text
stringlengths 12
4.76M
| timestamp
stringlengths 26
26
| url
stringlengths 32
32
|
|---|---|---|
1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a memory controller. Particularly, embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a memory controller capable of changing values of timing parameters in consideration of a time lapsed after a refresh operation is completed.
2. Related Art
In general, a DRAM device includes a plurality of banks. When requests from an external device, e.g., host, are properly distributed to the plurality of banks, the occurrence probability of a bottleneck phenomenon is reduced. However, a bottleneck phenomenon may occur when a plurality of requests are concentrated on one bank as a result of trying to sequentially process these requests.
When the plurality of requests are related to the same row address, the occurrence probability of the bottleneck phenomenon is relatively reduced since a row access operation is performed only once, while a column access operation is performed several times.
However, it may not be possible to avoid delay of processing time when the plurality of requests are related to row addresses that are different from one another since a separate row access operation is performed for each request.
FIG. 1 is an exemplary timing graph related to a row access operation of a DRAM device. The timing graph illustrated shows multiple row access operations (indicated as “row cycle time”) that may be performed serially over time.
As further illustrated in FIG. 1, a particular row access operation, which may require a certain amount (e.g., “row cycle time” in FIG. 1) of time to complete, may actually involve multiple operations related to precharge, charge sharing, amplification, and recovery stages, wherein when each row access operation is performed timing parameters such as tRP (row precharge time), tRCD (row address to column address delay), IRAS (row active time), and tRC (row cycle time) should be satisfied as illustrated in FIG. 1.
Since a conventional memory controller applies constant timing parameters to multiple row access operations, when the multiple row access operations are performed as illustrated in FIG. 1, it is difficult to avoid a bottleneck phenomenon. As a result, operational performance of a DRAM device is deteriorated.
|
2023-12-14T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2242
|
The Cohorts and Databases Core (CDC) will maintain two cohorts of patients and their associated databases and continuallyupdate and add information. In addition,the Core will maintaina database supporting tissue storage and use. The two populations of patientsare men and women with breast cancer or women at increased risk because of genetic or histologic risk factors. Tissues are those blood samples and breast specimens kept in repositories at the DFCI, B\VH or MGH. The databases are called CRIS (C'linical Research Information System), REACH (Risk EvaluationAnd Cancer History), and STIP(Specimen Tracking and Inventory Program). Men and women with breast cancer are prospcctively enteied into CRIS from the GilletteBreast Oncology Clinic at the DFCI and the AVON Breast Evaluation Center at the MGH. Women at high risk for breast cancer arc entered into REACH at the risk evaluationclinics at the DFCI and B1DMC. Data managers at the DFCI and MGH prospectively enter data into both registries. Users in the tissue banks at the DFCI, BWH and MGH use STIP for entry and inventory purposes. Reports are issued by specialized software to requesting investigatorsand down loaded to other registries. All three databases are kept on Partners HealthCareInformation Systems' central computer facilities, and available onworkstations throughout the Partners System. The Core will provide reports to SPORE investigators who have approved projects and after consultationabout data requirements. The Core is also availableto collaboratorswho are members of the DF/HCC or other investigatorson a case-by-case basis. The Core will participate in the Core Coordinating Committee and will abide by policies and procedures agreed upon by the Committee.
|
2024-04-17T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6539
|
ROUND REVIEW: Dutch winger Michelle Goos scored 22 goals over the weekend, as her team Success Schoonmaak/VOC Amsterdam made it to Round 3 of the Women´s EHF Cup together with seven other teams this weekend
|
2024-02-04T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2455
|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Scheme
LastUpgradeVersion = "0600"
version = "1.3">
<BuildAction
parallelizeBuildables = "YES"
buildImplicitDependencies = "YES">
<BuildActionEntries>
<BuildActionEntry
buildForTesting = "YES"
buildForRunning = "YES"
buildForProfiling = "YES"
buildForArchiving = "YES"
buildForAnalyzing = "YES">
<BuildableReference
BuildableIdentifier = "primary"
BlueprintIdentifier = "A650FFB6197BBA44009C4429"
BuildableName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.app"
BlueprintName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud"
ReferencedContainer = "container:Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.xcodeproj">
</BuildableReference>
</BuildActionEntry>
</BuildActionEntries>
</BuildAction>
<TestAction
selectedDebuggerIdentifier = "Xcode.DebuggerFoundation.Debugger.LLDB"
selectedLauncherIdentifier = "Xcode.DebuggerFoundation.Launcher.LLDB"
shouldUseLaunchSchemeArgsEnv = "YES"
buildConfiguration = "Debug">
<Testables>
<TestableReference
skipped = "NO">
<BuildableReference
BuildableIdentifier = "primary"
BlueprintIdentifier = "A650FFC8197BBA44009C4429"
BuildableName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloudTests.xctest"
BlueprintName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloudTests"
ReferencedContainer = "container:Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.xcodeproj">
</BuildableReference>
</TestableReference>
</Testables>
<MacroExpansion>
<BuildableReference
BuildableIdentifier = "primary"
BlueprintIdentifier = "A650FFB6197BBA44009C4429"
BuildableName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.app"
BlueprintName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud"
ReferencedContainer = "container:Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.xcodeproj">
</BuildableReference>
</MacroExpansion>
</TestAction>
<LaunchAction
selectedDebuggerIdentifier = "Xcode.DebuggerFoundation.Debugger.LLDB"
selectedLauncherIdentifier = "Xcode.DebuggerFoundation.Launcher.LLDB"
launchStyle = "0"
useCustomWorkingDirectory = "NO"
buildConfiguration = "Debug"
ignoresPersistentStateOnLaunch = "NO"
debugDocumentVersioning = "YES"
allowLocationSimulation = "YES">
<BuildableProductRunnable>
<BuildableReference
BuildableIdentifier = "primary"
BlueprintIdentifier = "A650FFB6197BBA44009C4429"
BuildableName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.app"
BlueprintName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud"
ReferencedContainer = "container:Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.xcodeproj">
</BuildableReference>
</BuildableProductRunnable>
<AdditionalOptions>
</AdditionalOptions>
</LaunchAction>
<ProfileAction
shouldUseLaunchSchemeArgsEnv = "YES"
savedToolIdentifier = ""
useCustomWorkingDirectory = "NO"
buildConfiguration = "Release"
debugDocumentVersioning = "YES">
<BuildableProductRunnable>
<BuildableReference
BuildableIdentifier = "primary"
BlueprintIdentifier = "A650FFB6197BBA44009C4429"
BuildableName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.app"
BlueprintName = "Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud"
ReferencedContainer = "container:Searching for Files and Folders in iCloud.xcodeproj">
</BuildableReference>
</BuildableProductRunnable>
</ProfileAction>
<AnalyzeAction
buildConfiguration = "Debug">
</AnalyzeAction>
<ArchiveAction
buildConfiguration = "Release"
revealArchiveInOrganizer = "YES">
</ArchiveAction>
</Scheme>
|
2023-08-24T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5589
|
Distribution of feminizing compounds in the aquatic environment and bioaccumulation in wild tilapia tissues.
This study sampled six times of river water, sediment, and tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in the Dan-Shui River, Taipei, Taiwan; 10 feminizing compounds were analyzed using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Bisphenol A (508 ± 634 ng/L, geometric mean (GM) 303 ng/L) and nonylphenol (491 ± 570 ng/L, GM 328 ng/L) were the most abundant among analytes in the river water. Nonylphenol (770 ± 602 ng/g wet weight, GM 617 ng/g wet weight) was also the highest in sediment. Fish may uptake nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates from river water and sediment because there were significant correlations between the concentrations in these matrixes and those in fish tissues (r s ranged from 0.21 to 0.49, p < 0.05). The bioaccumulation of nonylphenol, nonylphenol ethoxylates and bisphenol A in gonad, eggs, and liver was much higher than that in muscle (e.g. mean bioaccumulation factors of nonylphenol were 27,287, 20,971, 9,576 and 967, respectively) and might result in low liver fractions in fish body weights (0.66 % ± 0.39 %, GM 0.55 %) and the skewed sex ratio of fish (male to female = 0.52). This innovative study linked the environmental and internal doses statistically in the globally distributed wild fish by analyzing feminizing compounds in water, sediment, and four fish tissues including gonad and eggs.
|
2024-04-11T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9733
|
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani will visit Turkey tomorrow to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his first visit abroad since the start of a diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia, Ankara said.
Al-Thani will hold talks on "bilateral ties and regional as well as international developments," the Turkish presidency said.
Erdogan has been a major supporter of Doha since Qatar was left diplomatically and economically isolated by the standoff instigated by its giant neighbour.
On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shiite rival Iran. Doha, however, denies the claims.
Erdogan has strongly spoken out against the sanctions applied by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt against Doha.
In a show of solidarity, Turkey has also sent cargo ships and hundreds of planes loaded with food products to break the embargo on Doha.
After visiting Turkey, the emir is due to visit Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, his first trip to a western capital since the crisis began.
Erdogan in July embarked on a regional tour of the Gulf countries, with visits to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar in a bid to diffuse the crisis.
But his visit ended without any sign of a breakthrough.
Today, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah was due to meet with Erdogan at his presidential palace in the capital Ankara.
Erdogan has voiced support for Kuwait's mediation efforts, in an indication that Ankara sees the emirate as the key to resolving the crisis.
Over the last years, Qatar has emerged as Turkey's number one ally in the Middle East, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating their positions on a number of issues including the Syria conflict where both are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.
Ankara has built a military base in Qatar and reportedly deployed around 200 troops.
The closure of the base was one of the conditions laid by the Saudi-led bloc for the lifting of the sanctions, which was rejected by Doha.
But Turkey also does not want to wreck its own relations with regional kingpin Saudi Arabia and its hugely powerful new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
|
2023-08-26T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4381
|
[ **Regularization of the restricted $(n+1)$–body problem on curved spaces**]{}
[**Ernesto Pérez-Chavela$^1$, and Juan Manuel Sánchez-Cerritos$^2$**]{}\
$^1$Departamento de Matemáticas\
Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Mexico City, Mexico\
$^2$Department of Mathematics\
Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China\
ernesto.perez@itam.mx, sanchezj01@gmail.com
Curved $n$-body problem, Regularization
Introduction
============
We consider the generalization of the gravitational $n-$body problem to spaces of constant curvature proposed by Diacu, Pérez-Chavela and Santoprete [@Diacu; @Diacu2]. The problem has its roots on the ideas about non-Euclidean geometries proposed by Lovachevski and Bolyai in the 19th century [@Bolyai; @Lovachevski]. For more details about the history of this fascinating problem we refer the interested readers to [@Diacu4].
The restricted $(n+1)-$body problem on curved spaces refers to the study of the motion of a particle $q$, with negligible mass, moving under the gravitational attraction of $n$ other particles, called primaries. The mass of the particle $q$ is very small, in such a way that the motion of the primaries are not affected by this particle. In a personal notification, Carles Simó pointed us that through a suitable change of coordinates follow by a rescaling of time, we can focus our analysis on the cases of curvature $\kappa = 1$ and $\kappa = -1$ (see [@Diacu4] for details). In this way, we consider the sphere embedded in $R^3$ with radius $1$, denoted by $\mathbb{S}^2$, as model for positive curvature, and the sphere (with Lorentzian metric) of imaginary radius $i$, denoted by $\mathbb{H}^2$, as model for negative curvature.
In the classical case (zero curvature), the restricted three-body problem was firstly proposed by Euler in the 18th century. One of the main obstacles to study the restricted problems is the presence of singularities due to collision. We start with a fix configuration for the primaries, avoiding the collision among them, but the problem of collision of the massless particle with one or more of the primaries still persists. This problem was tacked first by Levi-Civita [@Levi] and some years later by Birkhoff [@Birkhoff]. The first technique is useful to regularize just one singularity, that we call local regularization. There are several generalizations of this technique which are applied to the restricted three body problem, see for instance [@Roman], Levi-Civita regularization and its generalizations is very helpful for analyze the dynamics of a satellite in an orbit close to another massive body or in general in spatial missions to explore a single planet. However, sometimes it is necessary to have a global picture of the solutions, for instance to study escapes of particles or a possible connection among the equilibrium points, it is necessary to have a global regularization of all singularities due to collision, in this last case we use Birkhoff technique. Both techniques consist of suitable change of coordinates follow for a reparametrization of the time.
Some years ago, this classical problem (zero curvature) problem was extended considering more bodies , and the problem of regularize the binary collisions where also tackled [@Vidal2]. Recently the restricted three body problem was also proposed considering the motion on curved spaces, for the restricted $2$–body problem, where the two primaries of different masses move on different planes around the $z$-axis [@Vidal3].
In this paper we consider the restricted $(n+1)$–body problem on $\mathbb{S}^2$ and $\mathbb{H}^2$ where $n$ particles with equal masses are moving on a plane parallel to the $xy$-plane forming a regular polygon configuration. We find the regularization transformations that allows avoid the singularities due to collisions between these particles and the remaining body of negligible mass. It results that the transformations are similar as in the classical Newtonian problem. We believe that these problems can have important applications in the dynamics of the components of an atom and in the new astronomical discoveries, usually studied only through quantum mechanics and relativity, nevertheless we let the analysis of the possible applications for a forthcoming paper and we will concentrate here just in the theoretical aspects of the problem.
After the introduction the paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we show the existence of polygonal relative equilibria given by the primary $n$ bodies with equal masses. In section 3 we set the problem and present the equations in a convenient form (a suitable rotating frame). In section 4 we present the main results of the work, in this way it is necessary to use the stereography projection to avoid the constraints and allow us to work with complex variables. Then we obtain the local and global regularization of the binary collisions.
Relative Equilibria
===================
We consider the motion of the primary $n$ bodies where each particle, denoted by $q_i$, moves on the space $\mathbb{S}^2$ or $\mathbb{H}^2$. In this section we will show the existence of solutions given by relative equilibria.
The motion of the particles is lead by the cotangent potential
$$U(q)=\sum_{i<j}m_im_j cotn(d(q_i,q_j)),$$ where $d$ is the geodesic distance on the corresponding space $\mathbb{S}^2$ or $\mathbb{H}^2$, and $cotn$ means the usual cotangent function or the hyperbolic cotangent function respectively.
The kinetic energy is defined as
$$T=\dfrac{1}{2}\sum_{i}m_i\dot{q}_i \odot\dot{q}_i,$$ where the symbol $\odot$ represents the usual inner product if we consider $\mathbb{S}^2$, or the Lorentzian inner product if $\mathbb{H}^2$ is considered (in this case for, $a,b \in \mathbb{R}^3$ we have $a \odot b = a_xb_x + a_yb_y - a_zb_z$).
From the Euler-Lagrange equations, the equations of motion take the form
$$\label{systemS2}
\ddot{q}_i=\sum_{j=1,j\neq i}^n\dfrac{q_j-\sigma(q_i\odot q_j)q_i}{[\sigma-\sigma(q_i\odot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}-\sigma(\dot{q}_i\odot \dot{q}_i)q_i, \ \ \ i=1,\cdots, n,$$
where $\sigma$ stands for $1$ if we analyze $\mathbb{S}^2$ or $-1$ for $\mathbb{H}^2$.
Relative Equilibria on $\mathbb{S}^2$
-------------------------------------
Consider the group of isometries $SO(3)$ acting on $\mathbb{R}^3$. It is well known that it consists of all uniform rotations. The relative equilibria are invariant solutions of the equations of motion under the group $SO(3)$. Now, since the principal axis theorem states that any $A \in SO(3)$ can be written, in some orthonormal basis, as a rotation about a fixed axis, we consider this one as the $z$ axis. Hence we can characterize this result as follows
A solution $q_i, i=1,\cdots,n$ of the equations of motion on $\mathbb{S}^2$ is a relative equilibrium if and only if $q_i=(x_i,y_i,z_i)$, with $x_i=r_i \cos(\Omega t + \alpha_i),$ $y_i=r_i \sin(\Omega t + \alpha_i),$ and $z_i= \sqrt{1-r_i^2}$, where $\Omega, \alpha_i$ and $r_i, i=1,\cdots,n$ are constants.
The result follows directly by straightforward computations, we omit the details here.
Now we will show that, if in the above proposition, $z_i=z_j, \,\, \forall i,j$, then it is possible to find relative equilibria.
For $n$ equal masses on $\mathbb{S}^2$ with a regular polygon initial configuration with the bodies at a height $z=$constant $\neq 0$, there exist a positive and a negative value for the initial velocity such that the solution is a relative equilibrium.
Consider $n$ particles with equal masses $m=1$ with a regular polygon initial configuration.
The position for the $i-$th body at a given time $t$ is $q_i(t)=(x_i(t),y_i(t),z(t))$ where
$$x_i(t)=r \cos\left[ \Omega t +(i-1)\dfrac{2 \pi}{n}\right], \ \ \ y_i(t)=r \sin\left[ \Omega t +(i-1)\dfrac{2 \pi}{n}\right], \ \ z(t) \neq 0.$$
We will show that there exist values of $\Omega$ such that the above functions satisfy (\[systemS2\]).
By symmetry we can consider only the equations of motion for the $x_i(t)$ coordinates.
We have
$$\begin{split}
x_{i+k}=&r \cos\left[ \Omega t +(i+k-1)\dfrac{2 \pi}{n}\right],\\
x_{i-k}=&r \cos\left[ \Omega t +(i-k-1)\dfrac{2 \pi}{n}\right],\\
\dot{x}_i(t)=&-\Omega r\sin\left[ \Omega t +(i-1)\dfrac{2 \pi}{n}\right],\\
\ddot{x}_i(t)=&-\Omega^2 r\cos\left[ \Omega t +(i-1)\dfrac{2 \pi}{n}\right].
\end{split}$$
Let $A=\Omega t+(i-1)\dfrac{2\pi}{n}$. We have for $n$ odd
$$\begin{split}
\ddot{x}_i=&\sum_{j=1,j\neq i}^n\dfrac{x_j-(q_i\cdot q_j)x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i.
\end{split}$$
For each $i$ we enumerate the particles as $(-\frac{n+1}{2}+i+1\cdots,i-1,i,i+1,\cdots, \frac{n+1}{2}+i-1)$. Hence $$\begin{split}
\ddot{x}_i
=&\sum_{j=i+1}^{\frac{n+1}{2}+i-1}\dfrac{x_j-(q_i\cdot q_j)x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}+\sum_{j=i-1}^{-\frac{n+1}{2}+i+1}\dfrac{x_j-(q_i\cdot q_j)x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i\\
=&\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n+1}{2}-1}\dfrac{x_{j+i}-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})^2]^{3/2}}+\sum_{j=-1}^{-\frac{n+1}{2}+1}\dfrac{x_{j+i}-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i\\
=&\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n+1}{2}-1}\dfrac{x_{j+i}-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})^2]^{3/2}}+\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n+1}{2}-1}\dfrac{x_{i-j}-(q_i\cdot q_{i-j})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{i-j})^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i.\\
\end{split}$$
Notice that $\ddot{x}_i=-\Omega^2 x_i$, $x_{i\pm j}=x_i\cos(2j\pi /n)\mp y_i\sin(2j\pi /n)$, $q_i\cdot q_{i-j}=q_i\cdot q_{i+j}=r^2 \cos(2j\pi/n)+1-r^2$ and $\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i=r^2 \Omega^2$. With these facts we obtain
$$\label{w1}
\Omega^2=2\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n+1}{2}-1}\dfrac{1-\cos(2j\pi/n)}{[1-(r^2 \cos(2j\pi/n)+1-r^2)^2]^{3/2}}.$$
For $n$ even we have
$$\begin{split}
\ddot{x}_i=&\sum_{j=1,j\neq i}^n\dfrac{x_j-(q_i\cdot q_j)x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i.
\end{split}$$
For each $i$ we enumerate the particles as $(-\frac{n}{2}+i+1\cdots,i-1,i,i+1,\cdots, \frac{n}{2}+i-1)$. Hence $$\begin{split}
\ddot{x}_i=&\sum_{j=i+1}^{\frac{n}{2}+i-1}\dfrac{x_j-(q_i\cdot q_j)x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}+\sum_{j=i-1}^{-\frac{n}{2}+i+1}\dfrac{x_j-(q_i\cdot q_j)x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_j)^2]^{3/2}}\\
& +\dfrac{x_{\frac{n}{2}+i+1}-(q_i\cdot q_{\frac{n}{2}+i+1})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{\frac{n}{2}+i+1})^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i\\
=&\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n}{2}-1}\dfrac{x_{j+i}-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{j+i})^2]^{3/2}}+\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n}{2}-1}\dfrac{x_{i-j}-(q_i\cdot q_{i-j})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{i-j})^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i\\
&+ \dfrac{-x_{i}-(q_i\cdot q_{\frac{n}{2}+i+1})x_i}{[1-(q_i\cdot q_{\frac{n}{2}+i+1})^2]^{3/2}}-(\dot{q}_i\cdot \dot{q}_i)x_i.
\end{split}$$
And we have
$$\label{w2}
\Omega^2=2\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n}{2}-1}\dfrac{1-\cos(2j\pi/n)}{[1-(r^2 \cos(2j\pi/n)+1-r^2)^2]^{3/2}}+\dfrac{1}{4r^3(1-r^2)^{3/2}}.$$
The equations (\[w1\]) and (\[w2\]) are positive, hence we conclude that there exist a positive and a negative value of $\Omega$ such that generate relative equilibria.
If the particles are on the equator of $\mathbb{S}^2$, then we have the following [@paper1]: if $n$ is odd, then and they have equal masses forming a regular polygon configuration moving with constant angular velocity $\Omega$, then the positions and velocities form a solution of relative equilibrium for any $\Omega \in \mathbb{R}$.
Relative Equilibria on $\mathbb{H}^2$
-------------------------------------
Consider the orthogonal transformations of determinant $\pm 1$ that leave $\mathbb{H}^2$ invariant, this is a closed group called *Lorentz group*, $Lor(\mathbb{R}^{2,1},\odot)$. The principal axis theorem in this case states that every $G \in Lor(\mathbb{R}^{2,1},\odot)$ has one of the following canonical forms:
$$A=P \left( \begin{array}{ccc}
\cos \theta & -\sin \theta & 0 \\
\sin \theta & \cos \theta & 0 \\
0 & 0 & 1 \end{array} \right) P^{-1},$$
$$B=P \left( \begin{array}{ccc}
1 & 0 & 0 \\
0 & \cosh s & \sinh s \\
0 & \sinh s & \cosh s \end{array} \right) P^{-1},$$ or
$$C= P \left( \begin{array}{ccc}
1 & -t & t \\
t & 1-\frac{t^2}{2} & \frac{t^2}{2} \\
t & -\frac{t^2}{2} & 1+\frac{t^2}{2} \end{array} \right) P^{-1},$$ where $\theta \in [0,2 \pi),s,t \in \mathbb{R}$, and $P \in Lor(\mathbb{R}^{2,1},\odot)$.
The above transformations are called elliptic, hyperbolic, and parabolic, respectively. It is well known from people in the field that there are not solutions generated by parabolic transformations [@Diacu]. Those solutions generated by elliptic or hyperbolic transformations are called elliptic or hyperbolic relative equilibria.
In this work we are interested in solutions where the $n$ primaries form relative equilibria with a regular polygon configuration. In a recent paper of the authors, they proved the no existence of these kind of hyperbolic relative equilibria, in particular the no existence of Lagrange hyperbolic relative equilibria [@paperh2]. Hence we will focus only on elliptic relative equilibria. Analogously as in $\mathbb{S}^2$ we have the following result.
For $n$ equal masses on $\mathbb{H}^2$ with a regular polygon initial configuration with the bodies at a height $z=$constant $\neq 0$, there exist a positive and a negative value for the initial velocity such that the solution is a relative equilibrium.
The proof is similar by noticing that $q_i \odot q_{i-j}=q_i \odot q_{j-i}=r^2\cos(\frac{2\pi j}{n})-1-r^2$.
For $n$ odd the angular velocity satisfies
$$\label{w3}
\Omega^2=2\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n+1}{2}-1}\dfrac{1-\cos(2j\pi/n)}{[-1+(r^2 \cos(2j\pi/n)-1-r^2)^2]^{3/2}}.$$
For $n$ even,
$$\label{w4}
\Omega^2=2\sum_{j=1}^{\frac{n}{2}-1}\dfrac{1-\cos(2j\pi/n)}{[-1+(r^2 \cos(2j\pi/n)-1-r^2)^2]^{3/2}}+\dfrac{1}{4r^3(1+r^2)^{3/2}}.$$
Since equations (\[w3\]) and (\[w4\]) are positive we conclude that there exists a positive and negative value for the angular velocity that leads to elliptic relative equilibria.
The restricted curved $(n+1)$–body problem
==========================================
In order to unified our analysis we introduce the notation $\mathbb{M}^2$ without distinction for $\mathbb{S}^2$ or $\mathbb{H}^2$. The restricted curved $(n+1)-$body problem refers to the study of a system of $n+1$ particles moving on under their mutual attraction on $\mathbb{M}^2$, where $n$ bodies with positions $q_i$ of equal masses (called primary bodies) are rotating on a circle parallel to the $xy$ plane with velocity (\[w1\]) or (\[w2\]) and with a regular polygon configuration. The remaining body located at position $q$ has a negligible mass and its motion is given by the following equation
$$\ddot{q}=\sum_{i=1}^n\dfrac{q_i-\sigma(q_i\odot q)q}{[\sigma-\sigma(q\odot q_i)^2]^{3/2}}-\sigma(\dot{q} \odot \dot{q})q.$$
As in the classical case, we introduce rotating coordinates. Let $q=RQ$ with $Q=(\xi,\eta,\vartheta)^T$, where $R$ is the rotation matrix
$$R= \left( \begin{array}{ccc}
\cos \Omega & -\sin \Omega & 0 \\
\sin \Omega & \cos \Omega & 0 \\
0 & 0 & 1 \end{array} \right).$$
After a straightforward computation the new equation of motion in the new variables are
$$\label{eqn}
\begin{split}
\ddot{Q}-2\Omega J \dot{Q}+ [\sigma(\dot{\xi}-\Omega \eta)^2+\sigma(\dot{\eta}+\Omega \xi)^2+\dot{\vartheta}^2]Q =\nabla_{Q}\left(\dfrac{\Omega^2}{2}(\xi^2+\eta^2)\right. \\
\left. +\sum_{i=1}^n\dfrac{Q_i\odot Q}{\left(\sigma-\sigma(Q_i \odot Q)^2\right)^{1/2}}\right),
\end{split}$$
with
$$J= \left( \begin{array}{ccc}
0 & 1 & 0 \\
-1& 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0 & 0 \end{array} \right).$$
In these coordinates the position of the primaries take the form
$$Q_i=\left[r\cos \left(\frac{2 \pi}{n}(i-1)\right),r\sin \left(\frac{2 \pi}{n}(i-1)\right),z\right].$$
**Stereographic projection**
In our analysis we consider the stereographic projection from the point $(0,0,-1)$ to $\mathbb{R}^2$, $\Pi: \mathbb{M}^2 \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^2$. This function maps $Q\longmapsto (u,v)$, with
$$u=\dfrac{\xi}{1+\vartheta}, \ \ v=\dfrac{\nu}{1+\vartheta}.$$
The inverse function $\Pi^{-1}$ maps $(u,v) \longmapsto Q$ where
$$\xi=\dfrac{2u}{1+\sigma(u^2+v^2)}, \ \ \eta=\dfrac{2u}{1+\sigma(u^2+v^2)}, \ \ \vartheta=\dfrac{1-\sigma(u^2+v^2)}{1+\sigma(u^2+v^2)}.$$
It is known that $\Pi$ maps $\mathbb{S}^2$ onto the whole plane $\mathbb{R}^2$, with the metric $ds^2=\dfrac{4}{1+u^2+v^2}$, this plane with this metric is known by some authors as the curved plane. The case of $\mathbb{H}^2$, this space is projected onto the open unitary disk with the metric $ds^2=\dfrac{4}{1-u^2-v^2}$, this space is the well known model of hyperbolic geometry called the Poincaré disk.
Under $\Pi$, the primaries, originally on $\mathbb{M}^2$, now are locate at $w_i=\dfrac{1}{1+z}(k_i,h_i)$, with $k_i=r\cos \left(\frac{2 \pi}{n}(i-1)\right)$ and $h_i=r\sin \left(\frac{2 \pi}{n}(i-1)\right)$.
In the right part of (\[eqn\]), the so called effective potential, can be written as
$$\begin{split}
&\dfrac{\Omega^2}{2}(\xi^2+\eta^2)+\sum_{i=1}^n\dfrac{Q_i\odot Q}{\left(\sigma-\sigma(Q_i \odot Q)^2\right)^{1/2}}\\
=& \dfrac{2 \Omega^2(u^2+v^2)}{(1+\sigma(u^2+v^2))}+\sum_{i=1}^n\dfrac{2k_iu+2h_iv+\sigma z(1-\sigma(u^2+v^2))}{[\sigma(1+\sigma(u^2+v^2))^2-\sigma(2k_iu+2h_iv+\sigma z(1-\sigma(u^2+v^2)))^2]^{1/2}}\\
=:&\Psi(u,v)+U(u,v).
\end{split}$$
Regularization
==============
We first write the problem as a Hamiltonian system, with Hamiltonian function given by
$$\label{ham}
H(u,v,p_u,p_v)=\dfrac{(1+\sigma(u^2+v^2))^2}{8}(p_u^2+p_v^2)+\Omega(vp_u-up_v)-U(u,v),$$
where $U$ is the corresponding potential getting from the stereographic projection of $\mathbb{S}^2$ or $\mathbb{H}^2$ onto $\mathbb{R}^2$. If no confusion arises, we will keep denoting the positions of the primaries on $\mathbb{C}$ as $w_i$.
In order to analyze the regularization of the binary collisions between the negligible mass with the primaries, we consider complex variables through the following change of coordinates
$${{\bf z}}=u+iv, \ \ {{\bf Z}}=p_u+ip_v.$$
Then (\[ham\]) takes the form
$$\label{H}
H=\dfrac{(1+\sigma|{{\bf z}}|^2)2}{4}|{{\bf Z}}|+2\Omega Im({{\bf z}}\overline{{{\bf Z}}})-2V({{\bf z}},\overline{{{\bf z}}}),$$
with
$$V({{\bf z}},\bar{{{\bf z}}})=\sum_{j=1}^n\dfrac{k_j({{\bf z}}+\overline{{{\bf z}}})-ih_j({{\bf z}}-\overline{{{\bf z}}})+\sigma z(1-\sigma |{{\bf z}}|^2)}{r|{{\bf z}}-w_j||{{\bf z}}-\widehat{w}_j|},$$
Where $\hat{w}_i=-\dfrac{1}{1 -z}(k_i,h_i)$.
If we consider $\mathbb{S}^2$ , then $\Pi^{-1}(\hat{w}_i)$ corresponds to the antipodal point of the primary $Q_i$, however if we consider $\mathbb{H}^2$, then $\hat{w}_i$ is a point such that $\Pi^{-1}(\hat{w}_i)$ does not belong to $\mathbb{H}^2$.
Local Regularization
--------------------
In this section we state the first main theorem of this paper.
The transformation ${{\bf z}}=g(w)=w\overline{w}+w_k$ , $(i=1,\cdots n)$ with the time transformation $\dfrac{dt}{ds}=|w|^2$, regularize the singularity of (\[H\]) due collision between the negligible mass and the $k-$th primary body.
First, let us consider the space transformation ${{\bf z}}=g(w)$ with ${{\bf Z}}=W/\overline{g'(w)}$, and the new time $s$ such that $\dfrac{dt}{ds}=|g'(w)|^2.$ Take a constant energy level $H=-\dfrac{C}{2}$, and let us define a new Hamiltonian $\hat{H}=|g'(w)|^2\left(H+\dfrac{C}{2}\right)$. The flow generated by both of the Hamiltonian functions is equivalent, hence we will consider the flow generated by $\hat{H}$ at zero energy level.
Performing the change or variables we obtain that the Hamiltonian takes the form
$$\begin{aligned}
\label{H2}
\hat{H} &=& \dfrac{(1+\sigma |g(w)|^2)2}{4}|W| \ + \ 2|g'(w)|^2\Omega Im\left(g(w)\overline{W}/g'(w)\right) \nonumber \\
&& - \ 2|g'(w)|^2V(w,\overline{w}) + |g'(w)|^2 \dfrac{C}{2}.\end{aligned}$$
Take $z=g(w)=w\overline{w}+w_k$, then $g'(w)=\overline{w}$ and $|g'(w)|^2=|\overline{w}|^2=|w|^2=w\overline{w}=|w\overline{w}|$. We will check that this transformation avoids the singularity due collision of the negligible mass and the primary $k$.
On $\mathbb{M}^2$: [$$\begin{split}
|g'(w)|^2V(w,\overline{w})=&|w|^2\left[\sum_{j=1}^n\dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r|w\overline{w}+w_k-w_j||w\overline{w}+w_k-\widehat{w}_j|}\right]\\
=&|w|^2\left[\sum_{j=1,j\neq k}^n\dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r|w\overline{w}+w_k-w_j||w\overline{w}+w_k-\widehat{w}_j|}\right]\\
&+|w|^2\dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r|w\overline{w}||w^2+w_i-\widehat{w}_j|}\\
=&|w|^2\left[\sum_{j=1,j\neq k}^n\dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r|w\overline{w}+w_k-w_j||w\overline{w}+w_k-\widehat{w}_j|}\right]\\
&+\dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r|w^2+w_i-\widehat{w}_j|}.
