set its maxbounds to the bounds of the crs image.
When I add the maxbounds attr there are three leaflet events that keep firing infinitely which cause the map to move infinitely.
These are the events:
leafletDirectiveMap.move
leafletDirectiveMap.movestart
leafletDirectiveMap.moveend
This is my code. I'm using leaflet angular directive
angular.module('pyvMap').controller('mainCtrl', [ '$scope', 'leafletData', 'leafletBoundsHelpers', function($scope, leafletData, leafletBoundsHelpers) {
var mapMinZoom = 2;
var mapMaxZoom = 6;
var maxBounds = leafletBoundsHelpers.createBoundsFromArray([[0,241.59375], [-132.65625, 0]]);
angular.extend($scope, {
defaults: {
maxZoom: mapMaxZoom,
minZoom: mapMinZoom,
zoomControl: false,
crs: 'Simple',
attributionControl: false,
detectRetina: true,
tileLayer: "http://d30jy4vw1d2n56.cloudfront.net/tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}.png",
tileLayerOptions: {
minZoom: mapMinZoom,
maxZoom: mapMaxZoom,
// bounds: maxBounds,
opacity: 0.9,
// reuseTiles: true,
continuousWorld: true,
noWrap: true,
tileSize:256,
crs: 'Simple',
detectRetina: true,
},
},
center: {
zoom: 2
},
maxBounds: maxBounds
});}]);
HTML:
<leaflet center="center" maxBounds="maxBounds" defaults="defaults"></leaflet>
Thanks!
A:
Once width and height attributes are added to the <leaflet> tag as required, your issue does not look reproducible, whether using Leaflet version 0.7.7 or 1.2.0:
https://plnkr.co/edit/iqiz29Jmz2WOgaNeNZIv?p=preview
|
Q:
Is there any way to get Mozilla to show the SVG source?
I am debugging an application which at some points generates an SVG diagram. Currently the SVG is malformed in some way. I would like to see the SVG source, that is, the text of the SVG diagram, which is XML.
The mime-type header is 'image/svg+xml' which is correct for an SVG diagram. The main Mozilla browser shows a parsing error.
When I go into the developer mode, the network tab, I can see the request for the SVG, I can see the headers that were sent, and the headers that came back, but when I attempt to view the response content, it attempts once again to render the graphic, which it can't, so it just shows a "broken image" icon.
Is there any way to convince Mozilla to simply show the XML of the response body without attempting to render it as an image? Any way of turning off the image rendering in developer mode?
A:
Add view-source: at the beginning, or alternatively use curl or telnet to download the source and then view it in an editor of your choice.
A:
There are two ways you can get the source in Firefox:
Copy the response
Right-click the request > Copy > Copy Response copies the SVG, which you can then paste in your favorite editor and check what's wrong.
View source in browser
Right-click the request > Open in New Tab.
That should already provide you with an error message like this one:
To see the source right-click within the tab > View Page Source or press Ctrl+U.
|
News & Resources
Maximizing the return
It would be short-sighted for the City of Boston to approach 115 Winthrop Square as a one-off fiscal transaction rather than part of a long-term strategy to make the downtown socially and financially sustainable.
A Boston Globe article last week reported that the six developer bids for 115 Winthrop Square—a closed public garage in the heart of Boston’s financial district—range from $50 to $151 million. None of the bidders are being cheap. Each offers a different bundle of public amenities, whether it be 40% affordable and workforce housing units, new public spaces or street connectivity.
Yet one sentence in the Globe article raised a red flag: “But some at City Hall see the project as a rare chance for Boston to reap tens of millions of dollars in one swoop and are pushing the BRA to maximize the return.” If maximizing the return focuses solely on dollars, then Boston risks losing a major opportunity and we oppose it.
Everyone agrees that this is a strategic location between South Station and Downtown Crossing and this is an opportunity to strengthen the sense of place in an emerging mixed-use downtown. With Millennium Tower and other recent housing proposals, an exciting 24-7 downtown is on the way. That elevates the need for public amenities that align with the “new” downtown, that argues for increasing the walkable connections, and that increases the need for affordable housing so that downtown is not just for the super-rich.
The open house for the six proposals, which was a novel, praise-worthy approach for the city, demonstrated that we have six different contributions on offer for downtown. The Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance strongly urges the BRA to evaluate each proposal in terms of its public value, rather than dollars. The City needs to manage its downtown like a portfolio, and a healthy long-term return requires diversification, a blend of products and projects that are not all tied to same segment of the speculative economy.
This issue is not limited to the BRA’s sale or lease of 115 Winthrop Square. The Governor last fall announced an initiative to dispose of state-owned property, including some developable parcels close to public transit. The same question facing the BRA is faced by the Commonwealth: do you sell assets to the highest bidder in order to maximize the money you can plow back into the MBTA or even the general fund?
With a state budget over $38 billion or city budget nearing $3 billion, even a hundred million dollars can disappear pretty quickly. But long-term neighborhood sustainability, priceless. |
{
"name": "sign01",
"width": 512,
"height": 512,
"wrap_mode": 0,
"filter_mode": 1,
"type": "Texture2D",
"mipmap": 10,
"path": "Resources/res/model/CandyRockStar/Stage/Textures/sign01.psd.tex.png"
} |
There's A 'Nantucket Style Cottage' On The Roof Of This NYC Building
Anyone wanna go halvsies?
Many New Yorkers spend their summers hightailing it out of the concrete jungle in pursuit of a serene beachfront escape. Now, there's a way to bring that easy, breezy lifestyle right to your doorstep ― if you have $3.5 million to spare, that is.
The penthouse at 72 East 1st Street sits right in the heart of the trendy East Village neighborhood. It's a four-bedroom, three and a half-bathroom dream home that comes with an entire "Nantucket style cottage" tacked on top, according to its listing.
Compass
Not normal.
The rooftop cottage acts as a loft space with its own bathroom, kitchenette and "extraordinary open views through three exposures," the listing states.
The whole unit boasts 2,736 square feet of space, a wood-burning fireplace, a private terrace and, in true New York form, no elevator.
Compass
Can
Yes, that's right. $3.5 million dollars for a fourth floor walk-up. A magnificent fourth floor walk-up, but still, a walk-up.
Compass
we
If you can see past the lack of stairs, though, you might just trick yourself into thinking you're holed up in the beach getaway oasis of your dreams once you get up there. Of course, that's only until you go outside and realize the closest body of water is the East River.
Compass
live here please?
Minor details, when you get a cottage on top, no?
"This is probably the most unique property we have ever brought to market," Josh Doyle, listing agent told HuffPost. |
News Releases
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Grand Rapids Griffins rallied from a 2-0 deficit with a pair of power play goals to force a shootout against the Milwaukee Admirals Friday night at Van Andel Arena, but they could not pull out the second point and fell by a score of 3-2.
Milwaukee continues to prove a tough opponent for Grand Rapids, as the Griffins have just two regulation wins in their last 21 regular season and playoff games against their cross-lake rival (4-13-3-1).
The Griffins (28-36-2-6) will conclude their three-game home stand and play their second contest of a 3-in-3 set Saturday night, when they host the Rochester Americans at 7 p.m.
The Admirals (39-27-3-2) jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the midway point of the opening period. At 4:16, John Vigilante pounded a rebound past Adam Berkhoel off Cody Franson’s shot from the right circle. Then at 8:02, Gerard Miller sent a laser towards the net from the left point that Andreas Thuresson tipped over Berkhoel’s glove from the high slot.
Grand Rapids was able to narrow the gap and get on the board before the end of the period at 19:05 during a power play. With a strong individual effort, Carl Corazzini skated around the net, nearly losing the puck once he entered the slot, but he corralled it and slid a wrister by Dov Grumet-Morris into the lower right corner for an unassisted tally.
Following a scoreless second frame, the Griffins began the third with another advantage and wasted no time notching the equalizer, as Jonathan Ericsson took a pass from Corazzini and launched a rocket from along the boards atop the right circle that flew past the goaltender just 50 seconds in.
Neither side could break the 2-2 tie through the remainder of regulation or overtime, resulting in a shootout. Corazzini netted the lone Griffins goal during the first round of the duel, while both Jason Guerriero (2nd round) and Matt Ellison (3rd round) tallied for Milwaukee to secure the 3-2 victory.
Berkhoel gave a solid performance in the crease for Grand Rapids with 32 saves, while Grumet-Morris turned aside 38 for the win. |
Analysis of 16S ribosomal DNA sequences of Francisella strains and utilization for determination of the phylogeny of the genus and for identification of strains by PCR.
The 16S ribosomal DNAs (rDNAs) of two strains of Francisella tularensis and one strain of Francisella philomiragia were sequenced. On the basis of phylogenetic analysis data, the genus Francisella was placed in the gamma subclass of the Proteobacteria. The most closely related organism was the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia persica. The sequenced 16S rDNA molecules of the Francisella species exhibited very high levels of similarity (98.5 to 99.9%). Two variable regions, comprising 390 to 450 nucleotides of the 16S rDNA molecules of 17 additional Francisella strains, including members of the species F. tularensis and F. philomiragia, were also sequenced. At most, six nucleotide differences were observed among the sequences of the F. tularensis strains. The sequence of Francisella novicida was virtually identical to the sequences of the F. tularensis strains, thereby supporting the hypothesis that these organisms are members of the same species. On the basis of the observed differences, primer pairs were designed to distinguish strains by using the PCR at the genus, species, and subspecies levels. This permitted sensitive identification of strains belonging to the genus Francisella and discrimination of the species F. tularensis and F. philomiragia. |
Computers are used in many applications. As computing systems continue to evolve, the graphical display requirements of the systems become more demanding. This is especially true in applications where detailed graphical displays must be updated quickly. One example of such an application is a computer game where movement and modification of background images may place great demands on the processing power of the computing system.
In order to display some screen images detailed textures are stored in memory. These textures are then molded and adapted to overlay or map to structures for display. An example is a brick pattern that is mapped to a wall structure, where if the wall is extending into the distance, the texture will be mapped in such a way to show perspective.
Often these textures are modified in ways to further enhance their utility. An example would be the blending of two separate textures to form a new texture. Another example includes modifying the lighting of the texture so as to simulate light coming from a singular source or from multiple sources. In some cases, a single texture may be modified by a number of operations in order to generate a new texture for use.
Multiple modifications to a texture are typically performed using a number of texture blend units. Each of the texture blend units would receive the texture or the product of a previous blend unit and combine it with another input to produce the desired output. The multiple blending units are cascaded to allow a number of different special effects to be applied to a single texture. In order to allow adequate modification of textures, many cascaded blend units may need to be included in the system. Large numbers of blend units add extra circuitry to the system that increases die area, testing requirements, and overall system complexity. All of these factors result in increased costs.
Therefore a need exists for a method and apparatus that allows for texture modification and blend operations to be performed in a simplified manner that utilizes less circuitry. |
1. Introduction {#sec1-nutrients-12-00521}
===============
Neurodegeneration covers a wide range of pathological processes, and is characterized by progressive neuronal loss, leading to impaired neuronal function and death \[[@B1-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Several neurodegenerative disorders begin with the deposition of noxious misfolded proteins, such as β-amyloid and tau proteins in Alzheimer's disease (AD) or α-synuclein in Parkinson's disease (PD), on neuronal cells \[[@B2-nutrients-12-00521],[@B3-nutrients-12-00521]\].
AD involves neurodegeneration in the hippocampal and entorhinal cortical neurons, while in PD, dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra are affected \[[@B4-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Several cerebral events of interrelated pathways are involved in the etiopathogenesis of neurodegeneration, including altered gene expression, neuroinflammation, neurotoxicity, and oxidative stress, which eventually result in neuronal cell death \[[@B5-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The clinical manifestations of these effects include sensory, cognitive or locomotive dysfunction \[[@B6-nutrients-12-00521]\].
Although there are available medicines used for neurodegenerative disorders, there is the need for more therapies because these medicine do not remedy the whole spectrum of pathobiology found in neurodegenerative processes \[[@B7-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Moreover, the prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders is increasing worldwide \[[@B8-nutrients-12-00521]\], and as progressive diseases \[[@B1-nutrients-12-00521]\], damaged neurons do not regenerate by themselves \[[@B4-nutrients-12-00521]\], further highlighting the need for more effective therapies. Effective therapies for these diseases can be achieved not only by the prophylactic prevention of degenerations but also by delaying their progression once it is initiated \[[@B8-nutrients-12-00521],[@B9-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Although most therapies for neurodegenerative disorders do not directly alter the underlying etiology of the diseases, the interventions could still offer relief through retarding their development and progression \[[@B7-nutrients-12-00521]\].
Phytochemicals from fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs are reported to exert neuroprotective effects against such diseases as AD and PD, mediated via altering neurogenerative processes related to misfolded protein formation and neuroinflammation \[[@B8-nutrients-12-00521],[@B10-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Neurodegenerative disorders share a common etiological mechanism of aggregation of noxious misfolded proteins \[[@B2-nutrients-12-00521],[@B3-nutrients-12-00521]\], suggesting that a parallel strategy of treatment to prevent the disposition of such proteins could be effective across several of these disorders \[[@B2-nutrients-12-00521]\].
Palm oil is an edible oil that is extracted from the palm plant fruit (*Elaeis guineensis*) and is one of the most produced and highest consumed edible oils worldwide. This is despite being harvested from the smallest global percentage of all the cultivated land for oils and fats \[[@B11-nutrients-12-00521]\]. For such reasons, the phytochemistry of palm oil fruit has been extensively studied and is well established as comprising several bioactive compounds, including a palmitic-oleic-rich semi-solid fat (the main bulk of the oil, with 95% triglycerides and fatty acids in the form of palmitic, myristic, stearic, oleic and linoleic acids), vitamin E fraction (30% tocopherols and 70% tocotrienols), carotenoids, polyphenols and phytosterols \[[@B12-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The literature is rich in terms of studies that report the dietary and pharmacological effects of palm oil and its bioactives, including those related to neuroprotection. In this regard, the neuroprotective effects of the tocopherols have been more extensively studied than those of the tocotrienols \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Interestingly, several reviews have outlined the pharmacological properties of palm oil and its bioactives in several health conditions \[[@B11-nutrients-12-00521],[@B14-nutrients-12-00521],[@B15-nutrients-12-00521],[@B16-nutrients-12-00521],[@B17-nutrients-12-00521],[@B18-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In this regard, several preclinical and clinical studies have been conducted on the neuroprotective effects of palm oil and its bioactives, although these have not been systematically reviewed anywhere, to the best of our knowledge. Thus, we wanted to review the literature to establish whether there is enough pre-clinical evidence for the neuroprotective effects of palm oil and its bioactives.
2. Materials and Methods {#sec2-nutrients-12-00521}
========================
The design of the current systematic review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) \[[@B19-nutrients-12-00521],[@B20-nutrients-12-00521]\]. All the retrieved primary records were preclinical cell (in vitro) and animal (in vivo) studies related to neuroprotective properties of palm oil and its bioactives in exposed cells and animals. Two independent investigators were involved at every stage of the systematic review (retrieval of records from databases, selection of primary and secondary records, risk assessment for bias and data extraction). Throughout, discrepancies were resolved through discussion with a third investigator. The protocol for this systematic review was registered in the international prospective register of systematic reviews database "PROSPERO" (CRD42019150408) (<https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=150408>). Since this systematic review relied on published preclinical studies and no human studies were included, the informed consent of patients or the approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) was not required.
2.1. Sereach Methodology {#sec2dot1-nutrients-12-00521}
------------------------
The Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) descriptors of PubMed with Boolean operators were used to construct keywords, including ("Palm Oil"\[Mesh\]) AND "Nervous System"\[Mesh\], ("Palm Oil"\[Mesh\]) AND "Neurodegenerative Diseases"\[Mesh\], ("Palm Oil"\[Mesh\]) AND "Brain"\[Mesh\], and ("Palm Oil"\[Mesh\]) AND "Cognition"\[Mesh\]. The pertinent records were retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and ScienceDirect from 1990 to 2019 without refining languages, countries and types of articles. In addition, bibliographies were searched for relevant records, while ProQuest and Google scholar were searched to ensure the comprehensive identification of relevant articles.
2.2. Records Identification {#sec2dot2-nutrients-12-00521}
---------------------------
The total number of the identified records from the retrieved databases and extra sources were recorded, and the number of results per hit in each database was recorded. Then, duplicated records were removed.
2.3. Primary Selection {#sec2dot3-nutrients-12-00521}
----------------------
To restrict selection of the retrieved records to research articles, the records were screened by titles, abstracts or full texts to remove books, reviews, conference abstracts and miscellaneous publications (e.g., indices, glossaries, lists and bibliographies). Then, the identified primary research articles were further screened for relevant content by titles, abstracts or full texts, after which irrelevant primary research articles were excluded.
2.4. Secondary Selection {#sec2dot4-nutrients-12-00521}
------------------------
Relevant primary research articles were screened for relevant content by full text according to the prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria of eligibility. Then, the relevant secondary records were categorized into preclinical cell (in vitro) and animal (in vivo) studies.
### Eligibility Criteria
The inclusion and exclusion criteria for preclinical cell and animal studies are summarized in [Table 1](#nutrients-12-00521-t001){ref-type="table"} and [Table 2](#nutrients-12-00521-t002){ref-type="table"}, respectively.
2.5. Assessment of the Risks of Bias {#sec2dot5-nutrients-12-00521}
------------------------------------
The preclinical studies included in this review were assessed for risks of bias to ensure that the outcomes of the studies were not affected by the prevailing bias in the primary studies.
### 2.5.1. Preclinical Cell Studies {#sec2dot5dot1-nutrients-12-00521}
The oral health assessment tool-validity and reliability (OHAT) tool for the assessment of bias in in vitro studies \[[@B21-nutrients-12-00521]\] was used to categorize the studies into DL (Definitely Low risk of bias indicates direct evidence of low risk-of-bias practices), PL (Probably Low risk of bias indicates indirect evidence of low risk-of-bias practices or it is deemed that deviations from low risk-of-bias practices during the study would not appreciably bias the results), PH (Probably High risk of bias indicates indirect evidence of high risk-of-bias practices or there is insufficient information, also abbreviated as NR) or DH (Definitely High risk of bias indicates direct evidence of high risk-of-bias practices).
For selection bias, randomization was answered as PL in all studies, since it was deemed that the absence of randomization was unlikely to bias the results. Since allocation concealment is not reported in most cell studies, the answer was NR (insufficient information indicating PH).
For performance bias (during treatment), blinding and the use of an identical vehicle for the intervention and control groups were considered. Therefore, answers were taken as DL (identical type and volume of the vehicle), PL (identical type of vehicle but volume was not reported), NR (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (use of different vehicle). For blinding, the answer was either DL (if blinding was reported), PL (if indirect evidence that blinding was undertaken), NR (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (if blinding was reported to be not undertaken).
For detection bias, the answer for the accuracy of exposure characterization was either DL (if the purity of the intervention substance was reported), PL (if the purity of the intervention substance was not reported, but the supplier was reported), NR (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (if it was reported that a low-grade or impure intervention substance was used), while the answer for consistent exposure was either DL (quantities and timing of exposure were consistent), PL (indirect evidence that the quantities and timing of exposure were consistent), NR (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (different quantities and timing of exposure was reported). For blinding, the answer was DL (if blinding was reported), PL (indirect evidence that blinding was undertaken), NR (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (if blinding was reported to be not undertaken).
For attrition bias, the answer for incomplete outcome data was either DL (reported and adequately addressed), PL (indirect evidence that attrition was adequately addressed), NR (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (attrition was reported but inadequately addressed).
For reporting bias, the answer was either DL (all the primary and secondary outcomes are reported as compared to methods and abstract), PL (indirect evidence of reporting all the primary and secondary outcomes as compared to the methods and abstract), PH (insufficient information indicating PH) or DH (some of the primary outcomes were not reported as compared to the methods and abstract).
For other sources of bias, the answer was either DL (appropriate statistics and/or adherence to the protocol when comparing the reported outcomes to objectives and methods), PL (indirect evidence of appropriate statistics and/or adherence to the protocol when comparing the reported outcomes to objectives and methods), or PH (direct evidence of inappropriate statistics and/or non-adherence to the protocol when comparing the reported outcomes to objectives and methods). Finally, if more than four domains are recorded to be PH, the study was excluded, because there is probably a high risk of bias.
### 2.5.2. Preclinical Animal Studies {#sec2dot5dot2-nutrients-12-00521}
The assessment of the risk of bias in animal studies was performed according to the SYRCLE's tool \[[@B22-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The answer for the signaling questions was either "Yes" to indicate a low risk of bias, "No" to indicate a high risk of bias or "U" to indicate an uncertain level of bias.
For the assessment of selection bias (before starting intervention), the baseline characteristics were adopted in place of allocation concealment, since baseline characteristics are standard items in the assessment of selection bias and randomization is not a standard practice in animal studies \[[@B22-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, randomization was considered since it is reported in most animal studies. In response to the research question of this systematic review, the baseline characteristics adopted were a similar age, sex, species and strain of animals, similar timing and characteristics of intervention, similar health status of animals (healthy or disease-induced), similar genetic background of animals (normal or transgenic), similar source of animals, similar inducer (type and dose), conditions and procedures of disease induction (in case of chemical induction of a disease), similar conditions, procedure and period of surgery and recovery (in cases of surgical induction of a disease), isocaloric diet, identical vehicle for either pre-, during or post-gestation in dams--offspring studies. Accordingly, the answer for randomization was Yes (if randomization was explicitly reported) or No (if randomization was not reported), while the answer for the baseline characteristics was either Yes (if similar baseline characteristics were reported) or No (if the baseline characteristics were different).
For the assessment of performance bias (during intervention), randomization was answered as either Yes (if a random housing of cages was reported), or No (if randomization of cages during housing was not reported). For blinding, the answer was Yes (if blinding was reported or it is deemed to have been performed by another person) or No (if blinding was not reported or it was evidenced that the same person performed the treatment, measured the outcomes and analyzed the outcome).
For detection bias (During the outcome measurement), the answer was Yes (if randomized selection of animals was reported for measuring the outcomes and/or gathering blood sample, biopsy or tissues) or No (if the random selection was not reported). For blinded detection, the answer was either Yes (if blinding was reported or there was evidence that another person performed the outcome measurement) or No (if blinding was not reported or there was evidence that the same person performed and analyzed the outcome measurement).
For attrition bias (exclusion of animals during the treatment period because of death, disability, infection or injury/exclusion of data as outliers during the analysis of the outcomes), the answer was either Yes (if the authors reported and addressed the incomplete outcome data adequately, or the incomplete outcome data were not reported but there was evidence of balanced sample size from the time of randomization until outcome reporting) or No (if adequate addressing of incomplete data was not reported or there was evidence that the author did not report imbalanced sample size from the time of randomization to outcome reporting).
For selective outcome reporting, this systematic review adjusted the query for comparing the reported outcomes with methods because the protocols for animal studies are not always available or registered like clinical trials \[[@B22-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In addition, the query was extended to assess whether authors reported all the pre-specified primary and secondary outcomes or selectively reported the primary and secondary outcomes. Accordingly, the answer was either Yes (if all the pre-specified primary or secondary outcomes were reported using the same pre-specified measurements for the primary and secondary outcomes under their own specified methods) or No (if the authors did not report all the pre-specified primary and secondary outcomes or did not report a key primary outcome or reported a primary outcome that was not pre-specified).
For other sources of bias, this systematic review adopted this domain to assess funder bias. If such problems could be inferred directly or indirectly, the answer was No. Otherwise, the answer was U to indicate an uncertain level of bias. Finally, if more than four domains were answered "No", this indicated a high risk of bias and the study was excluded.
2.6. Data Extraction {#sec2dot6-nutrients-12-00521}
--------------------
### 2.6.1. Preclinical Cell Studies {#sec2dot6dot1-nutrients-12-00521}
For study design, the type of study (preclinical in vitro study); challenging characteristics (type of neurotoxin and duration of challenging cells with the neurotoxin); a mono-level intervention group with a negative comparator group and multi-level intervention groups with a comparator group were considered. For human disease models, the type of cells (primary or secondary cells, neuronal slices); source of cells (human, animal or another organism); type of cell line (neuronal or neuroglial); primary cells (source organ, species, sex and strain of animal source, age of the animal at the time of gathering the organ) and genetic background of cells (normal or transgenic) were considered. For intervention, the doses in units; timing of intervention (pre or post or simultaneous with the neurotoxin challenge); duration of the intervention and vehicle of the intervention were used. For primary outcomes, the cytotoxicity (using cellular viability); neuroinflammation (using levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-1α, p65 of NF-κβ); apoptosis (using level of caspase-3); oxidative stress (using levels of glutathione, oxidized glutathione, catalase, glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase for measuring the antioxidant activity, while the level of malondialdehyde was for measuring lipid peroxidation) and neurodegeneration (using levels of misfolded proteins) were used. For secondary outcomes, structural changes in cell morphology (descriptive microscopical abnormalities, immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence staining); and molecular mechanisms (up- or down-regulation of gene expression and metabolomics) were considered. The extracted data were summarized into a table.
### 2.6.2. Preclinical Animal Studies {#sec2dot6dot2-nutrients-12-00521}
For study design, the type of study (preclinical in vivo animal study); health problem of interest; number of groups (a mono-level intervention group with a comparator group, multi-level intervention groups with a comparator group); human disease model; total number of animals; number of animals per each group; disease induction characteristics (type of induction, type of inducer, dose of inducer, route of induction, duration of induction and recovery period after induction); type of exposure (acute, short-term or long-term) and duration of intervention (hours, days, weeks or months) were considered. For human disease models, the age of animal (pups, young, adult, aged); sex of animal (males of females); species of animal (rats or mice); strain of animal (Sprague--Dawley, Wister, etc.); and genetic background (normal or transgenic) were used. For intervention, the doses in units; timing of intervention; frequencies of dose per day (once or twice, etc.); duration of intervention (hours, days, weeks, months) and route of intervention (ad libitum or calibrated admixed with diet or water, forced oral gavage or parenteral) were used. For primary outcomes, the neurotoxicity (using the level of acetyl cholinesterase); neuroinflammation (using levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-1α and p65 of NF-κβ); apoptosis (using the level of caspase-3); oxidative stress (using levels of reduced glutathione, oxidized glutathione, catalase, glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase for the antioxidant activity, while the level of malondialdehyde for lipid peroxidation); neurodegeneration (levels of misfolded proteins) and cognitive functions (escape latency for measuring spatial learning and memory) were considered. For secondary outcomes, structural changes (descriptive microscopical abnormalities in the histology of organs; morphometric histological abnormalities, immunohistochemistry) and molecular changes (up- or down-regulation of gene expression and metabolomics) were considered. Finally, the extracted data were summarized into a table.
2.7. Strategy for Data Synthesis {#sec2dot7-nutrients-12-00521}
--------------------------------
A qualitative approach was used as the preferred option for this systematic review through a narrative literature synthesis by summarizing the primary and secondary outcomes with a view to systematically present the methodology and findings, and show the limitations, drawbacks and deviations, which could affect the observed outcomes.
3. Results {#sec3-nutrients-12-00521}
==========
3.1. Identified Records {#sec3dot1-nutrients-12-00521}
-----------------------
A total of 2076 records were retrieved, out of which 2049 were from the four databases, while 27 were from the other sources ([Table 3](#nutrients-12-00521-t003){ref-type="table"}), and then 654 duplicates were removed ([Figure 1](#nutrients-12-00521-f001){ref-type="fig"}).
3.2. Primary Selected Records {#sec3dot2-nutrients-12-00521}
-----------------------------
After the initial screening, there were 1422 articles, from which 895 records were removed, including books (*n* = 437), reviews (*n* = 339) conference abstracts (*n* = 72) and miscellaneous records (*n* = 46). Then, a total of 527 records were identified as research articles, from which 444 unrelated records were removed. Finally, 83 relevant research articles and three theses were selected ([Figure 1](#nutrients-12-00521-f001){ref-type="fig"}).
3.3. Secondary Selected Records {#sec3dot3-nutrients-12-00521}
-------------------------------
According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria of eligibility, 43 records were excluded, including modified interventions (*n* = 13), unrelated neuroprotective effects (*n* = 21), an inaccessible article (*n* = 1), in silico studies (*n* = 1) and human studies (*n* = 7). Accordingly, 40 research articles were eligible to be included into the qualitative synthesis of the literature.
3.4. Asessment of the Risks of Bias {#sec3dot4-nutrients-12-00521}
-----------------------------------
The assessment of the risk of bias of 40 the eligible records resulted in excluding 22 highly biased records (12 animal studies and 10 cell studies). Finally, the low-risk unbiased records were included into the literature synthesis, comprising 18 studies, namely; eight preclinical cell studies ([Table 4](#nutrients-12-00521-t004){ref-type="table"}) and 10 preclinical animal studies ([Table 5](#nutrients-12-00521-t005){ref-type="table"}).