\end{split}$$ ]{}
We can see that the singularities of equation (\[H2\]) are avoided, hence we conclude the proof.
Global Regularization
---------------------
The second main statement of this work is the following.
The transformation ${{\bf z}}=g(w)=\dfrac{n-1}{n}w+\dfrac{w_1^n}{nw^{n-1}}$ and the time transformation $\dfrac{dt}{ds}=\dfrac{(n-1)^2}{n^2}\dfrac{|{{\bf z}}-w_1|^2|{{\bf z}}-w_2|^2\cdots |{{\bf z}}-w_n|^2}{|{{\bf z}}|^{2n}}$ regularize the $n$ binary collision-singularities of (\[H\]), between the negligible mass and each of the primaries.
Consider the transformation ${{\bf z}}=g(w):=\alpha w +\dfrac{\beta}{w^{n-1}}$, ${{\bf Z}}=W/\overline{g'(w)}$, and the time $s$ such that $\dfrac{dt}{ds}=|g'(w)|^2.$ As we did before, we will consider a fixed energy level $-\dfrac{C}{2}$ and a new Hamiltonian defined as $\hat{H}=|g'(w)|^2\left(H+\dfrac{C}{2}\right)$. We will be working using this new Hamiltonian at zero energy evel.
Performing the change or variables we obtain that the Hamiltonian takes the form
$$\begin{aligned}
\label{H1}
\hat{H} &=& \dfrac{(1+\sigma|g(w)|^2)2}{4}|W| \ + \ 2|g'(w)|^2\Omega Im\left(g(w)\overline{W}/g'(w)\right) \nonumber \\
&& - 2|g'(w)|^2V(w,\overline{w}) + |g'(w)|^2 \dfrac{C}{2}.\end{aligned}$$
In order to remove singularities we will find $\alpha$ and $\beta$ with the following properties: First that the primaries remain fixed, it means
$$\text{On} \ \ S^2: \ \ \ g(w_i)=w_i, \ \ g(\hat{w}_i)=\hat{w}_i; \ \ \ \text{On} \ \ H^2: g(w_i)=w_i,$$
and second that the functions $g(w)$ allows us to remove all the collision singularities, it means $g'(w_i)=0$, or
$g'(w)=\alpha+\dfrac{\beta (n-1)}{w^n}=\dfrac{\alpha}{w^n}\left( w^n-\dfrac{\beta}{\alpha} (n-1) \right)=\dfrac{\alpha}{w^n}(w-w_1)(w-w_2)\cdots (w-w_n)$.
Last equality is satisfied if the following occurs
$$\begin{split}
0=&\sum_{j=1}^nw_j,\\
0=&w_1\sum_{j=2}^nw_j+w_2\sum_{j=3}^nw_j+\cdots +w_{n-2}\sum_{j=n-1}^nw_j+w_{n-1}w_n,\\
0=&w_1w_2\sum_{j=3}^nw_j+w_1w_3\sum_{j=4}^nw_j+ \cdots +w_2w_3\sum_{j=4}^nw_j +\cdots +w_2w_4\sum_{j=5}^nw_j+\\
&+w_{n-3}w_{n-2}\sum_{j=n-1}^nw_j +w_{n-2}w_{n-1}w_{n}=0,\\
\vdots\\
0=&\sum_{i=1}^n \prod_{j=1, j\neq i}^nw_j,\\
(-1)^n&\prod_{j=1}^nw_j=-\dfrac{\beta}{\alpha}(n-1).
\end{split}$$
The first $(n-1)$ conditions are satisfied if the first one occurs, and it is true since it is the sum of the $n$th roots of the unity.
Since $w_{j+1}=e^{i2\pi j/n}w_1$, we have $\dfrac{w_1^n}{n-1}=\dfrac{\beta}{\alpha}$. We also have that the property $g(w_1)=w_1$ implies $\dfrac{\beta}{\alpha}=\dfrac{w_1^n}{n-1}$. With these facts we conclude $\alpha=\dfrac{n-1}{n}$ and $\beta=\dfrac{w_1^n}{n}$.
Notice that
$$g(w)-w_i=\dfrac{n-1}{n}w+\dfrac{w_1^n}{nw^{n-1}}-w_i=\dfrac{(w-w_i)^2}{w^{n-1}}G(w),$$ where
$$G(w)=\sum_{k=0}^{n-2}\dfrac{n-k-1}{n}w^{n-2-k}w_i^{k}.$$
And we have that $G(w_i)\neq 0$, for $i=1,\cdots, n$.
We now check that the singularities of (\[H1\]) due collisions are removed.
[$$\begin{split}
|g'(w)|^2V(w,,\overline{w})=&\left[\sum_{j=1}^n\dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r|g(w)-w_j||g(w)-\widehat{w}_j|}\right] \cdot\\
&\left[ \dfrac{(n-1)^2}{n^2w^{2n}}(w-w_1)^2\cdots (w-w_n)^2 \right]\\
=&\left[\sum_{j=1}^n\dfrac{w^{n-1}\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{r(w-w_j)^2G(w)|g(w)-\widehat{w}_j|}\right] \cdot\\
&\left[ \dfrac{(n-1)^2}{n^2w^{2n}}(w-w_1)^2\cdots (w-w_n)^2 \right]\\
=&\sum_{j=1}^n\left[ \dfrac{\left( k_j(g(w)+\overline{g(w)})-ih_j(g(w)-\overline{g(w)})+\sigma z(1-\sigma|g(w)|^2)\right)}{rG(w)|g(w)-\widehat{w}_j|}\right. \cdot\\
&\left. \dfrac{(n-1)^2}{n^2w^{n+1}}(w-w_1)^2\cdots (w-w_{j-1})^2(w-w_{j+1})^2\cdots (w-w_n)^2 \right].
\end{split}$$ ]{}
Notice that the only singularity is the point $w=0$ which corresponds to $|{{\bf z}}|\rightarrow \infty$. With this we finish the proof.
Acknowledgements {#acknowledgements .unnumbered}
----------------
The first author has been partially supported by [*Asociación Mexicana de Cultura A.C.*]{} The second author was supported by [*The 2017’s Plan of Foreign Cultural and Educational Experts Recruitment for the Universities Under the Direct Supervision of the Ministry of Education of China*]{} (Grant no. WQ2017SCDX045).
Álvarez Martha, Vidal Claudio: Global Regularization for the $(N+1)$–Body problem with the primaries in a regular $n$–gon central configuration, *Qualitative Theory of Dynamical Systems* [**14**]{}-2, 175-187, 2015.
Andrade Jaime, Dávila Nestor, Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Vidal Claudio: Dynamics and regularization of the Kepler problem on surfaces of constant curvature, *Canadian Journal of Mathematics* [**30**]{}, 1607-1626, (2017). Andrade Jaime, Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Vidal Claudio: Regularization of the circular restricted three body problem on surfaces of constant curvature, *Journal of Dynamics and Differential Equations* [**30**]{}, 1607-1626, (2017).
Birkhoff George: The restricted problem of three bodies, *Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo* [**39**]{}-1, (1915). Bolyai Wolfgang, Bolyai Johann: Geometrische Untersuchungen, Hrsg. P. Stäckel, Teubner, Leipzig-Berlin, 1913.
Diacu Florin: Relative equilibria of the Curved N-Body Problem, Atlantis Press, Series Volume 1, 2012.
Diacu Florin: Polygonal homographic orbits of the curved $n-$body problem, *Transactions of the American Mathematical Society* [**364**]{}-5, 2783-2802, (2012).
Diacu Florin: Homographic solutions of the curved 3-body problem, *Journal of Differential Equations* [**250**]{}, 340-366, (2011). Diacu Florin: Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Santoprete Manuele, The $n$-body problem in spaces of constant curvature. Part I: Relative equilibria, *Journal of Nonlinear Science* [**22**]{}, 247-266, (2012). Diacu Florin: Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Santoprete Manuele, The $n$-body problem in spaces of constant curvature. Part II: Singularities, *Journal of Nonlinear Science* [**22**]{}, 267-275, (2012). Diacu Florin Sánchez-Cerritos Juan Manuel, Zhu Shuqiang: Stability of fixed points and associated relative equilibria of the 3-body problem on $S^1$ and $S^2$, *Journal of Dynamics and Differential Equations* [**30**]{}, 209-225, (2018).
Lovachevski Nicolai: The new foundations of geometry with full theory of parallels. In Russian. 1835-1838, in Collected Works, V. 2, GITTL, Moscow, 159, 1949.
Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Reyes-Victoria José Guadalupe: An intrinsec approach in the curved $n$-body problem. The positive curvature case, *Transactions of the American Mathematical Society* [**364**]{}-7, 3805-3827, (2012). Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Sánchez-Cerritos Juan Manuel: Euler-type relative equilibria in spaces of constant curvature and their stability, *Canadian Journal of Mathematics* [**70**]{}-2, 426-450, (2018). Pérez-Chavela Ernesto, Sánchez-Cerritos Juan Manuel: Hyperbolic relative equilibria for the negative curved $n-$body problem, *Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation* https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnsns.2018.07.022, (2018). Roman R. Szucs-Csillik: Generalization of Levi-Civita regularization in the restricted three-body problem, *Astrophysics and Space Science* [**349**]{}, 117-123, (2014).
Szebehely Victor: Theory of orbits: The restricted problem of three bodies, Academic press, New York, 1967.
|
2023-10-26T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8137
|
Arsenal wil take the following squad to tomorrow’s Champions League qualifier with Fenerbahce. The group that will travel to Istanbul is as follows:
Szczesny
Fabianski
Jenkinson
Sagna
Mertesacker
Koscielny
Gibbs
Monreal
Wilshere
Ramsey
Frimpong
Rosicky
Cazorla
Podolski
Giroud
Walcott
Sanogo
Gnabry
It’s a stronger squad than people had expected after a weekend which saw Gibbs, Sagna, Ramsey and Rosicky go through the wars, and Nacho Monreal returns earlier than thought.
But then look at Sagna here. He’s part man, part marble statue that would look down from on high and people would gaze in awe at those thighs and the women would dampen their gussets and the men would feel ok about being a little bit aroused.
We need a drink.
|
2024-07-04T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9768
|
Q:
How can I call a MVC action method from jQuery?
I have the following code:
.on('click', '#logoutLink', function (e) {
var $link = $(this);
var href = $link.attr('data-href');
});
In an MVC action method I have:
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult LogOff()
{
WebSecurity.Logout();
return RedirectToLocal("/");
}
In jQuery I am familiar with $('#xx').load(href); but for this
I don't need to do anything with the return value. Is there a
way I can call this action method from the web page with jQuery
without it being a load?
A:
Using jQuery ajax, you could just execute a post to the action method:
.on('click', '#logoutLink', function (e) {
var $link = $(this);
var href = $link.attr('data-href');
.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: href,
data: data // if you have any or leave out
}).done(function(){ // do something when it is done, or don't });
});
or use the shorthand version jQuery post similar to this:
.on('click', '#logoutLink', function (e) {
var $link = $(this);
var href = $link.attr('data-href');
$.post(href); // no callback required if you don't need to have it.
});
|
2024-06-16T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4036
|
Q:
Verilog:Procedural Continuous Assignment to register is not supported
input [31:0] write_data;
input [4:0] write_reg;
reg [31:0] registers [31:0];
always @(*)
assign registers[write_reg] = write_data;
I have a 32-bit input write_data , which i want to an assign corresponding index which i get from write reg.Error says you cant do continuous assignment which i think causes by always@(*) but if i remove that
It says
object "registers" on left-hand side of assignment must have a net type
and its another error.
A:
assign inside an always block is the procedural assignment. It is not synthesizable and should not be used. It is there for very special modeling cases.
continuous assignment, or assign outside the always block is there for connecting nets and used all over the places. lhs of such an assignment must be a net type, i.e. wire. it cannot be a reg.
On the other hand all lhs in always blocks must be of 'reg' type.
what you had to do in your case was to remove the keyword assign:
input [31:0] write_data;
input [4:0] write_reg;
reg [31:0] registers [31:0];
always @(*)
registers[write_reg] = write_data;
|
2023-10-18T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8600
|
Busting out bad joints all over the place
Yesterday was the first day of spring, and it’s still very cold outside. The heat is still up high, and we’re still wearing sweaters, although I have given up my boots. I will take my cold toes over clomping around in snow boots. I’ve been having a bit of a tough time coping with some unstable situations, nothing that we can’t handle, but it’s drawn me down a rabbit hole of thinking that I’m having a hard time escaping.
Things are not easy right now. I know that’s the case for many people, for many people in far worse situations than I am, in far worse places in the world. NPR was reporting on what just happened in Austin, and hearing about the data breaches on Facebook, and the beleaguered communities here in Toronto, I know I’m lucky in so many ways. But that’s what’s hard about facing challenges, sometimes, you’re blinded by the stress, the everyday nonsense, and can’t look beyond.
My family is very supportive of my edict to “get outside” on the weekends. We’ve spent so much time inside this winter, not doing the things we really enjoy, snowshoeing, skiing (well, in my mind I enjoy skiing, we never go), walking through the woods. We attempted to do it this weekend at Mountsberg, a provincial park near Hamilton, and it was crowded, filled with people, and exactly the opposite of what I needed. When I feel trapped or frustrated, I think I like open skies and big trees and the sound of the wind and fresh air and all kinds of other things that remind you that even when the everyday is at its worst, you can still put your feet down on solid ground and move them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want and where I want to go next. This idea of middle age being a stopping point, but also a starting gate–all the building blocks of what’s come before leading me here, to this place, one that’s of transition. The only problem being I’m not at all sure what I want to transition to. I’m happy to take suggestions…
In these moments, when it’s so very hard to see what’s next, I miss my mother, my grandmother, so very much. I don’t know what it is about that kind of ache that comes to whenever I’m feeling alone or overwhelmed or in a place where I don’t know how to make a decision. At this point, I’ve lived far longer without them than I ever did with them, but the visceral missing them never seems to waver. The same questions run through my mind, would they be proud of me, how would they counsel me, how would I be different if they were still here. My grandmother would have been 98, which feels impossible. We just don’t live that long. Even knowing she wouldn’t still be here when she’s not here is a roundabout way of saying that I still miss her, and her advice, and her thoughts about what to do next, where to go in this meandering way of life.
Anyway. Those are thoughts for a Wednesday. I’m saying little, I’m afraid.
My kidneys are spilling protein. For any of us with kidney disease, or having your kidneys impacted by another disease, you can understand what this means. It’s a sign that they’re not working all that well, and having protein run through them damages them even further. For a while, I was taking this blood pressure medicine that helped–it stops the protein, by opening up something-or-other (I do not know the specifics), from doing further damage and it was working for a while. The downside was that it plummeted my BP and so I was dizzy all the time and super woozy. So, they took me off of it.
But now I’m going back on the meds, and I’m fine with it–I know the routine, I know I don’t have high BP, and so, psychologically, I can cope with this medication. I can not feel angry at it or damn it all to hell and “forget” to take it because I’m so pissed off with the disease in all its forms.
What’s funny is that the doctor and I did all this diagnosing via email. He sent the test request to me via email (well, his secretary did; she’s awesome). I emailed them that I’d done the test and should I take the meds again, and he said “yes!”. I find it all quite amusing.
And even though taking a 24-hour urine test is mildly (read: extremely) annoying. All the back and forth around it isn’t/wasn’t. What a revelation, what a way to live your life — easily and actively knowing what to do and just actioning it. It’s shocking actually. Can you imagine if everything was that easy?
This is my favourite moss. It’s a spot just up off the driveway of our cottage, set back into the woods a bit, near a bit of a clearing. I walk to it, by it, all the time, when heading out on adventures with our boy if his cousins have already left and he needs an adventure-mate. It’s unbearably grey and rainy here in Toronto, and cold. Perfectly acceptable end-of-February weather if you felt as though you could endure even another February day.
So, today in my my mind I’m brushing my hand against the fluffy pillow-like moss on the rocks by a place where I’ll be in a few months when the weather changes, and we’re in the rush-rush of the summer season. The colour is delightful, and green, proving that even the sight of something so hopeful and growing can help you through the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the longest-shortest month of the year.
Over the last few weeks/months/years, I’ve been having a hard time concentrating. At first I put it down to the disease, and that never-ending “brain fog” it induces both from medication and from, well, disease. But it’s more than that, it’s too many decisions and questions during a day, it’s not enough exercise, it’s too much sugar, it’s too many hours spent with a phone, watching too much TV, it’s the in and out of how to spend the couple of hours at the end of the day after the boy is in bed before my mind can actually fall into a fitful sleep.
I decided this year to pump up my reading by making myself accountable to GoodReads. I set up a reading goal (52 books), and I’m tracking them on my phone. At times like this, fiction gets hard, but nonfiction feels like a breeze. I’ve finished Roxane (with one “n”) Gay’s excellent Bad Feminist. I’m really enjoying Worry-Free Money and felt like Gretchen Rubin’s Happier at Home wasn’t necessarily about being happy or being at home (goodness she’s a writer in love with quotes. So. Many. Quotes.). I’ve started reading a book about Monet’s Water Lilies series. Nonfiction has a way of soothing your over-worked mind, I find. Letting you puzzle in someone else’s thoughts for a bit as yours continue to be muddled and messy.
Reading has always been the way in which I sort out my world. But working in publishing means that I’ve gathered many, many books–my shelves are sinking at the weight of it all–and so, like many other years, I’m trying to work my way through them. Make some hard decisions. I have books from my very first publishing job that I’ve carried around for years, hoping to read, planning on reading, when is that moment when I’ll just know that no, I won’t get to this in my lifetime, and is it worth the emotional baggage and years of collected dust. I never imagined from that very first moment when I discovered reading could be a challenge (remember Read-a-thons? I took them as a personal gold-star-maker, used up both sides of the sheet and then some) that I could “succeed” at, that there might be a moment in my life where books didn’t give me pleasure. Now, with life so full and balance completely off, I’ve struggled for the last few years to find my way through the backlog of books I have on my to-be-read shelf.
But who am I without a book in-hand? What do I do without a giant stack of books beside my bed? How do I define myself if I’m not a reader.
I’m getting older. I’m outside of mainstream publishing. Beyond the books that win the Giller or the GG, I don’t know what’s hot at the moment (but if I read one more essay about Rupi Kaur through teaching I might have to give up entirely) and I’m not sure I care any more. Finding my way around the stacks that I have might be a valuable thing to do for a year, maybe two–to not buy the latest bestseller (or anything new, really, unless it’s for book club) but suffering from FOMO is a real thing when it comes to my reading.
Anyway, enough rambling for today. Perhaps I shall go home and finish something while my family’s at hockey practice.
I’m sitting at work, contemplating getting my lunch, and thinking about how to re-start doing something you haven’t done in a long while. How do you re-ignite a relationship that’s fallen fallow? A simple hello?
Hello.
A bit of a simple conversation?
What have you been up to lately?
Reply: Not much, life…really. My son has started playing a lot of hockey. The transition from little kid to almost-big kid is a bit tricky for all of us. There are so many complex emotions, it’s a lot, really.
…
…
A bit too heavy for a first post after many years, perhaps.
For the last three years, I’ve been working at a publishing start up, which isn’t much different from a regular start up. Lots of hours, lots of stress, lots of travelling. And by the time I get home, my brain is mush. It’s impossible to think. I’ve tried reading. I’ve spent a lot of time on the couch watching TV and eating apple blossoms (and chips). Watching movies with my family. Trying to clear away the space that needs to exist between me, and them.
But how do you begin to begin again? I suppose you just have to start. Open up the program. Set your fingers up across the keys, and go.
In a way, this online place has always been a way for me to start. To get things flowing again. To remind myself that I exist in this world in a concrete, up and down way. So many things are still true:
1. I am a person with a disease
2. I am a mother, a wife, a member of a family
3. I am someone who works in an industry that I enjoy
4. I am happy to be in my own home (even if we’ll probably never pay for it)
If I ran into someone on the street I hadn’t seen in a while, it’s not the minutia of life that get’s discussed, it’s the broad strokes that get attacked. But, as always, this has been a space for me to try and work out the wonder of my life as well. And my life is filled with wonder. It’s just something that I easily forget when the drudgery of the days threatens to hold me down, and smother me with its pillows.
The photo of my boy is from a hockey tournament we went to a few weeks ago, in Niagara Falls NY. I love the photo of him in action, trying so hard, even if he’s not always succeeding. In the last few weeks, I’ve been philosophically struggling with where I am. Physically, I am here. Physically the disease is stable, and I am relatively healthy, although exhausted all the time. And those struggles, the ins and outs of constantly defining and redefining who I am and what I’m doing, maybe that’s the point. Maybe I’m searching for other people’s words because I’m find it ever-so hard to find my own. Like a habit that’s broken, I need to get my 66 days under my belt (apparently, according to Gretchen Rubin that’s how long it takes for a new habit to stick). No pressure. I’m just going to keep talking, if that’s okay.
While I was in graduate school, in a pitch of desperation during a flare-up of my Wegener’s, I made a list of accomplishments–not current, but what I wanted out of life. Most of them were typical for someone of my age and state-of-life, I wanted to have kids, and find a better job, and go to Paris, and England–and foolishly, write a book.
At the time, I was barely surviving grad school. I mean, I ended up with a degree by the skin of my teeth, and was then set adrift because my plan of becoming a professor sort of relied upon going forward and doing a doctorate. Further school was not for me, I wasn’t cut out for the competitiveness, nor the cutthroat nature of grad school, but I did enjoy writing. But my work at the time was a mess, I mean, there’s stream of consciousness and then there’s just words on the page, which is what my writing tended towards.
Over the years, I’ve gone back to thinking about that list, because it’s in my nature to simply cross items off and keep moving forward onto the next line that will ultimately bring fulfillment. Except that’s not quite how life works. Goals are hard to achieve, and sometimes they take far longer than you’d ever expect. So, way in the way back I had “write a novel” on that list, and it wasn’t until this passed December that I finally crossed it, metaphorically, off.
Still, I want to distill what I was actually trying to observe–writing a novel is one part of it, following the journey of a character from start to finish in a way that’s readable, entertaining, and engaging is a very rewarding goal. But I think what I was trying to escape at the time from the misery of my one-bedroom underground apartment was my quest for a career. So, it’s never been about just “novels”–it’s more about making a living from my pen. At the time, I was reading a lot of Aphra Behn, and was besotted by the idea of earning my keep from writing. And in the following years, I’ve managed to make a dent in this goal, whether it was abridging classics for kids, being a complete hack on the internet, and publishing the odd poem or two about Johnny Cash. I’m not an artist, and I wouldn’t even call myself an author if anyone asked. I never thought I would make a very good freelancer or magazine writer, although I’ve never pursued either of those options, primarily because I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to fall into a career in publishing over the last decade. I just really like writing. I like characters and pulling out sadness and pushing bad situations to worse and examining the human condition and poor decisions and so on.
I managed, over the course of about three years, to write a solid draft of a very Canadian novel. It was highly flawed and utterly unpublishable. I can see that now, but what it did give me was the courage to keep going. It gave me the idea that I could get to the end of something if I focussed on the process that works for me (I was doing a page a day, rain or shine) and held onto the time. The biggest hurdle was finding the right voice. I’m a natural echo. I am deeply influenced by the written word, by music, and by movies. And so the first book I wrote was super literary, really intense, and completely unbelievable; if you can believe it, I was reading, watching, and listening to super-heavy, intensely artistic, and amazingly gifted art-art at the time. A friend of a friend at work kindly referred me to an agent, who read the book and even more kindly rejected it, and by then I was at the end of my pregnancy, which meant that we were at the beginning of the terrifying journey to bring my son into the world. So, novels were once again put on the back burner.
Fast-forward a couple of years. And I’ve found my confidence again, found the right voice, the right tone, and am plugging away again at something different this time–it’s old-school chicklit, like you’d have read at the beginning of this decade. Think Gemma Townley or Jane Green only edgier because I’m incapable of writing characters who aren’t, at their core, completely messed up for one reason or another. The book is there, and I can see it, the beginning, middle, and end, and I find that if I write the ending, always an afterword of a sorts, I can get TO the end. THE WORK BOYFRIEND had a cute concept, a good conflict, and a resolution at the end that I thought was satisfying.
Starting a business, of any kind, is a challenging endeavour. Even though I’ve been in publishing for a decade now, I knew it would be a challenge to put the book out myself. I’m extraordinarily lucky that I have a business partner with whom I am keenly matched, and I also understand the necessity of certain parts of the process, like copy editing and building a fully functioning epub. In that sense, I’m luckier than a lot of writers who come into this space. Still, the challenges are legion. Just because we work in publishing doesn’t mean that the publishing world will do us any favours. Publishing is, above all, a business. Just because I might have met the editor Globe Books through work at some point, doesn’t change the fact that they don’t review self-published books. And we’re a small two-person company without marketing budgets and have no interest in publishing a physical book. The whole model was something I wanted to try, simply because I’m interested in the differences between how my business does its business vs. how the business could be done outside the business.
So, the book is up–and friends and family have been kind and generous with both their time and their social media space. We have a great cover, and some amazing early reads, with some solid reviews up on Amazon. Now the real work begins. We made the decision not to put the book up exclusively on Amazon, which means our royalty percentage is lower. Kobo’s a big part of the Canadian ebook market, so we spoke to some kind, generous people at Writing Life. And female-driven, romantic-type stories do well on both Apple and Google, from what I’ve seen on their bestseller lists. So we’ve got the positioning down pat. But none of this guarantees the book will be merchandised, and I completely understand that–primarily because, like I said above, the ecosystem of publishing revolves around the fact that it’s a business, and there’s limited space for self-published authors, independents like us, on the homepages of sites like iBooks or Kobo. And the number one way of finding ebook readers, of discovery, is via merchandising.
With merchandising out of the picture, we’ve got to start building up word of mouth and momentum–which isn’t easy. It’s the hard work of find readers, of supplying reading copies, and of asking for favours, which I’ve never really felt comfortable doing. Social media will only take you so far, and a like does not equal a sale. I have wonderful friends and an incredibly supportive family, but they aren’t all ebook readers, and it’s not the same as your aunt heading into the bookstore and buying ten copies of your book because she’s so proud of you… So, it’s interesting. There’s the added issue that there are millions of ebooks on the market, and breaking through is hard–the formula, publish lots, offer your readership something for free, and slowly build an audience is what we’re working towards, but that’s more relevant for romance or, ahem, heavy romance, then the single novel-type novel that I’ve written.
So, the experiment continues. I’m over the panic and worry for the moment, the money that’s out there will trickle back with every copy we’ve sold. Right now we’re sitting at over 50+ copies, which isn’t terrible, but it’s not great either. We’ve made about $100.00, which I am incredibly grateful for, and the most profitable copy of the book I sold was emailing the ebook to a friend who bought it directly from me. And I think my experience is very different from what Jowita Bydlowska talked about in the National Post, primarily because the kind of books we’re writing are different, but the struggles are the same–to find an audience, to build up a readership, to make it on your own–it’s akin to the scrappy DIY-nature of most of my life. And I’m staying true to my list, to the distilled goal anyway, of making a living by my pen–even if right now it’s coming in painfully slow drips and drops of $10.00 payments from Amazon.
We’re getting there. I’m now realizing that perhaps I was premature in crossing “write a novel” off my list, because while I might not be an author in the traditional sense, I did find the essence of myself in that list. “Write a novel” wasn’t the end, it was really just the beginning.
Back when my mother was in high school in Mississauga, at Gordon Graydon, she wore a kilt–the one on the attached photo. She’s standing on the far end, next to my grandmother, and both great-grandmothers, with my uncle in front. They lived not far away from where my in-laws live to this day, in the house where my husband grew up. After my mother had her accident, so much of her old clothing ended up folded and away in the closet in our spare room, the sewing room, the one my grandmother would sleep in on the nights she would stay with us if my father was working. I like to think I would have discovered the kilt anyway, would have worn it regardless, because I loved it and wore it all through high school with black tights, liquid eyeliner and big, clunky black shoes. I wore in waiting for the bus in sub-zero temperatures that would meander all around the neighbourhood, eventually picking Katrina up, and we’d spend an hour, even more, in transit to get downtown where we’d walk up and down Queen Street like we knew what we were doing. Oh, that bus ride, it was killer, it took ages and ages, transferring at Square One, which, back then, was just rows and rows of orange-striped buses that were never remotely on time. I wore that kilt out dancing until all hours of the night after Lesley got her license, and we’d end up downtown at RPM after filling up on Diet Coke and Mars bars, which masqueraded for dinner. I wore that kilt late at night, hanging out with the skinheads at Michael’s with my friend Amanda, terrified at the conversation, and thrilled to be there at all, sipping a tiny class of ridiculously warm and watered down draft, and wondering if it was a good thing that a fellow named Chad had my phone number (it ended up being fine, really thanks to Jay, who bailed me out of so many situations when we were in high school). I wore that kilt rolled up so it would appear shorter, and never dry-cleaned it–wore it until the buckle wore through the leather. Maybe I wore that kilt because it was my mother’s. Wore it because it belonged to her, and I could thread my way back to her, ever so slightly, even though we were not remotely the same size, same build, or even really had the same colouring.
It’s a strange thing to raid the closet of a ghost, in a way. My mother wasn’t there to tell me not to cut down her suede skirt or to how not to royally mess up “sewing” a skirt with this phenomenal black-patterned material she was planning to use. My mother wasn’t there to make sure I took care of her clothes, but I did in my own way, just by pulling them out of their ghost-like status, and breathing new life into them. I forgot to ask my aunt where her family might be going on this occasion. My paternal great-grandmother in her splendid pink outfit with that glorious hat. My uncle’s hair is so tidy. My mother is probably in grade nine or ten here, her hair in a bangs-with-bob style that I wore through much of high school, too. I still have this kilt, tucked away in a box in our basement, yet another reminder of stuff I’m not quite sure what to do with, like my prom dress, which I’ll never part with simply because my grandmother hand-sewed it in places, and it’s still beautiful, to me. Maybe my son will have a daughter, and I can hand her a musty pile of 70s & 80s & 90s clothes for when she’s a teenager striving out on her own to define herself by how she looks instead of what she feels inside–I wanted so badly to be different, never really internalizing the fact that we are all inherently our own snowflake. I remember a bus ride, early on in my time at high school, still reeling from the loss of my mother, still beside myself at the weekends visiting her in the hospital, trying to cope with the sheer weight of the loss of her from our everyday lives, our house so quiet, slowly losing furniture, and never really coming back to life, when I got into a fight with someone about something as asinine as whether or not INXS was better than U2, and then burst into tears. “It’s okay,” someone whispered to someone, “her mother was in a car accident.”
And that became the rallying cry. The only story. The whisper between teachers and parents and other kids who knew me before–the girl whose mother was in a car accident. It explained so much and described so little, a definition beside my name in the dictionary of my life. There’s nowhere to go from there. You can’t explain or push it away, it sits there, lump-like, waiting to be unparsed by legions of therapists over the course of a lifetime. We are nine full years away from having a teenager. Our boy, still giddy with the thought of school, of doing his activities, of learning how to swim, of learning about life, only understands the bits and pieces of what’s come before, and he certainly doesn’t grasp the sadness. There’s a wonderful book by Oliver Jeffers called The Heart and the Bottle. It’s about love and the loss of a parent, and the young girl who closes her heart up in a bottle to survive it all. I read that book to him because I think it comes close to explaining what that kind of loss feels like when you’re a young girl who loses her mother. And I cry a lot when I read it to him. Not big, wet sloppy crying, but just some tears that leak out because that’s sometimes what tears do. They’re there just to remind you that the sadness stays sometimes even when you’ve dealt with the loss, and talked about it, and remembered, and filled up some of the spaces in your life.
I never got to fight with my mother over that kilt. Never got to ask her permission to wear it. I just took it out of her ghost closet and put it on, claimed it for myself, a strike in my individuality column, or so I thought. Maybe she’d have been fine with it. Most likely yes. But she was keeping it for her own reasons I’ll never know. Whether it was to remind her of high school or because she did want me to have it at some point, or because she had a hard time giving old clothes away. And because it’s hers, I have a hard time passing it along too, even though it doesn’t fit me anymore and probably never will again, and I don’t need to look like a school girl anymore, anyway. I can walk down Queen Street and know exactly where I’m going. That’s the gift of growing older, being able to look at how silly you were to brave the frigid temperatures just to visit Pages, but knowing you’d have probably not turned out the way you had if you hadn’t read those books or played those records or raided your mother’s closet.
The other day, I was carrying our boy up the stairs for his bath/bedtime routine. He had the hiccups. He pressed himself to me, monkey-like, as we went upstairs, his “hic hic hic hic” right against my chest. And for a moment, it felt like he was back inside, “hic hic hic hic” was what I felt for almost the entire eight months he was in there. I didn’t know it was possible to be reminded of my pregnancy in such a vivid way–it was pretty great. And I wanted, at that moment, to tell my mom, one of the many things I’ve stored up over the years–put away into stories or tales or hidden way into the hinterland of my subconscious–and ached to be able to let out. Maybe that’s what I’m finally doing here.
Oh, so late. It is now two weeks passed the first of the new year, and I have not written down a single revolution for 2015. Maybe it’s for the best. To not have a Revolution in mind for the year. Still, I need organization, but I think a better phrase might be that I need simplification, simplicity, even, in 2015. The last year was a good one–so many terrific things happened: our boy turned four, which is a delightful age; the disease remained stable, which is always a source of worry; my writing year went well, which filled me up in ways I find hard to express (ironic, isn’t it–a writer struggling with self-expression?); and my job remained both in-tact and fulfilling.
I had ten Revolutions last year, from Write to Sustain to Make Dinner–and, in a small way, we made gains in all of these areas. And that’s my takeaway from 2014 leading into 2015, making small, consistent changes works, for me. Ever-so slight differences that add up over time, like riding your bike to work almost every single day for over six months, which carried over into riding the ancient (thanks Sam!) exercise bike I have in the basement whenever I’m home in the evening without other plans. Managing, over time, to lead a more active life, which has rolled over into our family life, too. My favourite parts of the weekend these days are the Saturday afternoon visits to the community pool and the Sunday morning visits to the skating rink. I am wholly more active this year than last, and some of the baby-prednisone-disease weight has come off, seven kilos so far. I didn’t think it was possible, but it is–it’s just as easy for me to watch Sons of Anarchy on the bike as it is on the couch, and I’ve got a routine now, a pattern, and it’s working for me. Tiny steps.
It’s the same for writing. I’ve got a half-hour, maybe three times a week. It’s not much, but I managed to finish a book this year, and have started a grand publishing experiment. I’d like to stay on that track, too. It works, for me.
So, in light of this, and how late I am–I really think I’m going to stay focused this year on small changes. And I’m only going to have one Revolution, just one, and it’s as above:
Simplify.
I think the word encompasses so much of what I want to accomplish over the next year, and while I want to do more–more writing, more reading, more travelling, more movies, more exercise, more, more, more time with my family–in order to get there, I need to simplify.
Like most people, I am my own worst enemy. Make life so much harder than it has to be, and by bringing the focus back down to what’s simply in front of me, what my goals are, and they are not exceptional, I think I can keep on the path of small change equals big difference path I found myself on for much of last year.
So: simplify my spending, which will help us get out of debt; simplify my routine, which protects my body; simplify my worry, which will calm my system down and keep the disease at bay… and on and on and on.
Feels too easy, as I write these words. Feels, almost impossible, when I think of the constant, churning of my mind. Feels, as though I might regret it, but I’m going to try anyway.
As a publishing professional, I’m curious about the changes in our industry, about the opportunities, and about platform. So, here’s our grand experiment. Written over the last couple years in the half-hour I had a few times a week, it’s a chicklit novel (with a bit of an edge) about a young woman trusting her instincts and carving out her life, on her own terms. Because I’m an ebook person, and because I have Rebecca Mills, my amazing partner-in-crime when it comes to this endeavour, we are trying out digital-only publishing.
Like I said, we’re curious to see how it all works. But, overall, I just wanted to prove to myself that I could finish something–and I hope for those who kindly decide to read it, that they enjoy it.
I have a million and a half people to thank, the aforementioned Rebecca, without whom the book would simply not be up at any of the vendors; my family, who loves me but, more importantly, puts up with me; especially my sister-in-law Denise and her friend Charlene, who read early drafts and were encouraging. Jessica Albert, who did our super-cute cover. My friends, who said go-go-go from the beginning, with a special shout-out to Nadine Silverthorne, without whom there would, literally, be no book. And work for giving me the okay.
Anyhow. I’m excited. And terrified. But thrilled to be continuing the indie spirit of our family, from my rock ‘n’ roll husband, who has played independent music for over two decades now. So, we’ll see how it all goes… publishing a book kind of like you would a blog–I like it, I think?
And P.S. The name of our company, Farringdon Road, comes from my British great-great-grandfather, who was a publisher in London–it was his place of business, sort of (we changed the “Street” to “Road” because we liked it better).
Funny, I didn’t even know this photo existed until this past summer, when my aunt showed it to me. There’s my grandmother, in the top-right corner, standing beside her mother, and beside my great-uncle, who was a member of the Canadian Navy (I think). The caption on the back says that it’s D-Day, June 1944–and I am nowhere, not remotely alive, but that’s okay.
That my grandmother had a life, an entire world away, before she came to Canada as a war bride and become, as I knew her, my Nanny, intrigues me. It’s a research project, to find out more, more, more about my grandmother’s life. I remember more of her, because she was alive, with me, for longer than my mother, but she’s no less enigmatic, because so many questions I have remain unanswered. Her’s was a hard life, one of supporting tragedy, of having lived through the bombs, and the Blitz, and of ushering in new life (my aunt!) in the wake of all that blew up, oh, those Boomers. What was to come? Losing herself to colon cancer, that runs in our family, her son to follow a decade later, losing her middle child to the accident, like we all did, widowhood, and raising her grandchildren as much as was necessary–and that’s the part that I feel like I can tackle now.
I did not know her in this photo, but I want to. I want to ask her what it was like to be in London during the war. What it must have been to go to work at fourteen, when she really wanted to stay in school. What it was to meet my grandfather, and to see your life in that first blush of romance, to spend all that time with someone that maybe you shouldn’t have been with, to be an only child, to be British, and then staunchly Canadian. To be private, to have lived a life inside yourself, and so responsible, even if life gets beyond you. These are all my questions. These are all moments that I wish I could go back and ask about.
My favourite memory of my grandmother, and there are so many, are of her playing invisible snap with some friends of mine from high school. Of her holding court over a crazy pile of teenagers in the backyard of our house on Chaumont Cresent, where we lived in Mississauga. The first time I had a drink (peach schnapps, I do not recommend it). The first of many times my house was invaded by piles of teenagers and, still, my grandmother had a spirit and a presence about all of it–letting me find my way, enjoying my friends, enjoying herself. Another moment in time: my head in her lap as she ran through family history with me, noting cousins, aunts, uncles. I still have the piece of paper where we mapped it all out. Since then, I’ve gone through a half-dozen more generations, tracing as far back as I can to somehow reach deep down and figure out who I am. I’m not there yet.
In that moment, right before she died, wearing an oxygen mask, and settled in her bed, I wanted to shout out a list of everything she saved me from when she stepped in during the first tumultuous years after my mother’s accident. She saved me, most of all, from myself. She gave me her spirit of adventure, and her tenacity. She cut my hair, and loved me fiercely, but quietly. She was firm, but strong, and had character that came from someplace I would never understand. She made my clothes, and tried to teach me how to knit, backwards, because I’m left-handed, and left behind a space that aches when it’s sunny, in particular, at the cottage, a place she loved.
No special anniversary to celebrate. No giant, sweeping epic. A few secrets, I’m sure. It’s again, more of the everyday that I miss. And that’s the rub, that’s the intensity of losing so many people that you love. You can’t appreciate the small moments, in detail, because they’re forgettable. And that’s the way it should be. You can’t climb back through time, because it’s impossible. You can’t remember everything. But there are moments when I wish I could slip into the photograph, and stand beside my grandmother, wear my own pinny, wave a flag, and shout out: “I was here. You were here. And I love you, desperately.”
Picture the moment before a pandemic–what might that look like–people in everyday situations going about their everyday lives. Some are at the theatre. Some are walking home from work. Some are on a plane going somewhere. Coming home from somewhere. Stuck somewhere. This is the premise that opens Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel’s captivating novel. In the instant before the world collapses, one man falls down on stage–a renown and infamous actor, Arthur Leander–dead from an apparent heart attack. A young man, training to be a paramedic, hops up on stage to try and save him. He can’t. A young girl in the production of King Lear with him is deeply, profoundly affected by not only his death, but her association with the play itself. An ex-wife a world away who hears the news, doesn’t quite know what to do with it. And what Mandel has done here, sits with me, profoundly–because she has paused on the very moments before a calamity, and allowed her characters to stew in an everyday tragedy. Here’s the mark, the one event that would have scarred your life had it gone on as it should; instead, it becomes the punctuation, an ellipsis, that melts into a much larger event–the end of the world, essentially. And that to me is some smart, smart storytelling.
The Georgian Flu, an extreme case of a type of avian flu, hits the world and within a few weeks 90% (or some crazy number, no one really knows exactly how many) of the world’s population is dead. And with any pandemic, the life that’s left behind is forever “after,” so much so that the years are recalibrated as “Year One,” “Year Two,” etc., after the worst has passed.
Many of the characters in Station Eleven are artists, the members of the Traveling Symphony that roam a mostly safe route to perform, as a troupe would have in the days theatre first evolved, from place to place, looking for an audience. They are storytellers, hunter-gatherers of culture, roaming their way across a civilization that has lost everything. For me, while the threat of other people was always ever-present, it never really approached Walking Dead territory, where every human being puts up a kill or be killed kind of fight. This isn’t a post-apocalyptic situation that I’m used to–there’s Shakespeare in this world. There’s Bach and a museum, and a thread of the “before” in ways that feel as if Mandel means to point out that art is important. That said, the world isn’t without its dangers, and when members of their troupe go missing after engaging with a particularly fanatical prophet, it becomes apparent that the skills of the road, the necessary parts of survival, are as bare and animalistic as one would imagine.
So there are survivors, and there are victims. There is magic and there is brutality. There is humanity and there is insanity in this new world post-flu. And overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book–I loved Arthur’s flawed character, and how, even in death, his presence haunts the entire book. I really liked the Traveling Symphony and their wandering band of actors and musicians. I even, truly, appreciated the ending of the novel, which I won’t spoil here for obvious reasons.
Still, I’ve been ruined by post-apocalyptic situations. Mainly, I’ve been ruined by Battlestar Galactica. I know. That might be the strangest sentence I’ve ever written in a book review before. But stay with me–here’s what I think. The nature of the attack on humanity was different, alien, in fact, and the humans were stranded on a small fleet of vehicles up in space–but they managed to keep civilization somewhat in tact because there was government. And that’s, I know, not Mandel’s point–she’s more focused on individuals, and not what a country would do, but that’s where the book fell down for me, ever-so slightly. That in all the years, and all of the small civilizations that would have sprung up, there would have been some effort to at least locate survivors of government, to keep something at least barely organized, in communication–and that the whole world essentially stops around a band of what feels like to me, the least likely to survive, felt a bit contrived.
I’m probably not expressing myself clearly–so I’ll stop there. It’s a good book. Highly deserving of all its praise and accolades, and one I am so pleased I read this year, when reading has been more of a challenge for me than any other time in my life.
about me
Girl with titanium hip will rock. Girl with titanium hip will write. Girl with titanium hip will read. Girl with titanium hip will battle crazy-ass disease called Wegener's Granulomatosis. Now stuff that in your spelling bee!
|
2024-06-16T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8592
|
Once you are under enough stress, almost anything can set off a panic attack. Suppose you are under a lot of stress, but still managing. If you add even more stress, your brain will begin to feel under siege. Your body will respond by releasing adrenaline as part of the fight or flight response. That will cause more anxiety, which will create a vicious feedback that will turn into a panic disorder.
These episodes are a serious health problem in the U.S. At least 20% of adult Americans, or about 60 million people, will suffer from panic at some point in their lives. About 1.7% of adult Americans, or about 3 million people, will have full-blown panic disorder at some time in their lives, women twice as often as men. The most common age at which people have their first panic attack (onset) is between 15 and 19 years of age. Panic attacks are significantly different from other types of anxiety, in that panic attacks are very sudden and often unexpected, appear to be unprovoked, and are often disabling.
"The fight-or-flight system is hardwired for us humans to manage dangerous situations, and those of us with anxiety have an activated fight-or-flight response when the trigger is not really dangerous," says Beth Salcedo, MD, the medical director of The Ross Center for Anxiety & Related Disorders and board president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
Meditation may also be helpful in the treatment of panic disorders.[54] There was a meta-analysis of the comorbidity of panic disorders and agoraphobia. It used exposure therapy to treat the patients over a period. Hundreds of patients were used in these studies and they all met the DSM-IV criteria for both of these disorders.[55] A result was that thirty-two percent of patients had a panic episode after treatment. They concluded that the use of exposure therapy has lasting efficacy for a client who is living with a panic disorder and agoraphobia.[55]
Anxiety can be either a short-term 'state' or a long-term personality "trait". Trait anxiety reflects a stable tendency across the lifespan of responding with acute, state anxiety in the anticipation of threatening situations (whether they are actually deemed threatening or not).[40] A meta-analysis showed that a high level of neuroticism is a risk factor for development of anxiety symptoms and disorders.[41] Such anxiety may be conscious or unconscious.[42]
Although how long a panic attack lasts can vary greatly, its duration is typically more than 10 minutes. A panic is one of the most distressing conditions that a person can endure, and its symptoms can closely mimic those of a heart attack. Typically, most people who have one panic attack will have others, and when someone has repeated attacks with no other apparent physical or emotional cause and it negatively changes their behavior due to the attacks or feels severe anxiety about having another attack, he or she is said to have panic disorder. A number of other emotional problems can have panic attacks as a symptom. Some of these illnesses include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and intoxication or withdrawal from alcohol and certain other drugs of abuse.
A panic attack may be a one-time occurrence, although many people experience repeat episodes. Recurrent panic attacks are often triggered by a specific situation, such as crossing a bridge or speaking in public—especially if that situation has caused a panic attack before. Usually, the panic-inducing situation is one in which you feel endangered and unable to escape, triggering the body’s fight-or-flight response.
Dr. Roxanne Dryden-Edwards is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She is a former Chair of the Committee on Developmental Disabilities for the American Psychiatric Association, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and Medical Director of the National Center for Children and Families in Bethesda, Maryland.
I’m not sure if this counts as a panic attack, but lately I’ve experienced instances where my head feels like it’s being squeezed, I feel really dizzy, and I get an intense fear of becoming schizophrenic because In that moment it feels like I’m going crazy. It’s happening right now and I’m kind of freaking out because the feeling won’t stop. I’m worried that it’ll never go away and I’ll be like this forever. Hopefully this is just a panic attack?
Persistent and excessive fear of a specific object or situation, such as flying, heights, animals, toilets, or seeing blood. Fear is cued by the presence or anticipation of the object/situation and exposure to the phobic stimulus results in an immediate fear response or panic attack. The fear is disproportionate to the actual danger posed by the object or situation. Commonly, adults with specific phobias will recognize that their fear is excessive or unreasonable.
“Anxiety attack” is not a formal, clinical term, but one that is used by many people to describe all sorts of things, from feeling worried about an upcoming event to intense feelings of terror or fear that would meet the diagnostic criteria for a panic attack. In order to understand what someone means by “anxiety attack,” it is necessary to consider the context in which the symptoms occur.
At some point in our lives, most of us will experience a panic attack in response to an actual danger or acute stress. But when panic attacks occur or recur for no reason and in the absence of danger or extreme stress, or when the fear of experiencing another attack is so strong that you change your behavior by avoiding certain places or people, you may have panic disorder.
More than shyness, this disorder causes intense fear about social interaction, often driven by irrational worries about humiliation (e.g. saying something stupid or not knowing what to say). Someone with social anxiety disorder may not take part in conversations, contribute to class discussions or offer their ideas, and may become isolated. Panic attacks are a common reaction to anticipated or forced social interaction.
Some research suggests that people who have panic disorder might be very sensitive to sensory experiences (such as sunlight, smells and changes in the weather), but there's not enough evidence yet to say for sure. Also it's not clear whether having a high level of sensitivity to these sorts of things is something that might cause you to develop panic disorder, or whether it may be an effect of having it.
I’m not sure if this counts as a panic attack, but lately I’ve experienced instances where my head feels like it’s being squeezed, I feel really dizzy, and I get an intense fear of becoming schizophrenic because In that moment it feels like I’m going crazy. It’s happening right now and I’m kind of freaking out because the feeling won’t stop. I’m worried that it’ll never go away and I’ll be like this forever. Hopefully this is just a panic attack?
We use cookies and similar technologies to improve your browsing experience, personalize content and offers, show targeted ads, analyze traffic, and better understand you. We may share your information with third-party partners for marketing purposes. To learn more and make choices about data use, visit our Advertising Policy and Privacy Policy. By clicking “Accept and Continue” below, (1) you consent to these activities unless and until you withdraw your consent using our rights request form, and (2) you consent to allow your data to be transferred, processed, and stored in the United States.
Panic Disorder: People with panic disorder have panic attacks with feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. During the attacks, individuals may feel like they can't breathe, have lost control, are having a heart attack or even that they are dying. Physical symptoms may include chest pain, dizziness, nausea, sweating, tingling or numbness, and a racing heartbeat. Some people will have one isolated attack, while others will develop a long term panic disorder; either way, there is often high anxiety between attacks because there is no way of knowing when the next one will occur. Panic disorders often begin early in adulthood. Many people with panic disorder also suffer from agoraphobia (abnormal fear of open or public places.). See more on Panic Attacks.
Everyone here has issues, but what happens when you’re blue as hell and CANNOT figure out the source of the problem? There is no quote, no book, no video, no saying or phrase, no motto, which is helping me right now. I feel like absolute total HELL. And I damned well know it’s not going to last, and that it’s probably a result of thinking too hard, too long, too deeply. Anyway, thank you all for sharing your pain with strangers. It shows that you’re way stronger than you think.
As the result of years of research, there are a variety of treatments available to help people who suffer from panic attacks learn how to control the symptoms. This includes several effective medical treatments, and specific forms of psychotherapy. In terms of medications, specific members of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), the selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SSNRI), and the benzodiazepine families of medications are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for effective treatment of panic disorder. Examples of anti-anxiety medications include fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil), escitalopram (Lexapro), citalopram (Celexa), vortioxetine (Brintellix), and vilazodone (Viibryd) from the SSRI group, duloxetine (Cymbalta), venlafaxine (Effexor), desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), and levomilnacipran (Fetzima) from the SSNRI group, and clonazepam (Klonopin) and lorazepam (Ativan) from the benzodiazepine group. Although alprazolam (Xanax) is often used to treat panic attacks, its short duration of action can sometimes result in having to take it several times per day. Medications from the beta-blocker family (for example, propranolol [Inderal]) are sometimes used to treat the physical symptoms, like racing heart rate associated with a panic attack. Some individuals who suffer from severe panic attacks may benefit from treatment with gabapentin (Neurontin), which was initially found to treat seizures, or benefit from a neuroleptic medication like risperidone (Risperdal), olanzapine (Zyprexa), quetiapine (Seroquel), aripiprazole (Abilify), paliperidone (Invega), asenapine (Saphris), iloperidone (Fanapt), or lurasidone (Latuda).
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health disorder in the U.S., affecting more than 18% of the population. They are even more common among children, affecting an estimated 25% of children between the ages of 13 and 18. The most common anxiety disorders are Specific Phobias, affecting 8.7% of the population, and Social Anxiety, affecting 6.8% of the population.
Anxiety disorders are characterized by a general feature of excessive fear (i.e. emotional response to perceived or real threat) and/or anxiety (i.e. worrying about a future threat) and can have negative behavioral and emotional consequences. Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders are characterized by obsessive, intrusive thoughts (e.g., constantly worrying about staying clean, or about one's body size) that trigger related, compulsive behaviors (e.g. repeated hand-washing, or excessive exercise). These behaviors are performed to alleviate the anxiety associated with the obsessive thoughts. Trauma- and stressor- related anxiety disorders are related to the experience of a trauma (e.g., unexpected death of a loved one, a car accident, or a violent incident) or stressor (e.g., divorce, beginning college, moving).
Panic disorder is characterized by repeated, unexpected panic attacks, as well as fear of experiencing another episode. A panic disorder may also be accompanied by agoraphobia, which is the fear of being in places where escape or help would be difficult in the event of a panic attack. If you have agoraphobia, you are likely to avoid public places such as shopping malls, or confined spaces such as an airplane.
Benzodiazepines, including alprazolam (Xanax) and lorazepam (Ativan), may be prescribed for patients to help with more acute symptoms of panic disorder. These drugs alleviate symptoms quickly and have fewer side effects other than drowsiness, but frequent use may lead to dependence on the medication. They are not recommended for patients who have alcohol or substance abuse issues.
Fortunately, panic disorder is a treatable condition. Psychotherapy and medications have both been used, either singly or in combination, for successful treatment of panic disorder. If medication is necessary, your doctor may prescribe anti-anxiety medications, certain antidepressants or sometimes certain anticonvulsant drugs that also have anti-anxiety properties, or a class of heart medications known as beta-blockers to help prevent or control the episodes in panic disorder.
In particular, the doctor will be concerned with the person's past medical history, past history of any mental illness, and any surgery the person may have had. In addition to exploring whether the person suffers from any other mental illness, the practitioner often explores whether the panic attack sufferer has a specific anxiety disorder in addition to or instead of panic disorder, like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder, or generalized anxiety disorder.
The combination of good self-help information and working with an experienced anxiety disorder coach, counselor, or therapist is the most effective way to address anxiety disorder and its many symptoms. Until the core causes of anxiety are addressed - the underlying factors that motivate apprehensive behavior - a struggle with anxiety disorder can return again and again. Identifying and successfully addressing anxiety's underlying factors is the best way to overcome problematic anxiety.
A variety of medical and mental health professionals are qualified to assess and treat panic disorders. From purely medical professionals like primary care doctors, emergency room physicians to practitioners with mental health training like psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, a variety of health care providers may be involved in the care of panic disorder sufferers. Some practitioners will administer a self-test of screening questions to people whom they suspect may be suffering from panic disorder. In addition to looking for symptoms of repeated panic attacks using what is described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), asking detailed questions about the sufferer's history and conducting a mental-status examination, mental health professionals will explore the possibility that the individual's symptoms are caused by another emotional illness instead of or in addition to the diagnosis of panic disorder. For example, people with an addiction often experience panic attacks, but those symptom characteristics generally only occur when the person is either intoxicated or withdrawing from the substance. Someone who has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may have panic attacks when reminded of trauma they experienced and in a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks may be triggered by their being unable to perform a compulsive behavior. The practitioner will also likely ensure that a physical examination and any other appropriate medical tests have been done recently to explore whether there is any medical problem that could be contributing to the occurrence of panic attacks. That is particularly important since many medical conditions may have panic attacks as a symptom and therefore require that the underlying medical condition be treated in order to alleviate the associated anxiety. Examples of that include the need for treatment with antibiotics for infections like Lyme disease or vitamin supplements to address certain forms of anemia.
Fear and anxiety are part of life. You may feel anxious before you take a test or walk down a dark street. This kind of anxiety is useful - it can make you more alert or careful. It usually ends soon after you are out of the situation that caused it. But for millions of people in the United States, the anxiety does not go away, and gets worse over time. They may have chest pains or nightmares. They may even be afraid to leave home. These people have anxiety disorders. Types include
Poverty and low education level tend to be associated with anxiety, but it is unclear if those factors cause or are caused by anxiety. While some statistics suggest that disadvantaged ethnic minorities tend to suffer from internalizing disorders like panic disorder less often than the majority population in the United States, other research shows that may be the result of differences in how ethnic groups interpret and discuss signs and symptoms of intense fright, like panic attacks. Also, panic and other anxiety disorders are thought to persist more for some ethnic minorities in the United States. Difficulties the examiner may have in appropriately recognizing and understanding ethnic differences in symptom expression is also thought to play a role in ethnic differences in the reported frequency of panic and other internalizing disorders.
Fear and anxiety are part of life. You may feel anxious before you take a test or walk down a dark street. This kind of anxiety is useful - it can make you more alert or careful. It usually ends soon after you are out of the situation that caused it. But for millions of people in the United States, the anxiety does not go away, and gets worse over time. They may have chest pains or nightmares. They may even be afraid to leave home. These people have anxiety disorders. Types include
Watch: Bullying Exerts Psychological Effects into Adulthood: Once considered a childhood rite of passage, bullying is no longer seen as benign. Its effects linger well into adulthood. Bullies and victims alike are at risk for psychiatric problems such as anxiety, depression, substance misuse, and suicide when they become adults, according to a study partially funded by the NIMH that was published in the April 2013 issue of JAMA Psychiatry.
|
2024-01-21T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8280
|
Simultaneous screening of fumonisin B1, aflatoxin B1, and zearalenone by line immunoblot: a computer-assisted multianalyte assay system.
A line immunoblot assay was developed for the simultaneous screening of fumonisin B1 (FB1), aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), and zearalenone (ZEA). Monoclonal antibodies for each of these toxins were immobilized as multiple lines on nitrocellulose membrane strips and sectored into hydrophobic compartments to minimize use of reagents. A modified enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was conducted whereby free mycotoxins and horseradish peroxidase-labeled mycotoxins competed for binding to the nitrocellulose-bound antibodies. Color intensity of lines formed by a precipitating substrate was inversely related to mycotoxin concentration. Detection limits for the individual mycotoxins, as determined by visually comparing the color intensity of positive strips to negative controls, were 500, 0.5, and 3 ng/mL for FB1, AB1, and ZEA, respectively. Line density was quantitatively assessed also by using a camera, video monitor, and microcomputer equipped with a video-digitizing board. The assay could be used to determine range values for the various mycotoxins in extracts of spiked corn in less than 30 min, and values could be recorded on the microcomputer hard disk. This combination of line immunoblot assay and image analysis, termed computer-assisted multianalyte assay system, should be applicable to the simultaneous screening of multiple mycotoxins and other agricultural residues in food.
|
2023-10-15T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3365
|
A man and a woman in riding costumes meet another gentleman in morning dress. The woman wears a riding habit with a long full brown skirt and matching jacket with a peplum, both which button down the front. The sleeves of her jacket have French...
In a Barcelona neoclassical park setting, a young woman and six girls play jump rope. Spain in the 1880s enjoyed economic prosperity after the Restoration of the Spanish Crown (1875), and these girls appear to reflect that prosperity. From the...
Two women dresses for riding, one on horseback, are joined by the nanny bringing a child to meet them. The woman on the left rides side-saddle on a brown horse whose bridle is adorned with a pink tassel and whose mane is braided with a pink bow. A...
A woman standing on a terrace is wearing a tan dress with a flower pattern, lace frills, and leg o' mutton sleeves. The fabric is patterned with white daisies with black centers. Her sleeves have white lace ruffles at the elbows and wrists, and...
A mother and father are sitting in a parlor, teaching their children music and art. The blond little girl plays the piano. She wears a white dress with short sleeves that is gathered in at the waist. Her hair is in loose shoulder-length curls. Her...
Two women stand on a balcony looking out onto the city. The woman on the left is in a maroon long-sleeved dress with full leg o' mutton sleeves and a lace collar. The upper sleeves, lapels, and sash are of deep maroon velvet and bands of trim with...
Five women stand in an elegant room. The woman on the left is wearing a high-collared, black and gray pinstripe hip length jacket in a masculine style, with a standing collar, wide lapels, and gold buttons at the front and on the cuffs. The jacket...
Five women are standing out of doors. Behind them are trees and houses. The woman on the left is wearing a deep green velvet jacket over a yellow dress. The jacket has long straight sleeves with a slight fullness at the shoulder. The jacket has...
Five women are standing in a parlor with drapes and potted plants behind them. The woman on the left is holding a drawing in her hand and faces away from the viewer. She is wearing a purple velvet dress with a ribbon encircling the neck with a bow...
This suit blends masculine and feminine elements in its style. Standing in three-quarter view, a red-haired woman models a muted gray or green suit with pink accents. The long skirt and jacket have vertical stitching details, creating a pin stripe...
A brown-haired woman sits in three-quarter view with her head in profile modeling her autumn outfit. She wears a green and black Tattersall plaid suit with brown fur cuffs and collar. The jacket sleeves are trimmed at the wrists with two bands of...
A woman stands in three-quarter pose, modeling her tan suit. She wears a high necked white lace blouse with horizontal tucking on the collar beneath a pink and tan jacket edged and trimmed with darker brown in geometric lines. The yoke and upper...
A woman stands in a three-quarter pose, wearing a blue and black plaid suit and a pink blouse. Over a rose pink softly gathered blouse with a high collar that also has a small turn over collar of blue at the neck, she wears a blue and black plaid...
A woman with blond-red hair stands in three-quarter view with her face in profile to display her suit. She models a bias-cut turquoise and black plaid suit. The fitted jacket has tan lapels and cuffs, and a matching band trims the hem of the skirt....
Two women are standing in an elegant room The woman on the right rests her hand on a chair. The woman on the left wears a long-sleeved lavender brocade dress with a floral pattern. The bodice has vertical soft pleats, and four tiers of plain...
Two women are standing at the top of the stairs in an elegant hallway with striped wall paper. On the left is part of a long window with diamond patterned glass and a curved top, with a white column setting it off. On the right is an elegant drape,...
Five women and a little girl are depicted in a salon. The woman on the far left reads to the little girl seated next to her. She wears her hair back in waves with a up with a cap of black lace. Her dress is purple with a jewel neck and long...
Five women are standing in an elegant room. The woman on the left is wearing a blue dress trimmed with blue and white stripes. The dress jacket has wide striped lapels, two pairs of buttons, and sleeves that are slightly full at the shoulders, and...
Two women are stand together on a city street. The woman on the left wears a light and dark blue striped dress with full bias-cut puffed sleeves and a flared skirt. She wears a green blouse with the jacket of the dress over it. The jacket bodice is...
A woman is wearing a medium blue suit with dark blue trimming. In the left hand corner is a view of the back of the suit. The sleeves are long and snugly fitted with
narrow dark blue banding trimming the sleeve hems.
At the tops of the sleeves are...
|
2023-12-22T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4982
|
/*
* Copyright (C) 2015 Karumi.
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (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.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
package com.karumi.rosie.sample.comics.view.viewmodel;
public class ComicSeriesViewModel {
private int key;
private String title;
private String coverUrl;
public int getKey() {
return key;
}
public void setKey(int key) {
this.key = key;
}
public String getTitle() {
return title;
}
public void setTitle(String title) {
this.title = title;
}
public String getCoverUrl() {
return coverUrl;
}
public void setCoverUrl(String coverUrl) {
this.coverUrl = coverUrl;
}
}
|
2024-07-06T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9191
|
Make A Stand Against Continuing Carnage
Many hoped, and some even predicted, that the horror of the Newtown massacre of Dec. 14, 2012 — 18 months ago tomorrow — would spur a national effort to keep guns out of the wrong hands. That hope remains unrequited: The carnage continues.
On Tuesday, a 15-year-old freshman at a high school in Troutdale, Ore., armed to the teeth with an AR-15 military-style rifle with nine magazines and an automatic pistol, killed a 14-year-old student and wounded a teacher before apparently taking his own life. This shooting occurred two days after a shooting in Las Vegas that saw two police officers and a bystander killed in a restaurant and a Walmart, and less than a week after a shooting on the campus of a small university in Seattle.
On May 23, a troubled 22-year-old named Elliot Rodger killed seven people and wounded 13 near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He had legally purchased three 9mm handguns.
The pro-gun reform group Everytown For Gun Safety, supported by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, says there have been at least 74 shootings in or around schools since the Newtown tragedy. The Portland Oregonian, among other media outlets, reviewed this claim and determined that about half the shootings involved a shooter on campus during school hours.
That's not frightening enough?
If there's to be sensible reform — such as universal background checks — it's going to require a change in public opinion. There has to be a tipping point where people decide that the danger of shootings in a school or other public place is greater than the danger of government agents coming to take the guns away from law-abiding gun owners.
How to get there? Why not tell Connecticut's story? The state has been passing sensible gun laws at least since 1999, when it passed — and Republican Gov. John G. Rowland signed — a gun seizure law. That law empowers police to obtain warrants to confiscate firearms from people who have not committed any crime with them but are displaying signs that they have become mentally unstable and might shoot themselves or someone else.
After Newtown, the state passed an extensive gun safety bill that included universal background checks, safer storage requirements, a gun crime registry, long gun permits and requirements. The most controversial part of the legislation, a ban on new purchases of assault-style rifles, seems to have calmed down.
These laws have kept guns out of the hands of thousands of people who should not have them, and have not infringed on the Second Amendment rights of anyone. No law-abiding gun owner that we are aware of has had a firearm seized by the government.
Newtown happened here; Connecticut is not immune to crazed gun violence. But reasonable gun safety laws are working in Connecticut. If the slaughter continues, people eventually may listen to our story, and vote for congressional candidates who aren't afraid of the gun lobby.
|
2024-06-03T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1816
|
Open this photo in gallery Kevin Desmond, the chief executive officer of TransLink, the Metro Vancouver transportation agency. Albert Normandin
Ride-hailing companies can be a valuable addition to the Lower Mainland’s complicated transportation system, but only if there is a pricing mechanism to make sure they complement transit, TransLink’s CEO told provincial representatives Wednesday.
“We want to interact with them … but we don’t want it to undermine the mobility of the region,” said Kevin Desmond, who is in charge of the region’s transportation agency. He was one of more than a dozen speakers scheduled to present to the province’s select committee that is examining the issue, with hearings continuing Thursday.
Vancouver is the only major city in North America without ride-hailing, owing in large part to the fact that the province’s control over the auto-insurance system has meant B.C. has been able to effectively block companies such as Uber and Lyft when other cities haven’t been able to.
Story continues below advertisement
Ride-hailing became an issue during the provincial election campaign two years ago when the B.C. Liberals promised to bring it in by December of that year.
In response to questions from some NDP MLAs about the effect that ride-hailing has had on transit in other cities, Mr. Desmond acknowledged various studies have shown some negative impacts.
But, he said, the ultimate mission of TransLink is to improve mobility in the region, not just try to scoop the maximum revenue for transit services.
“Ride-hailing will affect demand for our service, but if it’s introduced well, it will motivate us to improve,” he said. He noted that Seattle, in spite of having ride-hailing for several years, recently saw one of the biggest increases in transit ridership in the United States.
But he said that if ride-hailing services are unregulated, it runs the risk of traffic congestion that could slow down transit services – and that’s an unacceptable outcome for the tax-paying public using them.