3.5. Outcomes {#sec3dot5-nutrients-12-00521}
-------------
### 3.5.1. Preclinical Cell Studies {#sec3dot5dot1-nutrients-12-00521}
- Cytoprotective effects of tocotrienol-rich fraction (TRF)
1. Simultaneous treatment
Treatment with either 0.1, 1 or 10 µM of TRF at the same time as hydrogen peroxide for 24 h was found to enhance the cellular viability of primary cells of the anterior striatum of foetal Wistar rats (17th--19th day of gestation) \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Conversely, treatment with either 0.00003%, 0.0003% or 0.003% of TRF together with Aβ42 aggregates for 24 h did not significantly enhance the cellular viability of a human neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y) \[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
2. Pre-treatment
A five-minute pre-treatment with 250 nm TRF enhanced the cellular viability of mouse hippocampal HT4 neuronal cells line and cerebrocortical neurons of foetuses of Sprague--Dawley rats (17th day of gestation) when subsequently subjected to a 24-h challenge with glutamate neurotoxin, which exerts its effects through the direct inhibition of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme and the inhibition of tyrosine phosphorylation of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme \[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similarly, a five-minute pre-treatment with 200 ng/mL TRF enhanced the cellular viability and survival, and reduced lipid peroxidation in human neuroblastoma cell line (SK-N-SH) through antinecrotic and antiapoptotic effects (early and late apoptosis) against a 24-h challenge with glutamate neurotoxin \[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, a five-minute pre-treatment with 100, 200 or 300 ng/mL of TRF neither enhanced cellular viability nor modulated the redox status in a human astrocytes cell line (CRL-2020 cells) against a 24-h challenge with glutamate neurotoxin. Conversely, 200 and 300 ng/mL of TRF attenuated lipid peroxidation and reduced the percentages of apoptotic and necrotic cells \[[@B26-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
3. Post-treatment
A 30-min post treatment with 100, 200 and 300 ng/mL of TRF attenuated cellular apoptosis and necrosis, although only 200 ng/mL TRF could significantly recover the cellular viability of a human neuroblastoma cell line (SK-N-SH) challenged with glutamate neurotoxin for 24 h through the maintenance of the cellular membrane integrity. On the other hand, 300 mg/mL of TRF significantly attenuated lipid peroxidation in the same cells \[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similarly, a 30-min post-treatment with 100, 200 or 300 ng/mL of TRF neither recovered the cellular viability nor produced antioxidant activity in human astrocytes cell line (CRL-2020 cells) challenged with glutamate neurotoxin for 24 h, but was able to attenuate lipid peroxidation and exerted antiapoptotic and antinecrotic activities \[[@B26-nutrients-12-00521]\].
- Cytoprotective effects of individual tocotrienols isomers
1. Simultaneous treatment
A simultaneous treatment with α-tocotrienol (α-TCT) (0.1, 1 and 10 µM), γ-TCT (1 and 10 µM) and δ-TCT (10 µM) for 24 h enhanced the cellular viability of primary cells of the anterior striatum of foetuses of Wistar rats (17th--19th day of gestation) against hydrogen peroxide-induced neurotoxicity \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similarly, a simultaneous treatment with α-, γ- or δ-TCT (0.1, 1 and 10 µM) for 24 h was able to enhance the cellular viability of primary cells of the anterior striatum of fetuses of Wistar rats (17th--19th day of gestation) against parquet-induced neurotoxicity \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Likewise, a 24-h simultaneous treatment with α- and γ-TCT (0.1, 1 and 10 µM), as well as δ-TCT (1 and 10 µM), enhanced the cellular viability of primary cells of anterior striatum of fetuses of Wistar rats (17th--19th day of gestation) against S-nitrosocysteine-induced neurotoxicity \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Moreover, a similar observation was made when simultaneous treatment of α-TCT, γ-TCT and δ-TCT, and 3-morpholinosydnonimine was performed \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. When the same cells were challenged for 48 h with L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine and α-TCT, γ-TCT and δ-TCT also enhanced the cellular viability of primary cells of the anterior striatum of fetuses of Wistar rats through preventing DNA fragmentation \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Again, the simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT rather than γ- or δ-TCT exerted an apoptotic effect in the cells \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
Furthermore, simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT reduced the levels of hydrogen peroxide-induced ROS in human neuroblastoma cells \[SH-SY5Y wild-type\] \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\], although the same treatment was observed to increase the levels of β-amyloid proteins in human neuroblastoma cells overexpressing the human APP695 isoform \[SH-SY5Y APP\] and those expressing C99 \[SH-SY5Y cells\] through direct stimulation of the β- and γ-secretase proteolytic enzymes. The same treatment was equally found to induce Aβ degradation in a mouse neuroblastoma cell line (N2a) through inhibiting the insulin-degrading enzyme \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, the direct activation of γ-secretase was independent of the transcription of the presenilin 1 (PSEN1), presenilin 2 (PSEN2), nicastrin (NCSTN), presenilin-enhancer 2 (PSENEN) and anterior-pharynx-defective 1A (APH1A) genes \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Interestingly, 10 µM of α-TCT significantly reduced the total cholesterol and free cholesterol in a human neuroblastoma cell line \[SH-SY5Y wild-type\] \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
2. Pre-treatment
A five minute pre-treatment with 250 nM α-TCT enhanced cellular viability of mouse hippocampal cells line (HT4) challenged with either glutamate (for 12, 24 or 36 h) or homocysteic acid (for 2, 6, 12 or 24 h) through a direct inhibiting effect on the inducible 12-lipoxygenase enzyme, thereby maintaining neuronal growth \[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\], preventing the overexpression of c-Src and 2-lipoxigenase enzymes \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] and exerting an antioxidant activity (increasing the ratio of cellular content of reduced glutathione/oxidized glutathione) \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similar to the mouse hippocampal cell line (HT4), the same pre-treatment enhanced the cellular viability of primary cortical neurons of fetuses of Sprague--Dawley rats (17th day of gestation) challenged with homocysteic acid for 24 h \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similar effects were also observed when lower concentrations (25, 50 and 100 nM) of α-TCT were used on the primary cortical neurons of Sprague--Dawley rats challenged with either glutamate or L-homocysteic acid \[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The effects of other neurotoxin-like L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine alone or L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine plus arachidonic acid were equally attenuated by 100 nM α-TCT \[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The viability of the cerebral cortex neurons of mouse foetuses (C57BL/6) and B6.129S2-Alox15^tm1Fun^ mice (14th day of gestation) challenged with glutamate, L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine or L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine + arachidonic acid for 24 h were enhanced following pre-treatment with 100 nM of α-TCT \[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
Higher doses (0.25 µM) of α-TCT were, however, found not to be effective in attenuating the neurotoxic effects of L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine plus arachidonic acid on mouse hippocampal HT4 neurons, although it was able to attenuate damage from L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine alone \[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similarly, a five minute pre-treatment (0.25 µM of α-TCT) of mouse hippocampal neurons (HT4) challenged with L-arachidonic acid for 24 h protected the cells against toxicity, as evidenced by the inhibition of tyrosine phosphorylation of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme and the direct inhibition of the inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme \[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Additionally, higher concentrations of α-TCT (2.5 and 10 µM) enhanced cellular viability when the cells were challenged with homocysteic acid for 24 h \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Moreover, antioxidant activity was potentiated in these cells for up to 6 h after incubation with homocysteic acid mediated via the increase in the ratio of the reduced/oxidized glutathione ratio \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Prolonged incubation with the homocysteic acid (8 h) showed a complete elimination of ROS \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. When the cells were challenged with linoleic acid under similar conditions, they were found to have been protected against the lipid peroxidation and the build-up of ROS \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Furthermore, the viability of murine hippocampal HT4 neuronal cells challenged with glutamate for either 30 min or 24 h was found to have increased when the cells were pretreated with 250 µM α-TCT for 10 min or 2 h. These effects were mediated by decreasing the release of arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acids from the cell membrane through inhibiting the hydrolysing effect of cytosolic phospholipase A2 on the cell membrane, which were thought to have then prevented the translocation of cytosolic phospholipase A2 to the cell membrane, its Ser505 phosphorylation or its direct inhibition \[[@B24-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
3. Post-treatment
When hippocampal HT4 neural cells were challenged with homocysteic acid for 24 h and subsequently treated with 250 nM of α-TCT for 8 h, the cellular viability was not improved \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Higher concentrations of the α-TCT (0.25, 2.5 and 10 µM), were, however, able to protect the cells from the damaging effects of homocysteic acid \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 6](#nutrients-12-00521-t006){ref-type="table"}).
### 3.5.2. Preclinical Animal Studies {#sec3dot5dot2-nutrients-12-00521}
- Neuroprotective effects of palm oil
Only one animal study was eligible, and showed that a long-term (8 months) ad libitum feeding on diet enriched with 5 grams of palm oil could slightly enhance the cognitive performance of young (3 week old) male healthy ICR mice, as evidenced by improved spatial learning and memory abilities \[[@B33-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 7](#nutrients-12-00521-t007){ref-type="table"}).
- Neuroprotective effects of tocotrienol-rich fraction (TRF)
1. Healthy animal models
A single oral daily dose of 100 mg/kg of TRF for 10 weeks exerted a slight increase in the cognitive function of healthy male Wistar rats without inducing an inflammatory effect (normal levels of α-TNF, IL-1β, p56 subunit of NFκβ), apoptosis (normal level of caspase-3) or an alteration in the cholinergic function (normal levels of cholinesterase). Moreover, the redox status was also found to be maintained within healthy limits (normal levels of superoxide dismutase enzyme, catalase enzyme, nitrites and malondialdehyde) in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of these rats \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Conversely, the cognitive function of male progeny of Sprague--Dawley rats was improved significantly when given ad libitum diet-admixed TRF during gestation, lactation and post weaning for 8 weeks \[[@B34-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The α-tocotrienol isomer of TRF was found to be highest in the plasma and brain of healthy rats as compared to the other isomers of TRF. Similarly, long-term oral single daily doses of 200 mg/kg TRF in young (3 months) male Wistar rats for 8 months significantly enhanced cognitive function and antioxidant activity (increased activity of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase) and decreased DNA damage (higher levels of plasma DNA) \[[@B38-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, the oral single daily dose of 200 mg/kg of TRF for three months did not produce similar results, nor did it alter the serum lipid peroxidation of the young (3 months) healthy male Sprague--Dawley rats \[[@B39-nutrients-12-00521]\]. When a similarly high dose of TRF (200 mg/kg) was administered for 3 months in elderly (21 months) healthy rats, the cognitive function, plasma lipid peroxidation, and plasma antioxidant activity were significantly improved, while DNA damage was attenuated \[[@B39-nutrients-12-00521]\].
A five-week single oral daily dose (200 mg/kg) of TRF was also shown to improve morphological features in parts of the brain of rats. Accordingly, it induced significant proliferation of granular cells in the dentate gyrus in the hippocampus of chronic stressed or unstressed healthy male Sprague--Dawley rats \[[@B37-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 7](#nutrients-12-00521-t007){ref-type="table"}).
2. Disease-induced animal models
Using a diabetic model, a single oral daily dose of 50 or 100 mg/kg of α-tocotrienol for 21 days was found to significantly (dose-dependent) enhance cognitive function, attenuate brain lipid peroxidation (decreased level of malondialdehyde (MDA)) and enhance brain antioxidant activity (increased levels of reduced glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT)). Similarly, the brain cholinergic function was slightly enhanced (non-significant dose-dependent reduction in the level of brain acetyl cholinesterase enzyme) \[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\]. When doses of 25, 50 or 100 mg/kg of TRF were given for 10 weeks, the cognitive function was enhanced in these rats, as well as the cerebrocortical and hippocampal cholinergic function, lipid peroxidation (reduced level of MDA), antioxidant activity (increased SOD and CAT), inflammation (reduced levels of TNF-α, IL-1β and p56 subunit of NFκβ) and antiapoptotic effects (reduced level of cerebrocortical and hippocampal levels of caspase-3) \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 7](#nutrients-12-00521-t007){ref-type="table"}).
3. Transgenic animal models
Using a double transgenic Alzheimer's disease (AβPP/PS1) animal model, a long-term single oral daily dose of 60 mg/kg of TRF for 10 months in male mice (5 months of age) significantly enhanced recognition abilities and reduced the deposition of β-amyloid proteins in the cortex and hippocampus (soluble and insoluble Aβ isoforms: Aβ ~40~, Aβ ~42~ and Aβ oligomer) \[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Similarly, the same single oral daily dose of TRF (60 mg/kg) for the same duration (10 months) in AβPP/PS1 male mice (5 months of age) slightly enhanced cognitive function, and metabolomics analyses indicated an alteration in 90 putative metabolites that are involved in several metabolic Alzheimer's disease pathways \[[@B31-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In addition, a single oral daily dose of 200 mg/kg of TRF for 6 months in AβPP/PS1 male mice (aged 9 months) upregulated the genes that are responsible for neuroprotective effects, such as Slc24a2 (solute carrier family 24 \[sodium/potassium/calcium exchanger\]), exo1 (exonuclease 1), and Enox1 (ecto-NOX disulfide-thiol exchanger 1), and downregulated the genes responsible for the pathology of AD, such as Pla2g4a (phospholipase A2, group IVA \[cytosolic, calcium-dependent\]), Tfap2b (transcription factor AP-2 beta) \[[@B35-nutrients-12-00521]\], ([Table 7](#nutrients-12-00521-t007){ref-type="table"}).
4. Discussion {#sec4-nutrients-12-00521}
=============
The consumption of palm oil is increasing globally; however, presently, it is a highly controversial food. Palm oil is used for cooking and is also added to many ready-to-eat foods in grocery stores. There is a lot of interest and controversy surrounding its consumption \[[@B40-nutrients-12-00521]\]. It is the most produced oil globally, with the cheapest price on the market, and is the most stable against oxidation \[[@B41-nutrients-12-00521]\]. It has been linked to several health benefits, including protecting brain functions, reducing heart disease risk and improving vitamin A status \[[@B42-nutrients-12-00521]\]. A deficiency of vitamin E is associated with the occurrence of several neurological disorders, while preventing vitamin E deficiency in vulnerable persons requires large quantities of vitamin E, often more than the RDA \[[@B43-nutrients-12-00521]\]. This has prompted a strong justification for the consumption of palm oil, since it is one of the richest sources of vitamin E isomers (tocopherols and tocotrienols), and the loss of vitamin E isomers from palm oil after deep frying was reported to be minimal (8%) \[[@B43-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Moreover, the end product of palm oil after refining still retains a considerable concentration of vitamin E \[[@B44-nutrients-12-00521]\], mostly in the form of tocotrienols (70%), but also some tocopherols (30%) \[[@B45-nutrients-12-00521]\]. TRF contains both tocopherols and tocotrienols isomers (α-, β-, γ- and δ) \[[@B31-nutrients-12-00521]\], as 70% tocotrienols and 30% tocopherols \[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Tocotrienols have been reported to exert more powerful antioxidant activities than tocopherols \[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The reducing abilities of tocotrienol isomers decreases in the order of α \> β \> γ \> δ \[[@B46-nutrients-12-00521]\]. TRF has been reported to be beneficial in several pathologies, including cancer, diabetes mellitus, aging, and neurodegeneration \[[@B35-nutrients-12-00521]\], while the α-tocotrienol isomer constitutes the highest abundancy in TRF, making it more effectively cytoprotective than the other tocotrienol isomers of TRF \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The former reported findings could indicate that the α-tocotrienol isomer is the one which is responsible for the biological activities of TRF, particularly due to the fact that nanomolar contractions of α-tocotrienols exerted a potent neuroprotective effect \[[@B24-nutrients-12-00521]\].
The neuroprotective properties of palm oil and its bioactives are of great interest to consumers, researchers, health authorities and policymakers worldwide, since palm oil is widely consumed \[[@B11-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Hence, this systematic review represents an attempt at conducting a risk--benefit analysis of the consumption of palm oil, in particular, to critically analyse the neuroprotective effects of palm oil and its bioactives in neuronal cells and animal models and further explore the possibilities of developing therapeutic agents from palm oil bioactives for the treatment of prophylaxis against neurotoxicity.
In animal models, a marginal increase in the cognitive performance of mice was observed \[[@B33-nutrients-12-00521]\], which may be explained by the low quantity of palm oil relative to the diets used for the intervention. The quantities used translate to low concentrations of tocotrienols that may not exert a significant effect on cognitive performance since tocotrienols have been shown to be responsible for the neuroprotective effect of palm oil \[[@B47-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In addition, future evaluation of the effect of palm oil on cognitive function should consider the functional and structural changes, as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms underlying cognitive function, using long-term multilevel interventions of palm oil as well as animals with different ages (young, adults and elderly) and sexes (males and females).
Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of acetylcholine \[[@B48-nutrients-12-00521]\], the decline of which contributes to the development of dementia and neurodegeneration. \[[@B49-nutrients-12-00521]\], which suggested that the cognitive supportive effect of TRF in healthy rats was independent of the central cholinergic function since the levels of acetylcholinesterase enzyme of these rats were still normal. The resulting marginal enhancement in cognitive function of healthy rats given 100 mg/kg of TRF \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\] could be due to either the poor penetration of the tocotrienol isomers in TRF through the blood--brain barriers, since blood--brain barriers act to restrict the penetration of several molecules into the brain \[[@B50-nutrients-12-00521]\], or the dose of TRF (100 mg/kg) and the duration of treatment (6 weeks) were insufficient to induce a pronounced enhancement of cognitive function in healthy rats \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\], particularly when it is noted that 200 mg/kg of TRF for a longer duration (8 months) significantly enhanced the cognitive functions and antioxidant activity in healthy rats \[[@B38-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, the ad libitum 100 mg/kg of diet-admixed TRF significantly enhanced the cognitive function of young rats \[[@B34-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, the oral daily dose of 200 mg/kg of TRF in healthy stressed and unstressed rats for 5 weeks did not alter the proliferation and survival of granular cells in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus \[[@B37-nutrients-12-00521]\], which could support the hypothesis of the poor penetration of tocotrienols through the blood--brain barriers, depending on the maturity of blood--brain barriers between adults and natal animals and the situation of the health status of the blood--brain barriers \[[@B50-nutrients-12-00521]\].
Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder \[[@B51-nutrients-12-00521]\] and is the seventh leading cause of death worldwide \[[@B52-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Uncontrolled sustained hyperglycemia is the main pathophysiological feature of type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus, leading to multisystemic complications \[[@B53-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Recent evidence suggests mutual underlying pathologies between diabetes mellitus and neurodegeneration \[[@B54-nutrients-12-00521]\] due to the homeostatic imbalance of glucagon--insulin in diabetes mellitus, which induces amyloid deposition in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans's and the brain \[[@B53-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In addition, diabetes mellitus and neurodegeneration share common pathophysiological events, including inflammation and oxidative stress \[[@B54-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The improved cholinergic function in diabetic rats given TRF was achieved through reducing the cerebrocortical level of acetyl cholinesterase \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\]---the enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of acetylcholine neurotransmitter \[[@B48-nutrients-12-00521]\]---the decline of which contributes to the development of dementia and neurodegeneration \[[@B49-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In addition, TRF attenuated cerebrocortical and hippocampal oxidative stress and inflammation \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\], which are mutual features of the pathophysiology of neurodegeneration and diabetes mellitus \[[@B54-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Moreover, TRF exerted an antiapoptotic effect, thereby enhancing the survival of cerebrocortical and hippocampal neurons \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The attenuation of oxidative stress by α-tocotrienol also suggests that it could benefit both diabetes mellitus and neurodegeneration \[[@B54-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, the study did not demonstrate the success of inducing diabetes by measuring baseline and final blood sugar level and/or insulin \[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\] since α-tocotrienol possesses an antioxidant activity \[[@B47-nutrients-12-00521]\] that could provide protection against the destructive effect of streptozotocin (STZ) on pancreatic β-cells. Moreover, the sample size of animals per group was not specified. Furthermore, while the study was designed to be a chronic study, the duration of intervention was only 21 days \[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Eventually, TRF exerted a potent antioxidant activity and was composed of four tocotrienol isomers (α, β, γ and δ) \[[@B45-nutrients-12-00521]\], of which the reducing ability decreased in the order of α \> β \> γ \> δ \[[@B46-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Therefore, the similarly enhanced cognitive functions and antioxidant activity of diabetes-induced rats by α-tocotrienol and TRF in the studies by Tiwari et al. \[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\] and Kuhad et al. \[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\], respectively, could indicate that α-tocotrienol is the isomer that is responsible for the improved cognitive function and antioxidant activities of TRF.
The brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease demonstrate the presence of fibrillar amyloid-β peptide \[[@B55-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In addition, three gene mutations are responsible for Alzheimer's disease, including presenilin 1 (PSEN1), presenilin 2 (PSEN2) and amyloid precursor protein (APP), with presenilin 1 being the most common \[[@B56-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Hence, heterozygous AβPP/PS1 double transgenic male mice were used since they represent human APP and human PS1. Although the functional outcomes indicated that TRF (60 mg/kg) for 10 months could not enhance the cognitive functions or reduce the deposition of soluble and insoluble Aβ isomers in the cortex and hippocampus of AβPP/PS1 male mice, the structural outcomes indicated a relative reduction in the deposition of Aβ-protein and Aβ-plaques significantly in the cortex of animals but non-significantly in hippocampus \[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Also, the same dose of TRF (60 mg/kg) for the same duration (10 months) in the same animals (AβPP/PS1 male mice) indicated a slight enhancement of the cognitive function; however, metabolomics indicated that TRF induced 90 putative metabolites that are involved in several metabolic pathways in Alzheimer's disease \[[@B31-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, a higher dose of TRF (200 mg/kg) conferred neuroprotective effects through a significant up-regulation of Slc24a2 (solute carrier family 24 \[sodium/potassium/calcium exchanger\]), exo1 (exonuclease 1) and Enox1 (ecto-NOX disulfide-thiol exchanger 1). Additionally, Pla2g4a (phospholipase A2, group IVA \[cytosolic, calcium-dependent\]), and Tfap2b (transcription factor AP-2 beta) were significantly down-regulated \[[@B35-nutrients-12-00521]\]. It is, therefore, our belief that several dose levels (in between 60 and 200 mg/kg as well as higher than 200 mg/kg of TRF) would be better when assessing dose--response effects \[[@B57-nutrients-12-00521]\], particularly relating to the neuroprotective effect that TRF provides, as evidenced by the findings of the current systematic review. In addition, it would be better to elucidate the efficacy of the individual tocotrienol isomers of TRF in AβPP/PS1 double transgenic male mice to evaluate which tocotrienol isomer is responsible for the neuroprotective effect of TRF and the structure--activity relationships, so that these isomers could be recruited as prototype molecules to develop analogues of higher efficacy and effectiveness.
In in vitro studies, the neuroprotective effects of simultaneous treatment with TRF against the neurotoxicity of hydrogen peroxide \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] and Aβ42 aggregates \[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\] was conflicting, although the duration of exposure was the same (24 h). Nonetheless, hydrogen peroxide exerted neurotoxicity through the generation of oxygen free radicals \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\], which were neutralized by TRF \[[@B58-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Conversely, the inability of TRF to improve cellular viability in the presence of β-amyloid protein (Aβ42 aggregates) in the human neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y) as reported by Grimm et al. \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] suggests that α-tocotrienol is the bioactive isomer responsible for the activity of TRF. Future in vivo studies should verify the neuroprotective effects of different concentrations of either TRF or tocotrienol isomers against the neurotoxic effects of amyloid-β protein, especially since the efficacy of TRF in AβPP/PS1 mice is inconclusive \[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Furthermore, the reduced total and free cholesterol in the human neuroblastoma cells line \[SH-SY5Y wild-type\] due to α-tocotrienol treatment \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] suggests that α-tocotrienol could provide a potent neuroprotective effect in Alzheimer's disease, since the elevated serum levels of cholesterol are positively correlated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease \[[@B59-nutrients-12-00521]\].
Glutamate is a highly abundant neurotransmitter in the central nervous system (CNS), which, when accumulated, could result in neurodegeneration \[[@B60-nutrients-12-00521]\] and neuronal death \[[@B61-nutrients-12-00521]\]. TRF had prophylactic and recovery neuroprotective effects on neurons treated with glutamate, mediated via the attenuation of lipid peroxidation and apoptosis \[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\]. TRF also directly inhibits glutamate-inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme \[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\], an enzyme that is involved in the pathogenicity of Alzheimer's disease through lipid peroxidation of the cell membrane of neurones \[[@B62-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Both pre-treatment and post-treatment with TRF protected the integrity of cell membranes \[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\]; however, the underlying molecular mechanism was not evaluated. Conversely, the effect of TRF was not as effective in astrocytes as in neurons \[[@B26-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Accordingly, further in vivo studies should be conducted to elucidate the antioxidant, antiapoptotic and antinecrotic effects of TRF on neuronal and neuroglial cells of animals, or even in vitro studies using human neuronal and neuroglial cell lines.
TRF is a mixture of several tocotrienols and tocopherols \[[@B47-nutrients-12-00521]\]; therefore, it is very important to elucidate the neuroprotective effects of individual tocotrienols, since the effects of tocopherols have been widely evaluated \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521],[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The findings of simultaneous treatment indicated that α-, γ- and δ-tocotrienols exerted a substantial neuroprotective effect against a wide range of neurotoxins, which could be due to their antioxidant and antiapoptotic activities \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\]. However, the simultaneous neuroprotective effect of α-tocotrienol was superior to those of either γ- and δ-tocotrienols \[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\], which could be related to the reducing abilities of tocotrienol isomers that decrease in the order of α \> β \> γ \> δ \[[@B46-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Although simultaneous treatment with α-tocotrienol enhanced cellular survival, it exerted an amyloidogenic effect by increasing the levels of β-amyloid through a direct activation of β- and α-secretase enzymes \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\]. The majority of studies indicated that pre-treatment of neuronal cells with nanomolar concentrations (25, 50, 100 and 250 nM) or micromolar concentrations of α-tocotrienol \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521],[@B24-nutrients-12-00521],[@B25-nutrients-12-00521],[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] could provide substantial prophylactic neuroprotective activity for neuronal cells against a wide range of neurotoxins. The effects were found to be medicated through exerting antioxidant activity and maintaining the integrity of the cell membrane of neurones by inhibiting the hydrolytic activity of phospholipase A2 and lipoxygenase enzymes on the phospholipids of the cell membranes \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521],[@B24-nutrients-12-00521],[@B25-nutrients-12-00521],[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\]. Future preclinical in vitro and in vivo studies should consider the elucidation of the pre-treatment effect of tocotrienols on the levels of AB protein isomers, since simultaneous treatment with α-tocotrienols was reported to be amyloidogenic \[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\]. On the other hand, post-treatment with nanomolar and micromolar concentrations of α-tocotrienol showed neuroprotective effects \[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\].
Finally, this systematic review recommends that further studies should undertake the practice of bias as well as baseline characteristics and identical exposure characteristics during the allocation of animals or cells, measurement of outcomes, adequate addressing of attrition, analysing outcomes and reporting results \[[@B21-nutrients-12-00521],[@B22-nutrients-12-00521]\]. In the literature, little was reported about the neuroprotective effects of the organic acids (e.g., palmitic acid) in palm oil. Accordingly, this systematic review recommends that further investigations should consider the investigation of the neuroprotective effects and the underlying molecular mechanisms of the oleic fractions and organic acids (e.g., palmitic acid, oleic acid) in palm oil, because the oleic fraction constitutes the majority of palm oil.
5. Conclusions {#sec5-nutrients-12-00521}
==============
In animal studies, palm oil, TRF and α-tocotrienol isomer enhanced the cognitive performance of healthy animals, while TRF and α-tocotrienol isomer enhanced cognitive functions with an attenuation of neuro-oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and neuro-apoptosis in a diabetes-induced and transgenic AD animal model. In transgenic AD animal models, TRF also marginally reduced the deposition of amyloid-β isomers. Furthermore, results from in vitro cell studies showed that TRF and α-tocotrienol exerted prophylactic neuroprotective effects, while α-tocotrienol exerted recovery neuroprotective effects. In addition, α-, γ- and δ-tocotrienol isomers exerted neuroprotective effects in neuronal cells; however, α-tocotrienol was superior to γ- and δ-tocotrienol isomers. Although α-tocotrienol isomer provided a potent reduction in cholesterol levels, it was associated with amyloidogenic activity. However, the findings of the disposition of amyloid-β proteins in the preclinical cell and animal studies have been conflicting. Our systematic review infers that the activity of TRF from palm oil could be attributed mostly to its α-tocotrienol content.
The authors thank the Ministry of Education, Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia for financial support.