For that reason, he and TransLink senior planner Geoff Cross urged the province to use variable pricing to allow the services to do what they do best: improve mobility and accessibility for everyone.
Per-trip fees could be set that would encourage drivers to avoid already crowded areas or times of the day and prompt them to serve areas that don’t have good transit service.
Story continues below advertisement
Fees could also be set to discourage trips that seem to be cannibalizing transit services, such as short trips only in the downtown area, Mr. Desmond said.
Mr. Cross pointed out that, except in Vancouver, the overwhelming majority of trips in the other 20 municipalities in the region are destined for another municipality.
That’s why TransLink is taking the position that it’s a bad idea to set up a system based on municipal or even regional boundaries. Some people who use TransLink services end up continuing on to cities in the Fraser Valley outside the service area.
The committee is hearing from speakers prior to presenting a report on how the province should regulate ride-hailing, which it has promised to do by the end of the year.
|
2024-05-08T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4865
|
NFL teams will announce their Day 3 draft picks in unique ways Saturday, highlighted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' plans to employ a parrot to help deliver the name of their fourth-round selection.
The NFL announced Monday that a parrot will deliver the Buccaneers' pick to an announcer in the Pirate Ship in Raymond James Stadium. The Buccaneers announced that the parrot, named Zsa Zsa, is from the Florida Exotic Bird Sanctuary.
Zsa Zsa, a Catalina Macaw from the Florida Exotic Bird Sanctuary, with the help of handler Stephanie Dripps, pictured, will deliver the name of the Buccaneers' fourth-round draft pick to an announcer in the Pirate Ship at Raymond James Stadium. Florida Exotic Bird Sanctuary
Zsa Zsa is an 8-year-old Catalina Macaw that has lived at the sanctuary for four years. She will be accompanied Saturday by Stephanie Dripps, a caretaker at the sanctuary, which has rescued over 750 parrots.
In Minnesota, members of the gold-medal-winning U.S. men's Olympic curling team will announce the Minnesota Vikings' picks at the St. Paul Curling Club.
The San Francisco 49ers' picks will come from Lucasfilm, where Ron Howard, Star Wars characters including Chewbacca, Stormtroopers and RD-D2 and the SFPAL 49ers prep flag football teams will make the announcements.
As previously announced by Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, members of the school's football team will announce the Miami Dolphins' picks with the family of late football coach Aaron Feis, who was one of 17 people killed during the mass shooting at the school in March, at the team's facility.
Other plans include:
|
2024-02-28T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5640
|
Source: Stepita
By Meredith Stepita, DVM, DACVB
Clients often tell me that their dog has . When I ask them what exactly their dog is doing, the answer varies widely. This is because there are many different causes of behaviors that mimic the signs consistent with separation . Sometimes pet owners may not actually know what their dog is doing when alone. They come home to find their plants knocked over with dirt scattered everywhere, or the neighbors start complaining about their dog barking. Many of the root causes of these behaviors are not at all associated with anxiety and require very different treatment plans from that of anxiety. That is why correct diagnosis is essential.
So what is separation anxiety?
In the United States approximately 15-20 percent of dogs suffer from separation anxiety. This is a behavioral problem in which dogs show signs of when their owner or favorite person is not present. Signs of stress can include panting, pacing, salivating, destruction (especially of the door the owner exited through), urination/defecation, vocalization (barking, whining, howling), self- , and sometimes even escape in which the dog may injure himself.
How is separation anxiety diagnosed?
Have you ever wondered what your dog does when you are away at work? The one key diagnostic tool to confirm separation anxiety is videotaping your dog home alone, as long as it is safe to do so. The behaviors associated with separation anxiety usually begin within the first 15-20 minutes of your dog being alone, so less than 30 minutes or so of videotaping is usually necessary. With the development of technology, videotaping is easier than ever and if you do not have a phone/camera/computer that records video, or a video camera, chances are you know someone that does. You can even set up a live webcam so that you can monitor your dog home alone and return before he destroys anything or injures himself.
Aggression is one cause for behaviors that may be mistaken for separation anxiety. Dogs with territorial aggression vocalize in response to their triggers (people, dogs) passing by and approaching the house. They may even become destructive, chewing and scratching door frames or window sills during aggressive episodes. See my blog on aggression for more information: https://drstepita.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/aggression-its-more-common-th...
Boredom
Boredom or play/exploratory behavior is another cause of destruction when home alone. I commonly think of this when dogs younger than one year of age present to me for separation anxiety. A video tape reveals that these dogs are calm, but destructive. They may destroy the couch or papers left out, but not usually the door the owner exited through. These dogs should be left in “dog-proofed” areas where they cannot get to items to destroy. Increasing enrichment is also important. Mental stimulation is just as important as physical stimulation. Ways to accomplish this when you are gone include taking your dog to doggie daycare (I recommend interviewing first to make sure it is a good fit before enrolling your dog), hiring a dog walker, and leaving your dog home with long lasting treats that he can safely eat ( sticks, food-dispensing toys, frozen peanut butter Kongs, everlasting treat balls).
Source: Stepita
Long lasting treats and toys can be rotated so that they continue to peak your dog’s interest (e. ., don’t give the same toy every day). Make sure to first try the treats/ toys when you are home to make sure your dog consumes them in a safe manner and does not swallow large pieces which can lead to a stomach blockage. For recipes to make the Kong more enticing visit the website: http://www.kongcompany.com/recipes/. When you are home, engage your dog in positive reinforcement training, agility or other fun classes. Walks as well as using a bike springer to attach your dog’s leash to your bike (http://www.springeramerica.com/) help to tire your dog out so that destructive behaviors are less likely to occur when left alone.
Stay tuned to future blogs as we continue to explore more causes of behaviors that may imitate separation anxiety.
Meredith Stepita, DVM, DACVB
Veterinary Behavior Specialists (vetbehaviorspecialists.com)
Like VBS on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vetbehaviorspecialists
https://drstepita.wordpress.com/
|
2023-09-26T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2582
|
BLG loads heavy ship sections of up to 750 tons
January 13, 2015 Using their SPMTs (self-propelled modular transporters), BLG LOGISTICS in Bremen loaded and transported three heavy sections of ship weighing up to 750 tons each. These special vehicles for particularly large and heavy goods are also used in the area of offshore wind energy.
BLG were today loading three heavy ship sections from shipbuilders "BVT Brenn- und Verformtechnik GmbH", the heaviest of which weighs 750 tons. The logistics company used their SPMTs (self-propelled modular transporters) for the job at BVT's production site in Bremen. The SPMTs have been used for three years by their experienced drivers for transporting components of windenergy installations.
The first 750-ton heavy component was a 60-meter long, 15-meter wide section of the special pontoon ROADRUNNER. It was first transported by the SPMTs to the Egerland quay 200 meters from the shop floor and moved onto the SEEPONTON I. From there, the component was then loaded onto the dock ship PAPENBURG.
Following this, the SPMTs were used to transport two heavy sections of a passenger ship, which were then loaded onto another pontoon. These components weighed up to 580 tons each and measured 27.5 meters long and up to 23 meters wide.
With these SPMTs used by BLG, heavy loads of very different kinds can be transported safely and reliably to their destinations. The control technology allows absolutely exact positioning of heavy loads. Individual modular transporters can be coupled together as required and they are controlled by cables and radio remote control. The heaviest component transported by BLG up to now – a foundation platform for an offshore wind farm – weighed approximately 1,800 tons.
January 13, 2015
SPMT (self-propelled modular transporter) with ship section lying on top
|
2024-01-02T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2606
|
Q:
Keydown Not Triggered Only on Button w/ "contenteditable" Tag
I am using the contenteditable="true" tag to make the content in certain tags editable. I can successfully edit the content in any element with that tag, but the problem arises when I try to detect the keydown event with jQuery.
jsFiddle demo
Note that "Hello World", in a paragraph element, is editable. The button text "I'm a Button" is also editable, inside a button element.
When you type in the paragraph element, keypresses is incremented for each key pressed. However, when you type in the button element, keypresses is NOT incremented. This is my problem. Apparently, the keydown event is not being detected inside the button element, even though it is being detected inside the paragraph element.
To demonstrate that this is not a problem with the way the JS is written, clicking either paragraph or button element will increment the clicks counter.
So my question is, why isn't the keydown event being detected inside the button element, and what can I do to detect it?
A:
How about this work-around?
JSFiddle : http://jsfiddle.net/vA74w/
Putting button content in a span with contenteditable=true
HTML
<button> <span contenteditable='true'>I'm a Button</span> </button>
will not allow user to delete the button.
Need to trim and span tags from button text after completing the edit.
|
2024-04-26T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9071
|
Electro-optic adaptive eyeglass for correction of presbyopia Abstract Presbyopia is an age-related loss of accommodation of the human eye that manifests itself as inability to shift focus from distant to near objects. More than 90% of the people over 45 need correction of presbyopia. The conventional corrective lenses (bifocal, trifocal) have been around for more than 200 years and have some drawbacks. They have a limited field of view for each vision task, requiring user to gaze down to accomplish near vision and in some cases causing dizziness and discomfort. Some users need three different eyeglasses for reading, computer, and driving. Progressive lenses cause some distortion. Recently we have demonstrated switchable diffractive liquid crystal (LC) lens with binary ON and OFF states. In the proposed project, our goal is to develop a tunable, low-cost electro-optic lens with continuous focusing powers and high optical performance for near-, intermediate-, and distance vision. The whole aperture with the same power is used for each vision task. Such a device may have revolutionary impact on the field of vision care. Existing LC lenses have an aperture of 10-15 mm, and the power can only be switched between plano and 1 diopter (D) (or 2D). The driver box is 442 cm3, which is bulky. They are not suitable for practical ophthalmic applications. In this study, we will develop a novel, high performance, cost-effective varifocal LC lens with a compact electronic driver and controller. The focusing power of the lens can be continuously tuned from plano to +4D by applied voltages. This range covers the typical add powers needed for presbyopes, and it allows almost all patients to use the same lens. We will fabricate lenses with an aperture around 40mm, which satisfies the requirement for practical applications. The light efficiency will be close to 100%. These three specifications have not been met before. We will design a novel closed-loop driver circuit with good reliability and high power efficiency. In addition, we will develop a minicontroller that allows change of the focus power by simply pressing a button, which is practical and reliable; in the second phase of this project, we will develop a prototype of the eyeglass that allows autofocus function. The size of the driver will be only 552 mm3. Clinical studies will be performed to assess how the wearers function and perceive the new spectacles. This kind of lens is promising to become an alternative of conventional area division multi-focal spectacle lenses used by presbyopes. They may have the potential of revolutionizing the field of presbyopia correction. The new eyeglass will significantly improve the quality of life for a large population. Applications can be extended to fields where varifocal lens elements with low operation voltages, relatively large diameters and fast response time are desirable. For example, a single lens of this kind can be used as a new phoropter to measure the refractive errors and visual acuity and for rapid depth scanning in three-dimensional biomedical imaging. Correction of low vision with high quality optics in the periphery will also have high impact. This would be our next focus of research.
|
2023-10-23T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3109
|
## @file
# VMGEXIT Support Library.
#
# Copyright (C) 2020, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.<BR>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause-Patent
#
##
[Defines]
INF_VERSION = 0x00010005
BASE_NAME = VmgExitLibNull
MODULE_UNI_FILE = VmgExitLibNull.uni
FILE_GUID = 3cd7368f-ef9b-4a9b-9571-2ed93813677e
MODULE_TYPE = BASE
VERSION_STRING = 1.0
LIBRARY_CLASS = VmgExitLib
[Sources.common]
VmgExitLibNull.c
[Packages]
MdePkg/MdePkg.dec
UefiCpuPkg/UefiCpuPkg.dec
[LibraryClasses]
BaseLib
|
2024-03-20T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6814
|
Training Rocket Scientists
Tag: Defense Department
More than likely, “yes” and in a very near future. The engineers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are hard at work shrinking the new generation of drones to a size of a small insect as well as developing “flapping wing” technology. The creative minds at AeroVironment are currently test-flying a hummingbird. And that’s not some […]
More than likely, “yes” and in a very near future. The engineers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are hard at work shrinking the new generation of drones to a size of a small insect as well as developing “flapping wing” technology.
The creative minds at AeroVironment are currently test-flying a hummingbird. And that’s not some code name for a little remote-control airplane that can hover and fly backwards. The Nano Hummingbird is a winged vehicle with no tail and flapping wings that it uses as its only method of propulsion. And they have even dressed it up to look like the real bird.
The Nano Air Vehicle is being developed under a Darpa contract to develop a small aircraft that can fly indoors and out. Early test flights of the hummingbird lasted only a handful of seconds, but the most recent flights have extended the range to almost 10 minutes, and it can maintain a stable hover in small gusts of wind.
The tiny aircraft weighs only 19 grams [about two-thirds of an ounce] and has a wingspan of 16 centimeters [6½ inches]. The vehicle is self-contained with its own motor, battery, communication system and a video camera. It’s being developed to be a palm-sized observation-and-surveillance platform. But instead of taking pictures of a building, it can provide a video feed from inside the building.
The AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven is a small hand-launched remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (or SUAV) developed for the U.S. military, but now adopted by the military forces of many other countries.
The RQ-11 Raven was originally introduced as the FQM-151 in 1999, but in 2002 developed into its current form.[2] The craft is launched by hand and powered by an electric motor. The plane can fly up to 6.2 miles (10.0 km) at up to altitudes of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above ground level (AGL), and 15,000 feet (4,600 m) mean sea level (MSL), at flying speeds of 28-60 mph (45–97 km/h).[3]
The Pentagon now has some 7,000 aerial drones, compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago. Within the next decade the Air Force anticipates a decrease in manned aircraft but expects its number of “multirole” aerial drones like the Reaper — the ones that spy as well as strike — to nearly quadruple, to 536. Already the Air Force is training more remote pilots, 350 this year alone, than fighter and bomber pilots combined.
|
2023-09-20T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8841
|
David Moyes believes he could have won the Premier League with Everton if he had been allowed to sign a striker like Romelu Lukaku.
Moyes’ Everton side were firmly entrenched as a top-eight team in the second half of his 11-year reign, but frustratingly fell short of establishing themselves as a Champions League club, prompting their former manager to claim the inability to land a world-class striker was the crucial thing missing.
Having left Goodison Park to become Manchester United manger in 2013, Moyes is confident he would have been far more successful than his successor Roberto Martínez at Everton if he had been given the chance to deploy a centre forward of Lukaku’s ability.
|
2023-09-22T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9330
|
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in Children.
The non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) of childhood include high-grade mature B cell lymphoma [Burkitt lymphoma (BL), diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and primary mediastinal large B cell lymphoma (PMLBCL)], anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), and lymphoblastic lymphoma (LL). The prognosis for children with NHL is generally excellent, although there are some higher risk groups. In this regard, PMLBCL is generally associated with a poorer outcome than BL or DLBCL of comparable stage. The long-term event-free survival for children with ALCL is approximately 70 %. Novel biological agents, including those that target CD-30 or ALK, may hold promise for improving treatment results. Children with LL are treated with regimens derived from those used to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Recent biological study of LL may provide insights into revising treatment stratification. The challenge in pediatric NHL, a group that already has a relatively good prognosis, is to improve treatment outcome without increasing concerning late effects.
|
2024-04-23T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4174
|
Access to the innermost security zone during the G20 weekend will be controlled by a 3-metre-high fence and five levels of security screening, a summit official said Tuesday.
These were among the few details shared with more than 100 property managers and company representatives who attended Tuesday morning’s “G20 summit preparedness workshop,” hosted by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA).
BOMA represents more than 700 commercial real estate companies in the GTA, and workshop attendees included everyone from Ryerson University representatives to financial district property managers, all anxious to know how they can prepare for June 26 and 27, when the world descends upon their neighbourhood.
Speaking at the workshop was Const. Ed Boltuc, a Toronto police officer and community liaison with the Integrated Security Unit, the RCMP-led team tasked with overseeing security for the back-to-back G8 and G20 summits.
Security efforts are already promising to be bigger than anything Canada has seen before, and in Toronto, many residents and businesses have expressed concern. On Tuesday, Boltuc reassured workshop participants that G20 organizers are striving to minimize the summit’s footprint.
But when describing the scale of the impending security efforts, Boltuc didn’t mince words.
“The Olympics that you saw recently in Vancouver was actually the largest security event ever to take place here in Canada. The G20/G8 surpasses that completely,” Boltuc said. “There’s going to be a massive — absolutely massive — presence of police and security on the ground like you’ve never seen before.”
Boltuc explained that two fenced security perimeters will encircle the summit site, which is the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Front St. W. Exact security boundaries still aren’t being disclosed — and probably won’t be until about two weeks prior to the summit — but Boltuc did say RCMP will oversee the innermost layer, which will wrap tightly around the convention centre and nearby hotels housing visiting heads of state.
This inner security zone will be strictly controlled during the summit weekend and blocked off with an “unscalable” fence rising at least 3 metres, Boltuc said. Anyone requiring access will have to pass a “five-tier system of security,” he added.
The outer layer will be protected by Toronto police, Boltuc said. While speculation had placed the boundaries at Queen St. to the north, Yonge St. to the east, Lake Shore Blvd. W. to the south and Spadina Ave. to the west, Boltuc said the area won’t be quite that large.
Fences will start going up about two weeks before the summit, Boltuc said, although ISU officials hope to keep the gates open as long as possible. Barring extenuating circumstances, the outer security should be accessible to vehicles and pedestrians up until the “11th hour,” which is to say sometime in the evening of June 25, he said.
But once the gates slam shut, workers and residents requiring access to the outer security zone will need to be registered or accredited. The process for doing that was still being finalized as of Tuesday, but the summit office will probably begin accrediting people in early April, Boltuc said.
“Registration may be as simple as giving your name, a place you work and a place you live,” he said, adding that accredited individuals will probably be given a card which they’ll show at the gates along with photo ID.
Accreditation will be voluntary but anyone choosing to forgo the process will face “delays” at the gates, Boltuc said. Property managers or businesses anxious to know whether they fall within the perimeter can also call the summit office, he added, although boundary lines will not be disclosed.
Boltuc said Union Station won’t be shut down during the summit weekend, although it’s likely foot traffic will be diverted. Also remaining open will be the Rogers Centre, which is hosting ex-Blue Jay Roy Halladay’s highly anticipated return to Toronto, and the Air Canada Centre, which will be the concert venue for violinist André Rieu’s “Celebration of Music Tour” on June 26.
Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...
The Gardiner Expressway will also remain open, Boltuc said, but commuters can expect traffic delays as motorcades travel from Pearson International Airport to the convention centre area. While Boltuc played down rumours that there could be as many as 30 motorcades on June 26, he said security officials will probably maintain about a kilometer of buffer space around VIP vehicles as they make their way down the highway.
Boltuc emphasized that security details are still in flux — and some details may never be released for security reasons — but he assured BOMA members that information would be communicated in a timely way through various channels, including community meetings and email. Twitter will also be used to disseminate information, including details on motorcade departure and arrival times, he said.
|
2024-05-26T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2394
|
1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns an antenna arrangement for a magnetic resonance apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Magnetic resonance apparatuses for the examination of patients, in particular by magnetic resonance tomography, are generally known, for example from DE10314215B4.
Modern magnetic resonance systems (also called MR or MRT systems) normally operate with multiple different antennas (also called coils in the following) to emit radio-frequency pulses for nuclear magnetic resonance excitation and/or to receive induced magnetic resonance signals. A magnetic resonance system frequently has a larger coil, known as a whole-body coil (also called a body coil), that is normally permanently installed in the apparatus, as well as multiple small local coils (also called surface coils). In contrast to the whole-body coil, the local coils serve to acquire detailed images of body parts or, respectively, organs of a patient that are located relatively close to the body surface. For this purpose, the local coils are applied directly at the point of the patient at which the region to be examined is located.
Antennas having what is known as a “transmission line” shape (for example in an open or more closed stripline style) with application in MR imaging are generally known. A very particular type of this antenna shape is taken by what is known as the aperiodic antenna, in which the structure is not resonant but rather represents a transmission line that is terminated correctly in terms of impedance at its end. The impedance termination (termination with an impedance resistor) leads to the situation that no standing wave forms along the antenna. The reflection-free, terminated conductor with its characteristic impedance, which conductor serves as an antenna structure, is traversed by an advancing wave, and the field that is relevant for the imaging is generated evanescently (as a field decaying with increasing distance from the conductor) by the current flowing in the antenna structure without any resonance step-up in the immediate proximity of the conductor.
In the reception mode, the antenna functions reciprocally relative to the transmission phase in that the reflection-free terminated conductor receives MR relaxation signals arising in its surroundings without resonance step-up and transfers them for further processing to the preamplifier connected with it with correct (matched) impedance.
In the following an element of an MR antenna is generally discussed. An MR antenna arrangement typically consists of an entire series of such antenna elements that are arranged around the volumes to be examined. The type and the design of the arrangement can be different. Via a suitable chaining of such antenna elements, either planar structures (planar coils) or those that surround the volume to be examined (volume coils) can be built. In the transmission case, all antenna elements are thereby fed separately with correct phase, and in the reception case the antenna elements are connected by separate preamplifiers with the receiver of the MR system under consideration of the phase relationships.
The advantages of this antenna shape are low costs, simplicity, and due to the spatially limited antenna characteristic, adjacent elements couple only very weakly with one another, and thus the chaining of multiple such antenna elements in 50 ohm engineering is very simple (array formation). Another advantage is broadband capability (with regard to the spectroscopy of interest). Moreover, due to the broadband capability, all calibration and tuning tasks that otherwise would be necessary for a resonant antenna are not needed.
A disadvantage of this antenna form is lower efficiency, because the largest portion of the RF power generated by the amplifier is dissipated (released) thermally by the termination resistors in the transmission case and does not contribute to the generation of the B1 field that is necessary for the imaging. An additional cause of the low efficiency is the limited reflux [return] space that is necessary to achieve the comparably low characteristic impedance of 50 ohms of the transmission line.
Another disadvantage is limited antenna characteristic.
The B1 field generated by such an antenna in the transmission phase is limited to the immediate area in proximity to the antenna structure (the evanescent field of the transmission line that directly penetrates the conductor structure in the adjacent medium). In the reception mode, the signal yield is limited to a superficial region in proximity to the antenna structure due to the same, limited antenna characteristic.
The antenna form has previously always been used with a transmission line that is adapted to the common 50 ohm impedance of the RF portion of the MR system. A very simple design is thereby achieved because the antenna (that now has 50 ohm ports) can be connected directly to the system. Complicated modifications are thus omitted. (See ISMRM Abstract #435 of 2008.) However, the use of a 50 ohm transmission line as an antenna element also entails disadvantages.
|
2024-02-05T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9592
|
{
This file is part of the Free Pascal run time library.
Copyright (c) 1999-2000 by Florian Klaempfl
This file implements the linux GGI support for the graph unit
See the file COPYING.FPC, included in this distribution,
for details about the copyright.
This program 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.
**********************************************************************}
unit GGIGraph;
interface
{ objfpc is needed for array of const support }
{$mode objfpc}
{$i graphh.inc}
Const
{ Supported modes }
{(sg) GTEXT deactivated because we need mode #0 as default mode}
{GTEXT = 0; Compatible with VGAlib v1.2 }
G320x200x16 = 1;
G640x200x16 = 2;
G640x350x16 = 3;
G640x480x16 = 4;
G320x200x256 = 5;
G320x240x256 = 6;
G320x400x256 = 7;
G360x480x256 = 8;
G640x480x2 = 9;
G640x480x256 = 10;
G800x600x256 = 11;
G1024x768x256 = 12;
G1280x1024x256 = 13; { Additional modes. }
G320x200x32K = 14;
G320x200x64K = 15;
G320x200x16M = 16;
G640x480x32K = 17;
G640x480x64K = 18;
G640x480x16M = 19;
G800x600x32K = 20;
G800x600x64K = 21;
G800x600x16M = 22;
G1024x768x32K = 23;
G1024x768x64K = 24;
G1024x768x16M = 25;
G1280x1024x32K = 26;
G1280x1024x64K = 27;
G1280x1024x16M = 28;
G800x600x16 = 29;
G1024x768x16 = 30;
G1280x1024x16 = 31;
G720x348x2 = 32; { Hercules emulation mode }
G320x200x16M32 = 33; { 32-bit per pixel modes. }
G640x480x16M32 = 34;
G800x600x16M32 = 35;
G1024x768x16M32 = 36;
G1280x1024x16M32 = 37;
{ additional resolutions }
G1152x864x16 = 38;
G1152x864x256 = 39;
G1152x864x32K = 40;
G1152x864x64K = 41;
G1152x864x16M = 42;
G1152x864x16M32 = 43;
G1600x1200x16 = 44;
G1600x1200x256 = 45;
G1600x1200x32K = 46;
G1600x1200x64K = 47;
G1600x1200x16M = 48;
G1600x1200x16M32 = 49;
implementation
uses
termio;
var
OldIO : TermIos;
Procedure SetRawMode(b:boolean);
Var
Tio : Termios;
Begin
if b then
begin
TCGetAttr(1,Tio);
OldIO:=Tio;
CFMakeRaw(Tio);
end
else
Tio:=OldIO;
TCSetAttr(1,TCSANOW,Tio);
End;
const
InternalDriverName = 'LinuxGGI';
{$i graph.inc}
{ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
GGI bindings [(c) 1999 Sebastian Guenther]
---------------------------------------------------------------------}
{$LINKLIB c}
{$PACKRECORDS C}
const
GLASTMODE = 49;
ModeNames: array[0..GLastMode] of PChar =
('[]', {Let GGI choose a default mode}
'S320x200[GT_4BIT]',
'S640x200[GT_4BIT]',
'S640x350[GT_4BIT]',
'S640x480[GT_4BIT]',
'S320x200[GT_8BIT]',
'S320x240[GT_8BIT]',
'S320x400[GT_8BIT]',
'S360x480[GT_8BIT]',
'S640x480x[GT_1BIT]',
'S640x480[GT_8BIT]',
'S800x600[GT_8BIT]',
'S1024x768[GT_8BIT]',
'S1280x1024[GT_8BIT]',
'S320x200[GT_15BIT]',
'S320x200[GT_16BIT]',
'S320x200[GT_24BIT]',
'S640x480[GT_15BIT]',
'S640x480[GT_16BIT]',
'S640x480[GT_24BIT]',
'S800x600[GT_15BIT]',
'S800x600[GT_16BIT]',
'S800x600[GT_24BIT]',
'S1024x768[GT_15BIT]',
'S1024x768[GT_16BIT]',
'S1024x768[GT_24BIT]',
'S1280x1024[GT_15BIT]',
'S1280x1024[GT_16BIT]',
'S1280x1024[GT_24BIT]',
'S800x600[GT_4BIT]',
'S1024x768[GT_4BIT]',
'S1280x1024[GT_4BIT]',
'S720x348x[GT_1BIT]',
'S320x200[GT_32BIT]',
'S640x480[GT_32BIT]',
'S800x600[GT_32BIT]',
'S1024x768[GT_32BIT]',
'S1280x1024[GT_32BIT]',
'S1152x864[GT_4BIT]',
'S1152x864[gt_8BIT]',
'S1152x864[GT_15BIT]',
'S1152x864[GT_16BIT]',
'S1152x864[GT_24BIT]',
'S1152x864[GT_32BIT]',
'S1600x1200[GT_4BIT]',
'S1600x1200[gt_8BIT]',
'S1600x1200[GT_15BIT]',
'S1600x1200[GT_16BIT]',
'S1600x1200[GT_24BIT]',
'S1600x1200[GT_32BIT]');
type
TGGIVisual = Pointer;
TGGIResource = Pointer;
TGGICoord = record
x, y: SmallInt;
end;
TGGIPixel = LongWord;
PGGIColor = ^TGGIColor;
TGGIColor = record
r, g, b, a: Word;
end;
PGGIClut = ^TGGIClut;
TGGIClut = record
size: SmallInt;
data: PGGIColor;
end;
TGGIGraphType = LongWord;
TGGIAttr = LongWord;
TGGIMode = record // requested by user and changed by driver
Frames: LongInt; // frames needed
Visible: TGGICoord; // vis. pixels, may change slightly
Virt: TGGICoord; // virtual pixels, may change
Size: TGGICoord; // size of visible in mm
GraphType: TGGIGraphType; // which mode ?
dpp: TGGICoord; // dots per pixel
end;
const
libggi = 'ggi';
function ggiInit: Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
procedure ggiExit; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiOpen(display: PChar; args: Array of const): TGGIVisual; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiClose(vis: TGGIVisual): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiParseMode(s: PChar; var m: TGGIMode): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiSetMode(visual: TGGIVisual; var tm: TGGIMode): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiGetMode(visual: TGGIVisual; var tm: TGGIMode): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiCheckMode(visual: TGGIVisual; var tm: TGGIMode): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiMapColor(vis: TGGIVisual; Color: TGGIColor): TGGIPixel; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiPutPixel(vis: TGGIVisual; x, y: Longint; pixel: TGGIPixel): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiGetPixel(vis: TGGIVisual; x, y: Longint; var pixel: TGGIPixel): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiDrawBox(vis: TGGIVisual; x, y, w, h: Longint): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiPutBox(vis: TGGIVisual; x, y, w, h: Longint; var buffer): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiGetBox(vis: TGGIVisual; x, y, w, h: Longint; var buffer): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiGetPalette(vis: TGGIVisual; s, len: Longint; var cmap: TGGIColor): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
function ggiSetPalette(vis: TGGIVisual; s, len: Longint; var cmap: TGGIColor): Longint; cdecl; external libggi;
var
Visual: TGGIVisual;
CurrentMode, OldMode: TGGIMode;
procedure ggi_savevideostate;
begin
ggiGetMode(Visual, OldMode);
end;
procedure ggi_restorevideostate;
begin
ggiSetMode(Visual, OldMode);
end;
const
BgiColors: array[0..15] of TGGIColor = (
(r: $0000; g: $0000; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $0000; g: $0000; b: $8000; a: 0),
(r: $0000; g: $8000; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $0000; g: $8000; b: $8000; a: 0),
(r: $8000; g: $0000; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $8000; g: $0000; b: $8000; a: 0),
(r: $8000; g: $8000; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $C000; g: $C000; b: $C000; a: 0),
(r: $8000; g: $8000; b: $8000; a: 0),
(r: $0000; g: $0000; b: $FFFF; a: 0),
(r: $0000; g: $FFFF; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $0000; g: $FFFF; b: $FFFF; a: 0),
(r: $FFFF; g: $0000; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $FFFF; g: $0000; b: $FFFF; a: 0),
(r: $FFFF; g: $FFFF; b: $0000; a: 0),
(r: $FFFF; g: $FFFF; b: $FFFF; a: 0));
procedure ggi_initmodeproc;
begin
ggiParseMode(ModeNames[IntCurrentMode], CurrentMode);
ggiSetMode(Visual, CurrentMode);
end;
function ClipCoords(var x, y: SmallInt): Boolean;
{ Adapt to viewport, return TRUE if still in viewport,
false if outside viewport}
begin
x := x + StartXViewPort;
x := y + StartYViewPort;
ClipCoords := not ClipPixels;
if ClipCoords then begin
ClipCoords := (y < StartXViewPort) or (x > (StartXViewPort + ViewWidth));
ClipCoords := ClipCoords or
((y < StartYViewPort) or (y > (StartYViewPort + ViewHeight)));
ClipCoords := not ClipCoords;
end;
end;
procedure ggi_directpixelproc(X, Y: smallint);
var
Color, CurCol: TGGIPixel;
begin
CurCol := ggiMapColor(Visual, BgiColors[CurrentColor]);
case CurrentWriteMode of
XORPut: begin
{ getpixel wants local/relative coordinates }
ggiGetPixel(Visual, x-StartXViewPort, y-StartYViewPort, Color);
Color := CurCol xor Color;
end;
OrPut: begin
{ getpixel wants local/relative coordinates }
ggiGetPixel(Visual, x-StartXViewPort, y-StartYViewPort, Color);
Color := CurCol or Color;
end;
AndPut: begin
{ getpixel wants local/relative coordinates }
ggiGetPixel(Visual, x-StartXViewPort, y-StartYViewPort, Color);
Color := CurCol and Color;
end;
NotPut:
Color := not Color;
else
Color := CurCol;
end;
ggiPutPixel(Visual, x, y, Color);
end;
procedure ggi_putpixelproc(X,Y: smallint; Color: Word);
begin
If Not ClipCoords(X,Y) Then exit;
ggiputpixel(Visual,x, y, Color);
end;
function ggi_getpixelproc (X,Y: smallint): word;
Var i : TGGIPixel;
begin
ClipCoords(X,Y);
ggigetpixel(Visual,x, y,I);
ggi_getpixelproc:=i;
end;
procedure ggi_clrviewproc;
begin
ggidrawbox(Visual,StartXViewPort,StartYViewPort,ViewWidth,ViewHeight);
{ reset coordinates }
CurrentX := 0;
CurrentY := 0;
end;
{ Bitmap utilities }
type
PBitmap = ^TBitmap;
TBitmap = record
Width, Height: longint;
reserved : longint;
Data: record end;
end;
procedure ggi_putimageproc (X,Y: smallint; var Bitmap; BitBlt: Word);
begin
With TBitMap(BitMap) do
ggiputbox(Visual,x, y, width, height, Data);
end;
procedure ggi_getimageproc (X1,Y1,X2,Y2: smallint; Var Bitmap);
begin
with TBitmap(Bitmap) do
begin
Width := x2 - x1 + 1;
Height := y2 - y1 + 1;
ggigetbox(Visual,x1,y1, x2 - x1 + 1, y2 - y1 + 1, Data);
end;
end;
function ggi_imagesizeproc (X1,Y1,X2,Y2: smallint): longint;
begin
// 32 bits per pixel -- change ASAP !!
ggi_imagesizeproc := SizeOf(TBitmap) + (x2 - x1 + 1) * (y2 - y1 + 1) * SizeOF(longint);
end;
procedure ggi_hlineproc (x, x2,y : smallint);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_vlineproc (x,y,y2: smallint);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_patternlineproc (x1,x2,y: smallint);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_ellipseproc (X,Y: smallint;XRadius: word;
YRadius:word; stAngle,EndAngle: word; fp: PatternLineProc);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_lineproc (X1, Y1, X2, Y2 : smallint);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_getscanlineproc (X1, X2, Y : smallint; var data);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_setactivepageproc (page: word);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_setvisualpageproc (page: word);
begin
end;
procedure ggi_savestateproc;
begin
end;
procedure ggi_restorestateproc;
begin
end;
procedure ggi_setrgbpaletteproc(ColorNum, RedValue, GreenValue, BlueValue: smallint);
Var Col : TGGIcolor;
begin
col.r:=redvalue;
col.g:=greenvalue;
col.b:=bluevalue;
ggisetpalette(Visual,ColorNum,1,col);
end;
procedure ggi_getrgbpaletteproc (ColorNum: smallint;
var RedValue, GreenValue, BlueValue: smallint);
Var Col : TGGIColor;
begin
ggigetpalette(Visual,ColorNum,1,col);
RedValue:=Col.R;
GreenValue:=Col.G;
BlueValue:=Col.B;
end;
{************************************************************************}
{* General routines *}
{************************************************************************}
procedure CloseGraph;
begin
if not IsGraphMode then
begin
_graphresult := grnoinitgraph;
exit
end;
RestoreVideoState;
isgraphmode := false;
end;
function QueryAdapterInfo:PModeInfo;
{ This routine returns the head pointer to the list }
{ of supported graphics modes. }
{ Returns nil if no graphics mode supported. }
{ This list is READ ONLY! }
var
ModeInfo: TGGIMode;
procedure AddGGIMode(i: smallint); // i is the mode number
var
mode: TModeInfo;
begin
InitMode(Mode);
with Mode do begin
ModeNumber := i;
ModeName := ModeNames[i];
// Pretend we're VGA always.
DriverNumber := VGA;
MaxX := ModeInfo.Visible.X-1;
MaxY := ModeInfo.Visible.Y-1;
MaxColor := 1 shl (ModeInfo.graphtype and $ff);
//MaxColor := 255;
PaletteSize := MaxColor;
HardwarePages := 0;
// necessary hooks ...
DirectPutPixel := @ggi_DirectPixelProc;
GetPixel := @ggi_GetPixelProc;
PutPixel := @ggi_PutPixelProc;
SetRGBPalette := @ggi_SetRGBPaletteProc;
GetRGBPalette := @ggi_GetRGBPaletteProc;
ClearViewPort := @ggi_ClrViewProc;
PutImage := @ggi_PutImageProc;
GetImage := @ggi_GetImageProc;
ImageSize := @ggi_ImageSizeProc;
{ Add later maybe ?
SetVisualPage := SetVisualPageProc;
SetActivePage := SetActivePageProc;
GetScanLine := @ggi_GetScanLineProc;
Line := @ggi_LineProc;
InternalEllipse:= @ggi_EllipseProc;
PatternLine := @ggi_PatternLineProc;
HLine := @ggi_HLineProc;
VLine := @ggi_VLineProc;
}
InitMode := @ggi_InitModeProc;
end;
AddMode(Mode);
end;
var
i: longint;
OldMode: TGGIMode;
begin
QueryAdapterInfo := ModeList;
{ If the mode listing already exists... }
{ simply return it, without changing }
{ anything... }
if Assigned(ModeList) then
exit;
SaveVideoState:=@ggi_savevideostate;
RestoreVideoState:=@ggi_restorevideostate;
If ggiInit <> 0 then begin
_graphresult := grNoInitGraph;
exit;
end;
Visual := ggiOpen(nil, []); // Use default visual
ggiGetMode(Visual, OldMode);
ggiParseMode('', ModeInfo);
ggiSetMode(Visual, ModeInfo);
ggiGetMode(Visual, ModeInfo);
ggiSetMode(Visual, OldMode);
AddGGIMode(0);
for i := 1 to GLastMode do begin
// WriteLn('Testing mode: ', ModeNames[i]);
ggiParseMode(ModeNames[i], ModeInfo);
If ggiCheckMode(visual, ModeInfo) = 0 then begin
Writeln('OK for mode ',i,' : ', ModeNames[i]);
AddGGIMode(i);
end;
end;
end;
initialization
InitializeGraph;
SetRawMode(True);
finalization
SetRawMode(False);
end.
|
2024-01-17T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9913
|
Facial bone fractures in children.
From the aforementioned study, the following conclusions can be stated: (1) Patients ranged from 2 to 15 years of age, with no one age group being more susceptible to facial fractures. This fact is contrary to previous findings. (2) No true orbital blow-out fractures were found in patients less thn 7 years of age, primarily because of the lack of maxillary sinus development in that age group. The most rapid development of the maxillary sinus occurs between the ages of 7 to 15 years. (3) In patients from 2 to 7 years of age, fractures occurred at an even ratio of boys and girls. From 8 to 15 years of age there was a boy: girl ratio of about 4.5:1. Of the sixty-seven total patients in the study, boys outnumbered girls by a ratio fo 2.4:1. In order, the condyle, orbit, and mandible were the most common fracture sites observed in the study. This fact is in agreement with past studies. There was no predominant site for any age group or sex. While falls were singly responsible for the greatest number of facial fractures, automobile-related trauma accounted for 47.7 percent of facial fractures in children. In the majority of cases multiple mandibular fractures were of the bilateral condylar type. Hospitalization of patients with automobile-related fractures was approximately 3 days longer than that of patients whose fractures occurred from other causes. More than two thirds of the patients in the study had associated trauma-related medical and dental injuries.
|
2024-05-05T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8834
|
The Times of Israel reports: Iran’s military threatened the US on Wednesday, saying that in the event of an American attack, leaders in Washington will end up like deposed and executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
“The American leaders… have got this message that if they attack Iran, they will encounter a fate similar to that of Saddam Hussein,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement broadcast by Iranian national television, Reuters reported.
Iran was marking the date it won a key battle in its eight-year war with its neighbor Iraq between 1980 and 1988. Hussein, who ruled Iraq during the war years, was deposed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a US-led Western coalition, then tried and, in 2006, executed by Iraqi authorities.
Read more here.
|
2024-02-03T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1871
|
This paper examines the ability of workers nearing retirement to report their expected retirement savings, where retirement savings refers to funds held in savings, checking, and investment-type accounts. Responding to such a question is likely to be difficult, even for those who are near retirement, because it requires respondents to assess when they will retire, their likely income stream between the survey date and retirement, and what portfolio choices will be made at retirement. Based on two nationally representative surveys collected two decades apart, we find that most individuals provide some response to the question, particularly when they are allowed to provide a range. Moreover, the responses that are given have substantial predictive power for actual retirement savings, even when compared to the savings in the initial wave. Despite this predictive power, there is evidence that responses do not satisfy the more stringent requirements of the rational expectations hypothesis.
|
2024-04-08T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2756
|
Discover Sapa when the night falls
If you have visited Sapa, you must agree with me that the scenery in this mountainous town is so brilliant during daytime. However, it is a pity that many travelers after a trekking day in Sapa often ignore a sparkling beauty of the city when the night falls.
Sapa ancient Stone Church at night
Walking along gently sloping roads in the town, in the dim light from street lamps and foggy atmosphere – “specialty of Sapa” and you will discover another beauty of the town in cloud. Visit Sapa with Vietnam and Indochina holidays
Walking in the dim light from street lamps
You will be attracted by many barbecue restaurants because of the irresistible scented smells so if you feel hungry or just want to enjoy a little taste of mountain cuisine, there is no reason to not visit one of them. While you are eating, you might see some ethnic women are patiently selling their brocade products and they only return their villages in the cold frosty night until they are all sold out. Tours in Vietnam
An ethnic woman is patiently selling her brocade products
Keep on walking a little further to the Cau May street, travellers will have a great chance to feel clearly the pristine beauty of northwestern mountain. You will only hear the wind roaring in your ears and feel the cold air of mist. Many in love couples walking side by side sometimes rub their hands together and then put on cheeks in order to feel the warmth
A different beauty of Sapa at night
To me, I like to enjoy a glass of hot red wine by the fireplace. If you are lucky to visit Sapa on Saturday, you definitely should not ignore traditional dances performed by H’mong and Thai Minority people which often take place during 8 PM to 9PM. Many travellers prefer walking around the town for night shopping, but if you are interested, remember that they are closed by 10 P.M.
Sapa love market on Saturday night
To anyone who has had a chance to visit Sapa, it is really hard to forget the special feeling when enjoying the town of Sapa when night falls. A touching beauty of Sapa at night can make travellers feel nostalgic when they have to comeback from the trips.
|
2024-07-20T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8235
|
A woman with rheumatoid arthritis whose condition did not improve during pregnancy.
A 25-year-old woman with a 3-year history of rheumatoid arthritis presented 6 months before her first planned pregnancy. At the time of presentation, she was being successfully treated with infliximab and methotrexate. During her pregnancy, the patient discontinued infliximab and methotrexate and her arthritis relapsed. She was treated with low-dose prednisone, sulfasalazine, nimesulide, and intra-articular corticosteroid injections. Oligohydramnios developed at gestational week 18. Laboratory testing, ultrasonography of the fetus and of the patient's affected joints. Active arthritis during pregnancy and oligohydramnios suspected to be caused by nimesulide. Low-dose oral prednisone, sulfasalazine, repeated intra-articular corticosteroid injections. Infliximab and methotrexate were restarted immediately after delivery.
|
2023-08-11T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1013
|
Are Your Consumers Smuzlin' Yet?
To reduce the negative effects on the environment that comes from extinguishing cigarettes, the Smuzle instantly eliminates the common extinguishing smoke. The result is improved air quality, a reduced amount of tobacco smoke odour, and less damage to furnishings. To limit the discomfort for non-smokers from the odour that is caused from extinguishing cigarettes, including smouldering ashtrays, the Smuzle provides smokers with an easy and convenient way to completely eliminate this discomfort for non-smokers. The result is Smuzlers are more considerate of non-smokers.
Available as a retail item with the logo Are You Smuzlin? or with corporate colours and logos, the Smuzle is a constant reminder of your products or services and will be for years to come. Rolled inserts are used to convey your marketing or promotional message to end-users.
|
2023-09-19T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1656
|
Q:
VirtualBox lento con Linux
Tengo instalado Linux en VirtualBox en la compu con Windows 10. Cuestión que cuando uso VirtualBox va a paso de tortuga. No sé si es por qué estoy usando VirtualBox o lo tengo mal configurado
A:
Lo más probable es que se deba a los recursos que destinas a esa máquina virtual (Windows 10 en tu caso). Cuando la máquina esta arrancada, se comparten los recursos de tu PC, con lo que un buen balanceo de estos es muy importante.
De todos modos, si tu máquina no cuenta con los recursos necesarios quizás siempre te vaya algo mas lento cuando esté arrancada la máquina virtual.
Puedes darnos más detalle para saber mejor por donde puede ir el problema? RAM, HDD destinado,...?
|
2024-01-10T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2587
|
Myomectomy for intramural fibroids during caesarean section: A therapeutic dilemma.
The aim of the present study was to assess the safety of myomectomy for intramural fibroids during caesarean section. A retrospective study of 63 women who underwent myomectomy during caesarean section and 63 women who underwent caesarean delivery without myomectomy was conducted. The study group was divided into subgroups according to the volume of fibroids and total incision count. The volume of fibroids, the preoperative and postoperative haemoglobin values and the difference between them, incidence of haemorrhage and blood transfusion, duration of operation and postoperative fever of patients were investigated. Duration of operation was longer (p < .001) and haemoglobin loss was higher (p = .01) in the myomectomy group. There was no difference between one incision and two incisions subgroups in terms of mean haemoglobin change (p = .068). Haemoglobin loss was higher in volume >50 cm3 group than volume <50 cm3 and control groups. These differences were statistically significant (p = .02; p = .001, respectively). Although intramural fibroids can be safely removed during caesarean section, large fibroids and extra incisions for myomectomy are risk factors for haemorrhage.
|
2024-06-05T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6304
|
Q:
Join Two Table and count matching columns from table 2
I have two tables and want the combined table based on both.
The table as it is....
Combine table last column
show count
from Table 2 columns (Subject1, Subject2, Subject3, Subject4, Subject5, Subject6)
where table1.course = table2.course match
The following picture shows the result:
I am using MS SQL server 2008. I want to create a SQl Query and save it as Views so that I can use it in a vb.net windows application and show it through RDLC report......
A:
Give this query a try:
select t.Edate,
t.Course,
t.Subject,
sum(case when t.Subject = t2.Subject1 or t.Subject = t2.Subject2 or t.Subject = t2.Subject3 or t.Subject = t2.Subject4 or t.Subject = t2.Subject5 or t.Subject = t2.Subject6 then 1 else 0 end) [Count]
from Table1 t
join Table2 t2 on t.Course = t2.Course
group by t.Edate, t.Course, t.Subject
order by t.Edate, t.Course
SQLFiddle
|
2024-04-30T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9085
|
MULTIVERSE FUGITIVE
By Peter M **agycon**
COPYRIGHT © 2015
All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Orbiter Commander
LOG , ORBITER probably about May or June year unknown, Good breakfast, bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, tomato, new sauce, Waybread toast and coffee. CLEO gets all the ingrediants from a machine. FIDO cooks on another and a third machine gobbles up used plates, cups and cutlery.CLEO says I am an alien Prince but I think I am a kidnapped human who has been put up here to keep me out of the way _!_ Main report: the I have put on weight but the fight goes on! The invaders must be defeated! I have send gunships, rockets, tanks, armoured robots and super nukes to all corners of the globe. I cannot join the fight directly because Iwe have no transfer vessel but I can send war materials.The Orbitor is mnch cleaner after FIDO activated a squadron of cleaning bots. They scurried around like mice. The onboard computer has finally come on line and reports that Orbiter has been here for 12,500 earth years! Why so lomg? Why is it here?Why am I here? How did I get here? I have no answers! Why do I have peculiar ears and who sewed them on?Lots of questions nobody to answer except _computer_ CLEO who is obsessed with chess! At the moment sheCL. The computer is busy playing (by remote) in a big tournament in Moldavia,. World Semi Finals! FIDO and me will be train spotting near the corridor which has about 500 metres of the East Coast Main Line running down it. Amazing engineering feat to bring _a part of_ the ECML up here without the _peple_ even knowing it! Another example of alien super high tech. _Beating them will be hard but I am here as a secret agent using their own weapons of them,the bastards!_ have copped nine LNER namers this morning. _I_ am starting to think of FIDO as a friend who alsc wants to get all the namers and "cop the lot.' I found a pack of playing cards under the console..."
It was now quiet on the Orbitor. Jake sat on his collapsible chair at the far end of the East Coast Main Line. FIDO stood next to him. Then an elf suddenly appeared! An elf! Walking straight down the railway.The elf glowed, even through the bright fluorescent lights. He stopped briefly to examine his surroundings. Smoke blackened tunnel walls smelling of coal dust, smoke and steam. Computer CLEO had explained that she had teleported the track up to the Orbitor. Trains were now diverted into the Orbitor but crews and passengers had no idea this happened! Getting an operating section of the ECML onto a satellite was an engineering feat of the first magnitude! Astonishing, even for a modest superstar like CLEO herself."
The elf continued walking towards the two train spotters. Jake was dressed in a blue doublet with ski pants and ornately carved boots. His mop of blondfair hair outlined a freckled face, a pronounced Jakeed nose and a pair of large elvish ears. Ears that were pointed at the top and bottom,definitely not normal ears.. FIDO was standing next to Jake, a golden, metallic figure looking like a bit player from Star Wars. The two train spotters stared at the elf as he came closer. The elf was dressed in a green doublet with long boots and bright red trousers.His huge ears framed a cheerful face with ruddy cheeks.
Where had this elf come from?
Obviously not from war torn Earth...unless he was one of the invaders!
The mysterious invaders! Jake had never actually seen the invaders who were hidden inside giant walkers and massive tanks. They might be insects! They might be colored green, blue, pink or purple. Or t The invaders might well be elves! Invading elves! Invaders who had knocked Jake out, stitched on elvish ears and then putleft him up here in the Orbitor while they took over histhe planet!
But they had forgotten one thing!
The Orbitor was armed!
Forgotten for thousands of years but still armed to the teeth!
Jake could and did fight from Space!
The elf drew near. FIDO appeared to immediately recognize himthe elf: The golden robot spoke: in his broken metallic voice: "Elf Lord Alaric! Welcome aboard! I will prepare tea immediately,"
He rolled away to his private cubby.
Jake sat on his spotting stool thinking. An elf had walked in! Quite possibly an invader! FIDO had recognized the elf .
Did this mean that FIDO was also an invader?
An invader with a deep cover? Jake's allowance of TV (nightly from 6.30 pm to 9.30 pm) had taught him all about spies with deep cover and people like Jame Bond who could shoot you while pussying up to a good looking girl – who was probably also a spy!
Even computer CLEO might be an alien spy, using chess as a deep cover!His friend and spotting partner?
But....the more immediate problem – why wHad this elf arrived on a transport ship? If so, the ship could now be commandeered and used to get down to Earth! But who would supply Earth's Defenders with weapons and consumables if _Jake_ went down to fight? Earth's Forces would have no supply of replacement ammo! No reinforcements!
No Commander to rely on in these desperate days of planetary conflict.
Was this elf actually here?
T to neutraliseneutralize _Jake_? To take out the top gun?
But there was no time to consideration this vital matter. The Orbitor
wwasas nearing the moment in its erratic orbit when Jake could and must act to save Earth!. So Jake simply ignored the newcomer.
He stood u[p, gathered his spotting manuals and walked up the track.
His feet crunched on gravel.
The signals rested. No trains.
He turned onto the main deck with its polished steel floor.
Jake He moved to the console and sat down.
The elf followed him, climbing over the railway to stand next to him.
The elf executed a sweeping bow!
"Elf Prince Jake! Your Imperial Grace! Razor of the Ever Expanding Perimeter!Outer Galaxy! Scion of the Secret Cabal! Stealthy Misanthrope! Command your servant,Alaric of Your Murderous Throng! Why are you here and what can I do?
Jake turned to the elf with an icy stare.
"I am not Prince Jake and you can stop your foolish pretence. We both know who I am! T the Space Commander, the Planetary Defender! Jake snapped. "Numero Uno! "I am not Prince Jake! As you well know I am not an elf! I am not a member of your murderous throng of invaders! I am Copen Jake Hagen, Commander of the Orbiting Defender,cargedam a human being charged to defend my planet against Invaders! You may have kidnapped me and sewn on huge flapping ears! But you cannot change my inner self! I am human!"
He indicated a chair.
"Sit and learn how one human is I am repelling yourt Murderous Throng!"
Alaric sat.
Jake began operating the toggle. The main screen began to flash. A map of planet earth showed red jags of lightening flashing at various parts of the globe, A list scrolled down. Main war areas: Russia,, North America,Scotland, Australia, Antarctica. Position critical Russia, Scotland.
A list of "Available Ordinance " scrolled down screen . Blasters, Ground Annihalators, Armourecd Infantry, Super Cannon (heavy) , Super Cannon (light) Orbiing H Bombers. Each notation was followed by a number indicatingshowing inventory.
"Moscow!" snapped Jake. "Status?"
A red hued picture appeared . It was tiitled "Cossacks Smashed!!"
The screen cleared and showed an open square surrounded by buildings which looked vaguely Asiatic. A title: Red Square, Moscow.A small group of mounted mounted Cossacks soldiers dressed in red pants and blue tops made a hopeless charge against a massive column of strange looking tanks. The tanks fired some kind of energy beam, mowing down riders and horses indiscriminately. Soon the floor of Red Sqare was covered with dead Cossacks.
Jake ground his teeth and bristled angrily.
"Send one squadron of H bombers to Moscow...warn defence to take maximum cover....bomb the bastardsinvaders to hell!"
The Orbitor rocked as a squadron of bombers peeled off. They dived towards the planet. Jake glanced at the receding shapes through a pothole and then turned his attention back to the screen.
Jake: "Scotland!"
A view of what was presumably a Scottish moor now came into view. A lonely bagpiper played "Down In The Glen." The surrounding hills appeared to be on fire. A weird landing craft was advancing towards a line of kilted figures waving swords. The defenders were being chopped down like nine pins from a murderous blast of raw energy.
Jake hit the desk in fury!
.He spat:Jake: "Eight Heavy Blasters to Scotland! Eliminate invading landing craft! Then sSeek out and destroy all landing craft!"
The floor bucked as thre screen showed as succession of spacecraft left were were shown leaving the
Orbitor and divingheading towards the planet below.
A voice intoned: "Ten seconds to black outremain.Critical Problem: east coast USA!
Third tidal wave! Fleet caused by squadron of alien carriers using neutron bombs! American defence fleet decimated! President appeals for your help!"
Jake (furiously): "Dispatch Heavy Rescue units six and eight , New York! Arm plus Kamikaze
Attack Squadron Nine with supernukes! Dispatch East Coast USA and eEliminate alien bomb carriers!""
There was a bright flash on screen as more ships peeled off the orbiting craft and dived towards the distant planet. The whole interior of the Oorbitor sJake as the ships left..
The screen suddenly faded to black.. Jake slumped forward onto the console. "So little time! So much to do! So many dead! My poor planet!"
The elf started. "Your poor planet,Sire? Have we invaded?""
Jake stood up and glared at him:
"Yes! My planet Have you?Are you one of the.... iInvader!s?"
His stood up and hisw hand now rested on the pommel of his sword.
"I am not an invader!Certainly not!" said the elf. "I am Alaric your faithdful leige lord!"
He continuedis hand was now on his own sword pommel.: "Your Majesty! I am stunned by those vids of Scotland. They are total fakes! I was actually in Scotland less than 24 hours ago! I arrived on the Multiverse Express and got off at the first point marked on the Ozro work sheet. A remote Request Stop on a Scottish Moor!. with no Rentry Port.. I found a bleak moor, a tunnel under a rock, a basic dwelling stocked with food and, drink, facilities, And it was unoccupied! nNo sign of any warlike activities, no sigh of your Royal Party! So, I put on my full Bigwig disguise and travelled down the East Coast Main LineAnd n. oNo sign of any war! I travelled on through Engand, reached London, got back onto the Multiverse Express and , travelled to the second dwelling point on the Ozro worksheet., Chirnside Park in Australia. It was uUnoccupied!, still no sign of your party! I rested there overnight. Then I decided to come up on the transfer vessel and see if there was any sign of you up here on the Orbitor. and found the flip ship. I decided to go up to this Orbitor and check. And here I am!"
Jake was gazing narrowly at the elf when the robot came forward with a tray piled with scones and a silver teapot.
"Tea or coffee, Lord Alaric?'
The robot spoke in a grating voice as if his vocal chords needed oiling.
"Tea!" said the elf.
As the robot served there was an explosive pop. The figure of a girl appeared, standing next to Jake.
Her half naked body was covered in tatoos.
"Elf Lord Alaric! How gracious of you to visit this happy household! I am the new USSR Remote Chess Champion, soon to be Remote World Chess Champion! I am the Royal Carer, Computer hologram CLEO!'
"Royal Carer?"
The elf was startled.
His teacup rattled.
Alaric: "Is his majesty ill?"
CLEO: "Lord Alaric, we should discuss his case in private. Please move to Mmy stateroom? over there..." She
She indicated a door.
Alaric walked over and entered a sumptuous stateroom.
The hologramphic girl was now lying on a divan.
Alaric: "Where is your hardware?"
CLEO: "I am connected to the Orbitor onboard computer via the desk.The onboard computer is now working again after a long period of neglect!"
The hologram pointed to a desk at the far end of the room."
Alaric: "What is His Majesties illness?"
CLEO: "He is suffering from split personality. He believes he is an earthman who has been kidnapped by aliens and given Elvish ears! As part of his treatment I have constructed a 4 D vid of earth under attack by aliens! He is the Earth Defender! By the way, I won the silver turnip as the Most Talented Remote Chess Newcomer of the Year! Next step is the world championship! Do you like this hologram?"
The elf stared at the tattooed figure.
Alaric: "I sat with the Prince and saw a vid! Ssections of the planet under violent attack! Places I have recently visited, perfectly peaceful places! Now I find the Prince thinks the planet is being invaded by aliens! Elvish aliens! He apparently launched several ships from this portal....what is going on?"
CLEO: "I compiled a clever program to assist his treatment! A I have programmed a video planetary war with full sensories. When the fake
war ships take off with supplies this Orbitorship actually shudders! Full sensory realism! The Orbitor computer takes care of that! Between war activites the Prince train spots in the corridor. These activities keep him busy while I am busy playing chess. I have made sure he stays fit. He also has a daily swordfight with the robot, --and for ongoing mental capability he has learned to drive a steam train! He eats really, really well! I have a Cordon Black cooking program. And..." the hologram paused as if about to give tremendous news: " I hope you will stay for lunch? I will shortly become Earththis planets Chess Champion. Would you care for a quick game right now?
A holographic chess board appeared with pieces in place.
CLEO: "Please make your opening move! All practice is beneficial! "
Alaric (ignoring the chess board) "Why is the entry deck covered in gravel and a pair of railway lines?"
CLEO "To assist with trainspotting. To add realism!FIDO is also keen on spotting. My railway display is an ultra hologram of marvellous ingenuity! I have a compete file of all steam namers as per 1952! My creation is
more than just brtilliant! It is titanilly stupendously !!"marvellous!"
Alaric: "The Prince must get back to Multiverse Central for urgent treatment right now! There is no tiome to waste."
CLEO: "But I must win the World Champs first! Then I can accelerate histhe program, increase the
flow of namers, kill off the aliens, exhaust the inventory of weapons and
tell him he needs to go to Multiverse Central to cop\the rarest namers!"
I must compete in the chess finals. Surely that ismust be the main issue?"
Alaric: "The main issue? The main issue!!! A trip over most of Universe Zero to make a computer the world chess champion of a savage world! The
While the Prince is obviously off his rocker! There is no feasible reason
tTo delay!"
CLEO:"But...but..."
Alaric: "Silence!"
His face was now suddenly suffused to a mottled red.
He moved to the door and shouted a savage: "FIDO!"
The robot appeared.
Alaric: "Remove the computers drive from the console and give the unit to me. I will carry it. Pick up Prince Jake and carry him to the docking bay! We must return to Multiverse Central for urgent shock treatment!"
The robot immediately moved over to the console
The figure of CLEO was wringing her holograppic hands in anguish.
"But Lord Alaric! The finals will be held soon! Why...."
The hologram vanished as FIDO jerked the entire console from its footing. There was a sudden blinding flash and a massive boom. Smoke gushed out of the console which now lay in parts. The robot picked out a small module and gave it to the elf.
The robot followed the elf onto the main deck.
Jake was still at his console completing an addendum to his Captains log.."A strange elf is aboard...there has been an explosion and I suspect his to be a saboteur... intent on destroying the ships armaments and...'
All the lights failed and the console went dead. The area where the "railway" had been was now the metal floor of a tunnel. Rails, signals and even gravel had vanished..
With the power failingm Jake had jumped up and rushed to the door housing CLEO,FIDO and the elf. He appeared and
He waved his sword at the elf. "Where is the ECML What have you done!" he yelled. "Damned alien spy! Stealing the main line!"
He advanced on the elf.
"I"ll fix you, invader!"
"Disarm the Prince, FIDO," said the elf calmly.
The robot moved in a blur of motion.
Jake lost his sword immediately.
Itt vanished into the robots body.
FIDOThe robot picked him up bodily.
"Hey! Put me down!" shouted Jake furiously. "I am Earth's Defender! " He glared at Alaric from his upside down position. "OK.we'll settle this! Single combat! Winner gets the planet, Invaders all committ harry carry! Lloser getsgets...." He was trying to think what the loser would get as the elf led the partym down the corridor.
Spluttering threats, Jake was carried bodily by FIDO. They proceeded
down a long,metal passage. Jake was shouting and cursing, kicking his legs fruitlessly. The robot followed the elf who climbed a short set of steps at the end of the corridor. Followed by FIDO carrying the struggling Jake by his belt, the They climbed up a short staircase elf walked into a fat circular shaped craft parked in a docking bay.
Jake was dumped into a seat. A strap shot up around him automatically. He was now effectively trussed. FIDO sat next to him.
The elf sat at a control panel and said: "Fiften ten alpha nine twenty."
The entry door closed. A section of the roof above the ship peeled open.
They lifted silently into space.
Earth floated below them, a large blue disc etched against the starry waste.
..."
........... Chapter 2
First Contact
Col Phillip Viljoen stood watching the men of the ANZUS UFO Division as they painstakingly used magnifying glasses to study the surface of the first hole of the Chirnside Park golf course. The fairway slopes down past the backyards of several houses on Kingswood Drive. Behind it there was a small lake fringed with trees marked with the scars of countless misshit golf balls.
The occupant of No 54, Kingswood Drive was an old lady with grey hair, She had a suprisngly upright carriage and a defiant expression. She was standing next to the colonel. They were facing the fairway. The Colonel had just spoken on his mobile phone, apparently expressing some concern for her sanity. He had used the term: total nutcase. She had overheard and now bristled: ""I still have all my marbles, Colonel," she said. "That big hole may have somehow vanished but it was right there!" She pointed to an area directly opposite. "Right there! It was just where those men are searching. The flying thing went straight up. No sound at all! Just straight up and then the hole vanished!"
She turned to face the house where a small dog was pawing at the base of an oak tree growing inside the garden.
"Bertie! Leave that tree alone!"
The dog continued to attack the tree, contantly whining.
The colonel was brooding on what appeared to be a total waste of military resource. This old lady had phoned to report a strange object r taking off from the golf course at the bottom of her garden. She had reported a large depression which it came from. With his remit to "investigate all sightings" the colonel had brought a full crew. But so far the trip was a wipe out. The golf course showed no sign of alien activity. In short,
another wasted trip. The Colonel was about to send the whole team back to base when Sergeant Button reported an echo indicating a structure directly below!
Sgt Button: "It appears to be about 100 metres by 80 metres at a depth of 50 metres, sir! Three areas, probably rooms, a large cicular area under the golf course and a tunnel going due east...I'll call the ground inspection team in and we'll do a full doppler. Do you want the heavy excavation squad called in,sir? "
It was the Eufeka koment for the UFO Division,
"Yes!" said the colonel joyouslyhappily. "A real contact at last! Get heavy ex them in, slap a D notice on this house and the golf course! Get a full armed squad tround the perimeter, keep the neighbours out! And inform R & D...tell them to get all their stuff down here immediately. And inform Publicity R,,,,"
The sergeant whistled and waved the men on the course in.
The dog continued to paw frantically at the oak tree base.
"That dog seems to have scented something in the tree," said Sgt Button.
"May be the aliens have a tunnel up to ground level?"
"He hides old bones under there," said the home owner. "He's probably trying to dig one up... "
Col Viljoen's cellphone suddenly played a few bars of Walzing Matilda and he answered it.
"Viljoen!"
"Control here! Report on the Chirnside Park alert! You have ordered a Category Zero! Is it thea Jackpot? Finally? What's happening!"
"Sir, brilliant news....contact radar have found...."
At that moment the colonels phone cut off and a giant hole began to appear on the fairway directly opposite. The grass surface appeared to slowly fade as a massive aperture began to appeare. It seemed to expand from the centre, rippling out in ever increasing lateral segments until it stretched across the entire fairway.
Apart from thea keening wind there was no sound.
Col Barry , the soldiers and the home owner stood gaping at this astonishing vision. The dog took one look, yelped
hysterically and then disappeared in the general direction of Lilydale.
A large silver disc hadnow appeared overhead, descending vertically. There was no sound. The disc appeared to be about 50 metres radiusacross.. It entered the hole smoothly, almost like a descending elevator. Within a few seconds both disc and hole had vanished. The cropped green surface of the golf course first appeared at what had been the centre of the hole. The centre segment then seemed to expand outwards.
Inside the crater, the planetary landing craft settled onto four landing pods. A and a door opened on one side. Jake was carried out by FIDO. Alaric followed carrying CLEO. The computer had now activated some kind of bult in voice circuit and was complaining continuously and bitterly. They entered a short tunnel which lead into a rough cave. It had been cut from base rock. As the party entered lights flashed on. Jake could now see a small camp bed, two chairs and a TV set.The wall facing HJake showed a large display Ntitled Habitation no 2. It indicated one large bedrroom/sitting room, a toilet and a cooking area .
In addition the dispay showed a tunnel marked "Surface Exit.".
FIDO released Jake, who sat on the bed studying his surroundings. He was still holding the pack of cards which he had found in the Orbitor. Alaric had put CLEO's hardware onto a shelf and ordered the computer to stop blathering. He ordered FIDO to make coffee.
Alaric then sat studying a hand held device.
"May I take a leak!" said Jake casually.