Conceptualization, M.I.; methodology, A.A., M.I. and M.A.A.; resources, M.N.S. and Z.I.; data curation, A.A., M.A.A. and M.I.; writing---Original draft preparation, A.A.; writing---Review and editing, A.A., M.I., M.U.I., H.K. and D.J.O.; supervision, M.I.; project administration, M.I.; funding acquisition, M.I. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
This research was funded by Translational Research Grant Scheme, Ministry of Education Malaysia, GP-IPB 552 6800.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
{#nutrients-12-00521-f001}
nutrients-12-00521-t001_Table 1
######
Inclusion and exclusion criteria of eligibility of preclinical cell studies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inclusion Criteria Exclusion Criteria
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------
**Human disease model** ●Neurotoxicity ●irrelevant
●neurodegeneration
●neuro-apoptosis
●neuro-oxidative stress
●neuro-inflammation
**Population** ●normal or transgenic neuronal cell line ●neuronal or neuroglial cell line derived from an organism with a neurological hereditary disease\
●primary neuronal or neuroglial cells derived from an organism with a neurological hereditary disease;\
●in silico models
●normal or transgenic neuroglial cell line
●primary neuronal or neuroglial cells
●neuronal slices
**Interventions** ●palm oil and palm oil bioactives (tocotrienol-rich fraction, polyphenol-rich fraction, individual tocotrienols or β-carotenes) ●pure α-, β-, δ- or γ-tocopherols
●any duration of intervention
●any dose of intervention
●any timing of intervention (simultaneous treatment: incubation of the intervention and the neurotoxin at the same time)
●pre-treatment: cells treated before being challenged with the neurotoxin
●post-treatment: cells treated after being challenged with the neurotoxin
**Comparators** ●inert vehicles (water, ethanol, normal saline, phosphate buffer, DMSO or media) ●comparator with different experimental conditions or exposure compared with the intervention groups
●comparators subjected to identical experimental conditions and exposure as the intervention groups ●tocopherols
●the same vehicle used to dissolve the intervention ●a vehicle rather than that used to dissolve the intervention
**Study Design** ●Preclinical in vitro experiments with mono-level or multi-level intervention (pre-, post- and simultaneous exposure) with an appropriate comparator ●lack of an appropriate comparator
**Outcomes** **Primary** ●Cellular viability ●irrelevant
●inflammation
●apoptosis;
●oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation and antioxidant activity)
**Secondary** ●Cytomorphological and molecular changes ●irrelevant
**Others (article type)** ●published research articles\ ●research articles in predatory journals according to Beall's list
●full papers in proceedings\
●unpublished theses
●Published theses
●inaccessible research articles
●high-risk biased studies
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nutrients-12-00521-t002_Table 2
######
Inclusion and exclusion criteria of eligibility of preclinical animal studies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inclusion Criteria Exclusion Criteria
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------
**Human disease model** ●neurodegenerative disorders ●irrelevant
●neuroinflammation
●neurotoxicity
●neuro-injury
●neuro-oxidative stress
**Population** ●pup, young, young adult, adult or elderly animals ●none
●male or female animals
●rats or mice
●strains of rats or mice
●healthy, disease-induced animals or transgenic disease animals
**Interventions** ●palm oil, or its bioactives (e.g., palmitic acid, tocotrienol-rich fraction, polyphenol-rich fraction, individual tocotrienols or β-carotenes) ●pure α-, β-, δ- and γ-tocopherols\
●blended palm oil with other oils\
●palm oil combined with other foods\
●content-modified palm oil (e.g., vitamin-E-stripped)\
●palm oil bioactives extracted from parts of palm tree other than palm fruit
●any dose of intervention
●any timing of intervention
●any frequency of intervention (e.g., once or twice... etc. per a day)
●any duration of intervention
●any technique of intervention administration (admixed with diet, suspended in water, oral via gastric gavage or parenteral)
**Comparators** ●palm oil; inert vehicles (water, normal saline, or tweens)\ ●blended palm oil with other oils
●comparators subjected to identical experimental conditions and exposure similar to those of the intervention groups\
●the same vehicle used to dissolve the intervention
●palm oil combined with other foods; content-modified palm oil (e.g., vitamin-E-stripped)
●comparator with different experimental conditions or exposure different from the intervention groups
●a vehicle rather than that used to dissolve the intervention
**Study Design** ●acute, sub-acute or chronic preclinical animal studies containing at least mono-level or multi-level dosing of oral dietary, oral gavage or parenteral intervention with an appropriate comparator ●lack an appropriate comparator
**Outcomes** **Primary** ●cognitive function ●irrelevant
●locomotor function
●healing after neuro-injury
●neuroinflammation
●apoptosis
●oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation and antioxidant activity)
**Secondary** ●structural and molecular changes ●irrelevant
**Others (article type)** ●published research articles\ ●research articles in predator journals according to Beall's list
●full papers in proceedings\
●Unpublished theses
●Published theses
●inaccessible research articles
● high-risk biased studies
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nutrients-12-00521-t003_Table 3
######
Number of results per hit in each database.
Keywords PubMed Web of Science Science Direct Scopus
----------------------------------------- -------- ---------------- ---------------- ---------
Palm oil and nervous system 17 9 499 12
Palm oil and brain 15 64 1071 83
Palm oil and neurodegenerative diseases 4 5 135 7
Palm oil and cognition 2 2 112 12
**Total** **38** **80** **1817** **114**
nutrients-12-00521-t004_Table 4
######
Assessment of risk of bias for the preclinical cell studies using the OHAT tool.
Studies Selection Bias Performance Bias Detection Bias Attrition Bias Reporting Bias Others
---------------------------------- ---------------- ------------------ ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- -------- ---- ---- ---- ----
\[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR DL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B24-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR DL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR DL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR DL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B26-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR PL NR DL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL PL DL DL DL DL PL NR DL PL
\[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR DL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] \* PL NR DL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
\[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\] PL NR PL NR PL DL NR NR PL PL
DL (Definitely Low risk of bias if direct evidence of low risk-of-bias practices), PL (Probably Low risk of bias: Indirect evidence of low risk-of-bias practices OR it is deemed that deviations from low risk-of-bias practices for these criteria during the study would not appreciably bias results, including consideration of direction and magnitude of bias), PH (Probably High risk of bias: Indirect evidence of high risk-of-bias practices OR there is insufficient information "NR") and DH (Definitely High risk of bias: Direct evidence of high risk-of-bias practices). \* superscript: This study was a part of a preclinical animal study.
nutrients-12-00521-t005_Table 5
######
Assessment of risk of bias for the preclinical animal studies using CYRCL's tool.
Studies Selection Bias Performance Bias Detection Bias Attrition Bias Reporting Bias Others
------------------------------- ---------------- ------------------ ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- -------- ----- ----- ----- -----
\[[@B31-nutrients-12-00521]\] No Yes U No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes
\[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\] No Yes U No No No No Yes Yes U
\[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No Yes No No Yes U
\[[@B33-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No No No Yes Yes U
\[[@B34-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No No No Yes Yes U
\[[@B35-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No Yes No No Yes Yes
\[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U Yes No No No No yes U
\[[@B37-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No No Yes No Yes U
\[[@B38-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No Yes No Yes Yes U
\[[@B39-nutrients-12-00521]\] Yes Yes U No No Yes No No Yes U
"Yes" to indicate a low risk of bias, "No" to indicate a high risk of bias or "U" to indicate an uncertain level of bias.
nutrients-12-00521-t006_Table 6
######
Characteristics of preclinical cells studies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference Study Design, Human Disease Modelled and Population Intervention Comparator Outcomes
---------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate induced-neurotoxicity model for 12, 24 or 36 h\ ●5-min pre-treatment with 250 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant time-dependent enhancement of cellular viability ●Direct inhibition of inducible 12-lipoxygenase enzyme.\
●Mouse hippocampal HT4 cells line ●Morphological changes indicated the prevention of neurodegeneration with the maintenance of neuronal growth.
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate or L-homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h\ ●5-min pre-treatment with 25, 50, 100 and 250 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability
●Immature primary cortical neurons of Sprague-Dawley rats (17th day of gestation)
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine or L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine +arachidonic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using immature primary cortical neurons of Sprague-Dawley rats (17th day of gestation) ●5-min pre-treatment with 100 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement cellular viability
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine neurotoxicity for 24 h using immature primary cortical neurons of Sprague-Dawley rats (17th day of gestation) ●5-min pre-treatment with 100 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability, but loss of the cellular reduced glutathione
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate, L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine or L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine + arachidonic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using cerebral cortex neurons of mouse fetuses (C57BL/6) mice, (14th day of gestation) ●5-min pre-treatment with 100 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability
\[[@B25-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate, L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine or L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine + arachidonic acid for 24 h using cerebral cortex neurons of the fetuses of B6.129S2-Alox15tm1Fun mice ●5-min pre-treatment with 100 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Hydrogen peroxide neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of fetal Wistar rats (17th--19th day of gestation). ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.1, 1 or 10 µM of TRF in 0.1% DMSO (TRF: 90% pure contains 14.5. mg α-TCT, 2.5 mg β-TCT, 26 mg γ-TCT and 7.2 δ-TCT) ●0.1% DMSO ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability.
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Hydrogen peroxide neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of fetal Wistar rats (17th--19th day of gestation) ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.1, 1 or 10 µM of either α-, γ- or δ-TCT in 0.1% DMSO ●0.1% DMSO ●α-TCT \[0.1, 1 and 10 µM\], γ-TCT \[1 and 10 µM\] and δ-TCT \[10 µM\] significantly enhanced cellular viability
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Parquet neurotoxicity with for 24 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of foetal Wistar rats on the 17th--19th day of gestation ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.1, 1 and 10 µM of either α-, γ- or δ-TCT in 0.1% DMSO ●0.1% DMSO ●α-, γ- or δ-TCT \[0.1, 1 and 10 µM\] significantly enhanced cellular viability
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●S-nitrosocysteine neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of foetal Wistar rats on the 17th--19th day of gestation ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.1, 1 and 10 µM of either α-, γ- or δ-TCT in 0.1% DMSO ●0.1% DMSO ●α- and γ-TCT \[0.1, 1 and 10 µM\] as well as δ-TCT \[1 and 10 µM\] significantly enhanced cellular viability.
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●3-morpholinosydnonimine neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of foetal Wistar rats on the 17th--19th day of gestation ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.1, 1 and 10 µM of either α-, γ- or δ-TCT in 0.1% DMSO ●0.1% DMSO ●α-TCT \[0.1, 1 and 10 µM\], γ-TCT \[1 and 10 µM\] and δ-TCT \[1 and 10 µM\] significantly enhanced cellular viability.
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine neurotoxicity for 48 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of foetal Wistar rats on the 17th--19th day of gestation ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.01, 0.1 and 1 µM of either α-, γ- or δ-TCT in 0.1% DMSO ●0.1% DMSO ●α-TCT \[0.1 and 1 µM\], γ-TCT \[1 µM\] and δ-TCT \[1 µM\] significantly enhanced cellular viability. α-, γ- and δ-TCT \[1 µM\] exerted antiapoptotic effects, however, the antiapoptotic effect of α-TCT was superior to that of either γ- or δ-TCT ●Antiapoptotic effect involved the prevention of DNA fragmentation.
\[[@B27-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Staurosporine neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cells of anterior striatum of foetal Wistar rats on the 17th--19th day of gestation. ●Simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of either α-, γ- or δ-TCT 0.1% DMSO ●0.1% DMSO ●Only 10 µM of α-TCT exerted a significant antiapoptotic effect, while γ- or δ-TCT field to exert a significant antiapoptotic effect. ●Antiapoptotic effect involved a significant prevention of DNA fragmentation.
\[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse Hippocampal HT4 Neurons ●5-min pre-treatment with 250 nm of TRF in 1% ethanol (TRF: 90% pure contains 14.5. mg α-TCT, 2.5 mg β-TCT, 26 mg γ-TCT and 7.2 δ-TCT) ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability ●Inhibiting the tyrosine phosphorylation of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme and direct inhibition of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme
\[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using cerebral cortex neurons of foetuses of Sprague-Dawley rats, (17th day of gestation) ●5-min pre-treatment with 250 nm of TRF in 1% ethanol (TRF: 90% pure contains 14.5. mg α-TCT, 2.5 mg β-TCT, 26 mg γ-TCT and 7.2 δ-TCT) ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability ●Inhibiting the tyrosine phosphorylation of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme and direct inhibition of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme
\[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse Hippocampal HT4 Neurons ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A relative (nonsignificant) enhancement of cellular viability
\[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●L-buthionine (S,R)-sulfoximine + arachidonic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse Hippocampal HT4 Neurons ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant loss of cellular viability
\[[@B29-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●L- arachidonic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse Hippocampal HT4 Neurons ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Inhibiting tyrosine phosphorylation of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme and direct inhibition of inducible 12-lipoxignase enzyme
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5 min pre- or 8 h post-treatment with 250 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Pre-treatment significantly enhanced cellular viability, while post-treatment failed to enhance cellular viability
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre- or 8 h post-treatment with 0.25, 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Pre- and post-treatment significantly enhanced cellular viability.
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 2 or 6 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre-treatment with 250 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Provided a significant antioxidant activity through enhancing the ratio of cellular levels of reduced glutathione/oxidized glutathione
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 8 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre-treatment with 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Blue fluorescence imaging indicated a completely elimination of ROS
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Linoleic acid neurotoxicity for 4 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25, 1, 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●1, 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT significantly attenuated lipid peroxidation ●Fluorescence imaging indicated the attenuation of the build-up of ROS
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Linoleic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25, 1, 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Significantly enhanced cellular viability \[2.5 and 10 µM\]
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 12 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre-treatment with 250 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability ●Prevented overexpression of c-Src and 2-lipoxigenase
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 6 h using mouse hippocampal HT4 neural cells ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25, 1, 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Provided a significant antioxidant activity \[2.5 and 10 µM\] through enhancing the ratio of cellular levels of reduced glutathione/oxidized glutathione
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cortical neurons of foetuses of Sprague--Dawley (17th day of gestation) ●5-min pre-treatment with 250 nM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Significantly enhanced cellular viability
\[[@B13-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Homocysteic acid neurotoxicity for 24 h using primary cortical neurons of foetuses of Sprague--Dawley (17th day of gestation) ●5-min pre-treatment with 0.25, 1, 2.5 and 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Significantly enhanced cellular viability
\[[@B24-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 30 min using murine hippocampal HT4 neuronal cells ●10-min pre-treatment with 250 µM α-TCT in ethanol 1% ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability ●Decreasing significantly the release of arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acids from cell membrane through attenuating the hydrolysis activity of cytosolic phospholipase A2 on cell membrane due to inhibiting:\
●Translocation of cytosolic phospholipase A2 to cell membrane,\
●Ser505 phosphorylation of cytosolic phospholipase A2\
●Phospholipase A2 activity
\[[@B24-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using murine hippocampal HT4 neuronal cells ●2-h pre-treatment with 250 µM α-TCT in ethanol 1% ●1% ethanol ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability ●Direct inhibition of phospholipase A2.
\[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using human neuroblastoma cells line (SK-N-SH) ●5-min pre-treatment with 100, 200, or 300 ng/mL of TRF in DMSO (TRF: 25% tocopherol and 75% tocotrienols) ●DMSO ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability particularly 200 ng/mL\ ●Annexin V-FITC/PI staining indicated that 200 mg/kg was significantly the highest against necrosis as well as early and late stage apoptosis
●A significant dose-dependent attenuation of lipid peroxidation through reducing the levels of MDA
\[[@B28-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using human neuroblastoma cells line (SK-N-SH) ●30-min post-treatment with 100, 200, or 300 ng/mL TRF in DMSO (TRF: 25% tocopherol and 75% tocotrienols) ●DMSO ●A significant enhancement of cellular viability particularly 200 mg/kg.\ ●Annexin V-FITC/PI staining indicated slight (nonsignificant) antiapoptotic effect against necrosis as well as early and late stage apoptosis\
●A significant attenuation of lipid peroxidation through reducing the levels of MDA particularly 300 mg/kg ●Electronic microscope scanning for cellular morphology indicated that only 200 mg/kg could provide a little improvement to the cell membrane integrity.
\[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Hydrogen peroxide neurotoxicity for 24 h using human neuroblastoma cells line \[SH-SY5Y wild-type\] ●Simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol ●1% ethanol ●Significantly reduced the levels of ROS ●Significant strong protection of total cholesterol and free cholesterol.
\[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Alzheimer's disease model using human neuroblastoma cells line \[SH-SY5Y APP\] overexpressing the human APP695 isoform ●Simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol for 24 h ●1% ethanol ●A nonsignificant increase in the levels of Aβ indicating early onset of AD ●Direct activation of γ-secretase independent of gene expression
\[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Alzheimer's disease model using human neuroblastoma cells line \[SH-SY5Y wild-type\] ●Simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol for 24 h ●1% ethanol ●A significant increase in the levels of Aβ ●Due to direct increase in β-secretase activity independent of gene transcription of BACE1
\[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Alzheimer's disease model using human neuroblastoma cells line \[SH-SY5Y cells\] stably expressing C99 ●Simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol for 24 h ●1% ethanol ●Significantly increased levels of Aβ ●Direct activation of γ-secretase independent of gene transcription of PSEN1, PSEN2, NCSTN, PSENEN and APH1A
\[[@B23-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Alzheimer's disease model using mouse neuroblastoma cell line (N2a) ●Simultaneous treatment with 10 µM of α-TCT in 1% ethanol for 24 h ●1% ethanol ●Significantly decreasing Aβ degradation ●Inhibiting insulin-degrading enzyme
\[[@B26-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using human astrocytes cell line (CRL-2020 cells) derived from glioblastoma with S100B protein ●5-min pre-treatment with 100, 200 and 300 ng/mL of TRF in absolute ethanol (TRF: 25% tocopherol and 75% tocotrienols) ●Absolute ethanol ●TRF could neither promptly (significantly) enhance cellular viability nor modulate the situation of oxidative stress since the level of the reduced glutathione was still low. However, 200 and 300 ng/mL could significantly attenuate lipid peroxidation through reducing the MDA level. ●Morphological cellular changes indicated a significantly reduction in the percentages of apoptotic and necrotic cells at higher concentrations.
\[[@B26-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Glutamate neurotoxicity for 24 h using human astrocytes cell line (CRL-2020 cells) derived from glioblastoma with S100B protein ●30-min post-treatment with 100, 200 and 300 ng/mL of TRF in absolute ethanol (TRF: 25% tocopherol and 75% tocotrienols) ●Absolute ethanol ●TRF could neither promptly (significantly) enhance cellular viability nor modulate the situation of oxidative stress since the level of the reduced glutathione was still low. However, TRF could significantly attenuate lipid peroxidation through reducing the MDA level. ●Morphological cellular changes indicated a significant reduction in the percentages of apoptotic and necrotic cells at higher concentrations.
\[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\] \* ●Alzheimer's disease model with Aβ42 aggregates for 24 h using human neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y) ●Simultaneous treatment with 0.00003, 0.0003, 0.003% (v/v) TRF in 0.15% ethanol (TRF: 196 mg/g α-TCT, 24 mg/g β-TCT, 255 mg/g γ-TCT,75mg/gδ-TCT and 168 mg/g α-tocopherol) ●0.15% ethanol ●TRF could significantly enhance cellular viability
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AD: Alzheimer's disease, TRF: tocotrienol-rich fraction, MDA: malondialdehyde, TCT: tocotrienol, Aβ: amyloid-β protein, ROS: reactive oxygen species. PSEN1: presenilin 1, PSEN2: presenilin 2, NCSTN: nicastrin, PSENEN: presenilin-enhancer 2, APH1A: anterior-pharynx-defective 1A, BACE1: Beta-secretase 1. \* superscript: this study was a part of a preclinical animal study.
nutrients-12-00521-t007_Table 7
######
Characteristics of preclinical animal studies.
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Reference Human Modeled Disease, Study Design and Population Intervention Comparator Outcomes
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\[[@B33-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Nutritionally induced-cognitive dysfunction\ ●Palm oil (5 g/100 g NRD) ●100 g NRD ●Slight (nonsignificant) improvement in cognitive functions as evidenced by the non-significant reduced escape latency.
●Young healthymale Crj:CD-1 (ICR) mice (3 weeks, *n* = 5)\
●Long-term mono-level oral *ad libitum* intervention for 8 months.
\[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Diabetes-induced cognitive dysfunction\ ●25, 50 or 100 mg/kg of TRF triturated with 5% tween 80 and dissolved in 5 mL/kg doubled distilled water. (TRF: Purity and composition was not stated) ●5% tween 80 in 5 mL/kg doubled distilled water ●Significant dose-dependent improvement in cognitive dysfunctions as evidenced by the deceased transfer latency (the time to reach the platform) and increased the time spent in the target quadrant (improved memory consolidation after learning).\
●Healthy male Wistar rats (age? *n* = 8).\ ●A significant dose-dependent improve in the cerebrocortical cholinergic activity, while the hippocampal cholinergic function was not significantly improved.\
●IP-injection of 45 mg/kg STZ (pH = 4.4, 0.1 M citrate buffer), while control was IP injected with citrate buffer vehicle.\ ●A significant dose-dependent reversal of the cerebrocortical and hippocampal oxidative stress through attenuating lipid peroxidation and enhancing the activity of the antioxidant enzymes.\
●Long-term multilevel single oral daily intervention started from the 3rd day of STZ injection for 10 weeks. ●A significant dose-dependent anti-inflammatory effect though reducing the cerebrocortical and hippocampal levels of TNF-α, IL-1β and p56 subunit of NFκβ.\
●A significant dose-dependent antiapoptotic effect through reducing cerebrocortical and hippocampal levels of caspase-3.
\[[@B32-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Normal cognitive function\ ●100 mg/kg of TRF triturated with 5% tween 80 and dissolved in 5 mL/kg doubled distilled water. (TRF: Purity and composition was not stated) ●5% tween 80 in 5 mL/kg doubled distilled water. ●The cognitive performance was slightly (nonsignificant) increased as evidenced by the non-significantly reduced escape latency
●Healthy male Wistar rats with (age? *n* = 8--10).\
●Long-term mono-level single oral daily intervention for 10 weeks.
\[[@B36-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Diabetes-induced cognitive dysfunction\ ●50 and 100 mg/kg α-TCT triturated with 5% tween and dissolved in double distilled water. ●5% tween and dissolved in double distilled water. ●A significant dose dependent improvement in cognitive functions as evidenced by the reduced escape latency.\
●Healthy male Wistar rats, (Age? *n* = 5--8) were intracerebroventricularly injected with of 2 µL of 3 mg/kg STZ (pH = 4.4 and 0.1 M of citrate buffer) in two divided doses (on day 1 and day 3), while the comparator rats were intraventricular injected with 2 µL of citrate buffer (pH = 4.4, 0.1 M). Post-operative, rats were orally fed on milk and allowed to feed on NRD (*ad libitum*) for 4 days followed by feeding on NRD up to the end of the treatment.\ ●A significant dose-dependent reversal of neuro-oxidative stress through attenuating lipid peroxidation and enhancing of the activity of the antioxidant enzymes
●Short-term multilevel single oral daily intervention started by the 1st day of injecting STZ to be continued for 21 days.
\[[@B38-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Healthy cognitive function\ ●200 mg/kg TRF in 5 mL/kg of distilled water (TRF: Purity and composition were not stated) ●5 mL/kg distilled water ●Significantly enhanced cognitive functions as evidenced by the reduced escape latency\
●Healthy male Wister rats (age 3 months, *n* = 10)\ ●Significantly reduced plasma DNA damage\
● Long-term mono-level single oral daily intervention for 8 months. ●Significant reversal of serum oxidative stress through increasing the activity of antioxidant enzymes
\[[@B34-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Nutritionally induced cognitive dysfunction.\ ●100 mg/kg TRF suspended in 70 g/kg of palm oil base and admixed with 100 g NRD (TRF: Gold-Tri E ™70) ●70 g/kg of palm oil base admixed with 100 g NRD. ●Significant improvement in the cognitive functions of rats' progeny\
●Healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats (age? *n* = 10)\ ●Plasm and brain concentrations of tocotrienols indicated that α-TCT was the highest among the other isomers.
●Long-term mono-level of ad libitum oral feeding on intervention admixed with palm oil base vehicle.\
●Rats exposed to the same intervention levels during gestation, 2 weeks during lactation, 8 weeks after weaning.
\[[@B37-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Chronic induced-stress condition\ ●200 mg/kg of TRF in normal saline (TRF: Tocomin^®^ Suprabio^TM^ 20%) Normal saline ●Non-significant enhancement of the cellular proliferation and survival as well as expression of GAP-43 gene of granule cells in dentate gyrus
●Healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats (5 weeks, *n* = 9), which were stressed 5 h daily started from the 3rd week of intervention and continued for 21 days.\
●Long-term mono-level single oral daily dose intervention for 5 weeks.
\[[@B37-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Unstrained conditions\ ●200 mg/kg of TRF in normal saline (TRF: Tocomin^®^ Suprabio^TM^ 20% but compostion was not stated) Normal saline ●No significant alteration in the cellular proliferation and survival as well as expression of GAP-43 gene of granule cells in dentate gyrus
●Healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats (5 weeks, *n* = 9)\
●Long-term mono-level single oral daily dose intervention for 5 weeks
\[[@B39-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Healthy cognitive function\ ●200 mg/kg TRF in 5 mL/kg of olive oil (TRF = 149.2 mg/g α-tocopherol, 164.7 mg/g α-TCT, 48.8 mg/g β-TCT,213.2 mg/g γ-TCT and 171 mg/g δ-TCT). 5 mL/kg of olive oil ●No significant alteration in the cognitive functions as evidenced by the non-significant difference in escape latency.\
●Healthy young male Wister rats (3 months, *n* = 9)\ ●no significant alteration in plasma lipid peroxidation and the plasma activity of antioxidant enzymes\
●Long-term mono-level oral single daily intervention for 3 months ● A slight (nonsignificant) reduction in plasma DNA damage
\[[@B39-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●cognitive dysfunction\ ●200 mg/kg TRF in 5 mL/kg of olive oil (TRF = 149.2 mg/g α-tocopherol, 164.7 mg/g α-TCT, 48.8 mg/g β-TCT, 213.2 mg/g γ-TCT and 171 mg/g δ-TCT). 5 mL/kg of olive oil ●Significant Improved cognitive functions as evidenced by the significant reduction in escape latency.\
●elderly male Wister rats (21 months, *n* = 9)\ ●Reversal of the plasma oxidative stress through a significant attenuating lipid peroxidation and enhancing the activity of oxidative enzymes\
●Long-term mono-level oral single daily intervention for 3 months ● Significant attenuation of plasma DNA damage
\[[@B30-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Transgenic Alzheimer's disease\ ●60 mg/kg of TRF in 5 mL/kg 12mg/mL vitamin-E-striped palm oil (*n* = 11) (TRF = 196.0 mg/g α-TCT, 24 mg/g β-TCT, 255 mg/g γ-TCT, 75 mg/gδ-TCT and 168 mg/g α-tocopherol) ●5 mL/kg of 12 mg/mL of vitamin-E-striped palm oil (*n* = 10) ●Slight (nonsignificant) enhancement of the recognition functions as evidenced by the nonsignificant increase in the recognition index, but the location preference was equivalent as evidenced by the equal spent time to explore the identical objects.\ ●A slight (nonsignificant) reduction in the hippocampal Aβ deposition, but significant reduction in the cortical Aβ deposition\
●Heterozygous AβPP/PS1 double transgenic male mice (human chimeric amyloid expressing precursor protein and a mutant human presenilin 1 with deletion at exon 9), (5 months)\ ●A non-significant change in the levels of soluble and insoluble cortical or hippocampal Aβ isoforms (Aβ ~40~, Aβ ~42~ and Aβ oligomer). ●A significant reduction in cortical and hippocampal *A*β plaques
●Long-term mono-level single oral daily intervention for 10 months.
\[[@B35-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Transgenic Alzheimer's disease\ ●200 mg/kg TRF in 12 mg/mL vitamin E striped palm oil(TRF = f 24% α-tocopherol, 27% α-TCT,4% β-TCT, 32% γ-TCT,and 14% δ-TCT) 12 mg/mL of vitamin E striped palm oil Significant upregulation of genes responsible for neuroprotective effects such as Slc24a2, exo1 and Enox1\
●Heterozygous AβPP/PS1 double transgenic male mice (human chimeric amyloid expressing precursor protein and a mutant human presenilin 1 with deletion at exon 9), (9 months, *n* = 4)\ ●Significant downregulation of genes responsible for the pathology of AD such as Pla2g4a and Tfap2b
●Long-term mono-level single oral daily intervention for 6 months.
\[[@B31-nutrients-12-00521]\] ●Transgenic Alzheimer's disease\ ●60 mg/kg TRF in 12 mg/mL of vitamin-E-striped palm oil(TRF = 23.40% α-tocopherol (23.40%),27.30% α-TCT; 3.34% β-TCT, 35.51% γ-TCT and 10.45% δ-TCT.) ●5 mL/kg of vitamin-E-stripped palm oil ●Slight (nonsignificant) enhancement of cognitive functions as evidenced by non-significantly reduced escape latency. ●TRF could alter 90 putative metabolites involved in several metabolic AD-related pathways.
●Heterozygous AβPP/PS1 double transgenic male mice (human chimeric amyloid expressing precursor protein and a mutant human presenilin 1 with deletion at exon 9), (5 months, *n* = 9).\
●Long-term mono-level single oral daily intervention for 10 months.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AD: Alzheimer's disease; TRF: Tocotrienol-rich fraction; MDA: malondialdehyde, TCT: tocotrienol, Aβ: amyloid-β protein, NRD: normal rodent diet, *n*: number of animals per group of either intervention or comparator, STZ: streptozotocin, ROS: reactive oxygen species, SOD: superoxide dismutase, CAT: Catalase, GPx: glutathione peroxidase; GSH: reduced glutathione, ?: not stated in the study, IP: intraperitoneal, Slc24a2: Solute carrier family 24 \[sodium/potassium/calcium exchanger\], exo1: Exonuclease 1, Enox1: Ecto-NOX disulfide-thiol exchanger 1, Pla2g4a: Phospholipase A2, group IVA \[cytosolic, calcium-dependent\], Tfap2b: Transcription factor AP-2 beta.
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Bill AB 275 would allow only non-federally recognized tribes that have petitioned for federal recognition to re-bury the remains of their ancestors inadvertently discovered on public or private property
News Release
California Indigenous Nations Alliance
California Tribal members came out in large numbers to voice their opposition to AB 275 (Ramos) at the California Native American Heritage Commission’s (NAHC) July 19 meeting in West Sacramento. AB 275 would allow only non-federally recognized tribes that have petitioned for federal recognition to re-bury the remains of their ancestors inadvertently discovered on public or private property. Current law makes no such distinction between California tribes. Assembly Member James Ramos (D) (San Bernardino, 40th District), the first California Native American elected to the California Legislature, introduced Assembly Bill 275: Cultural Preservation (AB 275) this session. The bill mandates that each state agency create a tribal liaison position within the agency and changes the definition of a California Tribes that can make recommendations regarding the treatment and disposition of their ancestors’ inadvertently discovered remains in Public Resources Code Section 5097.94. Ironically, instead of cultural preservation, AB 275 aims to eliminate almost all “non-federally recognized” tribes – tribes that are identified as tribes by the State, but do not enjoy a “trust relationship” with the federal government – from being able to re-bury their ancestors after their graves have been desecrated and their remains disinterred.