He indicated the wall display. "Down the corridor, first left,OK?"
"Certainly your Highness! I am checking to find the nearest Multiverse Express station and we wll leave as soon as we have had refreshments."
Alaric was preoccupied as Jake left the room and walked down the corridor. It seemed to be carved from solid rock, like the rooms of the "habitation pod." His footsteps rang inside the narrow corridor as he reached a junction. Instead of turning left to the toilet area, Jake turned right and opened a door with a horizontal bar. He started climbing a series of wet, stone steps. The staircase was covered with greasy mud... Despite hours of sword fighting, Jake was not in very good shape. Months in the Orbitor had affected hizs fitness, The stairs seemed to be endless. When he reached the top stair he was puffing heavily. He found himself inside a kind of earthern cavern,surrounded by the root system of an oak tree. It was dripping wet,cold and muddy.
He was now facing a second door. A red bar annnounced some kind of warning , this time in Elvish. Jake ignored the message and lifted the bar. Immediately an alarm started blaring far below. Jake pushed the door open and faced a line of four soldiers who were busy with some kind of mine sweeping equipment.
The four soldiers froze, staring at Jake in astonishment.
Jake had intended to speak, announcing his role as Earth Defender and offering to join Earth against the invading aliens. In the actual event he could not think of anything to say. He stood there with his mouth open and his ears sticking out . He waved his pack of cards and one card slipped from his hand,fluttering to the ground.
The officer had now drawn a pistol and was moving sideways to get a clear shot. Jake was desperately trying to decide what to say in order to prove his humanity. His massive elf ears must be giving the soldiers a false signal...but what convincing message could he give? That he had been kidnapped operated on and given elf ears...
He finallly decided to speak and said:
"I am the Orbitor Commander and..."
The soldiers stood irresolute whie the officer continued to sidle sideways inch by inch. This tableaux seemed to be frozen when FIDO suddenly arrived, pounding up the steps from the underground building. The robot pushed Jake aside and aimed some kind of pistol at the four soldiers. A cone of golden energy seem to erupt ftom the device It surrounded the soldiers in a kind of glittering golden framework. The four men appeared to go rigid and then waver like images in a heaving sea. The area surroundiing them appeared to become one dimensional. It now looked like a painting which someone had left in the garden. The soldiers were now stretched insideover the surface like mirror images, strange one dimensional figures inside a golden frame.
Now the robot ceased firing, grabbed Jake, slammed the door closed and ran down the staircase at high speed carrying Jake under one arm. His arm was incredibly powerful so that Jake had no chance to escape. The robot slammed the bottom door shut and Jake was ultimately dumped on a bed in the room he had just left.
Above the pod Col McInnes was phoning National Security. He had examined the stricken troopers. The three men were frozen inside what appeared to be a massive pink energy slab, standing on the edge of the lawn. Troopers were attacked the pod with hammers and wooden staves. They made not impression on the enigmatic object. Other troopers were hammering on the oak tree in the area where the alien had appeared. Col McInnes spoke into his phone "Special situation Red Zero Zero! Continuous air cover, mortars, secure the entire area of Chirnside Park...
Send heavy lifting equipment....Alien has droppped some kind of card. May be a disease carrier. It is now inside a plastic Zola (safety tube. for R D.) The alien said he was the Orbitor Commander and then probably ordered the robot to open fire!"
In the pod "Pardon, me, Highness. I am activating the repeller screens to ensure our safety and keep the pod inviolate." AlaricHe was fiddling with some kind of disc. He spoke briefly to the robot. "FIDO! Use handcuffs to restrain Prince Jake. Store the destabilizer. Then, rReturn to your duties, Ccoffee for two." Jake was handcuffed to the bedhead with a small cube which seem to emit a beam of light. The robot then put the gun into his right leg cavity and returned to the kitchen. Jake lay back on the bed fuming. He should have had a plan! He should have a prepared speech. "We are now secure!"
Alaric announced . "I have activated theAa neutron barrier. Your Highness! If you will give me your solemn promise not to try and escape from this pod I will release you. "
Jake agreed since there was now no chance of getting out. He must wait for a new opportunity and make sure he didn't mess it up again. Alaric pointed another cube and the handcuffs appeared to fly into the cube. "I assume you wanted to parlay with the barbarians! But there is no point in offering them them membership of the ELF (Elvish Liberated Foundation.) . They are savages and this place is too distant to join the 42 Subject Planets! These local savages are not fortunate enough to be fostered by the Elvish Master Race! us!"
He suddenly jerked upright and shouted:
"The fist of steel! The arm of Might!
Obey the Elves or die tonight!"
His massive ears had gone a bright red and his whole body sJake.
In the next second he recovered and sat on the bed next to Jake..
FIDO arrived with a tray of coffee cups.
"Attention!" a thin piping voice came from a metal block which Alaric had placed on a shelf. "Computer CLEO reportiug. There is an escape tunnel going north for approximately 50 km and terminating at Yea Railway station. The primary escape vehicle is in stasis at Yea."
"But where are the Ozro workers?" said Alaric. "Why have they excavated two habitation pods? And why was the transit ship not
stored at the satellite?
His face and neck again suffused to a bright red and he stamped his foot.
Damned Ozro rubbish!"
He suddenly erupted again: "Kill for the Love of Killing!"
Jake sat on the bed wondering if he had any hope of escape from what appeared to be a totally mad elf..
He drank his coffee nervously as Alaric paced up and down the small room, seemingly bursting with energy, glowing like a neon sign.
"We will take the tunnel north to the escaper vehicle," he said suddenly.
CLEO suddenly spoke again. "I have retrieved a vehicle from Yea," said the computer, "It is awaiting your use in the Dispatch Room. However, I caution against use of the vehicle at speed. I suggest 7kph in order to reduce the evidence of our passage and keep the Earthmen from learning that we have left!
Alaric smashed his cup onto the stone cloor of the babitation pod.
His face and his massive ears were again mottled pink.
"7 kph? Ridiculously slow!" he shouted angrily. "We must go at full speed!" Again he immediately calmed down and said: "In any case how will the savages know we have left?"
"Savages?" said the computer in her reedy voice. "They are definitely not savages! The soldiers were using ground penetrating radar before FIDO put them into a stasis box on your orders! The soldiers are in stasis and the humans are absolutely certain we are here! And if you look at the TV showing the air space above you will see gyro machines (helicopters) flying over this area and large diameter mortars being sited on the golf course. The best course is to proceed stealthily at 7kph..."
Alaric looked at Jake. "A decision is required Your Majesty? Should we proceed at a ridiculously slow speed? Or should we press on at top speed like the conquers we are?"
His neck and face again went mottled pink and he shouted:
"Elves are Conquerers! Stand aside Primitives!"
Jake reviewed his options. On the space station he had no chance to escape. There was no chance down here with the staircase blocked and the doors now locked. On the other hand, while he was travelling he might get a new opportunity to escape. And if they were tracked by choppers the army would be waiting at the end of the tunnel and he could explain his problem and ask for an operation to get rid of his ears. Fifty kilometers at 7kph would take 7 hours. Much too long!"
Jake. "I say full speed ahead!"
"His Majesty has decided!" said Alaric.
He looked briefly at the diagram and then grabbed hold of CLEO's box
before leading the way He led them through a door where an open rail car sat on a monorail line.
They climbed onto a monorail car and sped off down a long tunnel
Directly above in a circling helicopter the observer was studying his screen. He saw a bright blob moving rapidly down a dim line which marked the alien tunnel. He reported to Colonel McInnes.
"Smething moving fast in the tunnel, Colonel!"
"Stay on it!"
"Now under Healesville, speed approximately 150 kph!"
"Roger,stay on it,report every 30 seconds."
The dot representing the alien train continued to move rapidly
north east. under Dividing range, parallel to main road.."
"Roger that!'
The Colonel was studying a large scale map. He followed the road with one finger. He reached a decision. "Operator! Contact Mobile 9! They are to head to Yea station fast as possible! Use ground radar to intercept aliens travelling in tunnel. Authorize lethal force!"
The alien vehicle slowed and finally stopped outside a rwailway coach which seemed to be floating in a kind of peculiar mist. There were lights inside the carriage and Jake could see three figures through what appeared to be a blue fog.
Alaric jumped up onto a step leading to the carriage door. He was again red faced and shakingappeared to be inchoate with rage. He now vibrated, shaking with absolute fury. "Ozro dwarves!" he spat. "The worst kind of labour! AThe working party who failed to report for a new assignment! They are AWOL! P and the penalty is...death!"
He was now brandishing a pistol in one hand and the CLEO's computer module in the other.
He rushed to the carriage door and pulled it open .\
He stepped inside, brandishing the pistol and yelling furiously: "AWOL! Ozro dwarves die now!"
Two of the dwarves were sitting smoking ornate pipes.
Moving as one, they both leapt up and flung the pipes at Alaric. Both pipes hit dead centre of his mottled forehead. The elf dropped like a stone and lay spread out comatose..
The third dwarf was still sitting. He clapped loudly.
"Little Sam says damn good shooting, Stumpy and Grumpy," he chortled. "What shall we do with this representative of the Master Race?" Then hHee suddenly glimpsed the golden figure of FIDO. The robot had fastened Jake to his seat and was now standing in the carriage doorway.
"Oops!" said Little Sam, "Watch out for the robo!"
The two other dwarves had now produced knives. The knives were thrown simultaneously and forefully down the carriage. Each knife clanged as it impacted on the robots golden metallic body. But apart from the ringing sound there was no obvious effect. Inredibly, the The robot had caught the knives! He and now showed them to the dwarves.
He spoke: "Renegades! Justice will now be served with your own knivesfe!"
The dwarves were nowall babbling: "Spare us, spare us!"
CLEO piped up from her position in the recumbent elf's hand. "FIDO! Remember the First Law! Thou shalt not kill a human being!"
FIDO: "But they are not human beings! They are Ozro dwarves of no consequence! Fornicators! Scum! Half grown baggage! Eliminate!"
The robot was now shouting like a metal version of Alaric.
"But they may be needed," said CLEO.
"Yes!" shouted Little Sam, "Yes,yes! We may b3e needed! We willwill be needed. We know how to turn on the heating element to raise steam."
"And we know how to get out of this grey fog so you can go somewhere!' shouted Stumpmy.
"And we can clean and water the engine and help in many ways! Many, many ways! Spare us!" said Grumpy. "Spare us! Merciful golden supeer robbo! Spare these three humble dwarves!"
Suddenly Alaric sat up. .
He took in the situation at a glance.
"Damn good shooting, boys!" he said warmly. "Youpou must try out for the Royal Archery Squad. I will mention it to Prince Jake once he is himself again.....'
"There is nothing in the station." Colonel McInnes radio crackled as he received a message from the chopper. "The signal has stopped. Theyu appear to be under the station but nothing has shown on the surface. appeared." The colonel then decided that ground covercontact was vital. The aliens might appear from their tunnel at any time. They could not stay in the tunnel indefinitely. He ordered an armoiured car to move to Yea station and take up a watching position. The helicopeter was to wait until the ground car appeared and then return to Melbourne. After a few minutes the radio crackled: Armoured car now in sight! Returning to base."
**Jake** had now been released and was inside the carriage. One of the dwarves produced a tool and pthe ressed a button. There was a peculiar jerk and the carriage suddenly shifted into "normal" 3 D reality. There was a loud pop. The and the train was noappearedw standing at the up platform in in Yea station.
A secong dwarf used a nother alien tool was used to activate a nuclear the alien heater installed in the locomotive firebox..
The third dwarf had retrieved the two pipes and was now busy cleaning them out.
FIDO now unreeled a map and hung it from the ceiling. It showed an area of countryside with a barred railway line along the left hand side. The golden robot now pointed at one spot on the map.
It glowed with a red blinking light.
"This is the spot on the railway where we are now," said computer CLEO. Her thin, piping, prissy voice came from a metal box now on the luggage rack."This is our current position. But there is a problem."
"Inform Houston immediately," said Jake. "Houston, we have a problem! We have captured an earthboy, planted alien ears and made him forget who he is!"
Alaric: "Prince Jake! You are not an earth boy! You are elf Prince Jake who has been kidnapped by enemies of the Outer Empire and left to rot on this barbarian planet."
CLEO: "Barbarian planet? Ridiculous! Their chess players are incredible! Last night I only just managed to mate a Grand Master who left me on the verge of total collapse!
Alaric: "But you are a mere computer! Any organic being from Central Powers could beat you at any game!"
CLEO: "Oh yeah? Let's play now,bigshot! I will open with the same five move attack I used last night! It caused mass hysteria in Moscow!"
Alaric: "We haven't got time! FIDO! Carry on!"
FIDO pointed to an area of the map,circling one metallic finger. The golden robot seemed to glow in the light of the overhead lamps. Now Aan area of red light flickered along one side of a barred map line marked Railway.
CLEO: "The red light marks a Positively Enchanted Area or PEA. It is controlled by an ex railway steam engine driver turned trainee wizard . The use of high tech equipment is causing inexplicable events which can be term magical. The trainee wizard. He visited this coach and traded advanced escape supplies for tobacco for the high tech equipment!"
"What!" Alaric shouted, "Central Power escape equipment traded from this carriage? This is an Imperial vehicle! Equipment is not to be traded! What halfwit wo coould offer our equipment for sale to some passing human halfwit?"
CLEO: "Ask our dwarvishf h halfwits how they got 60 bales of baccy?"
"Well?" said Alaric, speaking to the blue Ozro dwarves.
"How did you get the baccy?"
His hand was again on the hilt of his sword.
Grumpy answered: "Oh Majestic Ruler! Oh Esteemed Superstar! We threeWe three halfwits swopped useless some junk in the luggage compartment for highly useful baccy. We followed the golden rule: Be nice to the resident races! And he was a very nice resident racefellow, very nice conical hat, stars on his robe, very good staff, very obliging fellow. He mMust have been some kind of tobaco rep. Fifty bales of Minty Ho Ho strong black for a few bits of old junk!""
"Old junk!" said Alaric bitterly. "Central Power High Tech Escape Equipment! Irreplaceable! " Then he brightened: "But unless the thief can read Elvish he won't know how to use the gear! He is a stupid Earthman. According to the Manual, they are unlettered barbarians!"
"The Multiverse Manual is more than 25,500 earth years out of date,' piped CLEO. "It was compiled after the long range mappingexploration phase of Universe Zero. Since trhat time, t of 5.700 B.C., local time.The Earthmen have been getting much, much, smarter! Theis interloper may have learned Elvish. Running E Mails backwards reveals the Central Power Translator. Using it, the thief could get instructions on the use of our escape equipment.According to my inventory of Cached Escape Materials he appears to have acquired two very powerful devices – a hypno source generator capable of instant trance induction and a large scale matter duplicator with the ability to make pseudo forms. He probably also has a Weather Control Rod and several small items with devious uses. He is almost certainly using them and is responsible for the suspect area! The use of such high tech will make him appear to have magical powers!""
There was a prolonged silence .
Alaric studied the map. "This shows our location as Yea," he said. "How did we get to Yea from Chirnside?
"You used our pseudo tunnel which is about 50 k as the crow flies," said Little Sam. "We used a Zaser to go under the mountain between Dixons Creek and Kinglake, en route to Yea station. At full power it took 38 minutes. The Zaser has no charge left...we should be on report for wasting energy....but as we are now helping you bigwigs to escape we drilled a pseudo tunnel to help you. the Masters of Central Power ."
There was a long silence as this further news was digested.
Jake moved to the door and looked out.They were standing in a station next to an open entrance which opened onto a square. Behind the entrance he could see an open square with shops and houses behind.
He felt a blast of chilly air. .
It was full daylight.
He stood ready to step out.
"Stop!" said Alaric. "Your Elfness is not to leave the carriage as you might get confused. In any event, we cannot just parkstay here exposed to barbarian attack! I must use an Invalidity Inaudibility device to cloak our presence."
He produced an object which looked like a torch and pressed a switch. Immediately, the atmosphere became almost black.
All light and sound stopped.
What did not stop were Jake's thoughts. He was standing at an open door! A chance to escape and help Earth!c He immediately jumped straight at the wall of darkness! He landed on the platform which was bathed in bright sunlight. At the same moment an eight wheeled armoured car appeared at the entrance to the station. It and screeched to a stop facing the railway. Inside the car, the commander looked out from a viewing slot and yelled into his microphone.
"UFO Mobile One at Yea station! An alien has appeared out of nowhere! Definite sighting of an alien! He is running towards us! He is armed! Carrying a sword! Huge ears! Laser on! Warming!"
The three dwarves now appeared, running out of a strange shadow which covered the invisible train. They were shouting: "Freedom fer the Blue Lads! Damn the Outers! Nuke Elf Base now!"
Vehicle Commander: "Three blue dwarves have appeared....... all running towards us...They may be chasing the first alien...Laser ready in Laser ready in 10 seconds......"
Jake had now arrived at the car.
He was panting.
He tried to smile at the astonished face staring at him through a slit in the armored car. Jake had planned to say "I am Jake! I have been kidnapped by aliens!!" Instead, he decided that his first action must be to clear the air. warn his human friends. He shouted: "Watch out for aliens!There is an invisible train standing in the platform. It's aliens! They have a thing to make the train invisible!" They are in an invisible train!""
The three dwarves then arrived and shouted:
"Freedom! Damn the slavers!! Free the Blue Laddies now!
Vehicle Commander: "Four aliens now standing in front of the vehicle. An elf dressed in period costume with a sword. Huge ears! Says there are aliens on an invisible train! He hHas now been joined by three blue dwarves. They are talking gibberish! LI intend to stun the lot of them...laser in 5 seconds.."
The turret swung around and a long gun swung downwards to point at Jake..A red dot appeared on his chest.
Jake looked down at the glowing mark.
He shouted: "No! No! No! Don't shoot me! I am a friend!I am the Space Commander!""
He drew his sword and bashed it against the laser barrel.
He intended to simply reinforce his message.
Unfortunately,the sword did not understand that intention at all.
It instantly spurted a lateral column of rippling fire.
A vivid flash rapidly expanded to surround the vehicle with a strange, purple flame. The laser gun immediately melted. The barrel drooped.
Jake and the dwarves leapt backwards away from the fiery flaming car. A voice spoke inside the car.
"Mobile One! This is Control! Report immediately! This in Control!""
There was no reply.
The steam train suddenly reappeared, apparently materializing from thin air. .FIDO burst out from the carriage and ranadvanced towards the armored car. It , which was now sparkling with an intense incandescence. The whole interior of the station was now reflecteding athis vivid purple light.
Jake and the dwarves stood frozen with shock.
The robot scooped Jake under one arm. He took the sword and parked it somewhere inside his metal torso. Finally, he grabbed the three dwarves,sliding one finger under each dwarvish belt until he had them all hanging like fish. He dashed back to the locomotive, dumped Jake onto the steel steps leading up to the cab and then took the dwarves through the open door of the carriage.
Inside the locomotive, Alaric was sitting on a polished steel seat holding a small metal device. He was eating an apple. He suddenly spoke. "Well, your Royal Elfness, you are now definitely and certainly on the run! The human army will be after you for destroying one of their jeeps and killing the crew! The crew of that unfortunate vehicle knew, as I know, that you are an alien! But they didid not know that are a royal alien who now delusionally believes he is a kidnapped human being!"
Jake; "I am not an alien. I am a kidnapped human being!"
Alaric: "You are a royal elf who needs the treatment thar can only be provided at Central Power. However, the computer has located an alternative Gateway and we have this excellent train. She is headed by the steam engine Spitfire. And I understand that you are a passed driver?"
He threw the apple cog out through the open window. It rolled onto the platform in front of the army vehicle with its drooping gun and peculiar brilliant, sparkling purple aura. Jake climbed up to the cab and sat on the drivers seat, opposite Alaric. He tried to understand recent events. Surely the army would not be taken in by his grafted ears? But they had they believed hime was an alien! No! They were correct about the blue dwarves. They were aHis liens! But his own human army had been about to fire a laser at him!!
He had been bashing with the sword to make them understand his message! He had no idea the sword was some kind of Star Wars super weapon! It had stopped them firing all right! It had destroyed the car and probably killed the crew! And the sword would not be blamed! He would be blamed! He would be on the Most Wanted List for multiple murder, damaging military property damage and destroying a government laser!
He decided to tackle the elf head on about matters.
"Why are you invading this planet?" he asked.
"We are not invading this planet," said Alaric. It's too far away!. The computer made up a vid about a make war. It was to keep you occupied while she played chess!"
"Why did you cut the link and destroy the main line?"
"There was no main line! It was a hologram created by CLEO. Same reason. To keep your Higness busy while she achieved here potty Youra namers were all fakes! There is no regular steam on the main line! It's all electric and deseil! The computer simply wanted to keep you occupied which she achieved her ambition to become world chess champion."
Jake chewed on this.
It had the ring of truth.
CLEO was obsessed with chess. She talked constantly about her own brilliance. And...if he did hand himself over he would be shot for killing a load of soldiers!
WWho would believe his story about being kidnapping by aliens?
His only option now was to run!
To pretend he was now a friend of the aliens!
He made a decision.
"How did we get this train?" said Jake. "And what is this engine named? It is my first real namer. All my other namers were CLEO fakes!"
Alaric: "Her name is Spitfire. She is an ex-LNER B1. She is here as the direct result of a WW 2 bomb blast which occurred thousands of miles away in England, a country on the other side of this planet! The English were at war with Germany. The Germans bombed a railway shunting yard. It was generally believed that this engine and coach were destroyed by a direct hit. In fact they were forced into another dimension! They were instantly shifted here. After some years in stasisthis remote siding, the engine was rusty and in need of repairs. The dwarves FIDO used working drawings taken from the human Internet. They have He worked every night for months! The only change from normal firing is a special nuclear heating unit. It is inside the fire grate and it has already been activated. We are ready to rumble!"
A red glow from the fire grate began to illuminate the engine cab.
"How do you know all this?"asked Jake. "How do you know FIDO rebuilt a train which was hit by a bomb! How do you know it came via a wierd dimension?"
"The facts are all recorded on the etheric prototype which surrounds this train," said the elf. "If your own senses were not so badly damaged, Sire, you would be able to see such details yourself."
"Good answer!" said Jake. "Bulldust! What's FIDO doing now?"
Alaric: "He is currently sitting on a rear buffer, waiting. He has two dispensers of a special instant rusting Shivver liquid. He will spray the rails to erase our tracks and confuse pursuit. " said Alaric."FIDO has set the nuclear heating element to generate steamthe temperature believed to have been preferred by top link drivers.. It will obtain maximum performance from this engine. While you were destroying and armoured car, FIDO was also busy.To confuse pursuit, FIDO moved at ultra high speed to Lilydale station. 50 k in 3 minutes! He went by road since the human Army have the former prison surrounded and the tunnel was deemed risky. Due to his use of Ultra High Speed, tarmac melted at several points! A regrettable side issue! FIDO put two lifelike inflatable dummies on the last carriage of the 7.09 Flinders Street, Limited Expresso. He secured the door locks .He returned in 4 minutes, slower as it is mostly uphill! Are you ready?"
"Of course!" said Jake. "We may as well be off!"
Alaric pressed a button on the metal device in his hand. The black cloud reappeared around the train. Jake could now see only his immediate surroundings, dimly.
Alaric stuck up his thumb and then waved it forwards.
With a clear memory of his lessons, Jake released the brake and pushed forward the regulator. He felt the engine begin to move. It would undoubtedly be chuff! chuff! chuffing! but there was no sound inside the black aura produced by the I/I device. The train gradually began to gain speed. The track under the invisible train vanished momentarily as the train passed, making a strange mobile shadow. The only other physical result of their passage came from the rails behind. They suddenly acquired a silver sheen as the invisible train passed over, instantly removing decades of deeply etched rust. The sheen was instantly removed as FIDO sprayed liquid over each rail.
At the first a junction they turned right. Soon they were traveling over a new set of rusted rails. The track was, overgrown with numerous plants and even small trees which had forced a way up between the sleepers. FIDO had now emptied his pail of rust producer and the robot sat staring at the disused permanent way as it unrolled behind the train.. Spitfire balefully squirted steam, oil and hot water on the encroaching undergrowth in an attempt to restore railroad authority. Still cloaked with its I/I shield the train then ran silently across a short viaduct. A lake glistened below, rippling. Ducks swam around idly dozing, unaware of the invisible train which swept silently past on the old railway line above.
On board the engine, Alaric pointed to the Invisibility Inaudibility device in his hand. "Need to conserve power!" he mouthed. He pushed the button to the off position. Instantly the black cloak lifted. The cab was filled with a massive roar and the steady hissing of escaping steam. The sudden appearance of the train scared the ducks into a wild panic.
Jake was beginning to really enjoy himself. This was far better than driving simulators. In the sims he had been obliged to obey numerous signals and signs to either gain or lose points. He had needed to worry about points being set the right way, maintaining the correct speed according to signs placed alongside the video track, etc. His learning experiences had been closely supervised by ratty Computer Prison Warder CLEO. But here he had only a track of rusted rails along with the shrieking wind, the smell of hot oil and steam and the roaring grind of powerful driving wheels. There were no signals and best of all there was no bossy, fussy computer overseer to constantly tell him off!
He had a powerful real steam engine under his personal control!
In a burst of sudden exhilaration, he pushed the regulator fully forward. The engine responded with a rush of steam. The wheels began to slip as the engine attempted to charge forward into the black night. "Turn back the regulator,Sire!" yelled Alaric. "Proceed slowly, with caution! We may have to must stop very soon when we come to another junction. I only have a very approximate idea of where it is!"
"Where is it approximately?" shouted Jake.
"4 miles from Yea!"
Alaric's reply was almost erased by the roar of steam and the screech of wheels.
"There's a sign!" yelled Jake. "I chain to the junction!"
Alaric suddenly yelled: "Slow down and put the brake on!"
Jake reached up, twisted the regulator and applied the brake with all his strength. With a clamorous screech and a huge blast of steam the train shuddered to a halt. Ahead they could see a set of points and a junction with another line.
Alaric produced a cell phone and pressed a button:
"FIDO! Set the points."
However, the robot did not immediately appear.
Instead, a carriage window opened and Stumpy looked out angrily. "The driver is a maniac!" he shouted. "Drive more carefully!"
Alaric looked out of the side window and the dwarf saw him;
"Your Excellency! What a...a...lovely surprise!" the dwarf babbled. "Oh Esteemed One! We tried to stop that loony driver escaping custody! We rans after him but hes got away! Hes tried to get us arrested by the sojers! Us loyal workers! Then he killed the sojers with his magic sword! We could not do anyfink! We tries, how we tries! Because we are all super loyal, Esteemed One! Super, super, loyal Ozro workers! We wasere at Yea because we was just taking a short Breaks! Because we woz worn out!! We want to go back to work! We Ozro's love working!"
His head vanished and the window slammed up.
FIDO emerged from the rear coach buffers
The robot was equipped with another set of feet which appeared to be quite suited to the wet gravel surface. He walked forward to the junction and inspected the points. One finger squirted oil at a point below the junction rails. Finally Thethe lever fulcrum and the connecting rod were oiled before the robot appeared to be satisfied with the condition of the apparatus. He pulled back the lever, causing the junction rails to slide over and connect with the main line rails. He carefully inspected the rails, checking the seating.
Finally, the robot flashed a small green light mounted on his chest.
Then another light flickered in the cab wall.
A small speaker sounded.
CLEO: "Patching in the UFO Group.
A male voice spoke. "First contact site in Chirnside Park has been cordoned off. Entry to the underground site is blocked by some kind of force field. Relief convoy now approaching second site, railway station at Yea. First cContact Vehicle transmitted message re alien and blue skinned dwarves but has gone off linestopped transmitting......"
There was a short delay then..
"First contact vVehicle appears to have been hit by incendiaries.....laser barrel melted...all metal surfaces bare of paint A volunteer has entered the vehicle.. NCO and crew alive but incoherent.. we are removing the men to Army hospital.....Melbourne command is sending road/rail/water vehicle to travel main line to Tallarook..then branch line to Yea and Mansfield... out..."
"Well," said Jake. "We got away!"
"But they are coming down the line as soon as they get a vehicle," said Alaric. "The I/I device makes us invisible but we are still physically presenthere. We need to get moving and reach a Gateway so we can be gone for good! We must go up the line towards Tallarook. The map shows a Gateway there. FIDO, set the points and then reset them in the opposite direction when we have passed."
The robot carried out his instructions.
Steam hissed from the locomotives cylinders.
The firedoor was now red hot as the alien device pumped out large quantities of heat. Jake eased off the brake and the train began to move slowly forward. The engine clanked over the connecting rails. When the carriage had cleared the junction FIDO pulled the points back to their original setting. As the coach drew level, the robot shot out one metal arm and opened the carriage door. His body lifted upward in one huge, effortless motion and in a second he was back inside the carriage. The door closed and he returned to his chore of washing up the dishes. Jake wound up the regulator and the train began to move with increasing speed. Inside the carriage, the dwarves were again shouting bets as they proceeded with some kind of game.
The interior of the carriage was blue with baccy smoke.
On the footplate, Jake had his head stuck out of the engine side window. His face felt cold but the radiant heat from the boiler kept the rest of his body warm. They steamed along the overgrown railway line, disturbing legions of rabbits who had taken up residence trackside.
"Well, so much for the Enchanted Area," said Jake. "A load of rubbish."
Alaric:"We are now going straight into it!"
Jake: "Gibberish! It's just old fields and a few cows and stuff."
He muttered to himself: "Stupid alien gits!"
They passed a siding. An ancient cattle truck was sitting forlorn, rusting and rotting. It appeared to be patiently waiting for an engine to pull it somewhere. But the only locally available locomotive was fully occupied, grinding down the track, followed by one ancient Pullman coach. Jake could see only rusty rails extending forward, barely visible. The railway seemed , a forlorn, bisected by weeds, grasses and small trees. A herd of cattle broke into a sudden stampede, rushing away from the line as the train approached. The cattle ran for a distance and then stopped and turned, looking searchingly at the strange train on a railway that had been derelict for many years.
### Chapter 2
Ambush
Suddenly Alaric spoke. He was peering out of the fireman's window on the other side of the cab. "Can you see a junction ahead?" he shouted.
Jake peered out. A few hundred yards ahead he could see what looked like a rail junction. "Yes, I see a junction!" he shouted. "We must check the points are not set against us." He tried to pull back the regulator, but it seemed to be stuck. The engine continued to thunder along at a full speed30 mph.. Jake applied all his strength but the regulator would not budge. Alarmed, Alaric now came across the cab and added his strength. The regulator would not move.
Abruptly the engine entered the points and veered off along another branch line, rocking savagely and almost derailing. The coach followed, jerking across the points with screeching wheels and sparks flying. Inside, the dwarves card game was again plunged into disarray as cursing bodies were thrown in all directions. The train suddenly ran into thick fog.
They were now running full pelt into a tunnel of roiling mist.
"We must stop the train!" shouted Alaric. "There is something odd about this! Some kind of force generator is controlling the regulator. What can we do?"
Jake searched his mind. The regulator was stuck. If he wound up the brake and locked it on, the boiler might blow up! The only thing to do was to throw the fire and lose steam. But the fire was made by a nuclear tube in the grate.
Jake: "We must stop making steam. How can we turn off that tube thing?"
"I will call FIDO!" shouted Alaric.
Alaric produced a mobile phone and dialed a number.
He spoke urgently into the phone.
"CLEO! Instruct FIDO to get to the locomotive cab! Full emergency power!"
Instantly the front connecting door of the carriage opened, revealing the golden form of FIDO. The robot reached out one hand. The arm extended in an extraordinary way until it reached a rail on the front of the tender! FIDO then pulled himself directly into the engine cabin.
"Orders?" FIDO asked in his peculiar mechanical voice.
"Shut off the heating unit!" shouted Jake
Immediately the robot used one metal hand to open the fire door. He put his other hand into the white hot firebox and appeared to turn some kind of knob on the heating unit. Immediately, the incandescent glow began to fade. The robot removed his arm and closed the firebox door. He moved back into the gangway between the tender and locomotive and stood immobile.
Steam pressure began to drop rapidly. Jake reached for the whistle and for once gained an approving nod from Alaric. Steam whooshed out with an ear-piercing scream. The engine immediately began to lose forward momentum. It ran on down the sideline for a short distance before coming to a halt. A small residue of steam hissed out. Around them the strange fog had lost none of its intensity. Jake reached up and tried the regulator.
Remarkably, it now moved easily into the off position. He applied the brake.
Ahead they heard a strange noise. It sounded like enormous feet stamping towards them. Alaric sniffed, elvish nose twitching. "I smell troll!" he said A troll suddenly appeared in front of them. Although smaller than the trolls they had met previously it was still monstrous. It towered over the steam engine.
Jake felt a surge of terror. The troll would overturn the engine and pick out edible bits for a tasty snack! Edible bits like himself! He could smell the rank odor of the dreadful creature. It was swinging a large club, presumably used to brain its victims. Shivver might be the answer but FIDO had taken the sword and put it inside the carriage! The troll stepped back and peered at the locomotive nameplate using a hand torch. He stepped around and flashed the torch onto the number painted on the boiler. He muttered something to himself.
"We've had it!" whispered Jake.
Alaric: "Is there anything we can do? What do you suggest?"
Jake thought furiously. Could FIDO do anything? The robot was still standing in the metal gangway linking the tender to the locomotive. He seemed to be well equipped for various missions. Could the robot attack when they distracted the troll by blowing the whistle? Was there enough steam left to activate the whistle?