Opposition to the bill’s controversial definition change was made clear at the NAHC’s quarterly July public meeting this past Friday. California tribal people from all across the State voiced their opposition to AB 275 to the Tribal Advisor to Governor Newsom and Executive Secretary of the NAHC, Christina Snider, one after another at the meeting. Unified in their horror of such a bill, they expressed the hypocrisy of the bill given Governor Newsom’s historic and overdue apology for the State’s role in perpetuating the genocide against California Native people and tribes. They decried the bill as being “anti-tribal sovereignty” and declared that the State of California had no right, “no business” in telling tribes to become federally recognized when the federal recognition system is flawed and refuses to acknowledge the same genocide Governor Newsom apologized for on June 18, 2019. The California tribal people speaking at the hearing collectively demanded that the Governor’s apology be put into action. The California tribal people also demanded that the California Native American Heritage Commission hold a special hearing to vote to publicly oppose the bill.
If AB 275 continues to move through the Senate without change, the bill would deny up to one-third of California Tribes, that currently have reburial rights, the basic human right to re-bury their ancestors. “When they came for our ancestors, they did not ask if they were federally recognized or not, they did not ask if you came from a reservation. They killed us, hunted us down, took our children and raped our women because they were natives. No distinction was made. Every California Tribe should be allowed to re-bury their ancestors in their own way, with their own tradition. Trying to make a tribe do something that’s not in their people’s best interest, like applying for federal recognition, is not right and the State of California has no business – especially after the Governor’s apology to ALL of us for the genocide- to demand that,” declared Wounded Knee Deocampo, a Miwok elder and American Indian Movement activist at the California Native American Heritage Commission hearing. Unfortunately, the California Native American Heritage Commission failed to achieve a quorum in order to conduct business again this year and no action was taken. AB 275 is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 12 at the State Capitol, Room 4203, at 10:00 a.m. |
Implementation and evaluation of Stanford Health Care store-and-forward teledermatology consultation workflow built within an existing electronic health record system.
Introduction Teledermatology services that function separately from patients' primary electronic health record (EHR) can lead to fragmented care, poor provider communication, privacy concerns and billing challenges. This study addresses these challenges by developing PhotoCareMD, a store-and-forward (SAF) teledermatology consultation workflow built entirely within an existing Epic-based EHR. Methods Thirty-six primary care physicians (PCPs) from eight outpatient clinics submitted 215 electronic consults (eConsults) for 211 patients to a Stanford Health Care dermatologist via PhotoCareMD. Comparisons were made with in-person referrals for this same dermatologist prior to initiation of PhotoCareMD. Results Compared to traditional in-person dermatology clinic visits, eConsults decreased the time to diagnosis and treatment from 23 days to 16 hours. The majority (73%) of eConsults were resolved electronically. In-person referrals from PhotoCareMD (27%) had a 50% lower cancellation rate compared with traditional referrals (11% versus 22%). The average in-person visit and documentation was 25 minutes compared with 8 minutes for an eConsult. PhotoCareMD saved 13 additional clinic hours to be made available to the dermatologist over the course of the pilot. At four patients per hour, this opens 52 dermatology clinic slots. Over 96% of patients had a favourable experience and 95% felt this service saved them time. Among PCPs, 100% would recommend PhotoCareMD to their colleagues and 95% said PhotoCareMD was a helpful educational tool. Discussion An internal SAF teledermatology workflow can be effectively implemented to increase access to and quality of dermatologic care. Our workflow can serve as a successful model for other hospitals and specialties. |
--source include/have_log_bin.inc
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
# Save the initial number of concurrent sessions
--source include/count_sessions.inc
--echo
--echo # Create a few users
CREATE USER userX, userY, userZ;
--echo # Create a few roles
CREATE ROLE 'administrator', 'qa', 'developer', 'manager';
--echo # Grant roles to the created users
GRANT 'administrator', 'qa', 'developer', 'manager' to userX, userY, userZ;
--echo # Check the number of the roles and users created.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mysql.user;
--echo # Check the number of default roles.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--echo #
--echo # 1. Tests to SET list of roles as DEFAULT
--echo #
--echo
--echo # 1.1 : Set the default roles for a valid and an invalid user; Must fail.
--error ER_ROLE_NOT_GRANTED
SET DEFAULT ROLE 'administrator', 'qa' to userX, invalidUser;
--echo
--echo # No default roles must be added for valid user i.e. userX
SELECT * FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--let $invert= 1
--let $event= !Q(SET DEFAULT ROLE .*userX.*invalidUser.*)
--source ../include/auth_sec_assert_binlog_events.inc
--let $invert= 0
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
--echo
--echo # 1.2 : Set the default roles for two valid users
SET DEFAULT ROLE administrator, qa to userX, userY;
--echo
--echo # Default roles must be added for both users
SELECT * FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--let $event= !Q(SET DEFAULT ROLE .*userX.*userY.*)
--source ../include/auth_sec_assert_binlog_events.inc
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
--echo
--echo #
--echo # 2. Tests to set the default roles to ALL
--echo #
--echo
--echo # 2.1 : Set default roles for valid users and an invalid user; Must fail.
--error ER_UNKNOWN_AUTHID
SET DEFAULT ROLE ALL to userY, userZ, invalidUser;
--echo
--echo # No default roles must be added for valid users i.e. userY, userZ
SELECT * FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--let $invert= 1
--let $event= !Q(SET DEFAULT ROLE ALL .*userX.*userY.*invalidUser.*)
--source ../include/auth_sec_assert_binlog_events.inc
--let $invert= 0
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
--echo
--echo # 2.2 : Set the default roles for multiple users
SET DEFAULT ROLE ALL to userX, userY, userZ;
--echo
--echo # All default roles must be added/updated for users
SELECT * FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--let $event= !Q(SET DEFAULT ROLE ALL .*userX.*userY.*userZ.*)
--source ../include/auth_sec_assert_binlog_events.inc
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
--echo
--echo #
--echo # 3. Tests to set the default roles to NONE
--echo #
--echo
--echo # 3.1 : Set default roles to NONE for valid users and ignore invalid user;
SET DEFAULT ROLE NONE to userY, invalidUser;
--echo
--echo # Default roles must be removed from valid users
SELECT * FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--let $event= !Q(SET DEFAULT ROLE NONE .*userY.*invalidUser.*)
--source ../include/auth_sec_assert_binlog_events.inc
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
--echo
--echo # 3.2 : Set the default roles to NONE for valid users
SET DEFAULT ROLE NONE to userX, userY, userZ;
--echo
--echo # All default roles must be removed for users
SELECT * FROM mysql.default_roles;
--echo
--let $event= !Q(SET DEFAULT ROLE NONE .*userX.*userY.*userZ.*)
--source ../include/auth_sec_assert_binlog_events.inc
--source include/save_binlog_position.inc
--echo
--echo #
--echo # End of tests
--echo #
--echo
--echo # Drop the roles
DROP ROLE 'administrator', 'qa', 'developer', 'manager';
--echo # Drop the users
DROP USER userX, userY, userZ;
# Wait till we reached the initial number of concurrent sessions
--source include/wait_until_count_sessions.inc
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Diesel, kerosene may get costlier by Rs 10 a litre
New Delhi: Diesel prices may be hiked by Rs 10 per litre over a 10-month period and kerosene rates increased by same quantum over the next two years if a proposal being mulled in the oil ministry is accepted.
The price hike is being considered as the government scrambles to find ways to meet an unprecedented Rs 160,000 crore deficit expected this fiscal on selling diesel, cooking gas (LPG) and kerosene below their production cost.
Price hike soon? Reuters
Price of diesel, which currently costs Rs 47.15 per litre in Delhi, was last revised on 14 September when it was hiked by a steep Rs 5.63 per litre. Kerosene rates have not changed since June last year and it currently costs Rs 14.79 per litre in Delhi.
"We are left with no choices... there is a need to raise prices. The government is contemplating raising diesel prices by Re 1 per litre each month for next 10 months to bring retail rates at par with their cost," a oil ministry source said in New Delhi.
State-owned oil companies currently sell diesel at a loss of Rs 9.28 per litre and the hikes over the next 10 months will eliminate all of the losses and absolve the government from providing any subsidy on the nation's most consumed fuel.
The source said price of kerosene could be increased by Rs 10 over a two-year period considering it is being used as a cooking fuel by the poor. The price hike along with promoting use of LPG and natural gas as fuel would help cut consumption of the kerosene by 20 percent, he said.
While government is likely to raise soon the number of subsidised cooking gas (LPG) from six to nine cylinder of 14.2-kg per household annually, the ministry wanted to have just two rates for the fuel -- a subsidised price and a market rate, instead of four rates presently, he said.
Subsidised LPG costs Rs 410.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder and any household requirement beyond current cap of six cylinders is to be bought at near market price of Rs 895.50 per bottle. For non-domestic use, a 14.2-kg LPG cylinder costs Rs 1,156 while a 19-kg cylinder for commercial use is priced at Rs 1,619.
The source said state-owned Indian Oil Corp., Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp together in first six months of current fiscal lost Rs 85,586 crore on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government-controlled rates which are way below their cost. Of this, the bulk Rs 52,711 crore was on account of losses on diesel.
The government has promised a cash support of Rs 30,000 crore to cover a part of the Rs 85,586 crore revenue loss on fuel sales during April-September. Upstream oil firms like ONGC have chipped in Rs 30,170 crore, leaving a balance Rs 25,417 crore uncovered, he said.
The oil ministry, he said, wants finance ministry to make up for this shortfall as well as the revenue deficit expected in the remaining six months of current fiscal.
In all, the oil ministry has sought Rs 105,525 crore from the finance ministry this fiscal to subsidise diesel and cooking fuel.
State-owned fuel retailers are likely to end the fiscal with a revenue loss of over Rs 1,63,000 crore on sale of diesel, domestic cooking gas (LPG) and kerosene at government-controlled rates that are way lower than cost.
Of this, close to Rs 60,000 crore will come from upstream companies Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), Oil India Ltd and GAIL India. For the rest, the oil ministry has asked the finance ministry to give cash subsidy.
Upstream firms ONGC, OIL and GAIL share a part of the revenues that retailers lose on diesel and cooking fuel sales. Their share to begin with was 33 per cent of the revenue loss on fuel sales but has slowly risen to 40 percent.
The source said upstream firms had in 2011-12 made good 40 percent of the Rs 138,541 crore revenue that Indian Oil Corp., Hindustan Petroleum Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. lost on fuel sales.
Their Rs 55,000 crore contribution that year compared to Rs 30,297 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 14,430 crore in 2009-10.
In 2011-12, the government gave out Rs 83,500 crore by way of cash subsidy, up from Rs 41,000 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 26,000 crore in 2009-10, he added. |
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Victoria Gate opens in Leeds
October 2016
By Sarah Heald
Leeds has always been our fave place – we live and work here and it’s provided us with everything we need – great shopping, nightlife, scenery and a thriving digital scene.
Yesterday the latest snazzy addition to our city – Victoria Gate, a luxury shopping centre – opened, and we couldn’t be more excited. Lunchtime came about and we ran (ha! kidding, we don’t run) down to see how good it really was, and it didn’t disappoint.
Victoria Gate opening day
First off, the architecture is pretty striking. There’s no faffing about in trying to blend in with the older buildings, and we kinda love that. That area is a mixture of new and old and the juxtaposition looks great. But it was always going to be awesome – £165 million worth of awesome.
But the outside is just the start. The inside of the luxury shopping centre is breathtaking – the atmosphere is awash with grandeur, but in true Leeds style, it’s not overly snobby or pretentious – sure, the majority of shops housed inside are affluent and extravagant, but you get the sense that you’re still allowed to peruse, even if the price of a jumper is more than you spend on on your monthly rent.
Gracing us with their presence were new shops to Leeds, including Anthopologie, Aspinal, & Other Stories, and T2 Tea, and VG welcomed the likes of The White Company, and other brands who were only in department stores – Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and more. We’re spoilt for choice.
T2 Tea in Victoria Gate
John Lewis is the obvious main store in VG, with 5 stories of glittering goodies. It’s the largest John Lewis store outside London, which goes to show how the giants in the shopping industry see Leeds. This will be the new go-to place for Christmas shopping, surely. You could get everything in one place if you wanted.
Inside John Lewis @ Victoria Gate
How will Victoria Gate help independents in Leeds?
Sure, money pouring into Leeds can only mean good things, we we love anything that’s going to make our city prosper, but what do these mega fancy shops do for the already existing independents?
On a really positive note, Victoria Gate has been positioned in the perfect place. Tucked amidst Leeds Kirkgate Market, The Headrow, and Briggate, VG now broadens our shopping district. There’s now more reason to venture past Vicar Lane – which is great for market stall holders, as well as the shops further down The Headrow, and those close to the bus station.
One final applaud for Victoria Gate is how its extended the possibilities in the city centre, while still remembering where it stands. Outside the centre was this huge screen which showed facts, the story of VG, its ethos and mission, and looking back to Leeds’ past to ensure the best future.
Victoria Gate stands on a rich history and they’re very aware of the importance to maintain it. |
More than 1000 migrants rescued off Italy
MORE than 1000 would-be migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean Sea over the course of 24 hours, the Italian navy says.
A total of 823 migrants, who were travelling on four overcrowded and barely seaworthy boats, were picked up near the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa by naval vessels on Thursday.
Their passengers are said to have come from Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan and Iraq, among other countries.
They were transferred to the Sicilian port of Augusta, near Syracuse.
Late on Wednesday, one boat with 233 people on board was rescued in strong winds and rough waters also near Lampedusa. Most of the passengers came from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Zambia and Mali.
The European Union recently launched a new EU border surveillance network to try to protect the lives of migrants attempting the dangerous crossing to southern Europe.
It came after more than 360 people died in early October in a shipwreck off Lampedusa. |
Interleukin 1 activates jun N-terminal kinases JNK1 and JNK2 but not extracellular regulated MAP kinase (ERK) in human glomerular mesangial cells.
Interleukin 1 (IL-1) potently activates human glomerular mesangial cells (HMC). In cytosolic extracts of IL-1-stimulated HMC or in anion exchange chromatography fractions we could not find any change in phosphorylation of myelin basic protein (MBP), a good substrate for extracellular regulated kinase (ERK). In contrast, IL-1 stimulated GST-jun kinase activity at least 10-fold. The jun kinase activity could be characterised as JNK1 and JNK2 at the protein and mRNA level. IL-1, TNF, UV light and osmotic stress, but not PMA, LPS, IL-3, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-13, GM-CSF, PDGF, bFGF, TGF-beta and interferon-gamma were able to stimulate jun kinase activity in HMC, suggesting that jun kinase is selectively mediating signal transduction of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1 and TNF as well as of cellular stress in HMC. |
Relieving Stress During Upcoming Holiday Season
Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away. For many, the holidays can bring on more than just cheer, they can also be stressful. NewsChannel 11's Suleika Acosta shows us ways to beat the holiday blues.
Erin Coats, Registered Massage Therapist, tells us Aromatherapy is an easy way to relax. Lighting aromatherapy candles made from essential oils from flowers, herbs, and trees can promote health and relieve stress. She says you can also use bath salts and oils to help you relax. Making your own bath salt can be easy and inexpensive. Erin shares her favorite recipe.
Erin's Bath Salt:
What You Need:
Epsom Salt
Food Coloring
Aromatherapy Oil
Mix two cups of Epsom salt with three to four drops of aromatherapy oil. Add food coloring of your choice until you reach the desired color. Stir and pour 1/2 cup into running bath and enjoy.
Erin also shows us a variety of self massaging techniques like the scalp massage. She says it's a good idea to massage your scalp with your fingertips to promote circulation and even relieve tension headaches. You can begin at your forehead hairline along the front, side, and back of the head, making small circles with your fingertips. She says it's best to work your way toward the top of your head as if drawing a circle. You can massage your scalp for ten minutes a day, even while shampooing your hair.
Bottom line, Erin says it's important to take time for yourself during the busy holiday season to maintain your health and well being.
President Donald Trump visited a Florida community reeling from a deadly school shooting, meeting privately with victims and cheering the heroics of first responders, but extending few public words of consolation...
President Donald Trump visited a Florida community reeling from a deadly school shooting, meeting privately with victims and cheering the heroics of first responders, but extending few public words of consolation to those in deep mourning.
The mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead has sparked calls for walkouts, sit-ins and other actions on school campuses nationwide aimed at pushing lawmakers to pass tougher gun laws.
The mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead has sparked calls for walkouts, sit-ins and other actions on school campuses nationwide aimed at pushing lawmakers to pass tougher gun laws. |
In minimally invasive surgical procedures, access to the body is obtained through one or more natural openings or small percutaneous incisions. Medical devices are inserted through these openings and directed to a region of interest within the body. Direction of the medical devices through the body is facilitated by navigation technology wherein the real-time location of a medical device is measured and virtually superimposed on an image of the region of interest. The image may be a pre-acquired image, or an image obtained in near real-time or real-time using known imaging technology such as X-ray, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), or ultrasound (US).
Conventional navigation technology measures the location and orientation of a remote unit attached to the medical device relative to a reference unit. Patient motion can be taken into account by rigidly mounting the reference unit directly onto the patient. A reference unit attached in this manner is also referred to as a dynamic reference because it moves along with the patient.
The remote unit is typically attached to a proximal end of the medical device, however, the location and orientation of the distal end of the medical device is often of primary importance. It is therefore necessary to determine with a high degree of precision the location and orientation of the distal end of the medical device relative to the remote unit. This determination is generally obtained by calibrating the location of the distal end or tip with respect to the remote unit. Tip calibration is typically performed by placing the tip of the medical device in a fixed location such as a dimple on the reference unit.
The problem is that some instruments do not have a well-defined tip such as aspirators, which have a blunt end or a ring curette that has an annular working end instead of a tip. For calibrating trajectory, one known technique is after calibrating the instrument tip, the user calibrates a “back-tip”. By connecting the instrument's “front tip” with a “back tip”, the trajectory is defined. Again, the problem with calibrating the trajectory, may be the lack of a well defined back-tip. |
Three layer tungsten-based alloy was prepared on the surface of PI 10 well tube steel by amorphous alloy electroplating technology. The environments of high content of CO2 or high pressure with oxygen enrichment were simulated respectively to study the anticorrosion performance of the tungsten-based alloy. The antiscale performance of the tungsten-based alloy was studied by field pilot-scale testing. Compared to the P110 bare steel, the tungsten-based coating presented strong anticorrosion performance in the environments of CO2 or high pressure with oxygen enrichment. The corrosion inhibition efficienciy was 96. 88% and 93. 75% respectively. The anti-scale efficiency of the tungsten-based alloy could be 41. 73%. W-based amorphous alloy electroplating technology is an economic and applicable technology for anticorrosion, antiscale and eccentric wear prevention of well pipes.
Source |
Q:
Resolving ORA-4031 "unable to allocate x bytes of shared memory"
I need some pointers on how to diagnose and fix this problem. I don't know if this is a simple server setup problem or an application design problem (or both).
Once or twice every few months this Oracle XE database reports ORA-4031 errors. It doesn't point to any particular part of the sga consistently. A recent example is:
ORA-04031: unable to allocate 8208 bytes of shared memory ("large pool","unknown object","sort subheap","sort key")
When this error comes up, if the user keeps refreshing, clicking on different links, they'll generally get more of these kinds of errors at different times, then soon they'll get "404 not found" page errors.
Restarting the database usually resolves the problem for a while, then a month or so later it comes up again, but rarely at the same location in the program (i.e. it doesn't seem linked to any particular portion of code) (the above example error was raised from an Apex page which was sorting 5000+ rows from a table).
I've tried increasing sga_max_size from 140M to 256M and hope this will help things. Of course, I won't know if this has helped since I had to restart the database to change the setting :)
I'm running Oracle XE 10.2.0.1.0 on a Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 box with 512MB of RAM. The server only runs the database, Oracle Apex (v3.1.2) and Apache web server. I installed it with pretty much all default parameters and it's been running quite well for a year or so. Most issues I've been able to resolve myself by tuning the application code; it's not intensively used and isn't a business critical system.
These are some current settings I think may be relevant:
pga_aggregate_target 41,943,040
sga_max_size 268,435,456
sga_target 146,800,640
shared_pool_reserved_size 5,452,595
shared_pool_size 104,857,600
If it's any help here's the current SGA sizes:
Total System Global Area 268435456 bytes
Fixed Size 1258392 bytes
Variable Size 251661416 bytes
Database Buffers 12582912 bytes
Redo Buffers 2932736 bytes
A:
Even though you are using ASMM, you can set a minimum size for the large pool (MMAN will not shrink it below that value).
You can also try pinning some objects and increasing SGA_TARGET.
A:
Don't forget about fragmentation.
If you have a lot of traffic, your pools can be fragmented and even if you have several MB free, there could be no block larger than 4KB.
Check size of largest free block with a query like:
select
'0 (<140)' BUCKET, KSMCHCLS, KSMCHIDX,
10*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/10) "From",
count(*) "Count" ,
max(KSMCHSIZ) "Biggest",
trunc(avg(KSMCHSIZ)) "AvgSize",
trunc(sum(KSMCHSIZ)) "Total"
from
x$ksmsp
where
KSMCHSIZ<140
and
KSMCHCLS='free'
group by
KSMCHCLS, KSMCHIDX, 10*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/10)
UNION ALL
select
'1 (140-267)' BUCKET,
KSMCHCLS,
KSMCHIDX,
20*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/20) ,
count(*) ,
max(KSMCHSIZ) ,
trunc(avg(KSMCHSIZ)) "AvgSize",
trunc(sum(KSMCHSIZ)) "Total"
from
x$ksmsp
where
KSMCHSIZ between 140 and 267
and
KSMCHCLS='free'
group by
KSMCHCLS, KSMCHIDX, 20*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/20)
UNION ALL
select
'2 (268-523)' BUCKET,
KSMCHCLS,
KSMCHIDX,
50*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/50) ,
count(*) ,
max(KSMCHSIZ) ,
trunc(avg(KSMCHSIZ)) "AvgSize",
trunc(sum(KSMCHSIZ)) "Total"
from
x$ksmsp
where
KSMCHSIZ between 268 and 523
and
KSMCHCLS='free'
group by
KSMCHCLS, KSMCHIDX, 50*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/50)
UNION ALL
select
'3-5 (524-4107)' BUCKET,
KSMCHCLS,
KSMCHIDX,
500*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/500) ,
count(*) ,
max(KSMCHSIZ) ,
trunc(avg(KSMCHSIZ)) "AvgSize",
trunc(sum(KSMCHSIZ)) "Total"
from
x$ksmsp
where
KSMCHSIZ between 524 and 4107
and
KSMCHCLS='free'
group by
KSMCHCLS, KSMCHIDX, 500*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/500)
UNION ALL
select
'6+ (4108+)' BUCKET,
KSMCHCLS,
KSMCHIDX,
1000*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/1000) ,
count(*) ,
max(KSMCHSIZ) ,
trunc(avg(KSMCHSIZ)) "AvgSize",
trunc(sum(KSMCHSIZ)) "Total"
from
x$ksmsp
where
KSMCHSIZ >= 4108
and
KSMCHCLS='free'
group by
KSMCHCLS, KSMCHIDX, 1000*trunc(KSMCHSIZ/1000);
Code from
|
The race for line honours in the Sydney Mooloolaba Yacht Race, which starts next Wednesday, 16 March from Sydney Harbour, has been thrown open with the news that Konica Minolta has withdrawn its entry.
Stewart THWAITES' 98 foot super maxi has arrived at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia from Hobart, where she underwent repairs following the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, but rather than heading north to Queensland with the fleet of 37 as planned, she will sail straight out into the Tasman Sea back to her home port of Wellington.
With the pre-race line honours favourite now out of contention, double line honours winning skipper in this annual race, Sean LANGMAN, is looking forward to having another shot at the title with his heavily modified 66-foot skiff AAPT but at this stage he is more concerned about the effect cyclone Ingrid could have on the sea state.
'I think the wash up from cyclone Ingrid has the potential to make the seas a problem for us,' admitted Langman today.
The Bureau of Meteorology is expecting cyclone Ingrid to hit the far north Queensland coast sometime tomorrow before dissipating. At this stage they don't expect this weather pattern to impact on the Sydney Mooloolaba Race, however they are keeping an eye on another tropical low which is forming in the Coral Sea.
With the super maxi's withdrawal from the 469 nautical mile race, Langman sees his main threats as David DICKER's maxi Martingale, Grant WHARINGTON's former Wild Thing, and he never writes off the Volvo 60s.
'Martingale has had a lot of work done on it, it's a completely different and unknown boat offshore,' said Langman of the MBD 84, also a double line honours winner in 2000 and 2001 races under Wharington's ownership.
'The Volvo 60 Seriously TEN is also a contender. The Volvos get plenty of chances to race against each other and they've all improved their performance as a result,' Langman added.
Following the withdrawal of Konica Minolta, the fleet now stands at 37 for the annual race to the Sunshine Coast which marks the end of the CYCA's nine-month offshore racing season. The 2005-2006 season will commence with the Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, starting July 30, which will celebrate its 20th Anniversary this year.
Tom Burton (AUS) and Alison Young (GBR) hit the right note in the Laser and Laser Radial at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne as they took out the top honours and qualification spots to the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup Final.
It was double Australian gold in the Paralympic classes. Matt Bugg (AUS) came out on top in the 2.4mR whilst London 2012 Paralympic SKUD18 gold medallists Dan Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch (AUS) were triumphant in the two person keelboat.
Lithuania's Juozas Bernotas came out on top in the Men's RS:X whilst Russia's Stefania Elfutina was triumphant in the Women's RS:X. Both sailors claim the first Abu Dhabi ISAF Sailing World Cup Final spots whilst Jock Calvert (AUS) and Joanna Sterling (AUS) picked up the Oceanic spots for the Emirati finale.
There was some fast paced action in the 49er and 49erFX Medal Races at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne as Nathan Outteridge & Iain Jensen (AUS) and Maia & Ragna Agerup (NOR) claimed the honours and Abu Dhabi final spots.
A tight group of five young Papua New Guinean (PNG) Laser sailors are stepping up their 2015 Pacific Games competition program using this week's ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne. PNG is one of 33 countries represented at the important Oceanic event, the largest Olympic sailing regatta in the southern hemisphere.
Melbourne, Australia will host the final Rio 2016 Paralympic Games qualification regatta in 2015. With just under one year until the event, the 2015 IFDS Worlds was launched at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne.
ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne kick starts the journey to the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup Final in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates with qualification spots and top ranking points available in the Australian city.
Shawn Bennett (USA) won the Long Beach Stop of the 2015 California Dreamin' Series Sunday in this International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Grade 3 match racing regatta hosted by Long Beach Yacht Club and raced on the Long Beach Sailing Foundation's fleet of Catalina 37s.
After the limits of the southern oceans imposed by the combination of the weather systems and the safety barrier of the Antarctic Exclusion Zone, the Atlantic is opening up for the top trio of the Barcelona World Race. |
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[args setValue:self.text forKey:@"text"];
}
if(self.min_upload_date) {
[args setValue:self.min_upload_date forKey:@"min_upload_date"];
}
if(self.max_upload_date) {
[args setValue:self.max_upload_date forKey:@"max_upload_date"];
}
if(self.min_taken_date) {
[args setValue:self.min_taken_date forKey:@"min_taken_date"];
}
if(self.max_taken_date) {
[args setValue:self.max_taken_date forKey:@"max_taken_date"];
}
if(self.license) {
[args setValue:self.license forKey:@"license"];
}
if(self.sort) {
[args setValue:self.sort forKey:@"sort"];
}
if(self.privacy_filter) {
[args setValue:self.privacy_filter forKey:@"privacy_filter"];
}
if(self.bbox) {
[args setValue:self.bbox forKey:@"bbox"];
}
if(self.accuracy) {
[args setValue:self.accuracy forKey:@"accuracy"];
}
if(self.safe_search) {
[args setValue:self.safe_search forKey:@"safe_search"];
}
if(self.content_type) {
[args setValue:self.content_type forKey:@"content_type"];
}
if(self.machine_tags) {
[args setValue:self.machine_tags forKey:@"machine_tags"];
}
if(self.machine_tag_mode) {
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[args setValue:self.lat forKey:@"lat"];
}
if(self.lon) {
[args setValue:self.lon forKey:@"lon"];
}
if(self.radius) {
[args setValue:self.radius forKey:@"radius"];
}
if(self.radius_units) {
[args setValue:self.radius_units forKey:@"radius_units"];
}
if(self.is_commons) {
[args setValue:self.is_commons forKey:@"is_commons"];
}
if(self.in_gallery) {
[args setValue:self.in_gallery forKey:@"in_gallery"];
}
if(self.person_id) {
[args setValue:self.person_id forKey:@"person_id"];
}
if(self.is_getty) {
[args setValue:self.is_getty forKey:@"is_getty"];
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if(self.extras) {
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if(self.per_page) {
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}
if(self.page) {
[args setValue:self.page forKey:@"page"];
}
return [args copy];
}
- (NSString *) descriptionForError:(NSInteger)error {
switch(error) {
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_TooManyTagsInALLQuery:
return @"Too many tags in ALL query";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_UnknownUser:
return @"Unknown user";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_ParameterlessSearchesHaveBeenDisabled:
return @"Parameterless searches have been disabled";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_YouDontHavePermissionToViewThisPool:
return @"You don't have permission to view this pool";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_SorryTheFlickrSearchAPIIsNotCurrentlyAvailable:
return @"Sorry, the Flickr search API is not currently available.";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_NoValidMachineTags:
return @"No valid machine tags";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_ExceededMaximumAllowableMachineTags:
return @"Exceeded maximum allowable machine tags";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_Jump_toNotAvaiableForThisQuery:
return @"jump_to not avaiable for this query";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_BadValueForJump_to:
return @"Bad value for jump_to";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_PhotoNotFound:
return @"Photo not found";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_YouCanOnlySearchWithinYourOwnFavorites:
return @"You can only search within your own favorites";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_YouCanOnlySearchWithinYourOwnContacts:
return @"You can only search within your own contacts";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_IllogicalArguments:
return @"Illogical arguments";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_ExcessivePhotoOffsetInSearch:
return @"Excessive photo offset in search";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_InvalidAPIKey:
return @"Invalid API Key";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_ServiceCurrentlyUnavailable:
return @"Service currently unavailable";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_FormatXXXNotFound:
return @"Format \"xxx\" not found";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_MethodXXXNotFound:
return @"Method \"xxx\" not found";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_InvalidSOAPEnvelope:
return @"Invalid SOAP envelope";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_InvalidXMLRPCMethodCall:
return @"Invalid XML-RPC Method Call";
case FKFlickrPhotosSearchError_BadURLFound:
return @"Bad URL found";
default:
return @"Unknown error code";
}
}
@end
|
Q:
Category with class active or not in PHP
I have this.
<?php if (stripos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 'portfolio?cat=$cat_name')){ ?>
<li class="active" role="category"><a href="portfolio.php?cat=<?php echo $cat_name; ?>"><?php echo $cat_name; ?></a></li>
<?php } else { ?>
<li role="category"><a href="portfolio.php?cat=<?php echo $cat_name; ?>"><?php echo $cat_name; ?></a></li>
<?php } ?>
I just want to make the typical active category but getting the parameter.
Thanks.
A:
First, Bert's comment about the single quotes, it will be the literal cat_name with a $ in front, not the value of $cat_name as you probably assume.
Also, why don't you just use:
if($_REQUEST['cat'] == $cat_name) { // ...
I mean, it already is a query param that ends up in $_REQUEST (unless you have weird server configuration, then it probably should be $_GET).
Also you don't distinguish between the two likely return values of stripos which are in your case 0 and false (the one meaning, the needle starts at position 0 of the haystack, and the other, that the needle wasn't found). So at the very least, you would have to stripos(...) !== false
|
namespace ClassLib023
{
public class Class046
{
public static string Property => "ClassLib023";
}
}
|
The owners of a stolen truck managed to trick the apparent thief into driving straight into the CHP parking lot Tuesday after the Berkeley man tried to sell the owners diapers on the street, authorities report.
Oakland California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Sean Wilkenfeld said 49-year-old Brett Walker of Berkeley stole a pick-up truck (above) from North Oakland on Monday night.
“The registered owners went to look for their truck this morning and saw it parked a few blocks from where it was stolen,” he said Tuesday. Walker was inside.
As the owners went to call the police, Walker began to drive away, Wilkenfeld said.
They followed the stolen truck until it stopped again a few blocks later.
“The registered owners parked within sight of their truck and called police again,” he said, in a post on Facebook. “This is where it gets interesting…”
According to authorities, Walker then got out of the truck and “walked right up to the registered owners and attempted to sell them diapers. The owners thought fast and said they didn’t have any money, but that they could go to the bank and get some.”
They all got into the truck, and the owners then directed Walker right into the parking lot of the Oakland-area CHP office, at 3601 Telegraph Ave. Wilkenfeld said they were familiar with the neighborhood so they knew where the office was.
Officers took Walker into custody on suspicion of vehicle theft.
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No further information was immediately available.
Have a question about a local public safety incident? Write to crime@berkeleyside.com. Photographs and videos are always appreciated. Follow the Oakland CHP on Facebook.
Berkeleyside publishes many articles every day. To see all our stories in chronological order, and read ones you may have missed, check out our All the News grid. |
Hippocampal theta rhythms from CA1 and dentate generators during paradoxical sleep of the rat: differential alterations after septal lesion.
Hippocampal theta (theta) rhythm was recorded from CA1 and dentate generators respectively, before and after septal lesion in the freely moving rat. It was observed that theta recorded from CA1 generator and theta recorded from dentate generator can be differentially affected by the lesion. In agreement with our previous data, these findings strongly support the hypothesis that CA1 and dentate generators producing the hippocampal theta are functionally independent. The existence of two independent septo-hippocampal neural systems which might mediate theta CA1 and theta dentate separately is discussed. |
Orrin Hatch: to oppose my friend from new jersey's amendment. now, here's why. the nonpartisan score keeper for tax legislation, the joint committee on taxation, tells us the menendez amendment puts the savings in the house bill in doubt. that means that if the menendez amendment is adopted, the house bill will add to the deficit by
Orrin Hatch: perhaps as much as $25 billion. the menendez amendment would maintain the risk of payment of billions in fraudulent, improper or excessive health insurance exchange subsidies. what's more, the senate |
Simultaneous determination of 35 ultra-trace level organophosphorus pesticide residues in Sanjie Zhentong capsules of traditional Chinese medicine using ultra high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry.
The aim of this study was to develop an analytical method for the simultaneous determination of ultra-trace levels of 35 organophosphorus pesticide residues in Sanjie Zhentong capsules, a traditional Chinese medicine prescription. A method based on multiclass and multiresidue sample preparation was developed. First, samples were hydrated with water at 4°C. A ratio of 1:3 sample/water was used for each of the sample amounts. Then, different extraction solvents were screened. This step was followed by a dispersive solid-phase extraction clean-up procedure using both primary secondary amine and polyamide. A comprehensive sensitive multiresidue liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method was investigated and validated. Good linearity was achieved in the range of 10-500 μg/kg for each analyte. The average recovery ranged from 70 to 120%, except for methamidophos, fonophos, diazinon, and chlorpyriphos-ethyl, the recoveries of which ranged from 60-70% at the lower concentration level. The precision values were lower than 10% for all the compounds in three concentration levels. The limits of detection and limits of quantification values were 0.01-2.1 and 0.05-3.4 μg/kg, respectively. The matrix effects were determined, and most of the compounds showed signal suppression. Finally, this optimized procedure was applied for the analysis of real samples. |
It has been well-documented that peripheral glucose administration enhances memory in both young and old rodents and humans. It has also been shown that aged rats receive more benefit from epinephrine administration shortly after a learning episode than do non-aged adult rats. The general purpose of the proposed research is to determine if the effects of glucose on recently reactivated memories are related to age in a developmental sequence. A combination of different designs will be used to test the general hypotheses that: a) aged subjects receive significantly more benefit from a reminder cue (reactivation) than do younger adult subjects, and b) while greater memory enhancement may be produced by glucose in younger subjects than in older subjects, the actual benefit received from glucose administration increases as subjects age. The main experimentation will involve a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional designs. In the longitudinal part of the design 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24-month old rats will be injected with either glucose or saline after a reactivation treatment. In the cross-sectional part of the design, cohort groups of rats matched for age will be treated in a manner similar to those in the longitudinal part of the design. A passive avoidance-to-active avoidance negative transfer design will be used to measure the ways in which memory reactivation and glucose modulate the memories of rats during various stages of the lifespan. Because in the memory impaired (e.g., aged and Alzheimer's patients) glucose enhances memory, and because reactivation treatments affect both infant memory and adult emotional memory, the proposed studies may have both practical and clinical significance. |
Will it ever stop? Years after his death, President Richard Nixon’s secrets keep rising from the archives—as the latest batch did just last week.
With the release of each classified memo and secretly recorded tape, more is learned about the inner workings of the Nixon White House—and of the people who advised a polarizing president at one of the most divisive times in modern political history.
People like Billy Graham, the Montreat-based, world-famous evangelist. Graham has offered his personal counsel to every president—Democrat and Republican—since Harry S. Truman, and has always maintained that his advices weren’t intended to sway the body politic. For example, at a 1980 press conference, he said, “People took for granted that I was for Eisenhower, they took for granted that I was for Lyndon Johnson, they took for granted that I was for Nixon, and they were right, but I didn’t endorse them openly in public.”
But behind closed doors, Graham was closer to some presidents than to others, and may have been closest of all to Nixon. Previous declassifications have revealed much back-and-forth between the preacher and the president. Now still more of their correspondence has gone public: On July 11—when the Nixon Presidential Library passed from control by private backers to the U.S. National Archives—the library released 78,000 pages of previously secret documents, along with 11-and-a-half hours of recordings.
A selection of the documents posted on the library’s Web site (view them at www.nixon.archives.gov/virtuallibrary/documents) includes five dealing directly with Graham. The papers—and at least one of the recordings—reveal back-room discussions about how Graham could best buoy Nixon’s bid for reelection in 1972, and suggest that Graham was a willing, if sometimes conflicted, player in the strategizing. Among the key disclosures:
• The black vote: In a Dec. 30, 1969, memo, Nixon instructed White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to “follow up with Billy Graham in his work with Negro ministers across the country. He feels this is our best chance to make inroads into the Negro community. I am inclined to agree with him.”
(In his posthumously published diaries, Haldeman wrote on July 11, 1972, that Graham “feels we have a good chance on the blacks by splitting them and getting the religious blacks who are scared of the criminal elements and so on to come over to our side.”)
• Evangelical politics: In a prescient letter to Nixon on Aug. 4, 1972, Graham predicted the rise of the Christian right as a potent political force.
He enclosed a Los Angeles Times article reporting on a study that indicated “the presidential candidate whose values seem closest to that of the Rev. Billy Graham stands the best chance to win in November.” Graham suggested that Nixon read the article because it “emphasize[s] what I have been pointing out to you in a number of conversations we have had that there is an emerging evangelical strength in the country that is going to have a strong bearing on social and political matters probably for a generation to come.”
• Nixon vs. McGovern: In the same letter, Graham offered up some advice for Nixon’s reelection bid against Democrat George McGovern.
“I would seriously question the wisdom of your becoming personally involved in the campaign before early September,” Graham advised. “If the polls and the mood of the country continue as is you may be wise to do only a minimum of campaigning. I think Senator McGovern is perfectly capable of making further mistakes.”
• A lost prayer: A mere three days after penning those campaign tips, Graham called the White House to discuss a potentially thorny matter—a request by a prominent Democrat for a public show of support from the evangelist.
On Aug. 7, 1972, Deputy Assistant to the President Alexander P. Butterfield wrote a “CONFIDENTIAL/PERSONAL” memo for the files titled “Telephone Call from Reverend Billy Graham.” In it, he recounted that Graham had called concerning a “strictly personal” matter: a request from his longtime friend Sargent Shriver to lead a prayer at Shriver’s acceptance speech as the Democrat’s vice-presidential candidate.
Graham, Butterfied noted, hoped to strike a “bipartisan posture”—“at least until about October,” when he could, if need be, “throw his support to the side of the President more effectively.” The minister “went on to say that he was truly in a quandary about what to do and that he very much wanted the President’s personal advice,” and that “he would abide by any decision made at this end of the line—that he would do nothing to hurt the President or to help McGovern.”
Butterfield took the question to Nixon. “The President listened carefully, then answered firmly, ‘He should not do it [give the prayer for Shriver],” the memo says. “‘You should call him back and tell him that it would be tantamount to his having attended the Democratic National Convention.’”
Butterfield then relayed Nixon’s answer in two phone calls to Graham, who, according to the memo, ultimately responded, “Fine. Then, that’s exactly what I will do.”
• Nixon’s “morality issue”: One of the newly released tapes is of a phone call on Nov. 3, 1972—four days before the election—in which White House Special Counsel Chuck Colson gave Nixon a detailed status report on numerous campaign issues. “Billy Graham’s thing has moved very well—his statement supporting us, supporting you, on the integrity and on the morality issue,” Colson told the president. “He came through very well.” |
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Q:
Numbering of ThreadPool in java
Hello I am using threadPool with two threads in a funciton.
This funciton is called by multiple clients in a synchronized way.
in that function I am using
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
and after finishing the task I am shutting down the executor.
executor.shutdown();
But in logs I have lines like this
[pool-120069-thread-1]
Does that mean 120069 pools are alive, or its just way of numbering the pool. Even after shutting it down it continue with the numbering ?
A:
Does that mean 120069 pools are alive, or its just way of numbering the pool.
Don't worry, it's the latter. Every new pool created in the system gets a new sequence number, which means you have created 120069 pools, but probably most of the previous 120068 pools are already shut down.
On the other hand it's not a good practice to create a thread pool per each method invocation, consider having just one pool and reuse it across several concurrent method calls. Also you probably don't need synchronization. But that depends on your actual use case.
Finally, you probably want to call awaitTermination() after shutdown. shutdown() only "closes the door" to the pool, but running tasks continue to run.
|
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a contact charger for use in an electrophotographic image forming apparatus such as a copying machine or a printer, and also relates to an image forming apparatus provided with such a contact charger.
2. Description of Related Art
<Corona Charger>
Conventional image forming apparatuses such as an electrophotographic device have employed corona chargers, which utilize corona discharging for charging a charging target (i.e., an object to be charged) such as a photosensitive member for electrophotography.
The corona charger is arranged in a noncontact manner with respect to the charging target, and is configured such that a high voltage is applied, e.g., to a wire electrode or a needle electrode for causing corona discharging, and thereby a part of discharge current thus caused flows through the charging target to place a predetermined potential on the charging target.
However, the corona charger utilizing the corona discharging generates a large amount of ozone, which causes a problem due to ozone smell or the like. Also, a discharging product produced by the corona discharging adheres to a surface of the charging target. Thereby, quality of images is impaired, and/or the surface of the charging target has to be shaved for recovery from deterioration due to the adhesive discharging product.
This causes problems such as reduction of durability of the charging target. Further, a power source of a high voltage and therefore an expensive power source are required.
<Contact Charger (Charging by Discharging)>
In recent years, therefore, many contact chargers have been proposed for use instead of the corona chargers. For example, a roller charger, a fur-brush charger, a blade charger and others have been proposed. These charges are configured to charge the charging target by utilizing a discharging phenomenon, which occurs between the charging target and the charging member. The charging member is arranged in direct contact with the charging target, and a voltage is applied to the charging member to place a predetermined potential on the charging target.
The roller charger includes an elastic roller having, e.g., an electrically conductive elastic layer. The elastic roller is in contact with the charging target to form a nip, and a voltage is applied to the elastic roller to charge the charging target. In many structures, the elastic roller is driven to rotate by the charging target.
The fur-brush charger is formed of a fur-brush roller, e.g., having electrically conductive brush fibers. The fur-brush roller is in contact with the charging target to form a nip, and a voltage is applied to the fur brush to charge the charging target.
Since the fibers used therein are extremely thin, a strong electric field is locally produced between the fur brush and the charging target, and excessive discharging not following Paschen's law occurs in the strong electric field so that irregular charging occurs.
Since the contact between the charging target and the brush fibers consists of a gathering or combination of line-contacts and/or point-contacts, it is difficult to ensure a sufficiently large contact area between the charging target and the fur brush so that it is impossible to prevent insufficient charging due to insufficient contact.
These contact chargers can charge the target with power sources of lower voltages than those of the corona charger. In these contact chargers, however, a voltage prepared by adding a threshold voltage to an intended charging potential for following Paschen's law must be applied to the charging member. Further, the amount of produced ozone can be smaller than that of the corona charger, but disadvantages due to the discharging product are unavoidable because the charging operation utilizes the discharging phenomenon.
<Contact Charger (Injection Charging)>
For overcoming the above problems, such a contact charger has been proposed that injects electric charges directly into a charging target without utilizing the discharging phenomenon. For example, a magnetic brush charger, a roller charger, a fur-brush charger and others have been proposed as the contact chargers utilizing injection charging.
These chargers are configured to charge the charging target to bear a voltage substantially equal to the voltage applied to the charging member, and therefore can utilize a voltage lower than that of the foregoing contact charger utilizing the discharging phenomenon. Further, the discharging does not occur or is sufficiently suppressed so that the discharging product hardly occurs, and disadvantages due to the discharging product do not occur.
The magnetic brush charger is formed of, e.g., a nonmagnetic sleeve covering a magnetic roller and magnetic carriers retained on the sleeve, which hold electrically conductive particles. Spikes (magnetic brush) formed of the carriers holding the conductive particles are in contact with the charging target to form a nip, and a voltage is applied to the magnetic brush to charge the charging target by charge injection. This type of charger requires a complicated structure, and therefore is expensive. Further, it suffers from dropping of the magnetic carriers as well as image noises due to adhesion of the magnetic carriers onto the charging target such as a photosensitive member.
According to the roller charger, the conductive and elastic roller is brought into contact with the charging target to form a nip, and a voltage is applied to the elastic roller to effect injection charging on the charging target. For effecting the injection charging on the charging target, a sufficient contact area is required between the roller surface and the charging target.
However, such a sufficient contact area cannot be achieved if the elastic roller is merely driven to rotate by the charging target. For obtaining the sufficient contact area, a difference may be provided between peripheral speeds of the elastic roller and the charging target so that the elastic roller may slide on the charging target. However, this causes a large frictional force because the elastic roller is in face-contact with the charging target. Thereby, the surfaces of the charging member and the charging target may be unnecessarily shaved to generate image noises. Also, the durability thereof may be reduced.
For reducing the frictional force, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H10-307458 has disclosed a roller charger, in which conductive particles are disposed in a contact nip between the roller charger and the charging target.
Even in this structure, a frictional force is larger than that in the chargers, which utilize line-contact and/or point-contact of a fur-brush or a magnetic brush, and therefore, the charging member and the charging target are shaved so that image noises occur, and low durability is unavoidable.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H10-307457 has disclosed a fur-brush charger, in which a fur brush is in contact with the charging target to form a nip, conductive particles are present in this nip portion at a rate of 102 pcs/mm2 or more, and a voltage is applied to the fur brush to perform injection charging on the charging target.
Since the fur brush is in line-contact and/or a point-contact with the charging target, a frictional force between them is small, and wearing of the charging member and the charging target is considerably suppressed. Further, the discharging phenomenon is not utilized so that irregular charging due to excessive discharging can be prevented.
Since the conductive particles are present between the charging target and the fur brush, insufficient contact between the fur brush and the charging target can be suppressed, as compared with the fur brush charging utilizing the discharging phenomenon already described.
However, the fur brush injection charging device, in which the conductive particles are present in the contact nip portion between the fur brush and the charging target, suffers from a problem that stable charging cannot be sufficiently performed because the conductive particles drop from the fur brush.
In connection with the above problem, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H11-190930 has disclosed a technique, in which conductive particles are mixed into developer to be supplied. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,419 has disclosed a technique, in which a conductive particle supply member such as an elastic foam roller or a fur brush is used for supplying conductive particles.
However, it is difficult to utilize sufficiently the technique, in which the conductive particles are mixed into the developer as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H11-190930, because the chargeability of the toner may lower depending on the mixing rate of the conductive particles into the developer and/or depending on the particle diameter of the conductive particles. If the supply member is used for supplying the conductive particles, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,419, the supply member increases a cost. |
Top Tours
Lyon Electric Bike Tour with Food Tasting
"Join your small group and guide near the Palais de Justice in central Lyon to begin your morning or afternoon tour. Get outfitted with an electric bike — equipped for comfortable effortless riding letting you pedal cruise or a combination of both — and set off through the UNESCO World Heritage–listed city.Steeped in centuries of history and considered the culinary capital of France Lyon's vibrant mix of monuments museums squares
1.5-Hour Small-Group Electric Bike Tour in Lyon
"This Tour allows you to discover the city in just 1.5 hours! See the highlights of Lyon such as the Saône River the Banks of Rhône Bellecour square the Old Town (Vieux Lyon) the park of the ""Golden Head"" (Parc de la tête d'or) and many other surprising places!Join your small group and guide near the Palais de Justice in central Lyon to begin your morning or afternoon tour. Get outfitted with an electric bike — equi effortless riding
Lyon Electric Bike Tour with Food Tasting
"Join your small group and guide near the Palais de Justice in central Lyon to begin your morning or afternoon tour. Get outfitted with an electric bike — equipped for comfortable effortless riding letting you pedal cruise or a combination of both — and set off through the UNESCO World Heritage–listed city.Steeped in centuries of history and considered the culinary capital of France Lyon's vibrant mix of monuments museums squares
Place des Terreaux Tips (11)
Place des terraux is almost in the center of Lyon. The big square has a very atmosphere with the surrounding buildings and the special one is the Hotel De Ville.. Dont be confused like me, Hotel de ville is the City Hall .:)
One interesting part of the square is the small fountains coming from the ground, arranged symmetrically and you can watch the water dancing. They are lit up at nights and the scene is really nice.
I had a nice beer on the cafe at the left front where you see in the picture and on a friday night the road adjacent to the cafee was very crowded and many youngs were dancing in the pubs behind the square..
So every French city has its City Hall, a beautifully ornamented building that stands out among all the others. The Lyonnaise version was built by Simon Maupin, and had its façade reformed in 1700 by J.H. Mansart.
Notice the "fountains" originating from the ground, 69 dancing jets of water that are lit up at night, in the beautiful square front of the building (Place des Terreaux).
We snapped this photo in the evening, after the rainstorm had passed. The lighting produced a great effect off of the water. Be wary of the fountains, as jets of water will spray from the sidewalks without warning, where the lights are in the sidewalk. The building in the photo is Hotel de Ville.
The heart of the Terreaux quarter, the Place des Terreaux is lined with cafes and bordered by several notable buildings, including City Hall, the Fine Arts Museum and the Opera House. The ground of the square itself has numerous small fountains (see other pic), which creates a nice effect. The highlight of the Place des Terreaux is probably the Terreaux Fountain. Its two charging horses (which symbolize two rivers heading to the ocean) really jump out at you, and its turquoise-blue water is striking. The sculptor, Bartholdi, also created the Lion de Belfort and the Statue of Liberty.
Bottom-line: Perhaps not the most famous square in Lyon, but this was my personal favorite.
This fountain, sculpted by FE Bertholdi in 1889 is located at the middle of the Place des Terraux in Lyon. It shows France,depicted as the female figure in the chariot, controlling the four great rivers of France. Enjoy it while you can, it is supposed to be removed for restoration in 2015.
The name of the sculptor most likely won't ring any bells, but Frederic Bertholdi was the sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty. Bertholdi selected the site and only part of the work was funded by the U.S. and presented in 1880. A smaller replica of the Statue of Liberty stands in Paris (if you are taking the train to Versailles you will see it)
The first day i saw it the square was filled with people at a festival, so the visual effect was not nearly as striking as the following day when the square was empty
The Batholdi Fountain is one of the highlights of this square. The sculptor of the fountain also created the Statue of Liberty. The fountain has a tremdous amount of detail and you can almost feel the four horses, which represent four rivers racing for the ocean, pulling the chariot forward. The fountain is very reminiscent of those you see in Rome, both Trevi and the one in Piazza Navona.
The Place de Terraux is basically in the center of Lyon. The square is dominated by the Hotel de Ville, or town hall. The building was constructed in the mid-1600's, but was destroyed by fire soon after. The current facade was completed in 1700. The square is a great place to stop for a snack and let the kids run around the dancing jets of water which shoot out from the ground. The bells of the town hall play every Sunday evening during the summer.
Along the north side of the Place des Terreaux is the large set of statues and a lead fountain created by the sculptor Bartholdi. which represent the Saone and Rhone rivers heading to the sea. Along the east side of the square is the Hotel de Ville. The facade is a replacement by Hardouin-Mansart and de Cotte for one destroyed in a fire. There is a central dome and side pavilions.
Things to Do Near Place des Terreaux
Fourvière Hill
Be warned: Fourvière Hill doesn't look too high, being located pretty much in the middle of Vieux Lyon. However, it always depends on how you get up. There are two possibilities: either you take the...
Vieux Lyon
You are immediately struck by the elegant neo-gothic exterior of St Georges. You can tell its a fairly recent construction, but there has been a church on this location since about 550 AD. After being... |
LeBron passes Bryant for third place in playoff scoring
Washington, April 21 - With seven minutes 26 seconds left in the second quarter game 3 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indiana Pacers, LeBron James topped Kobe Byrant to move into third place on NBA's all-time playoff scoring list.
The three-point play in the second quarter on Thursday gave James 13 points and 5,641 for his playoff career, passing Kobe for third place on the NBA's all-time post-season scoring list, reports Xinhua news agency
James reached his mark in his 202nd career playoff game, while Kobe played in 220 post-season contests. He now trails only Michael Jordan (5,987 points) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (5,762) in all-time playoff scoring.
The King, who scored a game-high 41 points in the Cavaliers' 119-114 win over the Pacers, also passed Kobe in the number of all-time playoff 3-pointers made for fourth place.
All rights reserved for news content. Reproduction, storage or redistribution of Nerve content and articles in any medium is strictly prohibited.Contact Nerve Staff for any feedback, corrections and omissions in news stories.
All rights reserved for the news content. Reproduction, storage or redistribution of Nerve content and articles in any medium is strictly prohibited. |
Q:
Inequality with cyclic sum
If $a+b+c=abc$, prove that
$\displaystyle \sum_{cyc} \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{a^2+1}} \leqslant \dfrac{3}{2}$.
A:
By AM-GM
$$\sum_{cyc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{a^2+1}}=\sum_{cyc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{a^2+\frac{abc}{a+b+c}}}=$$
$$=\sum_{cyc}\sqrt{\frac{a+b+c}{a(a^2+ab+ac+bc)}}=\sum_{cyc}\sqrt{\frac{bc}{(a+b)(a+c)}}\leq$$
$$\leq\frac{1}{2}\sum_{cyc}\left(\frac{b}{a+b}+\frac{c}{a+c}\right)=\frac{1}{2}\sum_{cyc}\left(\frac{b}{a+b}+\frac{a}{b+a}\right)=\frac{3}{2}$$
|
Q:
External list Reading items very slow
I am trying to retrieve all the columns from External list from sharepoint 2010. Em using the below code
SPListItemCollection collection = list.GetItems(query);
foreach (SPField field in collection[0].Fields)
{
}
Here collection[0].Fields takes so much time. How can I avoid this perofrmance problem? Is there way of faster retrieval of items?
A:
BCS is a service application, and hence some WCF service calls will be involved. I don't think so CAML/SPList or LINQ will cause any good to improve performance, especially if external list is big. But to gain a huge performance impact it is best to define either a SpecificFinder-method to perform direct SQL-query or to add an Filter to the Finder-method to improve performance.
See more details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff464399.aspx
|
Practically everyone in Texas has firearms in their homes. The girl should not have lied. She should have just did like everyone else and cried/screamed sorry, let the boy run out of the house and took the ass whooping like a woman.
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Ana Galvis Hotz
Ana Galvis Hotz (22 June 1855 — 2 November 1934) was the first Colombian woman to have obtained a medical degree as a Doctor of Medicine.
Ana was born on 22 June 1855 in Bogotá to Dr. Nicanor Galvis from Colombia, and his wife Sophie Hotz from Switzerland. In April 1872 she enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bern, becoming the first regular full-time student of the University, where she obtained her degree as a Doctor of Medicine on 26 June 1877 with her dissertation titled Über Amnionepithel (On the Amniotic Epithelial); she thus became not only the first Colombian female medical doctor, but also the first from Latin America or Spain, at a time when women could not even attend university in Colombia. On her return to Colombia she opened her own medical practice advertising her services as a "specialist on the diseases of the uterus and its surroundings"; therefore she is now also recognized as the first Colombian gynaecologist.
References
Category:1855 births
Category:1934 deaths
Category:People from Bogotá
Category:Colombian people of Swiss descent
Category:Colombian women
Category:University of Bern alumni
Category:Colombian gynaecologists
Category:19th-century women physicians |
Family
Friday, March 9, 2018
Brain Cancer Surgery
Psalm 111 Praise the Lord!I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness endures forever.He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever.He has shown His people the power of His works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.The works of His hands are faithful and just; all His precepts are trustworthy;they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.He sent redemption to His people; He has commanded His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name!The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!Today marks the third year anniversary of Wayne's brain surgery to remove his cancerous tumor. God has been so faithful to us throughout the past three years. I decided to make a short video highlighting just how far God has brought Wayne in the last three years. When God is faithful, I think it is important to share and testify to His goodness, faithfulness, and love. I love the Psalm above...it expresses my heart. God has been faithful to us and has walked through the deepest, darkest waters with us. I hope that you enjoy this video and that it reminds you that no matter what deep waters you are walking through, God is there for you in the midst of the waves and storms!! We also want to thank everyone for their faithful prayers for our family. We are so thankful for each one of you!!
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About Me
I am a daughter of the King, wife to my amazing husband Wayne since 1999, and mom to 6 beautiful little girls and 2 handsome sons. On February 11, 2015, Wayne had a grand mal seizure and we discovered that he had a brain tumor. After a biopsy, we found out that it was cancerous tumor. He had brain surgery in March to remove the tumor. He was in inpatient rehabilitation for two weeks, underwent six weeks of chemo and radiation, and is currently doing six more cycles of chemo. This is our story, really God's story. We want to remember all the wonderful things God has done and will continue to do each day of our life as we walk this journey. |
Send an email to Dr. Richard Weitz
Dr. Richard Weitz
Dr. Richard Weitz is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia, as well as U.S. foreign and defense policies. Dr. Weitz is also an expert at Wikistrat and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Before joining Hudson in 2005, he worked for shorter terms at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Defense Science Board, Harvard University, and other research institutions, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Weitz has authored or edited several books and monographs, including Turkey’s New Regional Security Role: Implications For The United States (2014); Rebuilding American Military Power in the Pacific: A 21st-Century Strategy (2013); Global Security Watch-China (2013); two volumes of National Security Case Studies (2012 and 2008); War and Governance: International Security in a Changing World Order (2011); The Russian Military Today and Tomorrow (2010); Global Security Watch-Russia (2009); China-Russia Security Relations (2008); Mismanaging Mayhem: How Washington Responds to Crisis (2008); The Reserve Policies of Nations: A Comparative Analysis (2007); and Revitalising U.S.–Russian Security Cooperation: Practical Measures (2005). Dr. Weitz holds a B.A. with Highest Honors in government from Harvard College, a M.Sc. in international relations from the London School of Economics, an M.Phil. in politics from the Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.