Suddenly the troll reached into the breast pocket of his filthy jerkin and removed an Ion Allan Locomotives of the World! An international ABC! Now the troll thumbed through the book.
"It looks to us like this is a Brit! Spitfire! Missing since 1942! British B 1 engine vanished after a bomb blast! It may have been stolen by a foreign power?"
The troll ruminated. Then he said: "This is 999 Spitfire! Missing since 1942 and stolen by a foreign power! And it is here! The foreign power must have hidden it here!! This is a super top cop!"
He fumbled in his pocket and found the stub of a pencil. Carefully he underlined a number in his book. There was a sudden booming shout from further up the line. "Bolo! Supper! Get home NOW!" With a last fond look at Spitfire, still apparently unaware that the engine had a crew, the troll turned and shambled away. He left behind the pungent smell of troll body odor or TBO. This smell was mixed with a distinct scent of fear from Jake. Further refinement came from the ongoing ambient odors of hot oil, the sharp smell of hot metal and condensing steam.
Jake sank back onto his seat. The fearful apparition was a train spotting troll! Was there anything stranger in the universe? Jake then glanced out of the window at the place where the troll had appeared. He gave a sudden start of amazement. Where the troll had stood there was now a glowing golden Multiverse Railway Station sign! It must be the one they were looking for. They had arrived! He was about to alert Alaric when he realized the elf was already gazing intently at the sign. "There is something not quite right about this station!" said the elf. "It is not showing the correct colors or playing an appropriate tune. Both items should be present for the purpose of identification. That is clearly stated in the Index of Multiverse Railway Station Identification. Part 1,"
"It certainly looks like a real station to me!" said Jake
"It may be a clever trap!" said the elf.
"How do you know that?" asked Jake.
"A Multiverse Railway Station should be both visually and musically active!" said the elf. "This station looks vaguely OK but it should be red & blue and be playing music! "
The station sign glowed invitingly. It suddenly changed colors. It now resembled a London Underground sign. Soft music began to play.
Jake's head began to spin and he found his eyelids drooping.
### Chapter 3
Valley of the trainee wizard
"Don't fall asleep!" said Alaric urgently.
He sJake Jake's shoulder vigorously.
"We must send FIDO to see what's on the other side!" he said.
Alaric then spoke sharply: "FIDO! Alert! Alert! Are you fully armed?"
FIDO suddenly reactivated himself. He was standing in the small space between the engine and the tender. He spoke: "I am lightly armed! I have two "Deep Throat" Mark 7 high explosive rocket pods. I have one submachine gun with 2500 incendiary rounds! I have three 5kg anti personnel mines!"
Jake reacted with amazement.
The robot was armed to the teeth!
Alaric said: "FIDO! Orders! Switch to Full Combat Mode! Approach the apparent Multiverse Railway entrance to the north of this engine. Enter that area! If you find people on the other side are wearing white robes and carrying flowers return to this engine via the gate after saluting them and saying Om! Peace! Om! However, if any entity, animal, robot or other lifeform attempts to molest you—resist with lethal force! Following any such action return to this train with utmost dispatch! You are authorized to use any weapon at your disposal!"
The robots eyes glowed, first yellow and then red as he switched to full combat mode. FIDO climbed down from the engine and strode towards the glowing station sign. He walked forward and vanished.
The sign continued to glow and the music continued to play.
Abruptly there was the sound of gunfire. followed by a string of explosions. The sign disappeared. The music stopped. Suddenly the fog vanished The cab phone rang.
"CLEO here! I would like to give a SITREP. FIDO has attacked a castle and retrieved a Central Powers Long Range Fog machine. He has turned it off and he is retreating back to this train. The Multiverse Railway Station sign on the north side of this train is an illusion. It is designed to lure you into an area directly controlled by a trainee wizard. He wants to enslave this entire party. Do not enter his false station!"
"I ordered FIDO to enter!" said Alaric.
CLEO: "It is unfortunate that FIDO should have been sent into such a dangerous area.The false sign should have been simply ignored.The real station is directly opposite on the other side of the train. It is operative!"
Alaric put down the phone and scampered across the cab. He peered out of the fireman's side window. He returned to the phone and picked it up. "Yes, I can see the Multiverse Railway station sign. We will wait for FIDO to return and then enter! Tell the dwarves to get ready. Over and out!"
He replaced the phone in its socket. :
Faintly, the sounds of Bach Goes to Town came from the true Multiverse Railway Station on their right. But from the area on their left there now came the sounds of a frenzied full scale battle. Some distance below they could see a thickly wooded valley. Footpaths led down through a forest of pine trees covering the slopes. At the central part of the valley there was a grassed ravine. It led to a mount topped by what looked like an old fashioned turreted castle. A man with a white beard stood at the front wall of the castle. He was dressed in black, carrying a staff and wearing a conical hat emblazoned with s.
A group of trolls were firing a machine gun at some distand target.
And white beard was staring at them through a long tube.
"It's a wierdo!" said Jake, amazed. "He's all dolled up as a trainee wizard in a comical hat! He must be the main act at a birthday party! He is looking through a telescope."
"It's no party," said Alaric, "He forced us to come here! But where is FIDO?"
He sounded anxious. Neither of them could see the robot. FIDO had vanished although the sounds of gunfire continued. Inside the castle yard the trainee wizard dropped the tube and beckoned urgently. After a few moments four new trolls appeared carrying a flat wooden box. Suddenly, Jake and Alaric saw a flash of golden metal moving up through the trees towards them.
Alaric: "Thank goodness! Here is FIDO, heading in our direction!"
The trainee wizard took something from the box and pushed it into a tripod launcher. There was a hissing sound as a rocket ignited and streaked towards the robot. The flight ended with an abrupt flash of light and a loud explosion as the rocket impacted squarely on FIDO. The robot seemed to stop in mid stride as if poleaxed. He stood wobbling for a full minute. Then he turned, picked something up and continued on his way. The trainee wizard loaded a second rocket. He fired. But this time,FIDO sidestepped at the last moment. The rocket exploded in the forest. Several trees toppled and a fire began to blaze on the hillside. The robot suddenly turned to face the castle. He appeared to project a long tube from his chest. He turned slowly, rocking backwards, seeming to adjust his stance.
There was a sudden blast of light and a whoosh.
"FIDO was annoyed! There goes a Mark 7 Deep Throat!" said Alaric.
Jake and Alaric watched as the rocket hissed towards the castle. It appeared to change flight upwards as it zoomed over the turreted walls. Finally, it It executed a perfect roll before diving and impacting onto the courtyard.
There was a massive boom!
The trainee wizard vanished in a vivid flash of orange light.
A cloud of yellow smoke obscured the scene. A few moments later FIDO appeared at the edge of the forest close to the engine. The robot was badly dented and covered in black soot. He was carrying one scorched arm in his other hand. There was a gaping hole in his shoulder where the damaged arm had been blown off. A festoon of wires showed through the hole. FIDO strode up the pathway from the forest, stopped next to the steam engine. He offered a small cylinder to Alaric and then said: "Mission accomplished! Orders?"
Alaric accepted the cylinder and then said: "Reassume normal mode, turn on the heating device, and then repair your damaged arm!"
The robots eyes immediately changed color, from an angry red to the more normal glowing yellow. He wedged his damaged arm into a gaping shoulder socket, which was still smoking. He moved back to the carriage climbed up and entered.His undamaged arm appeared and slammed the door shut.
Alaric: "Perhaps we can now leave this planet and go home!"
Jake and Alaric both moved over to the south side of the cab. But now there was no sign of the Multiverse Railway Station. It had vanished and the music had stopped. The phone rang.
Jake picked up the instrument.
CLEO: "I regret to report that the Multiverse Railway Station is no longer available for your use! Warlike activities in this vicinity have have triggered a safety alarm. The Guardian has removed the station for a full inspection. It will now be inoperable for approximately three thousandhundred years of this planets time. Our party must therefore move on and hope. You are advised to proceed to Granite station.You can stay overnight and water the engine."
"Thank you," said Jake. He replaced the phone receiver. He was not at all put out by the sudden disappearance of the station. He might get a new chance to escape. He would certainly get more experience of steam engine driving.. There was no rush to find a working station on this allien railway. If they did find one and goet to Elf land he would be unmasked as a fake prince! He would probably face a firing squad!"
AAs they were continuing the Journey he would be safe for a while.
He might even be able to do a bit of train spotting somewhere.
Alaric was examining the cylinder given to him by FIDO. "Central Power escape equipment," he said. "Makes a massive fog bank...... he looked carefully under the regulator and pulled out a small silver disc: "Here is the reason we could not slow down," he said, "That criminal must have installed this when he bartered with the blue morons. He had the engine under control the whole time with this LRC (long range control.)"
The elf put the cylinder and disc into his pocket.
"I will reset the heater."
He used the fire bar to prise open the firebox and reset the heater. In a few minutes, with the reactivated heating unit again blasting out heat they had a head of working steam. Jake cranked the reversing handle. Thirty-two turns were needed to put the engine into reverse gear. Jake released the brake and opened the regulator.
The engine began to clank slowly backwards pushing its carriage.
Below, one side of the valley was entirely covered in smoke. The castle was wreathed in blue smoke which still poured from the site of the impact. A number of trees on the margin of the valley had caught fire. The havoc below finally vanished as they backed down the line. The train emerged from the branch, backed onto the rusty main line and stopped some distance beyond the points.
The engine was hissing steam.
Jake applied the handbrake.
Alaric climbed down and inspected the points .
He picked up something before returning to the cab. He said: "That crazy so and so in the valley would not be a threat without our Central Power technology. He fixed clips to the points and opened them by remote control! Escape gear exchanged for tobacco by the convicted morons inside the carriage!That troll kid was wearing a troll outfit from a fancy dress store. His smell was caused by not washing for a few weeks or so! The "trolls" at the castle must also be hypnotised and in costume. He has a hypno device and he is using it to enslave the whole area. The rockets were probably stolen from an Army Base. That trainee wizard could be a problem! How many slaves has he got?"
Alaric switched the points back to the straight ahead setting He then climbed back into the cab and produced a large silver turnip watch from his pocket. He studied it. "Good heavens!" said the elf. "We have spent six hours in that fog.. We must make all speed to Granite."
Jake released the handbrake and opened the steam regulator. The train began to accelerate down the rusty track.. Ahead they could see the light of a small town. They pressed on down a long straight. At a road crossing Alaric activated the I/I device and crossed cautiously after checking for road traffic. Shortly, they approached a station building marked Homewood. They were now close to a township and the road/rail crossing was busy with traffic. They sat waiting in the strange darkness and silence generated by the I/I device. Eventually, there was no traffic to be seen and the train inched forward.
Gates closed auJakeatically and they passed over the main road.
The gates reopened to traffic once they had passed.
With the township well behind Alaric switched off the device and the sound effects resumed. The engine puffed gouts of steam and roared angrily.
Wheels screamed on rusty rails.
Inside the carriage,the dwarves were playing Stuff It! This is a dwarvish card game. Dwarves are addicted to it. Little Sam was currently the owner of all his companions worldly goods. He was the clear winner. He was now being asked for two small loans, repayable at the usual 1000% an hour interest, so that his opponents, his very good friends might possibly recoup their losses.
The train rolled on through darkness. They chuffed through a short tunnel, grimy with black smoke. They emerged. A short distance ahead. they could see the street lights of another town. "Granite!" said Alaric. "It is almost dawn! With Your Elvish Majesty's permission we will rest for the day and water the engine! Again he switched on the I/I device to ensure that their arrival would not be seen. Spitfire steamed invisibly and inaudibly into a small railway yard.
As Jake slowed the engine, Alaric jumped down and ran forward. As he left the area of the trains invisibility shield his body shone eerily in the waning moonlight. The elf pulled a lever, ran back and hoisted himself back into the cab. The engine cranked forward slowly and ran into a siding, hissing steam, moving into a space between two lines of tarpaulin covered carriages. They came to a halt against a set of buffers. Jake wound back the regulator and set the handbrake. Alaric switched off the I/I device. The locomotive sat gently steaming. However, with FIDO about to undergo arm surgery conducted by himself (under instructions from CLEO's Master Robot Surgical program.) There was no robot available for the task of turning off the white hot fire bar. Alaric retrieved a pair of long tongs from the tender. He opened the firebox door. Shielding his eyes, he prodded around and managed to deactivate the white hot heating unit.
He replaced the tongs in the tender and closed the fire door. He climbed down from the cab. Jake and Alaric made their way down the side of the carriage, crunching over wet weed infested gravel. They opened a carriage door, climbed up and entered. As they went inside, both noted that the interior was again thick with blue baccy smoke. It was immediately apparent that Stumpy and Grumpy were in exceptionally bad moods. Both sat silent and scowling. "They've lost the lot!" said Little Sam.. "It was double or quits and it is definitely quits!"
Alaric checked his watch. He read the time and looked puzzled. "It is 5.30!" he said. He thought for a moment. "The I/I device!" he said. "It must set up an accelerated time cell. It is definitely quits for all of us! It is time to rest!!!"He left the I/I device on a shelf under CLEO's control, instructing the computer to use it if anyone approached the train. Alaric then tucked himself into a blanket drawn over a leather seat.
Stumpy and Grumpy went to bed still grumbling. Little Sam took his winnings and hid them under his pillow while Jake lay down on his carriage seat/bunk, and pulled up his blanket. The painted windows only admitted a few thin scratches of daylight. CLEO extinguished the carriage lights. Jake retrieved his sword and then lay on one of the long seats still fully dressed and thinking furiously. He was the captive of aliens. He had unwittingly attacked a friendly vehicle. Or to be more accurate his alien sword had attacked a friendly vehicle. But if he stayed with these aliens he would be charged with being a fake royal and probably executed. He would be better off escaping and getting help from the authorities. He could explain everything, show the sword and get back to school wherever that was.
Everyone rlse now appeared to be asleep.
Jake got up and crept forward, apparently intending to visit the toilet.
FIDO was out of sight somewhere. He was not near his cooking cubiclez.The robot was probably preparing to repair his damaged arm.
CLEO was fully occupied playing high level chess. The computer was fending off attacks from six Grand Masters who were challenging the new mysterious chess master playing in an international Internet tourney.
Jake was now near the end of the carriage. But instead of turning right into the loo he turned left, opened the carriage door silently and dropped to the gravel below.
The sun shone on the railyard as he set off up the track, balancing on a rusty rail. Apart from his own breathing and the thud of his heart, the railway was silent. He emerged from the railyard and set off down the track. He had advanced perhaps a quarter mile, hopping from sleeper to sleeper when an Army vehicle roared into view ahead.
Jake was spotted immediately.
The vehicle screeched to a halt.
Jake waved gladly.
Rescue was at hand! He would explain everything. He had been kidnapped by aliens. Had his ears surgically replaced. Woke up in an alien Orbiting satellite! Did his Duty and supplied the Resistance with arms stolen from the aliens! an underground jail. He had already tTried to alert the authorities twice. The first time the aliens had sent a robot who put the soldiers into some kind of horrid box thing. The second time but had his whole plan had been rruined by his sword -- an alien sword. He had no idea of the alien swords power! It was a total shock! It liked killing people!
Inside the Army vehicle, four soldiers were staring through the windscreen. They goggled at Jake in total amazement. In the sunlight he looked like an extra from a period movie, specially made up. A huge mop of bleached white hair, huge ears occaisonally revealed by the wind, a medieval leather jerkin and ski pants. And huge alien ears!
H
His sword appeared seemed to be actually vibrating in its scabbard!
The soldiers slowly and carefully reached for a variety of weapons.
Sten guns, pistols, an illegal Mauser hand gun, an old .303 rifle....
The Then the vehicle motor suddenly cut out.
This procedure was part of the Governments latest plan to save fuel.
For a moment everyone froze.
The sergeant recovered his wits first. He pressed a button to activate a long range comm unit. "Mobile to base! Alien in sight!"
Inside Jake's scabbard, Shivver was now pulsing furiously.,almost leaping from the scabbard. The scabbard was knocking against his let.The sword seemed to scent and relish the prospect of more military opposition. At that moment, a one armed FIDO came bounding down the railway on full emergency power. The golden robot jumped clean over Jake and pointed a squat weapon at the rail vehicle. He pressed a button.
The entire vehicle glowed with a furious purple light.
"Retreat!" cried the sergeant. "Back!"
The driver put the machine into reverse as the sergeant
He pressed the send button again.
"Emergency! Under attack by alien robot! Retreating! Redeploying"
The engine fired. up. The vehicle immediately began to run rapidly backwards, towards Yarra Glen. But this did not stop the eerie glow which was now spreading over the entirewhole vehicle and its terrified crew. All the guns were distorted like plastic models in a fire, OneOne by one, the soldiers lost consciousness. The rail vehicle continued to accelerate, completely out of control. It hammered down the track.
As the vehicle vanished, Jake was picked up by FIDO and returned to the train. He was dumped onto the seat he had vacated half an hour earlier. Alaric sat crossed legged on the next seat, looking at him quizzically. as FIDO closed the carriage door quietly.
The robot returned to his own affairs, repairing his severed arm.
"Majesty!" said Alaric. "How you love to fight! Attacking the soldiers like that! I expect you intended to put them to the sword and increase your impressive personal score? The Earth forces are now in full retreat, rolling back towards Melbourne, cowed, frightened and probably now all dead after a brush with a Prince of the Master Race!!.
His face and neck again suffused with a purple colour as he jumped up and shouted:
"We rule the Universe,!
By might and cunning and stealth,
We gladly smash resistance,
And help ourselves to the wealth!"
He sat down. He recovered almost immediately and spoke in a normal voice: "However, to control your warlike impulses, I have taken the precaution of locking the carriage doors. We must both get to sleep ready for the morrow!"
"But it was FIDO!" said Jake weakly. "He attacked them!"
"But you were there!" said Alaric. "The Prince Royal! Of course the robot would attack! He is programmed to assist! But the sortie will still count for you! as FIDO is your robot!~ Now I bid you, Good day, Sire..."
### Chapter 4
Ready to rock and roll?
Shortly before sunset, Alaric sJakeJugg Jake awake. The elf said nothing about the previous night. Jake was unsure if anything had actually happened. Maybe he had dozed off and dreamed the whole episode. The whole thing might have been a complete fantasy about what he would like to do rather than what he could do.
He headed for the toilet and inspected his ears. The peculiar,oversized ears still jutted out. That was an unfortunate fact. However, nothing could be done until he could somehow get an ENT operation .his own ears back. Presumably that would be in a joint operation with the actual owner of the ears, and elf who still had to be found. He hoped it would be painless...
Jake returned to the table. The dwarves were all seated with Alaric .
He passed FIDO, busy cooking in a tiny galley. FIDO now had two arms and two hands. The robot suddenly held out one metal hand and offered Jake a wristwatch! Jake assumed that the watch was some kind of gift offering.
It was presumably a way of thanking him... for what?
Jake could think of nothing.
He slipped the watch onto his wrist. The watch showed the time to be 6.45pm and the sky was darkening. The rail yard became deeply shadowed as the sun set. In the carriage, the lights and heating came on, generating a cosy, convivial atmosphere. "Breakfast" was a substantial meal of orange juice, followed by toasted Waybread, baked beans and tinned sausages all cooked by FIDO on his nuclear stove. Presumably, this feast came from "travel rations" held in miniaturized form or possibly from the "food bay" which was presumably now.somewhere aboard the train. The Waybread was spread with a selection of Dwarvish jams and marmalades which had been contributed by Stumpy. The meal was washed down by excellent fresh, hot coffee. Once they finished, FIDO cleared the table.
Jake now regarded the robot with different eyes.
FIDO had always been an excellent train spotting companion.. However, he FIDO had proven to be a remarkable robo warrior, capable of fighting a fortified castle and putting it out of action. Jake now constantly thanked the robot, thanking him for the table service, for clearing away dishes, for washing up.. In fact, he had said "Thank you FIDO!" so often that the three dwarves eventually parodied him. Little Sam pretended to approach the table with a robotic walk. He served an imaginary drink to Stumpy and Grumpy The two dwarves immediately chorused: "Thank you FIDO!" in assumed, falsetto voices.
Once the companions finished the meal, CLEO made an announcment.
"There has been a slight miscalculation," said the computer. "The next Gateway was believed to be near Granite station.. However, new data shows that particular Multiverse Station has been closed, as part of an economy drive carried out in 250 B.C. local time.. The only remaining Multiverse Station I can locate is at Maindample. It is in the opposite direction on the Mansfied line.I suggest you water the engine and get moving!"
Alaric stood up, followed by Jake. The three dwarves followed Alaric and Jake out of a side door, jumping down onto overgrown gravel alongside the track. Jake's previous viewing of the engine had been affected by the army cars on fire, so that he now saw "his" engine for the first time. The engine was decorated with a headboard announcing that it was the Multiverse Express. Below that was the picture of CLEO, formerly in his bedroom but now showing the computers idea of herself as a punk. Jake walked around the engine and saw yet another picture on the tender. ItThis seemed to be a picture of himself wielding a sword.
Jake stood staring at the tender as Stumpy and Grumpy climbed up onto the tender and fitted a hose into position. Their next task was to turn the water on—an operation which required the combined effort of all three dwarves. The flow was controlled by a hydrant wheel. The dwarves strained to turn the wheel. They refused to accept any assistance from Jake or Alaric, as a matter of dwarvish pride.
Jake was totally preoccupied. He now sat on the drivers seat brooding. He still had major concerns about his lack of knowledge about himself. In terms of identity, he still knew only the ridiculous claim that he was an elvish prince. Surely this "Prince Jake" caper must be a case of mistaken identity? But.. in his current situation...should he pretend to be Prince Jake? He might get away with it for a while....It was difficult to know how to get out of the mess he was sliding into. He was getting deeper and deeper into trouble. He might be executed by the elves for pretending to be the lost prince! Or he might get caught by the UFO soldiers and executed as an elvish killer!
He might get trapped by the trainee wizard and turned into a slave!
He seemed to have no option apart from simply carrying on.
Alaric sat serenely on the fireman's seat, apparently filled with joy and certainly emanating light. He seemed to be convinced that he had found the right person. He seemed to be certain that everything would be solved once they reached a working Multiverse Railway Station everything would be OK. But finding a working Multiverse Station also appeared to be a very long shot! So far none of the stations had opened. The only thing Jake had seen was half a sign melting into a blob and another sign which had almost immediately vanished. Plus one fake sign!
On a command from CLEO, FIDO climbed down from the carriage and moved silently to the rear of the train, ready to change the points once the train had reversed back onto the main line.
With steam up it was now 6.15PM.
Jake said: "Are we ready to go?"
"Yes, Your Royal Highness!" said Alaric.
CLEO suddenly spoke through the loudspeaker in the cab." Warning! The Definitely Enchanted Area continues to expand. The trainee wizard may have gained highly classified information about our Journey. He intends to intercept this train and seize its passengers to promote his maniacal plans!"
"Why does the trainee wizard want us?" asked Jake.
Alaric: "Possibly because he is aware that when we reach Central Power, I will report his activities to the relevant authorities who reside on a special facility called MARS. This is an acronymn for Magical Acolyte Recovery Sanitarium. Once he is forced to have treatment, all his earth gear will be forfeit.His power base will be immediately destroyed! His domain will vanish. His castle will disappear like a puff of smoke. Enchanted servants and vassals will be freed. The trolls will resume their previous forms as ticket inspectors on the railway!"
It was obvious that the trainee wizard would be strongly motivated! An air of foreboding seemed to permeate the carriage as they all Stared at the map. The line marking the edge of the DEA kept advancing. The pink area was gradually encroaching, creeping ever closer to the barred line indicating the railway they were travelling on.
He turned on the I/I device and the train abruptly vanished, leaving only a black shadow etched out by moonbeams on the ground.. They were ready to move. Again, in the uncanny silence created by the I/I device,Jake turned the reversing handle, released the brake and opened the steam injectors. FIDO hopped back aboard onto what appeared to be a shadow passed over the points he had recently switched. FIDO seemed to see the invisible train quite clearly through his peculiar eyes. They did not appear to be affected by the I/I device. And once again, they were on the move! The train rolled onto the main line now going north west.
They rolled past the old station. Level crossing gates on Kerrisdale main street automatically closed as the train approached. A number of cars and trucks stopped. Apparently nothing happened, for no human eyes could see the strange opaque shadow as it sped silently over the crossing. Cars were hooting as annoyed drivers reacted to an apparent failure of the gate mechanism.The drivers were cursing VicRail and several used mobile phones to complain.
After the invisible train passed, the gates auJakeatically reopened, leaving the impression that the system was faulty. As the line was normally disused this seemed to be an entirely reasonable conclusion.
Soon the train reached open country. About a mile out of town Alaric turned off the I/I device and the thunderous sounds of the engine returned with full force. The wind was blowing strongly, with high scudding clouds frequently obscuring a full moon. In the carriage the dwarves had dried off. Baccy pipes had been lit and after a consultation Stumpy and Grumpy said: "After Due Consideration they would again allow young Little Sam to join a Game of Stuff It. They were obliged to remind him that he could not be lucky forever! His streak was in the past and the sun would shine on the affairs of his elders and betters!"
The dwarves then beganStarted another loud and riotous game. Burning baccy filled the carriage with a haze of blue smoke. No one noticed that CLEO was constantlyagain upgrading the map. The area indicating the DEA was constantly advancing. The perimeter had now passed over the barred line which denoted the railway track. A glowing dot showed the current position. It was The dot was steadily approaching a point of contact inside the Definitely Enchanted Area.
Oblivious to the threat, Jake was again enjoying himself. He Despite the cold draft, he was quite warm. In fact, the entire cab was comfortably heated by the remarkable thermal output of the nuclear device. Jake was again enjoying the sensation of controlling a large, powerful, real steam engine. He adjusted the regulator delicately and professionally from time to time, peering down the line. It ran almost dead straight ahead, showing in the moonlight as a pair of dull rusted lines bisecting a virtual forest of small weeds, grasses and saplings. He could only see the tracks for a short distance ahead. Reality was quite different from the computer training program. In the computer version, tracks were shown as two shining steel lines which had been visible for miles ahead.
There had been signals and trackside signs. But now there were no signals except for broken metal structures rusting away. or signs. This was a pity, since he could have used his knowledge of signal codes to good effect. The few signals they did pass were all bare steel uprights with peeling paint and large areas of rust. They had been left to perish with the rest of the abandoned railway. If there were any remaining signs by the track they were totally invisible, covered by thick undergrowth.
Occasionally, they ran alongside a main road and cars passed. On each occasion, Alaric seemed to know in advance when a car or truck would appear. He activated the I/I device ahead of the actual contact. Once the vehicle had passed, Alaric would turn off the device, much to the relief of the dwarves in the coach. When the I/I device was on, all sound stopped both outside and inside the train. The invisibility device left the exterior of the train totally invisible to an external viewer.
The train moved on, past a ghostly row of old grain silos, now disused and appearing as bleached shadows in the moonlight, They passed an ancient quarry, abandoned and derelict In the stokers seat, Alaric maintained a sharp lookout down the line, frequently glancing across the landscape for any road in case a car or truck might suddenly appear. Jake began to feel more confident. His train was running well. He had a full head of steam, a full tank of water and an apparently inexhaustible supply of heat from the tube in the fire grate.
His new wristwatch suddenly rang like a phone!
CLEO's voice said: "The device on your wrist is a personal communications unit with a number of additional functions! You are now approaching a point of contact with the DEA. Anything that you see or hear may be an illusion."
Trust CLEO to come up with some new gibberish!
The engine continued to move forward.
Jake turned up the regulator. The engine immediately responded. The staccato beat of the exhaust sharpened and speed began to increase. The sound of wheels running over lengths of rail was almost hypnotic. They came to another deserted station. For a change this one still had a battered sign announcing itself as Granite. Jake decided to stop the train and repair to the carriage for a strengthening cup of herbal tea. He wound down the regulator, applied the brake and brought the train to a screeching halt. The place where they halted appeared to have been abandoned many years ago. The platform itself was cracked. The roots of a nearby tree protruded through the bitumen. The track, which stretched ahead towards Yea was overgrown with tall weeds waving in the breeze. The engine stood blowing steam from its safety valve.
"I thought we might go back to the carriage and have a cuppa?" said Jake, responding to Alaric. The two stepped off the loco and walked down the weedy platform to the carriage. They opened the door to a barrage of shrieks and a thick blue haze of baccy smoke. The dwarves had just completed another round of their apparently endless card game.
They were now getting set for: "The Championship Round." This basically meant that Little Sam would bet all his winnings—which again included everything the two older dwarves had previously owned - against the two older dwarves hats!
Such a bet represented a truly monumental wager. A dwarvish conical hat represents its owners personal life story. The cunningly woven threads give full details of his bank account, his income tax returns, his birth certificate, his blood type and which sporting teams he barracked for. As Jake and Alaric came into the carriage, along with a blast of cold air, the dwarves stopped the game and sat looking enquiringly at them. "What's up then?" asked Stumpy. "Come in for a warm?"
Grumpy said casually: "Wanna join the game?" This last question was undoubtedly motivated by guile— the chance to fleece two innocent newcomers before they got as good as Little Sam (who, despite his youth had proven to be an expert player, well deserving of the title card sharp.Alaric answered: "We have no time for cards—we have just popped in for a quick cuppa before continuing the journey."
FIDO appeared with five cups of Travellers Elvish Brew -- the tea that makes your hair stand on end. The card game stopped as the dwarves eagerly took the cups of that fabulous refreshing brew. They all drank appreciatively and Jake felt a surge of new inner warmth and vigor. Jake was now full of good cheer. The comm device on his wrist felt heavy and he decided to remove it. He put it on the table and then pulled down his pack to retrieve his new ABC's.
Suddenly, there was a sharp rat a tat on the carriage door.
Immediately, the door opened and the tall figure of a railway inspector climbed into the coach. The Inspector smiled pleasantly, showing rows of even white teeth. He wore an old fashioned railway uniform. A black peaked cap crowned with a silver badge, announced the wearer as the Victorian Railways Inspector General.
The Inspector General carried a battered leather satchel strapped around his chest. He also wore a white beard which ended in a point just above his neatly knotted tie. He seemed vaguely familiar. Jake caught the smell of Old Splash aftershave along with a strange musty aroma that seemed to suggest marsh and fog. The inspector stood over the table seating the party. He produced a glowing jewel on the end of a chain and began to spin it in a slow circle as he spoke. "Tickets please, I must see your tickets!"
"We haven't got tickets!" said Jake. "This is a private train."
"NoYou cannot travel without tickets!" said the inspector in a droning voice.
He continued to spin the jewel slowly. It glowed and spun with a peculiar hypnotic aura. Jake suddenly felt drowsy. The jewel seemed to be getting larger. It filled the whole coach with a light which drew him...drew him in.... a land where there were no worries and nothing mattered, nothing at all....
Next to him Alaric was also staring in a glassy, wide eyed way at the jewel and his head drooped as he sank down to the table. Shortly, Jake's eyes closed and he fell into a deep trance. Stumpy and Grumpy were already well entranced and snoring. Little Sam was gazing at the jewel, with his eyes wide open. Shortly he also toppled over. Abruptly, the "inspector" put the jewel back into his pocket and opened a nearby carriage door.
A pack of trolls stood around a small cart.
"Get in!" hissed the "Inspector.
"Load these mongrels onto the cart and take them to the castle!"
He indicated Jake and Alaric. The pack of hideous trolls streamed aboard the train. They all reeked of dreadful Troll Body Odour (TBO+) supplemented by Troll Underarm Stink (TUS ++). In seconds the entire carriage reeked. But while smelly, the trolls were also efficient. The recumbentJackt forms of Jake and Alaric were quickly carried through the open carriage door and loaded onto a handcart. The dwarves were left apparently asleep in the carriage.
Jake and Alaric slumped in the handcart like two limp marionettes.
"Go, go, go!" shouted the Inspector, ripping off his uniform and hat. This action revealed his undergarments - a kind of combo vest and underpants known as Long Johns, an item no longer in general use nowadays. The "Inspector" disguise had not allowed the trainee wizard to wear his Wizards shirt and his magical cloak. In addition, he was not carrying his magic enabling staff (or M E S.)
Under menacing scowls from the trainee wizard, who looked as if he had just got out of bed and was not in a good mood, the trolls fled. They pushed the unconscious bodies of Jake and Alaric on a rough cart mounted on a pair of old bike wheels. They rattled off down thea pitted pathway.
The trolls faced a long trek while their recumJackt cargo faced a very bleak future.
The trainee wizard was about to leave the carriage when he suddenly spotted FIDO. The robot was calmly washing dishes in his tiny galley. "YOU!" screeched the trainee wizard. "You castle wrecking rotten mechanical creep! You beastly armored tramp! You fiendish nig nog! I will use a giant tin opener on your armor! I will hang you from the gibbets! I will roast you in boiling oil! I will reduce you to molecules—nay! Less than molecules! AJacks! Even less than that! You will become a vacuum!" FIDO simply ignored this tirade and continued calmly washing up the dishes. He proceeded slowly and methodically, removing every last crumb and smear, ensuring that the dishes would be perfect for the next programmed meal.
The trainee wizard took this badly.
He was not used to being ignored.
In his domain, his slightest whisper brought instant action.
His anger was now becoming incandescent!