*The above information may not be current. It was current at the time when the individual worked for SSI or was published by SSI.
SSI books and monographs by Dr. Richard Weitz
December 23, 2015
The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) help prevent potential foreign adversaries from using U.S. arms against the United States and its allies. However, the Regulations, as enforced, can weaken U.S. national security in other important ways.
April 15, 2015
During the past decade, China and Russia have deepened their defense cooperation to include a range of bilateral and multilateral military exercises. These have multiple purposes and the potential to evolve into a more significant security development in coming years.
March 29, 2012
Authored by Dr. Richard Weitz.
The case studies in this volume confirm that flawed responses recur in issue areas as diverse as biodefense, public diplomacy, and military intervention as well as across presidential administrations. The piecemeal national security organizational reforms enacted to date have not fostered improved policy outcomes or decisionmaking, while capability building, especially in the civilian national security agencies, remains less than optimal.
July 14, 2010
Edited by Dr. Stephen J. Blank, Dr. Richard Weitz.
The essays in this volume represent both a memorial and an analytical call to action. Mary Fitzgerald of the Hudson Institute was one of the most brilliant and vivacious practitioners of the study of the Russian and Chinese militaries, whose insights helped not just to put those fields of study on the map, but also to influence U.S. military thinking.
August 06, 2008
Authored by Dr. Richard Weitz.
This report maintains that, although Chinese-Russian relations have improved along several important dimensions, security cooperation between Beijing and Moscow has remained limited, episodic, and tenuous. Nevertheless, U.S. national security planners should prepare for possible major discontinuities in Sino-Russian relations. American officials should pursue a mixture of “shaping and hedging” policies that aim to avert a hostile Chinese-Russian alignment while preparing the United States to better counter one, should it nevertheless arise.
September 17, 2007
Authored by Dr. Richard Weitz.
The military reserve policies of the world’s major powers are undergoing sweeping transformations. Since the United States will continue to engage with these countries—in cooperation, conflict, or both—the U.S. defense community needs to keep abreast of new developments in their reserve policies and, in certain cases, adjust its own policies in response.
May 07, 2007
Authored by Dr. Richard Weitz.
Considerable progress has been achieved during President Putin’s tenure in the areas of Russian-American security cooperation. The author assesses opportunities for further security cooperation between Russia and the United States, offering detailed policy suggestions in certain areas. |
Microsoft Throws in the Towel on UWP, Elevates Win32 - walterbell
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/291124-microsoft-throws-in-the-towel-on-uwp-elevates-win32
======
maxxxxx
How do they expect desktop developers to bet on anything MS does? Since .NET
came out they constantly keep changing direction without any cohesive
strategy. The server development strategy looks pretty good with MVC and now
Core. But desktop development is just terrible. If I have to write a new app I
will either think about making it web based or maybe use qt but I think I will
avoid any MS UI toolkit.
~~~
starik36
I gave up on chasing every new shiny thing MS produces. Winforms work great.
They are stable - there are a million packages for it out there and it can
work with the version of the framework that's installed with every copy of
Windows.
~~~
teddyuk
I have seen systems developed over decades and they are a complete mess, the
worst had these components:
\- vb com+ \- c++ dcom \- c++ mfc \- .net 1.1 winform \- .net 4 \- wpf \-
delphi
Microsoft causes this by events like build which go “we are betting everything
on x” then the year later it is “x was cool but look at xx”
Gahhhhhh
~~~
starik36
VB6 forms designer was actually really good. I don't there is still anything
that rivals it in terms of stability, customization, speed and round-tripping.
------
kitsunesoba
Win32‘s continued popularity (vs UWP) I’m sure has at least partially to do
with how it’s all plain C, which makes it simple to support with any
programming language imaginable via bindings. If they were serious about
pushing UWP adoption they should’ve provided plain C bindings for it so it
could be used with Rust or Python or Swift or whatever. C# and C++ aren’t
everybody’s cup of tea.
~~~
pcwalton
Win32 isn't plain C. Lots of Win32 functionality is only accessible via COM,
which is C++ (though using only a small subset of features so as to achieve
ABI stability).
~~~
ChrisSD
COM isn't C++. It's a language independent interface. There's no reason why
COM (and therefore UWP) can't be used from C.
~~~
userbinator
It can be used from C but is a huge pain that makes it obvious whoever
designed the interface (or COM in general) really went off the deep end with
the abstraction level. There's a major difference between a C API designed to
be used from C (Win32, POSIX) and one that only happens to be usable from C.
Compare a sane "C API designed to be used from C":
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/desktop/dlgbox/usin...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/desktop/dlgbox/using-common-dialog-boxes#opening-a-file)
that involves nothing more than initialising a structure and calling a single
function, with MS's "recommended replacement" using COM:
[https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/Bb776913(v=VS.85).a...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/Bb776913\(v=VS.85\).aspx#basic_usage)
That is a _ten level deep nested if_ with just as many function calls, to do
essentially the equivalent of the code above. The first time I saw this, I
seriously thought they were taking the piss.
~~~
pcwalton
Also, that code isn't C, it's C++. Method calls are a C++ feature. While you
could use COM without language support for method calls, because the ABI is
stable, it isn't really something that Microsoft supports.
~~~
Iwan-Zotow
Of course Microsoft supports it, why not? There is no magic in COM, had COM
object written in C
~~~
pcwalton
I don't mean that calling COM objects from C doesn't _work_. I just mean that
COM isn't designed to be used from C.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
Actually I think it was, that was the lowest common denominator.
~~~
pjmlp
Not really, COM is a subset of OLE 2.0, designed to replace VBX as OCX
originally.
Naturally OLE was designed as C framework back in Win16 days, with endless
pages of boilerplate code.
[https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Programmers-Guide-Book-
Disk/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Windows-Programmers-Guide-Book-
Disk/dp/0672302268)
As such COM can be called from C, specially since C++ Windows compilers have a
VTBL layout as if they were a plain old C struct with function pointers.
However unless one is masochist, it is not sane to use COM from bare bones C.
------
codeflo
I watched the videos for every session from the current Build conference I
could find on this topic, but still don’t understand the strategy. Like at
all. Listing the GUI toolkits that Microsoft is currently investing in,
there’s UWP, WPF, React Native and also a new thing called WinUI. Not all of
them will survive (by which I mean will continue to get significant new
feature releases say three years from now).
So it’s not clear to me at all why I should bet on any of them and not just
use Electron, which is in a lot of ways worse, but at least guaranteed to
stick around.
~~~
teddyuk
Electron gets a lot of stick but you can write good looking cross platform
applications easily.
Until someone does something better that isn’t single platform it has to be
here to stay
~~~
userbinator
A lot of people, including me, do not think that "good looking" and "native
looking" should be any different, and for that, Electron is a failure ---
native applications use the UI of the platform and are consistent with other
applications on the platform, while Electron applications obviously look
different from them, and have the same look regardless of platform, completely
ignoring the standard native UI it provides. They don't conform to the
customisations I do to the native UI of the platform, which is very
frustrating. There's also the unmistakable RAM usage and general sluggishness.
From that perspective, it's not really "cross platform", since you're just
developing for one platform that happens to run inside many others: a web app.
~~~
crispinb
I honestly think the days of the cohesive desktop platform are done. It
arguably reached its peak with OS X (perhaps circa Snow Leopard), but the idea
has been falling into disrepair even on the mac. It's hard to see any strong
force moving us back to it, but given the current situation, if I were a
desktop app developer I don't think it's something I would consider it worth
investing too much effort in.
~~~
lozenge
Maybe my memory is bad but I don't think OS X ever really had it. The flag-
carrying apps (Adobe, Final Cut, Garageband) had custom UIs. Built ins like
Calendar had skeumorphic UIs.
~~~
Razengan
> _Maybe my memory is bad but I don 't think OS X ever really had it._
This is not a binary question of either a desert or either a rainforest, but
Apple's side of the fence is definitely a lot greener than Microsoft's in
terms of UI/UX consistency.
I was a purely PC/MS user up until about 10 years ago, but I haven't suffered
as many befuddled facepalm moments from Apple's UI decisions as from the
Escheresque nightmare that Microsoft is even now.
> _The flag-carrying apps (Adobe, Final Cut, Garageband) had custom UIs. Built
> ins like Calendar had skeumorphic UIs._
However, almost _every_ macOS app has the same standard menus, same standard
shortcuts, and most of them support the same OS extensibility features. Even
as a developer you just need to build against the latest AppKit and you get
not only all the current features, but usually _future_ features for free too
(e.g. most of the NSDocument stuff such as autosaving and previous versions.)
Compare this to the hodgepodge of different interfaces even in Windows'
builtin apps alone, and championing a different API almost every other year.
------
muststopmyths
About 7 years too late. This thing should have been drowned in the bathtub
when it was called WinRT. An excellent example of the hubris of the Windows
division, leading to the demise of Windows Phone (and Windows in due course).
The genius who convinced Microsoft to throw its weight behind an API
completely incompatible with everything they had done before should be lauded
for chutzpah. They couldn't have done a better job of destroying Windows, if
that was their goal.
~~~
eganist
Ideologically, I'm opposed to the assertions you've made in these two
paragraphs primarily because the bloat and backwards compatibility
requirements made innovation more difficult given the diversity of hosts which
had to be supported.
But I'll acknowledge that I've got a substantial bias here considering I both
keenly observed and to a very modest extent contributed to external coverage
of the development of the platform reboots conceived during Longhorn/Vista/7/8
(Avalon/WPF, Indigo/WCF, WinFS, WinRT, some of which succeeded, some of which
died) and the efforts to shed legacy platforms dating back almost three
decades now.
Why do you believe what you believe? Citations would be helpful, but I
recognize we're discussing opinions.
~~~
muststopmyths
Fair enough. Let me lay this out as a long time Windows developer and someone
who loved Windows Phone 7/8 compared to iOS and Android.
1\. The first version of WP7 was fine. Silverlight was a pretty mature
technology and there was developer interest (at least in the Microsoft
ecosystem).
2\. WP8 (and Windows 8) came out with WinRT. This was incompatible with
existing ways of writing Windows code, so you couldn't bring (almost) any
legacy code over. This means that extensive porting efforts were required for
code that used to work fine on Win32. This was particularly brutal for open
source libraries (like OpenCV/OpenSSL etc.) which were sorely necessary if you
wanted to target all 3 mobile platforms.
In addition there was a much smaller API surface. Bluetooth LE or VPN APIs for
example never came out until too late. You couldn't even create COM ports
(necessary for GPS dongles) in a Windows 8 (not mobile, just regular desktop)
WinRT/UAP app. So Win32 applications would work just fine on Windows 8, but if
you wanted they fancy new features, you were either SOL or had a long
development cycle ahead of you. The forced async paradigm also added massive
complexity for cross-platform development.
They failed to see people rapidly losing interest in Windows (Charles
Petzold's Windows 8 book sold so badly, he gave up on Windows for Xamarin.
This is the guy who literally wrote the Bible of Windows GUI programming) and
take action to remedy that. Instead, they spent time and effort on half-assing
"Bridges" which they then rapidly lost interest in and stopped supporting.
It's fine to try to shed legacy platforms, but you don't do it at the cost of
developer traction, at the very moment when you need them most. They could
have done a lot more to make it easier for developers to bring code over. MS
OpenTech, for example, was a worthy initiative that again got killed too soon.
So, my opinion is that nothing but hubris explains the decision to go down the
road of abandoning Win32 at a time when Microsoft needed its developers more
than anything else.
Having worked at Microsoft way back in the day, I've seen many bad ideas get
pushed out, but Microsoft always used to treat developers with respect. WinRT
was just a massive slap in the face in comparison.
*edited formating
~~~
_pmf_
I actually bought this particular book to make sense of the mess (i.e. 80% of
the API surface missing), but of course it did not help here. The way to
brigde UWP and regular Win32 APIs was described in this utterly kafkaesque
document[0], which was the point where I decided that this is a complete
deadend. I implore anyone to read it, and remember: this was the solution to a
problem that could have been solved by importing a DLL in any sane ecosystem.
[0] [https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/uwp/winrt-
component...](https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/uwp/winrt-
components/brokered-windows-runtime-components-for-side-loaded-windows-store-
apps)
------
monocasa
Thank god.
Among other things UWP didn't allow PAGE_EXECUTE on the memory mapping calls,
meaning that JITs were disallowed. That's pretty core to general purpose
computing in a real way, IMO.
~~~
bpye
I believe this was true at one point, but isn't any more. Whilst you cannot
allocate executable memory, you can use VirtualProtectFromApp to remap memory
as executable [1]. UWP does enforce W^X though. You do need the codeGeneration
capability.
(Disclaimer, work for Microsoft - made LuaJIT run on UWP in my free time, this
definitely works :) )
[1] - [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/desktop/api/memorya...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/desktop/api/memoryapi/nf-memoryapi-virtualprotectfromapp)
~~~
MaulingMonkey
VirtualProtectFromApp has the exact same signature as VirtualProtect, just
supporting fewer constants and being legal in UWP apps. I don't suppose you
have any insight as to why Microsoft forced this kind of API churn? Why I have
to lace my code with #ifdef s to support both UWP Apps and earlier OSes?
What's the upside? I feel like VirtualProtect could've just supported fewer
constants inside the sandbox.
Maybe to limit sandbox attack surface? Or working around KnownDLLs pinning
perhaps? But even then, why not provide forwarding stubs instead of forcing
all UWP devs to write their own or #ifdef spam? Time constraints before
shipping Windows 8?
This style of API churn - not limited to VirtualProtect, and often with only
newfangled COM C++/CX bindings for replacement APIs - definitely put me off
UWP App dev, and I just don't see what the upside was supposed to be for
anyone. Lots of extra work, mostly just to lose functionality.
~~~
jdsully
Because the UWP code under the hood calls the real VirtualProtect. It’s to
avoid the name conflict.
Fun fact: your UWP app also links in gdi.dll and user32 as well.
------
userbinator
Discussed yesterday on a different article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19873198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19873198)
------
mgamache
The MS app store and UWP died with the death of Windows Mobile. UWP was MS'
strategy to have a united mobile and desktop experience (just like Apple is
trying to do now with OSX + iOS). No mobile == no incentive to develop UWP.
There were already hacks for Win32 to use the non-UI APIs from UWP (that's a
lot of acronyms) so you could already do most or the UWP stuff with Win32. The
new strategy starting with UWP islands is just how they are staring to
integrate the UWP offerings with WPF/Winforms officially. I like the UWP UI,
but developing the apps is a pain due to the sandboxing (as compared with old
Win32).
------
neltnerb
I'm not quite sure I know enough to guess, does this suggest that new normal
desktop applications may soon be able to take advantage of a unified upgrade
mechanism rather than every program rolling their own?
------
homero
Some of my apps moved to the app store but i couldn't use them on Windows 7.
So i stopped using them and made sure to never use the windows store even if i
get win 10 someday.
------
Wowfunhappy
> One wonders what Gallo thinks Windows applications used to be called.
> Regardless, the idea that consumers would shift their application
> acquisition behavior just because Microsoft wanted it was a poor idea that
> ought to never have been implemented in the first place. It’s good to see
> the company catching up to the place its customers never left.
That just about sums it up for me. Good on Microsoft, I guess.
------
philliphaydon
UWP isn’t dead??? It was demoed at build....
~~~
pjmlp
Many naysayers love to use any misinformation to spread FUD, although it is
clear from BUILD and MSDN, where all is going.
------
rkagerer
Finally. It was a massive mistake from the get-go.
|
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IT’S well-known that cats will travel - sometimes kilometres - to find their way home. But one Freemans Reach cat has been on a mission since before Christmas to find its way back to its former residence in Wilberforce, a multi-kilometre trip across main roads and paddocks. The four-year-old tabby is the fur child of Sandra Tremier, owner of Tic Toc Equestrian - a riding school and horse training facility. When the business moved premises late last year, the cat in question, named Rock, simply wouldn’t stay put. Rock and his brother Star (named for being ‘rockstars’, according to Ms Tremier) came to live at Tic Toc Equestrian when they were very young, so it’s not surprising that Rock still feels an affinity with his old stomping ground. If you were driving from the old house to the new one, it would be a 7.8-kilometre trip (according to Google Maps), and Rock has now taken this trek four times (though he probably knows a short cut!). “When you move house with cats you have to lock them in for a bit so they can get used to the new place, so we locked them inside the barn but they quickly found a way out,” Ms Tremier said. “Within a week or two, Rock was gone back to the old place. “We used to rent the other place and the owners who are there now called me one morning and said ‘guess who is here?!’ “There are a few roads you have to cross and you wonder how he found his way back - it’s like they have a GPS inside their body.” Ms Tremier said the first time he turned up at the old house she had actually driven there that day and thought he might have simply jumped in her car and hidden, but the second time, when she had locked him in the shed at midnight and she got the call at 6am the following morning, she knew what he was up to. Luckily, the owners of his old ‘pad’ know him and he’s been in safe hands on the occasions he’s made the solo voyage back. “The other people said they’re very happy to keep him there, actually! But he’s my baby, and I hope he settles in here soon,” Ms Tremier said. Despite his disappearing acts, Rock has seemed very happy at the new stables, spending his days with his brother Star and the horses, and driving around in the quad bike with Ms Tremier. “He’s got a funny personality, very playful and outgoing,” she said. Meanwhile, Ms Tremier has found a new place to put her kitties away at night, and is hoping that will stop Rock’s wandering. “It hasn’t been a winning battle so far, so the best way at the moment is to continue locking him in at night so there’s no way he can get out and go back,” she said.
Tic Toc equestrian cat won't stay put, treks almost 8km to old stables on four occasions
IT’S well-known that cats will travel - sometimes kilometres - to find their way home. But one Freemans Reach cat has been on a mission since before Christmas to find its way back to its former residence in Wilberforce, a multi-kilometre trip across main roads and paddocks.
The four-year-old tabby is the fur child of Sandra Tremier, owner of Tic Toc Equestrian - a riding school and horse training facility.
Homeward bound: cat treks ‘home’ almost 8km on four occasions
Mates: Tabby cat Rock loves living at Tic Toc stables, so much so that when the business moved suburbs, he kept trekking back 'home'. Pictures: Sandra Tremier
Farm life: Rock (left) and Star hanging out on the bonnet of their mum's car. They also like to go for rides around the stables on the quad bike.
When the business moved premises late last year, the cat in question, named Rock, simply wouldn’t stay put.
Rock and his brother Star (named for being ‘rockstars’, according to Ms Tremier) came to live at Tic Toc Equestrian when they were very young, so it’s not surprising that Rock still feels an affinity with his old stomping ground.
If you were driving from the old house to the new one, it would be a 7.8-kilometre trip (according to Google Maps), and Rock has now taken this trek four times (though he probably knows a short cut!).
“When you move house with cats you have to lock them in for a bit so they can get used to the new place, so we locked them inside the barn but they quickly found a way out,” Ms Tremier said.
“Within a week or two, Rock was gone back to the old place.
“We used to rent the other place and the owners who are there now called me one morning and said ‘guess who is here?!’
“There are a few roads you have to cross and you wonder how he found his way back - it’s like they have a GPS inside their body.”
Ms Tremier said the first time he turned up at the old house she had actually driven there that day and thought he might have simply jumped in her car and hidden, but the second time, when she had locked him in the shed at midnight and she got the call at 6am the following morning, she knew what he was up to.
Luckily, the owners of his old ‘pad’ know him and he’s been in safe hands on the occasions he’s made the solo voyage back.
“The other people said they’re very happy to keep him there, actually! But he’s my baby, and I hope he settles in here soon,” Ms Tremier said.
Despite his disappearing acts, Rock has seemed very happy at the new stables, spending his days with his brother Star and the horses, and driving around in the quad bike with Ms Tremier.
“He’s got a funny personality, very playful and outgoing,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ms Tremier has found a new place to put her kitties away at night, and is hoping that will stop Rock’s wandering.
“It hasn’t been a winning battle so far, so the best way at the moment is to continue locking him in at night so there’s no way he can get out and go back,” she said. |
GameCell UK has posted the most negative review of KOTOR 2 in the known universe, giving it 5/10 and using mean words like the most DISAPPOINTING game I have EVER played!. Them the fighting words, pardner.
And as I said before, for the first 25 hours the game really is a joy, you feel part of a huge galaxy spanning story and take interest in all the characters you meet. You really want to talk to everyone and complete all those tiny little side quests that you come across. Again it’s the closest you can get to playing in the Star Wars universe without going up in the attic and getting the old toys out. But then something very strange happens, it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.
At around the 25 hour mark the story seems to get completely forgotten, for a good portion of the next 5 hours you just run around fighting a seemingly endless onslaught of Sith soldiers in various locations, as wave after wave attacks you really start to think that it’s just padding. It dawns on you that Obsidian has really rushed everything to get the game out when they did. At the 30 hour mark the story hits a brick wall. BANG - that’s it, no real ending as such and more questions than the entire Matrix trilogy asked are still left unanswered. Even your final conversation makes the whole thing obvious that the ending was rushed with one line answers given to questions about “the futureâ€
Hmm, it looks like Obsidian has pulled a Bloodlines there. Or maybe it's just a new trend in the industry these days. |
The northeastern U.S. should prepare for a surge in Lyme disease this spring. And we can blame fluctuations in acorns and mouse populations, not the mild winter. So reports Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY.
What do acorns have to do with illness? Acorn crops vary from year-to-year, with boom-and-bust cycles influencing the winter survival and breeding success of white-footed mice. These small mammals pack a one-two punch: they are preferred hosts for black-legged ticks and they are very effective at transmitting Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.
"We had a boom in acorns, followed by a boom in mice. And now, on the heels of one of the smallest acorn crops we've ever seen, the mouse population is crashing," Ostfeld explains. Adding, "This spring, there will be a lot of Borrelia burgdorferi-infected black-legged ticks in our forests looking for a blood meal. And instead of finding a white-footed mouse, they are going to find other mammals -- like us."
For more than two decades, Ostfeld, Cary Institute forest ecologist Dr. Charles D. Canham, and their research team have been investigating connections among acorn abundance, white-footed mice, black-legged ticks, and Lyme disease. In 2010, acorn crops were the heaviest recorded at their Millbrook-based research site. And in 2011, mouse populations followed suit, peaking in the summer months. The scarcity of acorns in the fall of 2011 set up a perfect storm for human Lyme disease risk.
Black-legged ticks take three bloodmeals -- as larvae, as nymphs, and as adults. Larval ticks that fed on 2011's booming mouse population will soon be in need of a nymphal meal. These tiny ticks -- as small as poppy seeds -- are very effective at transmitting Lyme to people. The last time Ostfeld's research site experienced a heavy acorn crop (2006) followed by a sparse acorn crop (2007), nymphal black-legged ticks reached a 20-year high.
The May-July nymph season will be dangerous, and Ostfeld urges people to be aware when outdoors. Unlike white-footed mice, who can be infected with Lyme with minimal cost, the disease is debilitating to humans. Left undiagnosed, it can cause chronic fatigue, joint pain, and neurological problems. It is the most prevalent vector-borne illness in the U.S., with the majority of cases occurring in the Northeast.
Ostfeld says that mild winter weather does not cause a rise in tick populations, although it can change tick behavior. Adult ticks, which are slightly larger than a sesame seed, are normally dormant in winter but can seek a host whenever temperatures rise several degrees above freezing. The warm winter of 2011-2012 induced earlier than normal activity. While adult ticks can transmit Lyme, they are responsible for a small fraction of tick-borne disease, with spring-summer nymphs posing more of a human health threat.
Past research by Ostfeld and colleagues has highlighted the role that intact forest habitat and animal diversity play in buffering Lyme disease risks. He is currently working with health departments in impacted areas to educate citizens and physicians about the impending surge in Lyme disease. |
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Lawyer and fellow blogger Wee Choo Keong, who is standing for the Wangsa Maju parliamentary seat on a PKR ticket, has submitted a written submission to the Royal Commission Of Enquiry, which he has described as the "Mother of All Commissions", on the VK Lingam video clip with regard to the appointment of judges. It contains several recommendations. Read the full version, here.
In the words of a learned good friend and similarly much maligned and long suffering former member of the bench: " With this comes the penultimate end of the judiciary on trial and along with it in fact, the very core of integrity of the country, in the eyes of the civilised world at large.
Judges, highest ranking officers of the law courts, the final arbiter, bastion of justice, guardian of the nation's conscience, you will now do right by the people whose trust they have implicitly placed upon you, by virtue of the office you hold, lest you sell your souls to the devil !
May He proffer you divine guidance and have mercy on the future of our blessed beloved nation!"
3 comments:
Whoever is primarily responsible for this, and I think it is the Great Leader of the time, will have a lot to answer to all Malaysians, you and me included. Just imagine he has to seek forgiveness from everyone of us and I'm not going to give it to him so easily even if he asked for it personally from me.Such is the responsibility of being a leader and I wonder why so many fight tooth and nail to be one.
I have just responded to the TRIVIA & RAMBLINGS of the fevered mind of Mr David Hoh my wife’s counsel & solicitor. I have written a lot that charged Judge Zainon binti Mohd. Ali with criminal behaviour and with aiding & abetting the 3 criminals Stephen Lim Cheng Ban, Wong Kem Chen & Kwong Sea Yoon.
In fact having written volumes on this subject, THE WHOLE STORY CAN BE SUMMED UP IN LAW BY JUST 2 QUESTIONS (1) For Judge Zainon binti Mohd. Ali, and (2)A 2nd question for Mr David Hoh.
(1)QUESTION FOR JUDGE ZAINON BINTI MOHD. ALI :
DID YOU NOT APPROVE 2 CONFLICTING APPLICATIONS TO THE RESPONDENTS (A)1ST APPROVED THEIR APPLICATION FOR SECURITY FOR COSTS; AND UPON ENFORCEMENT OF SAID ORDER FOR SECURITY FOR COSTS, YOU PROCEEDED FURTHER TO APPROVE TO RESPONDENTS AN ORDER FOR STRIKING OUT PETITION FOR ALLEGEDLY SHOWING NO CAUSE OF ACTION. You & respondents had ENFORCED THEIR SECURITY FOR COSTS BUT REFUSED TO ALLOW PETITIONER TO PROCEED TO TRIAL AS REQUIRED BY THE LAW OF CIVIL PROCEDURE.
(2)QUESTION FOR Mr david hoh :
DID YOU NOT FAIL OR MORE LIKELY WITH HELD FILING A RESPONSE/DEFENSE TO DISMISS STEPHEN LIM CHENG BAN’S nonsensical application to strike out said petition after HAVING ENFORCED RESPONDENTS’ ORDER FOR SECURITY FOR COSTS. No trial means no costs and security for costs means that petitioner’s money is set aside by the order for security for costs to F….g PAY FOR THE TRIAL IN CASE PETITIONER LOSE HER CASE.
It is that f…g simple and this Malaysian Federal Court Judge Zainon binti Mohd. Ali F…g APPROVED THE F….g ORDER FOR STRIKING OUT PETITION FOR SHOWING NO CAUSE OF ACTION. Is this not COMICAL, a f….g MALAYSIAN FEDERAL COURT JUDGE DOES NOT KNOW THE LAW.
Why has David Hoh (counsel for my wife)DEFENDED Judge Zainon binti Mohd. Ali ? He should be defending my wife ! I honestly can tell you why. Judge Zainon binti Mohd. Ali IS NOT F….g FLUENT IN ENGLISH. She f….g cannot write and speak ENGLISH, therefore she gets David to defend her in a public forum.
It is f…ing disgraceful that Mr David Hoh had to ambush me in his letter printed in the Malaysian Today website. I always send a copy of any letter that I write to anyone and every letter that I posted on my BLOGG was received by the person that I write about; that is to allow the person to reply; but David Hoh wrote to Malaysian Today on the 1st of July but he did not in any way make it known to me of his letter. Therefore, I did not get the opportunity to reply until yesterday when I checked my achieve on GOOGLE.COM 4 f….g months ! David you are a f…..g coward and a chicken shit. Anyway, he bloggs on the Malaysia Today website and I cannot get access to that website because I cannot afford to subscribe to MalaysiaToday. However I decided not to read his post since he has seen fit for me not to read it.
However, to be fair David need to publish on a website that I can get to reply. He can go to my blogg, the CICAK, http://malay-sia.blogspot.com/2007/12/malaysia-is-3rd-rate-3rd-world.html, AND SEVERAL OTHER WEBSITES. David it is only decent to want a response from the person you write about. posted by yapchongyee @ 10:01 PM
Greetingd Capt., I want to tunpang your blog since it is a very popular blog ! Thank you !
yap.chonryee
Hello Anil ! You have written a very insightful article arising from the Sub-prime mortgage problem, of which I was not too clear about. After reading your article I can see that it looks very much the 1997 problem that got Asia undone by the same people from the US and I suppose from EU.
I believe in one wise and ancient saying that nothing comes from nothing; and no matter how clever you are you just cannot pump up hot air and expect it to remain the same all the time, what goes up must eventually come down. The BN government have for the last 50 years been about shaving off a percentage of all government generated contracts and franchises for their own selfish benefit; I would go as far as to say that about 25% of all government contracts have been shaved off and pass on as waste due to corruption. Grandiose projects are thought up that are not of any urgency or requirement are implemented merely because the bigger they are the more the politicians can shave off for themselves. Looking at the second bridge project for Penang I can only say that this is another white elephant that will costs the state several billion ringgit and the shave off will make another crony very rich.
I have been back to KL and the huge highway that runs through KL to Penang must have costs several billions, and from my observation there is no urgency for such a huge project, Penang is a sea port and Penang could have a first class air-port to improve much needed infrastructure, but instead you plan to put in a billion dollar second bridge project; where is the need for such a project ?
In KL the hugely expensive FREEWAY does not merit the expenditure because it has not loosened up traffic at all, there are still very long traffic chock points that were there before the highway was put in use as it is now when it is in use. These projects were built merely to benefit those in power. To give them the opportunity to collect toll and to shave off a percentage of the contract sum. The BN government has wasted billions upon billions over the past 50 years. Compare the returns on investment between Singapore and Malaysia and you can see what they have and how they have put their investment dollars to good use. Malaysia wasted their billions upon billions of their ringgit merely to profit a few in the government. While Singapore has invested billions of dollars towards building up one of the world’s finest educational system and a world renown R & D facilities, Malaysia is still “clomping” along at bullock-cart speed; there is just no comparison, a case of cheese and chalk. Singapore has catapulted into the front ranks of a 21st century economy, while Malaysia is still chugging along at a leisurely “kampong” pace.
I have forever said that Malaysia had the good fortune to discover oil at the time that I left Malaysia, and that discovery of oil saved Malaysia from becoming a case of a SUDAN OR AFGHANISTAN. Malaysia has no manufacturing to speak off. What is passed off as manufacturing in Malaysia is nothing more than mere assembly of discarded Japanese technology as eg. The assembly of the Mitsubishi that passes for the Proton. Yes Malaysia bought the British Lotus and what profitability has it generated ? Look at the Malaysian icon of cheap flights, like Asia Airlines a success story, but it was bought by Fernandes for 1 ringgit and turned around. The Malaysian government lost billions in that project only to be turned around by a non Malay. There are hundreds of other similar examples, that proves the rule that AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS A WASTE OF SCARCE RESOURCES; it did not really benefit the Malays because all the projects that were supported by Affirmative action went into huge losses and they did not benefit Malaysia in any meaningful way.
The Malays ought to by now at least by trial and error, realize that it takes a certain type of individual to become an entrepreneur and one can say by a rule of thump that a Malay is not likely to be one.
Penang is an excellent test bed for Malaysia (and by that I mean the BN government) to find a more effective model for development than just sticking to a failed model that is hooked on affirmative action that has gone on for the last 50 years. I agree with DAP that the NEP needs to be scraped because Penang is mainly Chinese, may I guess about 75% Chinese ? Therefore, 75% of the population will not need affirmative action (are there 25% Malays in Penang ? ) In the case of Penang therefore, may I suggest that CM Lim Guan Eng need not take any step back from what he has declared, that he will scrap the NEP(I think he will scrap it too ). My suggestion is for the CM to implement a public announcement of all the good stuff eg. Government contracts up for tender and scholarships and jobs in government. My suggestion is that if qualified Malays win any government contracts by fair tender then government assistance may be available to the successful Malay contractor to complete the project. This model is built on the foundation that merit is the basis of success and that if the Malay candidate has merit but not sufficient means to complete his project, the government will render assistance to him. This system will therefore remove the “Malay Sultan syndrome”; the Chinese dubbed this the Malai Wong system, whereby the China-man enlist a Malay as the chairman and under his name takes on a government contract and pays off the Malay chairman a percentage of the contract but the whole project is managed by the Chinese. This system has gone on ever since the first days of Merdeka and it is the greatest indictment of the failure of Malaysia’s failed affirmative action. Let us be blunt about it, if the Malay is not able or qualified to take the job then where is the common sense for taking him on ? His inadequacy only blow up the costs of the project and this has gone on forever.
I can say that I speak for most Chinese that we do not object and for that matter we had never ever objected to a fair and equitably administered affirmative action, meaning that this assistance are given justly to deserving cases of Malays who need assistances to progress. We Chinese only object to the wastage brought on by nepotism and corruption. If affirmative action only benefits an elite then the Malays will never progress to the point when they will not need any assistance. This is our objection. That being the case CM Lim can experiment with a system that will ultimately create a class of Malay entrepreneurs that will draw level with the other races. What CM Lim has said is just common sense and good thinking. We Chinese do not need any affirmative action.
On the issue of the award of scholarships and government jobs, if I remember rightly, there is provision in the original Malaysian Constitution that mandates a ratio of 3 : 1 in other words, a 25% places reserved for non-Malays; but this provision had been perverted by those administer the government to give ALL THE PLACES to the Malays. All we need do is to revert to the original Malaysian Constitution and enforce that provision according to the law. We need to name the successful candidates in the press, like the publication of the HSC results. Who are the Malays and who are the non-Malays to show transparency and just administration of the required affirmative action. I believe that transparency is the key and it applies even in the case of the Malays.
This blog promotes freedom of speech and I invite fair comment. This is not a chat room and I would appreciate if you could identify yourself. However, if you prefer to remain anonymous please note that remarks that are deemed grossly inappropriate, maliciously defamatory, extremely vulgar or ad hominem attacks (against my person) will be deleted.
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Savage Grace
Savage Grace is a 2007 drama film directed by Tom Kalin and written by Howard A. Rodman, based on the book Savage Grace by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. The story is based on the dysfunctional, allegedly incestuous relationship between heiress and socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, Antony. The film stars Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Eddie Redmayne, Elena Anaya, and Hugh Dancy.
It was an official selection at the 2007 London Film Festival, the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
The film is based on the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland (Moore), her husband Brooks Baekeland (Dillane), heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, and their only child Antony (Redmayne), who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The story begins with Antony's birth and follows the family to the time of his arrest for the murder of his mother.
Critical reception
Critics gave the film mixed reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has a 38% of approval, based on 89 reviews — the consensus reads "though visually compelling, the lamentable characters in Savage Grace make for difficult viewing." Metacritic, another review aggregator, reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 28 reviews.
Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as "a gripping, coldly brilliant and tremendously acted movie."
Accolades
Savage Grace was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay in 2008.
Sam Green
After the film opened, Baekeland's former lover, Samuel Adams Green (played by Dancy in the film), wrote an article pointing out that elements in the film were factually inaccurate. Referring to the ménage à trois scene of Barbara, Antony, and Sam having sex, he wrote:
Green then took legal action against the film makers, which was still unresolved at the time of his death.
References
External links
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Category:Fictional portrayals of schizophrenia
Category:Films about dysfunctional families
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Land and Stunning Home!
4330 SW 91st Ave
Portland, Oregon 97225
For Sale
Price $1,125,000
From the moment you enter this stunning masterpiece, you will feel at home! No expense was spared in updating this statuesque icon, as the remodel cost more than the home! Bask in tons of natural light, a peaceful neutral palette and high-end finishes. The gourmet kitchen features a gas cooktop, quartz counters, stainless appliances and double ovens. Relax and unwind in the large Master on the main. A spa-like bath invites relaxing w/walk-in shower, freestanding tub, heated floors and marble counter. The walk-in custom closet hosts its own washer/dryer. The upstairs boasts a possible ADU (w/private entrance, living area, kitchen & bed/bath) and two add. beds and bath. And the basement is the entertaining center with a family rm, game rm, kitchenette, bath, wine cellar and large utility. The yard is your own private oasis on .52 acres (zoned R-5 with potential for development; buyer to verify). Owner is licensed Real Estate agent. |
"And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep."
--Lord Byron
Thursday, July 9, 2015
When Perfection Isn't Good Enough
Curmie is way behind on his writing, which accounts for not getting to this story quicker. We all know that the GOP and the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party have joined forces to declare war on public education in this country. It’s all about “accountability” and similar catch-phrases, which are achieved only by high-stakes standardized testing.
The problems with this philosophy occur at two strata. First, the tests and the curricula with which they survive in perverse symbiosis are designed almost exclusively by non-educators with a single purpose: to increase the power, wealth, and prestige of their progenitors. No one is really interested in providing an accurate assessment of either student development or teacher competence. No, in a fetishistic desire for quantification, we’ve just allowed the Pearsons of the world to make shit up and pretend that it’s meaningful. And we’ve allowed arrogant know-nothings like Bill Gates, charlatans like Geoffrey Canada and Michelle Rhee, and corrupt bureaucrats like Arne Duncan to convince us that they care about making education better, when in fact they’re just looking to scapegoat teachers as an excuse to sell their solutions to wildly exaggerated problems.
Curmie has argued against the overuse of standardized testing in general on several occasions—here’s a piece from three years ago with internal links to several others, but there are times when the inanity of the system is very pragmatic and specific. There are the utterly stupid questions.
There’s the corruption of “cut scores,” the scores a particular state or municipality decides is acceptable. If you want to show that your snazzy new system is working, you lower the cut score; if you want to show the status quo isn’t working, you raise it. And, because you’re either a corporation trying to sell a product or a politician trying to sell an idea (and usually a product licensed by one of your campaign contributors), you do this after the scores are in. So if last year’s cut score was 60% and you want to show that your spiffy new approach is working, you lower the cut score to 50% and voilà!, a higher percentage of this year’s students passed. Or, more recently, vice versa: “Oooohhh… we need to adopt this new strategy because fewer students got a 70 this year than got a 60 last year. Education is free-fall, and we need to fix it.”
There are the teachers who are evaluated on the basis of how students they never had in class fare on standardized tests. The reigning Curmie Award winners are the administrators at Rhame Elementary School, who removed 4th grade teacher Vuola Coyle from the classroom because her students’ test scores were too high, making it difficult if not impossible for her 5th grade colleagues to demonstrate that they, too, know how to teach.
It doesn’t matter if you do. It’s not going to be good enough.
And now we get a variation on that theme. In Florida and, Curmie fears, other places as well, teachers can be punished even for students who earn perfect scores on standardized tests. You see, if they got a perfect score last year, they should show improvement by getting better than a perfect score this year, or the teacher involved is clearly an incompetent. Well, somebody is an incompetent, but Curmie suspects it’s not the teacher.
Ah, but the mouthpiece for the state education department assures us that counties are allowed to adjust their VAM (that’s Value-Added Model, for those of you unfamiliar with corporatized educationese) to accommodate such situations. Except, of course, they don’t (or at least didn’t). Well, at least those perfect scores are so rare it really doesn’t matter. Except that there are tens of thousands of perfect scores, meaning that the chances that some teacher was penalized because one or more of his/her students wasn’t better than perfect is roughly equal to the chance that Donald Trump will say something stupid and boorish in the next 24 hours: ontological certitude, in other words.
The most significant problem here isn’t that hosts of teachers are being treated unfairly because of a glitch in the system—there’s a pretty good likelihood that it’s been fixed by now, after all. And, once middle school teacher Luke Flynt made headlines by challenging the stupid rule, it’s a reasonable surmise that other Florida teachers were alerted to the possibility.
Nor is the central issue the fact that teachers are being evaluated by a system that is rife with flaws, doesn’t measure anything worth measuring, and pays no attention whatsoever to the fact that different teachers are more effective with different students, that student populations vary—sometimes radically—from year to year or even from class to class, and completely disregards significant factors in students’ performance completely unrelated to the classroom: economic and social issues, for example. All of these criticisms are legitimate, and all of them are damning. But it’s all sort of to be expected. Regardless of what you do for a living, there are two kinds of people who are guaranteed to believe they know how to do your job better than you do: rich people and politicians… and God save us from those who are both.
The core (or Core… ) problem, however, is not that a particular district has a silly procedure in place, or that this or that teacher is being punished for circumstances that no rational person, let alone an educational professional, would consider legitimate. Those cases are awful, but they are anecdotal. The central issue, however, is systemic, and it permeates into every part of our society, not merely the education sector.
The problem is that we, the electorate, keep voting for lazy, arrogant, morally bankrupt, and utterly irresponsible politicians at every level. No sentient adult would consciously vote for the kind of idiocy that passes for public education policy in Florida (or New York, or Pennsylvania, or Texas, or…). I started to include “stupid” in the list of adjectives in the first sentence of this paragraph. The problem is, that’s not accurate. They aren’t stupid. They know better, but they’re too beholden to campaign donors, too myopic to actually contemplate the implications of proposed legislation, too interested in supporting a general concept (core curriculum, privileging good teachers over bad ones, etc.) without examining the details (which is where the Devil lurks) of a proposal. And they’re trigger-happy about their pet projects. Yes, delaying tactics are very much a part of the political arsenal of both parties. But the rush to pass legislation for the sake of appearing to solve a problem is what gives us violations of basic human rights (the PATRIOT Act), prolix and convoluted gibberish (Obamacare), and knee-jerk hysteria (the rush to bar the Confederate battle flag from national parks on one or two specially designated days a year even at Civil War cemeteries ).
The average state legislator knows precisely nothing about education, and the average education secretary knows (and cares) less than that. But as long as we, collectively, keep electing people unfit to clean the toilets in a public school, there’s a very real sense that we get what we deserve. There is no Curmie nomination forthcoming on the issue of punishing teachers for students’ perfect scores: you can’t embarrass a profession to which you don’t belong. You can only embarrass yourself. And politicians of both parties across the country are doing a very good job of that, indeed.
NOTE: Curmie changed his mind. People who control the entire educational system of a state are Curmie-eligible.
No comments:
About Me
I have two blogs: Curmudgeon Central and Rumpytato.
The former is political (broadly construed), and is intended for cynics and other romantics. Feel free to disagree, even ardently, just don't resort to abuse of me or of other commenters.
The other blog, Rumpytato, is also for longer contemplations than fit easily in a Facebook status update, but posts are more personal and less specifically political in nature.
It is traditional to include in a space like this a disclaimer that the opinions represented here are mine alone. Of course, grammar Nazi that I am, I can't say that. Of course, there are opinions here that come from other people, or that others may share. Those people--my employer, my friends and family, the many and various influences on me throughout the last sixtyish years--should not, however, be held accountable for anything I say here (or elsewhere, for that matter).
Please consider liking Curmudgeon Central on Facebook and/or following @CurmudgeonCentr on Twitter. |
Q:
Java: Graphics 2d, will not draw fast enough
I am looking for a rather simple(and by simple I mean nothing that requires tooo many lines of code) for the following problem:
I have a paint app. The code for the app is here: https://github.com/Tigatok/JavaProjects/tree/master/Paint2.0
Here is my problem:
How do I get the square line to be as smooth as the pencilLine?
A:
For the thin line, you are currently calling
g2D.drawLine(oldX, oldY, currentX, currentY);
Whereas for the thick line, you are only calling
g2D.fillRect(currentX, currentY, getXSize(), getYSize());
That means that when you move the mouse quickly, then there will be no connection between the previous and the new mouse position.
A simple solution that would already allow to achieve an effect that is close to what you probably want could be to change the second call to
g2D.setStroke(new BasicStroke(getXSize()));
g2D.drawLine(oldX, oldY, currentX, currentY);
However, there are several possible improvements for your current painting code. You should consider to not make the decision about how you paint based on a set of boolean flags. Instead, you could consider something like a Pen interface that allows you to switch between different pens by just using a different implementation of this interface.
It was already mentioned that you could assemble the points into a Path2D and draw this path. This is a good advice that you should definitely consider as well: It offers some nice possibilites. For example, you can define a Stroke and create a "stroked shape" with arbitrary pen shapes.
However, all of these changes might require a considerable refactoring, thus, until now, they are only rather vague suggesctions.
EDIT: Added an example based on the comments
I can imagine what effect you want to achieve. But this might be rather difficult. A simple solution that might at least be close to what you want might be this (using a simplified version of a class from http://www.jhlabs.com/java/java2d/strokes/ )
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Shape;
import java.awt.Stroke;
import java.awt.geom.AffineTransform;
import java.awt.geom.FlatteningPathIterator;
import java.awt.geom.GeneralPath;
import java.awt.geom.Path2D;
import java.awt.geom.PathIterator;
import java.awt.geom.Rectangle2D;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class SharpiePaintTest
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
{
@Override
public void run()
{
createAndShowGUI();
}
});
}
private static void createAndShowGUI()
{
JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.getContentPane().add(new SharpiePaintTestPanel());
f.setSize(1100,600);
f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
f.setVisible(true);
}
}
class SharpiePaintTestPanel extends JPanel
{
@Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics gr)
{
super.paintComponent(gr);
Graphics2D g = (Graphics2D)gr;
g.setColor(Color.BLACK);
Path2D path = new Path2D.Double();
path.moveTo(300,300);
path.curveTo(400, 400, 400, 300, 300, 200);
g.setStroke(new ShapeStroke(new Rectangle2D.Double(0,0,3,15), 3.0f));
g.draw(path);
}
}
// Based on http://www.jhlabs.com/java/java2d/strokes/ShapeStroke.java,
// only slightly simplified
class ShapeStroke implements Stroke {
private Shape shape;
private float advance;
private static final float FLATNESS = 1;
public ShapeStroke(Shape shape, float advance ) {
this.advance = advance;
Rectangle2D bounds = shape.getBounds2D();
this.shape = AffineTransform.getTranslateInstance(
-bounds.getCenterX(), -bounds.getCenterY()).createTransformedShape(shape);
}
@Override
public Shape createStrokedShape( Shape shape ) {
GeneralPath result = new GeneralPath();
PathIterator it = new FlatteningPathIterator( shape.getPathIterator( null ), FLATNESS );
float points[] = new float[6];
float moveX = 0, moveY = 0;
float lastX = 0, lastY = 0;
float thisX = 0, thisY = 0;
int type = 0;
float next = 0;
while (!it.isDone() ) {
type = it.currentSegment( points );
switch( type ){
case PathIterator.SEG_MOVETO:
moveX = lastX = points[0];
moveY = lastY = points[1];
result.moveTo( moveX, moveY );
next = 0;
break;
case PathIterator.SEG_CLOSE:
points[0] = moveX;
points[1] = moveY;
// Fall into....
case PathIterator.SEG_LINETO:
thisX = points[0];
thisY = points[1];
float dx = thisX-lastX;
float dy = thisY-lastY;
float distance = (float)Math.sqrt( dx*dx + dy*dy );
if ( distance >= next ) {
float r = 1.0f/distance;
while (distance >= next ) {
float x = lastX + next*dx*r;
float y = lastY + next*dy*r;
AffineTransform t = new AffineTransform();
t.setToTranslation( x, y );
result.append( t.createTransformedShape(this.shape), false );
next += advance;
}
}
next -= distance;
lastX = thisX;
lastY = thisY;
break;
}
it.next();
}
return result;
}
}
|
Q:
AngularJS: Factory and Provider Scenarios
I'm learning AngularJS and I noticed that A Factory is a short-hand for a Provider.
Can you tell me specific scenarios where I should/must use a Provider instead of a Factory? The codes stays much more readable if use a Factory method instead of the provider.
A:
A Provider is necessary when the provider itself has methods that you want the user of your service to call during the configuration phase of the application.
See for example the $location service: it has a $locationProvider which allows setting it to html5 mode, while the application is being configured (using module.config()).
|
Dangerous Brazil…
Man walking alone in Brazil got stabbed and shot few times by two guys on motorcycle and maybe flip flops (cant see very well)… You can get this combination only in Brazil…
- Vidhuber.com |
A BILL to amend Code Section 36-44-3 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to definitions regarding redevelopment powers, so as to change certain provisions regarding items which qualify as redevelopment; to change certain provisions regarding financing costs which qualify as redevelopment costs; and for other purposes. |
Internet users shift habits amid US spying
Options include new browsers, more encryption
Share via e-mail
Josh Scott helped a computer user who did not want to be identified during a Cryptoparty on Web security in Dallas.
By Oskar Garcia
Associated Press
July 23, 2013
NEW YORK — In Louisiana, the wife of a former soldier is scaling back on Facebook posts and considering unfriending old acquaintances, worried an innocuous joke or long-lost associate might one day land her in a government probe. In California, a college student encrypts chats and e-mails, saying he’s not planning anything sinister but shouldn’t have to sweat snoopers. And in Canada, a lawyer is rethinking the data products he uses to ensure his clients’ privacy.
As the attorney, Chris Bushong, put it: ‘‘Who wants to feel like they’re being watched?’’
News of the US government’s secret surveillance programs that targeted phone records and information transmitted on the Internet has done more than spark a debate about privacy. Some are changing their online habits as they reconsider some basic questions about today’s interconnected world. Among them: How much should I share and how should I share it?
Some say they want to take preventative measures in case such programs are expanded. Others are looking to send a message — not just to the US government but to the Internet companies that collect so much personal information.
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‘‘We all think that nobody’s interested in us, we’re all simple folk,’’ said Doan Moran of Alexandria, La. ‘‘But you start looking at the numbers and the phone records . . . it makes you really hesitate.’’
Last month former government contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing that the National Security Agency, as part of its antiterrorism efforts, had collected the phone records of millions of Americans. A second NSA program called PRISM forces major Internet firms to turn over the detailed contents of communications such as e-mails, video chats, pictures, and more.
Moran’s husband, an ex-Army man, already was guarded about using social media. Now she is looking through her Facebook ‘‘friends’’ to consider whom to delete, because she can’t know what someone in her network might do in the future. Moran said she’s uneasy because she feels unclear about what the NSA is keeping and how deep the agency’s interests might go.
In Toronto, attorney Bushong let a free trial of Google’s business applications expire after learning about PRISM, under which the NSA seized data from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and AOL. Bushong is moving to San Diego in August to launch a tax planning firm and said he wants to be able to promise confidentiality and respond sufficiently should clients question his firm’s data security. He switched to a Canadian Internet service provider for e-mail and is considering installing his own document servers.
‘‘I’d like to be able to say that I’ve taken all reasonable steps to ensure that they’re not giving up any freedoms unnecessarily,’’ he said.
Across the Internet, computer users are talking about changes small and large — from strengthening passwords and considering encryption to ditching cellphones and using cash over credit cards. The conversations play out daily on Reddit, Twitter, and other networks, and have spread to offline life with so-called Cryptoparty gatherings.
Information technology professional Josh Scott hosts a monthly Cryptoparty in Dallas to show people how to operate online more privately.
‘‘You have to decide how extreme you want to be,’’ Scott said.
Christopher Shoup, a college student from Victorville, Calif., has been encouraging friends to converse on Cryptocat, a private program that promises users they can chat ‘‘without revealing messages to a third party.’’ Shoup isn’t worried that his own behavior could draw scrutiny but said the mere idea that the government could retrieve his personal communications ‘‘bothers me as an American.’’
‘‘I don’t think I should have to worry,’’ he said.
Cryptocat said it nearly doubled its number of users in two days after Snowden revealed himself as the source of leaks about the NSA’s programs. Two search engine companies billed as alternatives to Google, Bing, and Yahoo are also reporting significant surges in use.
Representatives for Google, Yahoo, and PalTalk, companies named in a classified PowerPoint presentation leaked by Snowden, declined to comment. Microsoft, Apple, and AOL officials did not return messages. Previously, the companies issued statements emphasizing that they aren’t voluntarily handing over user data to the government.
In Tokyo, American expat Peng Zhong responded to the spying news by swapping everything from his default search engine and Web browser to his computer’s operating system. Zhong, an interface designer, then built a website to help others switch, too.
Called prism-break.org, the site got more than 200,000 hits in less than a week after Zhong announced it on social networks.
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Crest of The Sri Lanka Army Command and Staff College
The Crest of The Sri Lanka Army Command and Staff College consists of the Wise Old Owl appears in the legends of King Arthur, where Merlin is described as having an owl perched on his shoulder. Owls generally became widely accepted as symbols of learning and in the Middle Ages knowledge was vastly vested in the clergy and alchemists. During this time the owl became the companion of the wise.
In Roman mythology, Minerva is the goddess of war and wisdom. Her favorite bird was the owl. Most Staff Colleges have adopted Minerva’s Owl as their crest. In keeping with tradition we too have selected the owl, in the Sri Lankan context, Sri Lankan Fish Owl for our crest. The motto "To War With Wisdom and Knowledge". The owl is perched on two crossed swords at rest which implies that the sword will only be used as the last resort.
References
Sri Lanka Army Command and Staff College, Sri Lanka Army
Category:Sri Lanka Army |
/*
* $Id: PdfAnnotationsImp.java,v 1.1 2010/04/14 17:50:40 kwart Exp $
*
* Copyright 2006 Bruno Lowagie
*
* The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1
* (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
*
* Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis,
* WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
* for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the License.
*
* The Original Code is 'iText, a free JAVA-PDF library'.
*
* The Initial Developer of the Original Code is Bruno Lowagie. Portions created by
* the Initial Developer are Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Bruno Lowagie.
* All Rights Reserved.
* Co-Developer of the code is Paulo Soares. Portions created by the Co-Developer
* are Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002 by Paulo Soares. All Rights Reserved.
*
* Contributor(s): all the names of the contributors are added in the source code
* where applicable.
*
* Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of the
* LGPL license (the "GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE"), in which case the
* provisions of LGPL are applicable instead of those above. If you wish to
* allow use of your version of this file only under the terms of the LGPL
* License and not to allow others to use your version of this file under
* the MPL, indicate your decision by deleting the provisions above and
* replace them with the notice and other provisions required by the LGPL.
* If you do not delete the provisions above, a recipient may use your version
* of this file under either the MPL or the GNU LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.
*
* This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms of the MPL as stated above or under the terms of the GNU
* Library General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
* either version 2 of the License, or any later version.
*
* This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
* ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
* FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Library general Public License for more
* details.
*
* If you didn't download this code from the following link, you should check if
* you aren't using an obsolete version:
* http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
*/
package com.lowagie.text.pdf.internal;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import com.lowagie.text.Annotation;
import com.lowagie.text.ExceptionConverter;
import com.lowagie.text.Rectangle;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfAcroForm;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfAction;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfAnnotation;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfArray;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfFileSpecification;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfFormField;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfName;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfObject;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfRectangle;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfString;
import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfWriter;
public class PdfAnnotationsImp {
/**
* This is the AcroForm object for the complete document.
*/
protected PdfAcroForm acroForm;
/**
* This is the array containing the references to annotations
* that were added to the document.
*/
protected ArrayList annotations;
/**
* This is an array containing references to some delayed annotations
* (that were added for a page that doesn't exist yet).
*/
protected ArrayList delayedAnnotations = new ArrayList();
public PdfAnnotationsImp(PdfWriter writer) {
acroForm = new PdfAcroForm(writer);
}
/**
* Checks if the AcroForm is valid.
*/
public boolean hasValidAcroForm() {
return acroForm.isValid();
}
/**
* Gets the AcroForm object.
* @return the PdfAcroform object of the PdfDocument
*/
public PdfAcroForm getAcroForm() {
return acroForm;
}
public void setSigFlags(int f) {
acroForm.setSigFlags(f);
}
public void addCalculationOrder(PdfFormField formField) {
acroForm.addCalculationOrder(formField);
}
public void addAnnotation(PdfAnnotation annot) {
if (annot.isForm()) {
PdfFormField field = (PdfFormField)annot;
if (field.getParent() == null)
addFormFieldRaw(field);
}
else
annotations.add(annot);
}
public void addPlainAnnotation(PdfAnnotation annot) {
annotations.add(annot);
}
void addFormFieldRaw(PdfFormField field) {
annotations.add(field);
ArrayList kids = field.getKids();
if (kids != null) {
for (int k = 0; k < kids.size(); ++k)
addFormFieldRaw((PdfFormField)kids.get(k));
}
}
public boolean hasUnusedAnnotations() {
return !annotations.isEmpty();
}
public void resetAnnotations() {
annotations = delayedAnnotations;
delayedAnnotations = new ArrayList();
}
public PdfArray rotateAnnotations(PdfWriter writer, Rectangle pageSize) {
PdfArray array = new PdfArray();
int rotation = pageSize.getRotation() % 360;
int currentPage = writer.getCurrentPageNumber();
for (int k = 0; k < annotations.size(); ++k) {
PdfAnnotation dic = (PdfAnnotation)annotations.get(k);
int page = dic.getPlaceInPage();
if (page > currentPage) {
delayedAnnotations.add(dic);
continue;
}
if (dic.isForm()) {
if (!dic.isUsed()) {
HashMap templates = dic.getTemplates();
if (templates != null)
acroForm.addFieldTemplates(templates);
}
PdfFormField field = (PdfFormField)dic;
if (field.getParent() == null)
acroForm.addDocumentField(field.getIndirectReference());
}
if (dic.isAnnotation()) {
array.add(dic.getIndirectReference());
if (!dic.isUsed()) {
PdfRectangle rect = (PdfRectangle)dic.get(PdfName.RECT);
if (rect != null) {
switch (rotation) {
case 90:
dic.put(PdfName.RECT, new PdfRectangle(
pageSize.getTop() - rect.bottom(),
rect.left(),
pageSize.getTop() - rect.top(),
rect.right()));
break;
case 180:
dic.put(PdfName.RECT, new PdfRectangle(
pageSize.getRight() - rect.left(),
pageSize.getTop() - rect.bottom(),
pageSize.getRight() - rect.right(),
pageSize.getTop() - rect.top()));
break;
case 270:
dic.put(PdfName.RECT, new PdfRectangle(
rect.bottom(),
pageSize.getRight() - rect.left(),
rect.top(),
pageSize.getRight() - rect.right()));
break;
}
}
}
}
if (!dic.isUsed()) {
dic.setUsed();
try {
writer.addToBody(dic, dic.getIndirectReference());
}
catch (IOException e) {
throw new ExceptionConverter(e);
}
}
}
return array;
}
public static PdfAnnotation convertAnnotation(PdfWriter writer, Annotation annot, Rectangle defaultRect) throws IOException {
switch(annot.annotationType()) {
case Annotation.URL_NET:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury(), new PdfAction((URL) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.URL)));
case Annotation.URL_AS_STRING:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury(), new PdfAction((String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.FILE)));
case Annotation.FILE_DEST:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury(), new PdfAction((String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.FILE), (String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.DESTINATION)));
case Annotation.SCREEN:
boolean sparams[] = (boolean[])annot.attributes().get(Annotation.PARAMETERS);
String fname = (String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.FILE);
String mimetype = (String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.MIMETYPE);
PdfFileSpecification fs;
if (sparams[0])
fs = PdfFileSpecification.fileEmbedded(writer, fname, fname, null);
else
fs = PdfFileSpecification.fileExtern(writer, fname);
PdfAnnotation ann = PdfAnnotation.createScreen(writer, new Rectangle(annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury()),
fname, fs, mimetype, sparams[1]);
return ann;
case Annotation.FILE_PAGE:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury(), new PdfAction((String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.FILE), ((Integer) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.PAGE)).intValue()));
case Annotation.NAMED_DEST:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury(), new PdfAction(((Integer) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.NAMED)).intValue()));
case Annotation.LAUNCH:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, annot.llx(), annot.lly(), annot.urx(), annot.ury(), new PdfAction((String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.APPLICATION),(String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.PARAMETERS),(String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.OPERATION),(String) annot.attributes().get(Annotation.DEFAULTDIR)));
default:
return new PdfAnnotation(writer, defaultRect.getLeft(), defaultRect.getBottom(), defaultRect.getRight(), defaultRect.getTop(), new PdfString(annot.title(), PdfObject.TEXT_UNICODE), new PdfString(annot.content(), PdfObject.TEXT_UNICODE));
}
}
}
|
0 1 1.830508e-002 -1.000000e+000 8.884912e-001
|
Transit One General Membership Meeting Set for Jan. 21 at Orlando Melbourne International Airport
By Space Coast Daily // January 15, 2020
Cliff has supervised the operation of MLB’s airfield through its complete transformation
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – This month’s dynamic Transit One General Membership Meeting is scheduled for January 21 at 3:30 p.m. until 5 p.m. at One Air Terminal Parkway, Suite 202, in the Orlando Melbourne International Airport Authority Board Room, located in the Airport Authority Office on the second floor above baggage claim.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP
They ask you to park in the Long-Term Passenger Terminal Lot and bring your parking ticket to the meeting for validation.
Refreshments will be provided.
Their featured speaker is Cliff Graham, Director of Operations and Maintenance at Orlando Melbourne International Airport (MLB), a position he has held since 2015.
In the past few years, Cliff has supervised the operation of MLB’s airfield through its complete transformation of more than $100 million in capital improvements.
With more than 116,000 operations a year, MLB averages more than 2,200 landings and takeoff a week. In 2018, Commercial, general aviation, corporate, training and military aircraft contributed to a 26.5% increase in aircraft operations.
Cliff is a recipient of the State’s highest aviation award, named Florida’s Aviation Professional of the Year in 2018 and also named 2018 Space Coast Business Leader of the Year in Aviation and Aerospace.
His favorite word “safety” remains the cornerstone of his management philosophy; Cliff is best known in airport circles for the remarkable achievement of six consecutive years of spotless FAA inspections, one of the most arduous processes in the industry.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP |
Q:
Laravel Eloquent Model Relationship with Condition in Relationship
Hello Laravel Enthusiasts,
I have tables for Users, Roles and Roles_User
Role : id, role_name
Roles_User : id, role_id, user_id
in my Controller I have this
$users = User::all();
return view('admin.users.index', compact('users'));
How can I can display in my view all the users that has a role name with 'admin' or 'member'
Please help me build my Model and View.
Thank you
A:
Stack Overflow is not a coding service, you will need to build your view. Read here.
As For the query, its simple:
$users = User::query()
->join('role_user', 'role_user.user_id', '=', 'users.id')
->join('roles', 'roles.id', '=', 'role_user.role_id')
->whereIn('roles.role_name', ['admin', 'member'])
->get();
If you have your relationships set up in your models, you can do the following:
$users = User::whereHas('roles', function ($query) {
$query->whereIn('role_name', ['admin', 'member']);
})->get();
|
Languages
Powering Cities in the Global South: How Energy Access for All Benefits the Economy and the Environment
Kumar is the sole provider for his family. He runs an ironing service in Bengaluru that brings in between $6 and $7.50 a day, enough to barely get by. When the power cuts out two to three times a day in the summer for as long as four hours, Kumar has to leave the irons dormant and he brings home much less.
Cities that are already struggling to provide clean, affordable and reliable energy to residents like Kumar are finding it challenging to keep up with the pace and scale of growth. But the challenge will only get steeper: more than 2.4 billion more people will live in cities by 2050, with growth mainly in Africa and Asia.
1. Accelerate the shift to cleaner cooking
In 2012, only 58 percent of the urban population had access to electricity in low-income countries. Nearly 500 million urban residents worldwide used dirty cooking fuels like charcoal and wood, which contribute to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year. Switching to modern cooking fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and electricity, would dramatically reduce indoor air pollution, improving health and, in many cases, saving time and money. Cleaner cooking fuels also benefit the whole city, as household heating and cooking are significant sources of outdoor air pollution.
There are several examples of countries showing strong leadership in the transition to clean cooking. In the 1960s, less than 20 percent of Brazilian households had access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or natural gas. The government created national infrastructure for LPG production and distribution, developed a retail market for LPG distribution, and subsidized fuel for poor families. Now, 100 percent of urban households have access to LPG.
2. Scale up distributed renewable energy
The 19th-century approach to electrification that relies primarily on expanding the grid cannot bridge the energy access gap in the global south alone. Distributed systems like solar panels offer affordability, reliability and productivity benefits to the under-served.
The average cost of electricity from residential rooftop solar in India and China is already within the same range as natural gas-fired electricity and continues to decline. In sub-Saharan Africa, too, solar is taking off. In 2015, the number of households using pay-as-you-go solar systems—where companies rent equipment to consumers for a small fee, often paid via mobile phone—doubled to between 450,000 and 500,000.
At scale, rooftop solar systems can offer savings due to the avoided costs of new transmission infrastructure, contribute to climate change mitigation, and create job opportunities.
3. Increase energy efficiency of buildings and appliances
Residential and commercial buildings are the largest consumers of energy in urban areas. Relatively small changes to building codes and regulations can reduce energy use by up to 50 to 90 percent in new buildings and 50 to 75 percent in existing buildings. Using the best available individual household appliances and equipment can further reduce energy costs by 40 to 50 percent.
Better, cooler buildings also make cities more livable and resilient during heatwaves and bring health benefits. Every kilowatt-hour saved in cities that depend on power stations using dirty fuels reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Countries in the global south have already demonstrated the benefits of energy efficiency measures. Ghana, which enacted the first air conditioner appliance standards in sub-Saharan Africa in 2000, is projected to save $775 million by 2020. In Mexico, national energy efficiency standards and labeling programs resulted in $3 billion savings to consumers from 2002 to 2014.
Realizing Cities’ Full Potential
These solutions require action by many urban stakeholders, including national, state, and local governments, the development community, and civil society. Many cities in the global south are already acting, including hundreds that have signed on to the Compact of Mayors, a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas. Cape Town and Bengaluru have started net metering programs. Delhi has developed a roof rental model for solar systems. Tianjin has developed its own ambitious energy efficiency building code, above and beyond China’s national code. These efforts should be applauded, encouraged and replicated.
Without improving energy services for people like Kumar, many cities will fall short of their potential to drive economic growth, enhance the environment and create spaces where everyone can live, work and thrive. As Amartya Sen said, “Poverty is not just lack a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one’s full potential as a human being.”
This article is culled from daily press coverage from around the world. It is posted on the Urban Gateway by way of keeping all users informed about matters of interest. The opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and in no way reflects the opinion of UN-Habitat. |
Less than two thirds of a metre. That’s how much wider the owners of 3 St. Aubyn’s Cres., southwest of Bayview Avenue and Lawrence Avenue East, would like their new two-storey home to be — so much so, they’ve appealed their case to the Ontario Municipal Board, according to Ward 25 Councillor Jaye Robinson. |
Mechanisms underlying the enhancement of excitatory synaptic transmission in basolateral amygdala neurons of the kindling rat.
To elucidate the mechanism underlying epileptiform discharges in kindled rats, synaptic responses in kindled basolateral amygdala neurons in vitro were compared with those from control rats by using intracellular and whole cell patch-clamp recordings. In kindled neurons, electrical stimulation of the stria terminalis induced epileptiform discharges. The resting potential, apparent input resistance, current-voltage relationship of the membrane, and the threshold, amplitude, and duration of action potentials in kindled neurons were not different from those in control neurons. The electrical stimulation of stria terminalis elicited excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) and DL-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (AP5)-sensitive and 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX)-sensitive excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs). The amplitude of evoked EPSPs and of evoked AP5-sensitive and CNQX-sensitive EPSCs were enhanced markedly, whereas fast and slow inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) induced by electrical stimulation of lateral amygdaloid nucleus were not significantly different. The rise time and the decay time constant of the evoked CNQX-sensitive EPSCs were shortened, whereas the rise time of the evoked AP5-sensitive EPSCs was shortened, but the decay time constants were not significantly different. In both tetrodotoxin (TTX)-containing medium and low Ca2+ and TTX-containing medium, the frequency and amplitude of spontaneous EPSCs were increased in kindled neurons. These increases are presumably due to nearly synchronous multiquantal events resulted from the increased probability of Glu release at the nerve terminals. The rise time of evoked CNQX- and AP5-sensitive EPSCs and the decay time constant of evoked CNQX-sensitive EPSCs were shortened, suggesting that excitatory synapses at the proximal dendrite and/or the soma in kindled neurons may contribute more effectively to generate evoked EPSCs than those at distal dendrites. In conclusion, the increases in the amplitudes of spontaneous and evoked EPSCs and in the frequency of spontaneous EPSCs may contribute to the epileptiform discharges in kindled neurons. |
When the Democratic presidential contenders meet on Sunday for their debate in Flint, Michigan — where thousands of residents have been poisoned by polluted water — the candidates’ records on clean water policy are likely to be in the spotlight. Hillary Clinton seems eager for that discussion, recently telling NPR: “The idea that you would have a community in the United States of America of nearly 100,000 people who were drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water infuriates me.”
But despite that rhetoric, the issue of clean water may be politically perilous for the leading Democratic candidate, thanks to her vote against banning a possible carcinogen at the center of one of the largest water pollution scandals in recent history.
Facing reports that a controversial fuel additive was contaminating water supplies across America, Clinton as a senator in 2005 opposed a bipartisan measure to ban the chemical — even though Bill Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency had first proposed such a prohibition. At roughly the same time, one major company producing the chemical also tried to use provisions in a trade deal backed by Hillary Clinton to force local governments in the United States to let it continue selling the toxic compound.
Clinton’s campaign did not respond to International Business Times’ questions about her vote.
At issue was the chemical known as methyl tertiary butyl ether — or MTBE. Though the compound makes fuel burn cleaner, by the end of the 1990s, scientists began detecting an increasing amount of the potential carcinogen in groundwater supplies. In 2000, a federal study found that drinking water wells in up to 31 states were at risk of MTBE contamination, and by 2003, the compound had contaminated drinking water supplies for more than 15 million Americans, according to data compiled by the Environmental Working Group. Seventeen states ultimately joined together in lawsuits against the major producers of the compound, including ExxonMobil — which became a major Clinton Foundation donor.
Amid the uproar, Washington lawmakers in 2005 proposed an amendment to national energy legislation that would have banned MTBE. By that time, 21 states had passed legislation banning the use of MTBE, including New York.
“When leaked or spilled into the environment, MTBE may cause serious problems of drinking water quality,” Sen. Pete Domenici’s legislation stated in its justification of the phaseout. “In recent years, MTBE has been detected in water sources throughout the United States.”
Breaking with then-Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton joined 14 Republicans and 11 Democrats in voting against the measure to phase out MTBE, which passed the Senate by a vote of 70-26. Critics of the amendment to ban MTBE, like New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, charged it would end up forcing states to use more ethanol.
When Clinton cast her vote against banning MTBE, she was in the midst of a re-election campaign in which she raised more than $74,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. But her record was not one of unanimous support for that industry.
One month after Clinton voted against the MTBE ban, the Environmental Working Group claimed an EPA draft report had found MTBE to be a “likely” carcinogen, linking it to cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.
A subsequent press release from Clinton’s senate office announced she and her colleagues were requesting additional information about the study. The release noted that MTBE had caused “serious damage to water quality nationwide,” and asserted that “Congress should act to discontinue the use of MTBE.” It also declared Clinton’s opposition to a proposal to give MTBE producers legal immunity from environmental and public health lawsuits.
Though the MTBE ban was not included in the final energy legislation, the new bill did include language discouraging the use of the chemical. Despite expressing concerns about MTBE, Clinton voted against the overall bill, which passed the Senate 74-26.
One Clinton critic says her vote against banning MTBE could be a vulnerability. Last year, Democratic operative Matt Barron cited Clinton’s vote as one of a handful of issues that could cost her in the presidential campaign as she tries to win over voters in rural areas.
Though MTBE was eventually phased out of domestic gasoline supplies over the last decade, the controversy over the additive continues to simmer. In recent months, concerns about MTBE contamination have once again arisen in states such as Kentucky, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
John Osborne contributed to this story. |
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Sometimes a single idea can sum up a whole nation. For Britain, for all of us - it is the National Health Service.
The NHS - 70 years old next month - is compassion in action.
It is care with a human face, solidarity writ large and sympathy woven into the fabric of this land.
Here, we have made a patriotic and encompassing decision, supported by the overwhelming majority, to pool our resources and share the costs and miracles of health care.
All of us have experience of the NHS - of parents and grandparents cared for in their last days; of children saved because of the skills of midwives in childbirth; of men and women suffering previously inoperable and once-untreatable conditions now restored to fine health.
And in my own case - a young man aged 16, threatened with blindness because of an injury at rugby - whose sight was restored by the pioneering new techniques of a brilliant surgeon Hector Chawla - after three previous operations had failed.
The NHS certainly saved me and has saved someone in almost every family I know - now, I say it is time for all of us to come together and save the NHS.
Yes it has its critics but who would now return to a world where nurses had to leave the beds of patients and run charity flag days to raise funds for life saving equipment?
Who would revert to a time where the strongest and most brave of men and women were in fear of going to the doctor not because of their pain but because they could not afford the fees - a time when being sick too often meant becoming poor, too?
And who would relish the throwback to a society where a doctor would check your wallet before he checked your pulse and where being sick would make you feel fearful and alone with no guarantee anyone was there to help at the time when you most needed help?
On Monday, July 5, 1948, the NHS began working and transformed Britain. Today it is so much more than a local hospital, a local health centre or a local GP surgery.
You quickly understand its reach and its power when people talk about OUR hospital, OUR health centre and OUR GP surgery.
(Image: E+)
It is the one place in Britain where you can go for help and it’s not the money you possess that matters but the need you have that counts.
It’s the one place where you cannot buy your way into getting to the top of the queue and it’s the one place where no matter how poor you are, you have exactly the same rights as the richest person in the country.
But, a bit like a patient at 70 years old, the NHS is at greater risk. Indeed, today it is in mortal danger.
It is £20billion short, will soon be £40billion short a year and will have to raise an extra £95billion by the 2030s.
By 2033−34 there will be 4.4 million over-65s and 1.3million over-85s; if it is to meet demographic pressures, technological needs and social care requirements.
Exactly 16 years ago we found a way to refinance the NHS with the biggest single tax rise raising £9billion a year from a 1p rise in national insurance allowing us to employ 30,000 more doctors 80,000 more nurses and the biggest hospital building programme ever.
Now in 2018, after eight years of austerity we must refinance the NHS again.
The maintenance backlog for hospitals is now more than £5billion.
Most worryingly, £3billion of this backlog presents a significant risk, related to clinical services and safety, so we cannot continue to meet current staffing needs by scything the capital budget.
Research conducted at 30 trusts by the health services management centre at Birmingham University and funded by the Health Foundation - shows major warning signs.
Ambulances are breaking down because they have been kept in service for too long, old scanners and archaic IT systems are being used with greater likelihood of errors and many hospitals in need of upgrades have had to scrap plans to bring in even the most basic electronic scheduling of operations.
There is a chronic shortage of nurses because of the almost impossible demands placed on too many loyal and dedicated staff who have reached breaking point.
There is also an alarming shortage of GPs with so many retiring and not now being replaced.
Add to that a dearth of surgeons and consultants as we threaten to restrict entry of trained staff into the country. The next decade is critical.
How 1p extra on National Insurance could fund the NHS An extra £11billion a year could transform the service you receive from the NHS. Around £1billion would fund the cost of nearly 40,000 new nurses for a year, while the same amount would pay for 167,000 hip replacements or 1,117 MRI scanners. That figure could also erase the £960million deficit racked up by NHS hospital trusts in England in 2017/2018. For £10billion, the NHS could pay for 20 new flagship hospitals or that would double the mental health care budget. Alternatively, you could use some of the money to cover the £534million saved by scrapping bursaries for student nurses. The Government could spend some of the money, £2.5billion a year, on plugging the gap in social care funding. How much more would you pay? Polls have shown people are willing to pay more in taxes to fund the NHS. But do they know how much more they would pay with a 1p rise in the 12% rate of National Insurance contributions? Accountants Blick Rothenberg says such an increase in the main and upper rates of NICs would see someone on £12,500 pay £40.76 more per year. This would increase to £165.76 for someone earning £25,000 a year, while someone earning £40,000 a year would pay an extra £315.76 a year. Anyone on £46,350-plus, the top rate of income tax, pays 1% on their salary in NICs. So someone earning £100,000 a year will pay £1,000 more and someone on £300,000 will pay £3,000 a year more.
One survey estimates we will need 70,000 more doctors and 170,000 more nurses by the 2030s and with technologies, new procedures, new methods of treatment, new prescription drugs, rising mental health issues and people simply living longer means the list of challenges is growing.
It’s difficult at any time to persuade people of the need for a tax rise but to refinance the NHS before it breaks down, it is better to have a tax rise now than an even bigger tax rise later.
At the last election the Labour Party proposed a boost to the NHS from higher payments by our richest five per cent.
One option would be to repeat the 1p rise in national insurance, announced in 2002, which in 2019 would raise £11billion.
With the NHS set to become even more important in the days, months and years ahead, the values and principles upon which it was founded in 1948 remain and are now more necessary than ever.
Ultimately, what really matters is that the NHS is always there for every one of us when we need it. |
Q:
Java Stream filter and then use the results
I don't understand how to use the results of filtering a Stream<>. Example:
Stream<Edge> edgesStr = graph.edges().filter(edge -> edge.getNode1() == graph.getNode(ip2));
The above successfully(?) filters the Edge stream, keeping only those edges where the getNode() methods are equal.
Now after this, I want to use those results, something like:
//for each result
Node node = edgeStr.getNode(); //method getNode() exists for objects Edge
foo1(Node);
foo2(Node);
Note: graph.edges() returns a Stream<Edges>.
A:
You can collect the results via some of the Collector methods, i.e. toList when collecting into a List. In order to extract the Node out of the Edge you can use map.
List<Node> edges = graph.edges()
.filter(edge -> edge.getNode1() == graph.getNode(ip2))
.map(edge -> edge.getNode())
.collect(Collectors.toList());
A:
If you need to perform void operations foo1 and foo2 on a Node element, for each edge, you can do it as:
graph.edges()
.filter(edge -> edge.getNode() == graph.getNode(ip2))
.map(edge -> edge.getNode()) // map edge to corresponding Node
.forEach(node -> { foo1(node); foo2(node);}); // calls foo1 and foo2 on each node
|
Q:
Getting Xcode to drop "No XXX method found" warning when delegating
This could be me doing the design pattern wrong.
I'm implementing asynchronous delegation in an application that uses NSURLConnection. An object wraps the NSURLConnection and handles its delegated messages; that works fine. Now I'm defining my own delegates in the object that uses it (NSURLConnection messages ConnectionWrapper, ConnectionWrapper messages NeedsToUseConnection, you get the idea), and that works as well, however, Xcode emits this warning:
No '-request:finishedWithResult' method found
This is, presumably, because I'm declaring the delegate I'm calling like this:
id<NSObject> delegate;
...and Xcode is checking what NSObject declares in the Foundation framework. My custom delegate message is not there. I am properly insulating the call:
if([delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(request:finishedWithResult:)])
[delegate request:self finishedWithResult:ret];
Aside from turning the warning off -- I like to work with as many warnings on as possible -- is there a way to communicate (either syntactically or via a compiler directive) that I am aware this message is undeclared? Should I, instead, be using an interface design pattern for this á la Java? Using id<WillReceiveRequestMessages> or something?
Open to suggestion.
A:
A better way of doing it would be to create your own delegate protocol:
@protocol MyControlDelegate <NSObject>
@optional
- (void)request:(MyControl *)request didFinishWithResult:(id)result;
@end
Then, you would declare your delegate like this:
id <MyControlDelegate> delegate;
The compiler will no longer complain when you write this:
if ([delegate respondsToSelector:@selector(request:didFinishWithResult:)])
[delegate request:self didFinishWithResult:result];
The <NSObject> syntax is important in the protocol definition because it tells the compiler to incorporate the NSObject protocol. This is how your protocol gets methods like respondsToSelector:. If you left that out, the compiler would start complaining about respondsToSelector: instead.
|
Q:
Normalize each slice of a 3D matrix
How do I normalize each slice of a 3D matrix? I tried like this:
a=rand(1,100,3481);
a= (a - min(a)) ./ (max(a)-min(a)); %
By right each slice of matrix should ranges from 0 to 1. But that is not the case, I don't find 1 in some of the slices. As I inspected, min(a) and max(a) returned the respective value in 3D. Thus it should be of no issue using the code above. Is there something I missed for 3D matrix? Thanks in advance!
A:
We need to find the minimum and maximum values for each of those 2D slices and then we can use bsxfun to do those operations in a vectorized manner with help from permute to let the singleton dims align properly to let bsxfun do its broadcasting job (or use reshape there).
Hence, the implementation would be -
mins = min(reshape(a,[],size(a,3)));
maxs = max(reshape(a,[],size(a,3)));
a_offsetted = bsxfun(@minus, a, permute(mins,[1,3,2]));
a_normalized = bsxfun(@rdivide, a_offsetted, permute(maxs-mins,[1,3,2]))
Sample input, output -
>> a
a(:,:,1) =
2 8 2 2
8 3 8 2
a(:,:,2) =
8 1 1 5
4 9 8 6
a(:,:,3) =
7 9 3 5
6 2 6 5
a(:,:,4) =
9 3 4 9
7 1 9 9
>> a_normalized
a_normalized(:,:,1) =
0 1.0000 0 0
1.0000 0.1667 1.0000 0
a_normalized(:,:,2) =
0.8750 0 0 0.5000
0.3750 1.0000 0.8750 0.6250
a_normalized(:,:,3) =
0.7143 1.0000 0.1429 0.4286
0.5714 0 0.5714 0.4286
a_normalized(:,:,4) =
1.0000 0.2500 0.3750 1.0000
0.7500 0 1.0000 1.0000
|
338th Army Band (United States)
The 338th Army Band is a United States Army Reserve military band stationed in Whitehall, Ohio and Livonia, Michigan. Currently the unit serves under the 88th Regional Support Command, headquartered at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.
On 12 July 2018, while training at Fort Bliss, 338th Army Band was the military band of the change of command ceremony for the incoming and outgoing commanding generals of 1st Armored Division at Noel Parade Field.
History
The 338th Army Band was originally formed in 1943 at Camp Siebert, Alabama, as part of a support group for General Patton's 3rd Army in Europe. The band was deactivated before overseas deployment in 1945. The 338th was reactivated in 1952 as part of the Second United States Army. Later, the 338th became part of the XX Corps of the First United States Army. In 1967 the band was reassigned to the 83rd Army Reserve Command at Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio. In July 1995 the 338th moved its location to Whitehall, Ohio, near the Defense Supply Center, Columbus. In September 1995 the 338th was transferred to the 88th Reserve Support Command with headquarters at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Subsequently, that command became the 88th Regional Support Command and then became the 88th Regional Readiness Command. In 2002 the former members of the 70th Division Band (Reserve), based in Livonia, Michigan, became the First Detachment of the 338th. In 2006 the 338th was reassigned to the 310th Expeditionary Support Command, Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. In 2008, the 338th was reassigned as a Direct Reporting Unit (DRU) to the 88th Regional Support Command newly headquartered at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.
70th Division Band history
The 70th Division U.S. Army Band was activated on May 15, 1943, at Camp Adair, Oregon, and served with the division in Italy, France, and Germany. During this period, the division saw combat in numerous battles, including the capture of Monte Cassino, Italy, and the Battle of the Bulge. The band itself earned campaign credit for service in the Rhineland and Central Europe. The band was inactivated in Germany in December 1945, but reactivated in Michigan during the Korean War. In 2002, the band was moved to Seattle, Washington and many of the members became attached to the 338th in Columbus, Ohio, with station in Livonia, Michigan. The newly based 70th Division Band in Washington became attached to the 204th Band and later decommissioned in 2009.
Ensembles
Concert Band
Ceremonial Band
Jazz Octet
Generations Show Band
Thunderbolt Stage Band (Big Band)
Brass Quintet
Ska Band
Saxophone Quartet
Woodwind Quintet
Resources
338th Army Band Website
78th Army Band, Ft. Dix, NJ
References
338
Category:Wind bands
Category:Musical groups established in 1943 |
# basic exceptions
x = 1
try:
x.a()
except:
print(x)
try:
raise IndexError
except IndexError:
print("caught")
|
Q:
RxJs equivalent of promise chain
When chaining API calls with promises I do this:
this.http.get('/api/hello').toPromise().then(res => {
return this.http.get('/api/there/' + res.id).toPromise()
}).then(res => {
console.log('res from 2nd call', res)
}).catch(err => {
console.log('err', err)
})
How do you chain API calls like this using Observables, when the 2nd response needs data from the 1st response before it can be made?
TIA
A:
You should use flatMap Please visit this url https://stackblitz.com/edit/angular-6-rxjx-stuff. I have created this project for testing RxJS.
You can see the below function.
test__flatMap() {
const post$ = this.getPosts();
const users$ = this.getUsers();
const users2$ = this.getUsers();
post$.pipe(
flatMap(data => {
console.log('data 1 >>> ', data);
return users$;
}),
flatMap(data => {
console.log('data 2 >>> ', data);
return post$;
}),
).subscribe(data => { console.log(`In the end >>> `, data); });
}
|
Crypto Women on The Rise
The number of women in Crypto has almost doubled since the start of the year.
This is according to a recent study by the UK based crypto exchange London Block Exchange. Accordingly, the figures showed a rise from approximately 6 percent to 13 percent since January. Understandably, millennial women lead the pack.
“There’s still a common misconception that cryptocurrency is a game for men, but we’ve seen hundreds of women sign up for our exchange in the last few months and some of the most inspiring and knowledgeable investors, leading the way in the industry are female.”- …Said Agnes de Roeyer, London Block Exchange’s senior Business Analyst.
This turns the myth that women shy away from technical fields on its head. There may seem like not enough women are interested in crypto investments at the moment. However, I believe that with more sensitization more women can participate in the financial community.
Misconceptions About Women in Crypto
Anytime questions are asked as to why women don’t take up more STEM related opportunities, lots of ignorant comments follow. The idea that women simply aren’t suited for this industry is simply unfounded. Women are capable of the highest of highs is executive tech jobs and certainly investments.
Sheryl Sandberg is an inspiring figure in this light. She has proven that women are capable equals who can really move entire industries. Let’s take a peek at our personal lives. The odds are high that everyone knows a woman who is smart at financial decisions even the most benign ones.
The Need for More Women in Crypto
Women are at least half the planet’s population If not more. No team fully realizes its full potential if half the team is not playing. I mean, it’s literally dumb. Not only can the cryptocurrency community use more women investors but also more creative women with innovative solutions.
One of the reasons for women shying away from this industry is the masculine imprint on the entire industry. Crypto-forums are notoriously unfriendly places especially for someone seeking basic information.
Additionally women are generally more risk averse and the rampant fraud and FUDs in this industry don’t do any favors. Women fortunately are more collaborative hence end up making mostly strategic investments. The impact of more women in this industry will certainly be positive.
That said, there are few resourceful Facebook groups specifically for educating women on investing. These kinds of initiatives are key to this endeavor.
The influx of women is crypto-sphere will certainly be a positive thing. As a matter of fact, this industry badly needs their creativity, investment touch and certainly money. This rise in numbers is positive and exciting. We should all laud this improvement and make this industry fairer to everyone. |
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Dental damage happens to the best of us, and it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Instead, reach out to Drs. Morgan and Seth Chambers for the experienced care and personalized attention you need most during this difficult time. Cracks, decay, and even missing teeth are seamlessly restored and revitalized through our quality care.
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Patient comfort is a necessity of great dental care, and Drs. Seth and Morgan Chambers make it a top priority here at Bluegrass Dentistry. After all, we want you to look forward to visiting our team again and again. That’s why we’re happy to offer a state-of-the-art tool known as the Wand. |
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