CLEO was listening and watching events via Jake's comm unit, which was standing on the table. CLEO used digital reasoning to deduce: a) Jake and Alaric had fallen asleep and had been removed by force b) The dwarves had also fallen asleep c) It was not yet bed time d) Robot FIDO was being threatened
Of course, the robot was well able to defend himself. He was equipped with a wide range of weapons. But the use of such arms inside the carriage was not advisable. There was the threat of collateral damage and possibly fatal results to CLEO!
The computer instantly issued a radio command audible only to FIDO.
"FIDO! Assume military mode. Exit via the nearest door. Move to the far edge of the platform and light up at full power! Assume insulting posture No 12 (a). When the person facing you tries to apprehend you, run away. Allow the person to make chase! Use more insulting postures as required in order to ensure that he continues to chase. Once he is almost exhausted find a suitable site and cause him to fall into the river! Return for instructions. GO!"
The robots eyes gleamed red. Like a streak of metal lightening he shot across the carriage, brushed past the shocked trainee wizard and vanished through the still open carriage door. The trainee wizard let out a bellow of rage and climbed down after him. FIDO was standing at the far edge of the platform. He suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree and stuck out a metal tongue! He made that uncommonly rude sound known as a metal raspberry. The trainee wizard was now beside himself with fury.
He advanced towards the robot. FIDO waited until the trainee wizard was almost on him then turned and loped slowly down the railway track. The trainee wizard followed, attempting to recall spell 352, an incantation which would, in theory, disable any robot. FIDO was moving quite slowly. The trainee wizard was rapidly gaining when the robot suddenly vanished into thick bush. Recklessly, the trainee wizard ran after him, relying totally on a string of incantations.
His spells had no effect at all on the robot. FIDO simply ran, waited until the trainee wizard puffed into view and then did a rude V gesture, waving two fingers of his hand (insulting gestue 13.) Robot and pursuer ran on until they were both deep in the bush. Suddenly the robot vanished!. Crashing noises continued ahead. The trainee wizard ran on blindly.
Shortly the trainee wizard came to a deep river, with a metal bridge stretching over it. The sounds of the robot running appeared to come from the other side of the bridge. Without hesitation, the trainee wizard ran onto the bridge. As he reached the centre section, the "bridge" suddenly telescoped into itself! It revealed the form of FIDO clinging to a bush on the far bank. The trainee wizard attempted to hang on but the shiny metal offered no purchase. The trainee He wizard fell headlong into the river!He was carried downstream by the fast current. FIDO then ran back to the train. He was still in Military Mode, a status revealed by his glowing red eyes and astonishing speed. FIDO reentered the carriage and said: "Mission complete. New instructions?"
CLEO was attempting to decide on a course of action based on digital reasoning. (1) Alaric and Jake had gone off with the trolls. Neither had given any instructions.
Conclusion. They should be retrieved and put to bed.
(2) Going up the line was causing substantial problems with the traineed trainee wizard. Conclusion: they should go back to Kerrisdale and regroup, The train could then resume its journey to a Multiverse Express station..
"Advance down the track on the far side of the railway. Locate a handcart!" said CLEO. "Disable the trolls propelling the cart. Pick up Jake and Alaric and return them to their bunks. Cover each sleeper with a blanket. Then assume normal operating mode before taking control of the locomotive and proceeding back to Kerrisdale.! On arrival at the station, stop the train and await orders! Proceed now!"
Again, on full emergency power, the robot shot out through the carriage door and set off down the pathway. The trolls had managed about a half mile and were trudging along slowly when the frightening golden metallic figure of the robot appeared. FIDO's eyes were glowing in full military killing mode. The trolls turned to face the robot. "Resistance is futile!" said FIDO in a deep, booming voice. "Leave now or be destroyed...destroyed in five seconds.four seconds..three seconds...."
Before the robot could say two seconds, the trolls were fleeing down the track in a wild panic. FIDO picked up the unconscious forms of Jake and Alaric, tenderly tucking one under each arm. He ran back up the track at maximum speed, re-entered the carriage and put the two bodies onto seats which served as beds. He covered each form with a blanket and tucked them in carefully. Finally, he put the three dormant dwarves to bed, each with a blanket.
FIDO then switched down from military mode. His eyes resumed their normal yellow glow. The robot leftexited the carriage, climbed up into the stationary engine, retracted the brake lever and opened the steam regulator. The engine snorted and puffed steam vigorously, generating an impressive wheel spin. FIDO eased back the regulator and applied a blast of sand to the contact area between wheels and rails. As he reapplied steam the driving wheels bit and the engine began to move, hissing gouts of white steam.
The engine accelerated as the robot opened the regulator.Soon the train was once again heading toward Kerrisdale, wheels thrumming and steam hissing from the cylinders.
### Chapter 5
Abnormal sleep
The train arrived at Kerrisdale station about an hour before dawn. The passengers all appeared to be sleeping peacefully and were left in their bunks as FIDO shunted the train into a siding. A row of derelict mail vans stood on one side and obscured the steam train from view. FIDO turned off the control of the nuclear fire bar, allowing the locomotive to cool.
The sky began to lighten.
The station appeared in detail as the daylight strengthened. The booking office was boarded up. Doors leading to the goods office and a waiting room were also sealed. A number of birds were neShivver under the platform canopy. White streaks down the horizontal boards provided confirmation. Toilets marked Ladies and Gentlemen were barred behind metal grilles. As the sun rose to fully illuminate the old yellow brick buildings, the station seemed to be slumbering.
Patiently waiting for some miraculous railway revival.
What had been a small garden in the centre of the down main platform, lovingly tended by generations of past station masters, was now a mass of rampant, tangled creeper. The overgrown area was spilling over the cracked bitumen. In time it might overpower the entire station, which would vanish into legend.
CLEO was busy checking transmissions from UFO Command. Although the conversations were scrambled to stop unauthorized spying, CLEO had no difficulty in breaking the code. The computer recorded a scrambled conversation at 7.22 am.
"This is General Maloney at UFO Command in Darwin! Have all your people gone crazy?"
Colonel Viljoen: "No, sir, we have not gone crazy, sir! Three events are causing concern. First, we intercepted an alien at Chirnside Park and a squad of soldiers were shot by an alien gun. It put them inside some sort of transparent slab and they are still there. Next, we tracked the aliens. Using ground penetrating radar, we found a 50 km tunnel from the underground lair to Yea station to Yea Railway Station. Amn armoured car was dispatchedsent to Yea station. The crew reported contact and intention to fire! Communication ceased abruptly. A back relief party was send and they reported that the original car had its laser gun melted. The crew were and its crew incoherent. A fully crewed armed road rail vehicle was then sent up from Melbourne. It travelled to the Mansfield line. . That vehicle reported contact and then came back down the main line totally out of control! It proceeded down the railway, and finally crashed into buffers at Flinders Street. The two Both vehicles are still glowing with a purple aura! All the paint has been stripped and both crews havel gone mad! We have been unable to enter the alien hide out at Chirnside Park or the 50 km tunnel to Yea as both are protected by some kind of unknown force field!They have become pacifists! There was a simutaneous event re what turned out to be inflated dummies placed on a train at Lilydale station inside a locked carriage. The Police smashed in at Ringwood and discovered the dummies were inflatable. This whole business began when a garage door was stolen some months ago in Chirnside Park. That matter was put down to local vandals. But last night we were alerted by a signal from an orbiting spacecraft showing a subsoil image of the gardem mext door to the house which lost its garage door. The image showed what is believed to be an underground alien hideout. The entrance is inside an oak tree, cunningly camouflaged. The tree is hollow and there are horizontal barriers preventing entry. Using ground penetrating radar, we have found a 50 km tunnel from the underground lair toYea station."
General Maloney "Fifty klicks! How did they make it?"
Colonel Viljoen "No idea sir!It's an amazing construct and it shows what we are up against!Extremely high tech! Several boreholes have reached down to the tunnel but we cannot penetrate the tunnel material."
General Maloney: "Well, continue looking into the tree and this tunnel and find out what you can. They are obviously alien spies! It may be the start of an invasion!"
Colonel Viljoen: "General, with respect, I feel we must also investigate the Yea railway. It runs from Tallarook to Mansfield. Two vehicles and crews have now been totalled on that railway. It must be a prepared escape route. They have some kind of alien device which causes their vehicle to become invisible and inaudible as required. These aliensy are extremely dangerous and well armed! We are going to scan the whole line using Sat Com. Once we locate them I am going in! Air and ground, choppers, artillery! The works!"
There was a long pause.
General Maloney: "Don't let the media hear a word of this." We must avoid a panic!"
The message was duly recorded by CLEO.
As Jake and Alaric were asleep it was not passed on.
Outside the train, the old railway station remained deserted. The passengers elves and dwarves slept on. Finally, daylight began to fade. FIDO Started preparing hot drinks and a meal for the travelers.
The robot checked the carriage blinds and switched on the interior lights. But there was no response from the sleepers. FIDO informed CLEO that a meal was ready but that the travelers were still asleep. CLEO responded by telling FIDO to generate a variety of loud sound effects along with a light show. The robot duly lit up with a remarkable display of multi colored lights. Then he generated the sound of a massive foghorn which blew at intervals of 15 seconds for 10 minutes. The entire carriage vibrated from the massive sound but there was no response from the sleeping figures. Next, the robot generated the sound of coins falling into a metal pan. This effect was selected in the hope that it would at least rouse the dwarves.
### Chapter 6
Doctor from MARS
But nothing disturbed the slumbering figures. CLEO decided that her charges were in a hypnotic trance which might only be broken by a practicing anti hypnotist.
The computer then scanned through many gigs of data, searching for an anti hypnotist located anywhere. She finally found a name. The Eminent Anti Hypnotist Dr Lao Sao Mao Tse Tung. Dr Tung was shown as resident on MARS. A note stated that: "MARS is the Magical Acolyte Recovery Station, a special mental hospital facility located on an asteroid in Universe One. It is funded by Central Power. Physians are on call for serious cases in any universe..."
CLEO immediately z-waved the number and enquired if Dr Tung could make a house call ? The call was successful. Dr Tung was willing to visit Earth.
About ten minutes after CLEO's call, the doctor arrived on the railway platform. His arrival coincided with in a flash of brilliant indigo light accompanied by a clap of thunder. He had transferred directly from MARS using a personal, pocket sized matter transmitter.
Dr Tung was a smallish man, with definite Asiatic features. He was dressed in a tailored black suit, a shirt without a collar and a black hat with a narrow brim. Long oiled pigtails stretched down over his back. Carrying a small black bag, the doctor stepped lightly across the platform.
He arrived at a carriage door. He knocked and was admitted by FIDO. The doctor did not appear to be at all put out by the sight of a robot opening the carriage door.
He merely asked if he might see his patients.
FIDO indicated the sleeping dwarves and elves. The doctor then asked: "Have the patients consumed something which may cause them to lose consciousness? Are they intoxicated? Zonked out? Loopy?"
In his gravelly voice, FIDO replied to the negative.
"What has caused them to become hypnotised?" said the doctor.
FIDO replied. "Man has off planet equipment stolen from this train."
The doctor then took the pulses of each patient. His method involved taking three pulses simultaneously. His long, slender fingers covered an area from the palm to a position on each patients forearm. However, the pulses apparently gave him very little information as to the cause of malaise. The doctor remarked that all five patients appeared to be in good health, apart from the fact that they were all currently unconscious!
The doctor then opened his black bag and produced a small, metal globe. He placed the globe on the table and proceeded to rub a wooden stick around the circumference of the globe. This action generated a strange, whining noise which grew in volume until the entire interior of the carriage seemed to vibrate. The globe generated an overwhelming volume of sound.
The three dwarves sat up, mumbling incoherently.
"Good evening," said Dr Tung politely. "I am Dr Lao Sao Mao Tse Tung I am normally a resident physician in the MARS special recovery facility.body MARS is funded by Central Power, which is why your party got top priority service. It appears that you have all been hypnotized by a trainee wizard. We currently have him on our hospital waiting list. He is Alfred Garret, formerly a steam engine driver. May I suggest that you sit somewhere while I attend to your companions?"
The dwarves all moved over to a table. The doctor now inserted a number of needles into various areas of the two sleeping bodies. He vibrated some needles but there was no response. "Acupuncture has failed!" said the doctor. "Moxibustion?"
He placed small jars over various body parts. Each jar appeared to contain some kind of burning material. The jars left bright red circular marks when removed. But there was no other response.
"This is certainly a deep enchantment," said the doctor."Very deep. I suspect that a powerful hypnotic jewel has been used."
"It is, or was part of our escape equipment," said CLEO. "Volcano is a self programming matrix with excellent hypnotic powers. It will even change molecular properties so that an enchanted individual actually assumes physical charactaristics of the form that has been suggested. We have already seen this physical change in the form of an infant troll and some adult trolls."
Her tinny voice came from a case on the luggage rack.
The doctor stroked his chin and stood deep in thought.
Finally he asked: "Where is the young lady who just spoke?"
"I am here!" said CLEO. "I asked you to visit this train!"
"Why are you hiding in the luggage?" said the Doctor.
"I am not hiding, doctor! My hardware is resident inside the pack above your head," said CLEO. "I am computer CLEO. Do you wish to conduct an electronic binary search on this current medical matter?."
"Well, computer CLEO! I would certainly love to employ you as my assistant," said the Doctor. "In any event, I have never required any computer except my abacus! But we must get this train back to the point of contact with the trainee wizard. He has to be confronted. And he may be victorious, in which case we will be enslaved!"
CLEO immediately instructed FIDO to raise steam and reverse the train back to Homewood. The computer instructed Little Sam to operate the I/I device. In a short time the train was rumbling down the deserted railway. Once they were clear of Kerridale, Little Sam was told to turn off the I/I device. The usual engine noises returned. Eventually they reached Homewood station some 5 miles down the line. The train screeched to a stop with its safety valve blowing off steam. Dr Tung left the carriage and walked up the platform to the engine. He told FIDO to leave the heating device switched on at minimum heat.
The robot was to then wait inside the carriage.
The doctor returned to the carriage interior.
Jake and Alaric still lay entranced.
"Should we contact this trainee wizard to ensure he comes here?" asked Little Sam. "If he doesn't know we are here he will not come."
Dr Tung was now enjoying a cup of Elvish tea prepared by Stumpy. "I do not believe it will be necessary to make contact with him," said Dr Tung. "He will be informed of our arrival. He has this entire neighborhood enslaved! Many formerly honest, hard working citizens have been enchanted. They are now compelled to act as his eyes and ears. We will simply wait. in comfort."
### Chapter 7
Eve of Battle
In fact, it took almost an hour for the trainee wizard to learn of the train's arrival. He was finally alerted by a centaur. The centaur had originally been a horse riding instructor. He had made the error of shouting a curse at the trainee wizard when that individuals speeding bike had narrowly missed running into a party of student horse riders. The horses had been spooked and took some time to calm down. The instructor had shouted: "Stupid Halwit!" Taking offence at the rebuke, the trainee wizard had muttered something about cheeky horse types blocking roads. He then hypnotized the riding instructor and put him into a centaur costume. The botJake half of the instructor's body now appeared to be a horse.
The horses head had vanished. It and was replaced by a human head and torso .
The torso was dressed in a white polo shirt bearing the initials EFA on the chest.
Unfortunately, the centaur was now only able to communicate by neighing. Yet, like many enchanted beings in the PEA,the centaur was intensely loyal to the trainee wizard. To alert the trainee wizard in respect to the train's arrival, the centaur/instructor ran backwards at full pelt across 40 km of woods and fields. He traveled backwards to avoid losing sight of the train since he had been ordered to watch closely! He was, of course, unable to see the train after covering ½ km but this fact did not register on his hypnotized brain.
On arrival, he charged into the castle courtyard and neighed 3 times.
This was a prearranged signal indicating that the train was in his area of watch.
His immediate reward was a pile of raw carrots from the castle cJakechen.
The trainee wizard was exceedingly pleased when he heard that the train had returned. After some thought, he reached the conclusion that one of his spells had affected robot FIDO. The trainee wizard reasoned that FIDO must have acted as the train driver because the other occupants of the train were all entranced. One of the spells must have forced the robot to reverse the train and return!
"It was almost certainly the old Reverse and Return spell 27!" the trainee wizard, chuckling to himself. chortled. "I must have uttered it while chasing that metal man! I may have fallen into the river, had to swim and then climb out. But this new event actually proves that everything was actually under my power! The robot has been forced to drive the train back here! Even when I seem to lose I actually win!!! How incredibly potent and wonderful I am! Now the metal man has returned and I can deal with him at my leisure. I will also collect the two valuable elves lost by incompetent trolls! And those dwarves who will be good for working in the mine."
HeThe megalomaniac rubbed his hands together.
He was sitting in a well appointed lounge inside his castle. He had dried off after his unplanned immersion in the river and he was now fully dressed in ceremonial robes, black pants, black boots and a somewhat grey shirt which had not been well laundered. His outfit was completed by a high conical hat emblazoned with stars and moons.
His staff stood nearby, waiting for action.
"I must prepare fully for this encounter!" said the trainee wizard. "This time I will be ready for anything. I will take a full crew of troops!! And finally I will have massive naval might! I will alert ten crocodiles from the lower pool! They may be only half tamed. I have only had one session with Volcano and the crocs but that will do! In any case, Volcano could probably do this job without assistance. But I love to win! I will grind the damned elves and those blue dwarves into dust!"
He stood up and inspected himself in the mirror. "Most impressive!" he said, picking up his staff. He felt inside a pocket and pulled out the glowing stone Volcano He had already used it to hypnotize the elves and dwarves when he made his first visit to the railway train, disguised as a railway ticket inspector.
But now he would not be disguised. He would be resplendent in his full majesty! He moved to his wall safe and removed a box like object covered in knobs and dials. It was a Dopplegang Convertor, a machine he had acquired from the train! The trainee wizard leaned out of the window and pointed the box at five trolls lounging in the courtyard. He pressed a switch. Immediately the five trolls popped out of sight, to be replaced by ten trolls. He repeated the process, generating twenty trolls.
"Should I carry on until I have forty trolls?" said the trainee wizard, speaking to himself. He thought for a moment. "No! I can create more trolls on the battlefield if needed. Twenty trolls is plenty trolls!"
The trainee wizard picked up a megaphone and leaned out of the window.
He bellowed: "Trolls! Draw battle clubs! Report to the helivan!"
He now looked into a polished crystal globe which he used as a communication device. The globe immediately focused on a group of crocodiles in a river. Crocs! It is time for war!" cried the .trainee wizard. "Proceed upstream to where the chuff chuff is standing. Wait there for action!"
Because crocs are not very erudite the trainee wizard used the term "chuff chuff" to describe the steam engine standing at Homewood station.
Carrying the dopplegang converter, the trainee wizard strode to the helivan. It was parked on the castle forecourt. A leprechaun in a pair of filthy overalls stood by the helivan, holding a spanner. The leprechaun pushed to dopplegang comverter into place under the helivan. The crystal comm device went into a recess above the converter. The leprechaun had originally been a garage owner in Coldstream. Unfortunately, as the garage operator he had made a major mistake. He had attempted to charge the trainee wizard for a tire repair on a motorbike.
His attempt had failed.
He had not been paid but he had been enchanted.
He was now a leprechaun. Or to be accurate, he believed at a molecular level that he was a leprechaun. Now he spoke: "May I ask a small favor? Boss, if you let me go home to my missus I will give you anything in my shop plus ten years profits."
The trainee wizard glowered. He spoke haughtily. "There is nothing that I want from your dingy little shop! You are my slave forever as a result of your cheek in demanding payment for a simple service! You are now aware that you should have asked me to graciously receive your gift offering of a lube! Well, you did not make a gift offering! You demanded money! Appalling! Get back to work!"
The trainee wizard brushed past the leprechaun and clambered up into the drivers seat.
The trolls, each carrying a heavy club studded with nails, had already clambered into the back of the machine and settled on the seats. The dopplegang canverter was now in place, powering the strange machine.
The overhead rotor and the propeller spun into life together.
Alone in the cockpit the trainee wizard reviewed his plans.
He would first shoot a paralyzing spell at the metal man while he was himself still safely in the air. The trainee wizard sJugg himself mentally
He should never worry because he was invincible!
He added: I am a Master Genius!
This invincible master genius then reviewed his plans. He would use a special spell. The metal man would be frozen solid and unable to move. He would stand like a horrible metal statue! He would be under the total command of an invincible master genius trainee wizard! With the mechanical rubbish out of the way the trainee wizard would land his helivan. The dwarves and elves would definitely still be entranced with the deep spell he had used previously. His trolls could then drag out the whole bunch and load them into the helivan, ready for transit to the dungeons! The train had returned to Homewood probably driven by the robot. The train itself could be left for future investigation.
The Master Genius would fly back home with his trophies.
It was a fine plan! Now, the invincible genius was ready! He switched on his intercom. His amplified voice blared out into the compartment behind. "Trolls! This is the moment you have been eagerly awaiting! You will be glorious in battle! Triumph awaits! You are under the command of a Master Genius!!!!"
The trolls roared approval.
The trainee wizard pushed back his rotor control and adjusted the throttle. The helivan began to rise. The machine leveled out at about five hundred feet and began to race north towards the waiting train. After a few minutes flying, the trainee wizard spotted a thin plume of smoke from the stationary engine. The helivan stopped its forward passage and hovered. The trainee wizard switched his intercom back on.
"Trolls! Enemy in Sight! Commence battle song!"
The excited trolls thumped the helivan floor and sang:
"Onward trollish army,
Trolls are off to war!
Into blood and battle,
That's what trolls adore!"
Inside the waiting train the doctor and the dwarves could hear the deep voices of the airborne corps de troll, along with the clatter of the helivan as it prepared to land. "It seems there is now much more than a mere rumor of war!" said the doctor cheerfully. "We may expect him and his cohorts to land outside quite soon. Once I have finished my excellent cup of tea I will greet him!"
CLEO suddenly spoke. "Our Central Power emergency equipment must be retrieved! I have a full inventory list. This renegade has filched many items.Lord Alaric has retrieved two hetero magnets and a long range fogger. But the criminal still has possession of a
crystal comm device, a weather control rod, a Dopplegang Converter and one primary weather control unit . We still have the master button for the weather control rod. The master button will focus the rain whoever uses the weather control rod!"
Dr Tung, "We must get all the Central Power gear back. I already have the button."
He gestured to the three dwarves. "You three blue boys! When the learner trainee wizard arrives you will have to creep up to his van. It looks vaguely like a helicopter. Get underneath the vehicle and you will find a dopplegang converter, a Central Power anti grav machine that looks like a flat box with flashing lights. It will take two of you to carry it back to this train. The other thing we want is a crystal comm device. It will be near the dopplegang converter. It looks like a round vase made of crystal. It also has flashing lights. One of you can carry that. Bring both objects back to the station and put them in the train. OK?"
The dwarves indicated assent.
### Chapter 8
Always take the high ground
The learner trainee wizard now landed his helivan in a clearing below Homewood station and on the shore of an adjacent river. This was not an entirely satisfactory situation. The trainee wizard would have preferred to occupy the high ground rather than look up to the train. However, since he had overwhelming force it hardly seemed to matter. He switched off the engine and ordered his trolls into position. The heli blades slowly stopped moving. Apart from the rushing sound of the river there was only silence in the area. Twenty trolls jumped from the helivan, cavorted around and then spread out across a field. The ground sloped away from the front of Homewood station. The trolls now stood facing the station, looking up to it as they waved clubs embedded with sharp nails. Further below, in the river, crocodiles circled, waiting for orders. Above, clouds formed a dark and dangerous sky. The trainee wizard climbed down from his cockpit and strode to a point just below the station.
He uttered a spell and then....
"Metal warrior!" he cried. "Kneel before your master!"
However, FIDO failed to appear.
Instead, a carriage door opened and Dr Tung stepped out.
"Good day, learner trainee wizard , formerly Alfred Garret, steam engine driver,retired. I am Dr Tung," said the Doctor. "I am a resident of MARS. I will be the doctor in charge of your recovery. I am here to escort you to the facility!"
The learner trainee wizard staggered as if hit by a savage blow.
"MARS?" he croaked. "A doctor from MARS? The Looney Bin for learner magicians? Surely there must be a mistake? I am no learner! I am the Master of a large and growing Empire! A follower of Chinese Guru Lao Sao Mao!"
"Alas, in my former incarnation, I was that very person," said Dr Tung. "Some five hundred years ago, I stumbled across an ancient book of spells. The book burst into flames after I had read it! I was obliged to rewrite the spells from a faulty memory. All my spells are useless! And my belief that follower of my system would ascend to heaven was mistaken. It is definitely not true! On my own demise I went directly to MARS and I was put in a strait jacket! I have recovered and I am now a consulting doctor! I must request that you accompany me to MARS and get treatment for your horrible malaise! You are a category two, learner trainee wizard."
"That is incredibly selfish and hardly fair!" cried the trainee wizard hotly. "I paid $16.50 for your book and now you tell me that the spells are faulty! In any event, I have no intention of going with you to MARS! How do I know you are authentic? You may be a fake! A fraud! Stay out of my affairs! I am not a learner! I am a full trainee wizard! I am here to reclaim two elves plus three dwarves and anything else valuable or useful. But most of all it is my intention to catch the metal man.Where is he?"
At this point, you might assume that FIDO would appear and shoot the trainee wizard with either a rocket or a machine gun. Or possibly an energy gun. Or a Mills bomb/
But such a response underestimates the subtle guile of Dr Tung.
"How dark the sky is!" said that worthy, glancing up at the clouds massed directly above. "It certainly looks like rain!"
He pointed at the sky.
The trainee wizard cackled hysterically.
"It certainly does! But these clouds will flush you back to MARS!
He pointed a metal staff and pressed a button.
Drenching torrents of water immediately poured onto one small area. It was a total, absolute inundation. The rain seemed to be a solid wall, a piped cataract. But this massive torrent poured down entirely upon the area occupied by the unfortunate trainee wizard and his trolls! There was a simultaneous flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder. The upright section of the trainee wizard's hat vanished in a puff of orange smoke.
He was left wearing a tattered brim.
"It is vital to use stolen Central Power equipment properly," said Dr Tung. "In the case of making rain you must aim the raindrops at the area which needs watering using the director tube which I am holding. If you have now finished using Tthe stolen item , it will now be returned to the rightful owners."
He pressed a button on the director tube. The metal staff was wrenched from the trainee wizards hand and literally flew across to the train. It dived through an open door and rejoined the other itemsstaffs under a seat.
"Weather control inventory restored,' said CLEO."Please return the director tube when you return to the train."
The trainee wizard was now wearing the scorched brim of hie conical hat. What remained of his hair showed through, making a kind of furry top. His trolls had been frightened and dismayed by this display of elemental force. As a result, all the doppelganger generated trolls had vanished. They had, in a sense, died of fright, although they had never actually been alive. The trainee wizard was left with only his original trolls. They were all demoralized by the locally inclement weather and stood shivering. But the trainee wizard still had his helivan and he still had his marine reserve of crocodiles. Plus the powerful ring Volcano.
That ring was now excited. It was pulsating with radiant heat so that steam rose from the pocket where it was kept. Dr Tung looked calmly down at the sodden trainee wizard. "All the spells are faulty," he said. "They have all failed miserably many times for hopefuls such as yourself.! Would you not prefer a nice strait jacket and a bed in Ward Five on MARS? Recovery is unpleasant but... Iif you give up retire now you will earn a discounted sentence."
The trainee wizard seemed to be thinking about this warning He removed the remains of his hat and laid his cloak on the fence to dry. With some effort he pulled off his long boots, drainedsJugg out a stream of brackish water and set them to dry.
He was now dressed in wet longjohns.
Dr Tung stood patiently watching,
The trainee wizard finally spoke through chattering teeth.
"Oh, m-m-m-master of evil!" he said. "Oh, h-h-h- horrid denizen of MARS! I am n-n-n- not to be moved by your cajolery! My course is set by myself, the highest force of all! I will now p-p-p-p-place a pentagram around you so that you cannot move! I will then take you captive. You will be kept in my deepest dungeon! You will rave and moan in the dark! You will survive in the meanest conditions, without f-f-f-food or water. Finally you will become a pile of bleached bones!"
He waved his hands in a peculiar gesture....
Dr Tung seemed totally unconcerned by the trainee wizard's mad tirade. He walked forward to the fence separating the railway from the meadow below. "So much for your pentagram!" he said. "I move freely! Another load of rubbish!"
He addressed the trolls. "Trolls! You are being kept in captivity by this evil hypnotist. Each of you had a noble position as a ticket inspector working for Vicrail. Your honorable task was to detain passengers attempting to cheat the government by travelling without a ticket! You are sorely missed! Ticket dodgers are currently running rampant ! I will now utter the Unbinding Spell so that each of you will be restored to your former self. Sllo.."
"No! No! No!" cried the trainee wizard in horror. "They are my trolls! They will be rewarded for outstanding courage in battle by enjoying a huge feed of mince pies after I win! Trolls! Ignore this charlatan! Sing your battle anthem!"
The leading troll began swinging his club singing:
"Onward trollish army,
Trolls all go to war."
But none of the other trolls joined in.
They were all staringing at Dr Tung.
He was again attempted to utter the unbinding spell: "Sllo.." The trainee wizard drowned him out by using his megaphone "TROLLS! Kill for the love of killing!" he screamed. But only the leading troll sStarted to move up hill towards the doctor.
Dr Tung raised one hand.
"Sllort!" he shouted, thus reversing the original spell.
Immediately the trolls changed back into human form,. The troll clothes were then peeled off revealing a group of sodden ticket inspectors wearing the black uniforms of that honourable craft. "Gentlemen!" cried Dr Tung. "You have been cruelly misused.Walk across the hill until your reach a gate. File through the gate and cross the railway line. Walk about one quarter of a mile down a pathway and you will reach a main road. After waiting for 22 minutes you will be able to catch a bus to Lilydale. Leave the bus windows open while you travel! Have a hot shower using a strong deodarant soap as soon as you get home!"
The men then walked across the hillside, crossed the railway line and vanished down an overgrown pathway. The trainee wizard was now literally gnashing his teeth! "How dare you steal my trolls!" he shoutedaid.. "I have hesitated to absolutely humiliate you, but now you leave me no choice!"
He pulled the glowing red stone Volcano from his pocket and waved it at the doctor.
He immediately began to intone:
"Under my command you are,
Whether near or gone afar,
Pretty dreamer, do not weep,
Leave your troubles, go to sleep!"
On the final line he waved his hand in a gesture of finality.
Dr Tung was entirely unaffected.
He had one hand in his own pocket.
He removed his hand suddenly to display a glowing blue stone.
"Behold your nemesis, Alfred Garret!" cried the Doctor. "It is the Great Ruling Stone Ocean! Pray tell me which is the mightiest? Volcano, of the earth or Ocean, ruler of the sea and all it surrounds!"
The two men stood motionless as the blazing stones seemed to focus on each other. Torrents of wild energy spurted from Volcano. They were immediately sucked into the Ocean stone and vanished without trace. Volcano crackled and spat, growing hotter and hotter until the trainee wizard gave a howl of pain and dropped the stone. It rolled down the steep ground and fell into the river.
There was a flash of brilliant light and a booming explosion.
Volcano vanished in a vast cloud of steam
Inside the railway coach Jake and Alaric woke from their trance.
In the meadow below there was growing despair.
"Great Volcano is destroyed!" cried the trainee wizard. "My treasure from the Central Power cache has gone! And I have been sorely misled by that rotten book! But I still have my dear, dear crocodiles! Crocs! Leap the fence and attack Dr Tung!"
However, the crocs were no longer under his sway. With the demise of Volcano they had immediately fallen under the rule of Ocean, the stone held by Dr Tung. The crocs now recognized Dr Tung as The Master.
With this change in control, the trainee wizard had become a mere mortal to the crocs. He was now viewed as a tasty snack,well within range. The crocodiles formed a half circle around the trainee wizard. At first he continued to delude himself. He believed the monsters were still his subjects. Only when a croc leapt at him with its massive jaws wide open did the message finally sink home. The trainee wizard gave a howl of absolute terror. He jumped backwards, straight over the high fence and onto the safety of the platform. It was a most remarkable jump, executed backwards without a run up. It may well be an all time Olympic record although, of course, it was not part of a formal event.
The crocs were not impressed by the jump. They were merely frustrated. They surged forward angrily. Dr Tung waved one hand and the crocs retreated, crawling down to the river. The doctor put the Ocean stone back into his pocket, where it continued to emit a blue glow through the fabric.
Now the three dwarves returned from the helivan. Two were carrying the flat, pulsating box. Little Sam was toting a circular disc. They vanished into the carriage and CLEO said: "Inventory restored!"
"So!" said Dr Tung, sternly. "Here you are, Alfred Garret, failed trainee wizard! I trust you are now ready for treatment!"
The trainee wizard fell on his knees and began to babble. "Have mercy on a poor student, illustrious master, Dr Tung. It was your book which set me on a life of evil wizardry! I was a top link steam engine driver made redundant. It was a foul and bitter blow!"
"I might have mercy on a poverty stricken former top steam engine driver!" said Dr Tung. "I might even find it in my heart to excuse you and blame myself as the actual author of that accursed book. But you enslaved many people! You owned a fortified castle! You have never paid council rates or library fines! But now you are undone! At this very moment, your powers are fading! Because you have lost the items you stole from this train the PEA is rapidly contracting! And even your transport is returning to its birthplace in the nether realms!"
He indicated the helivan, parked between the river and the station.
The helivan had already begun to fall apart. First, the overhead rotor sagged as if the steel was melting. Eventually, the rotor hung limply downwards and began to drip. The melt formed a shiny puddle. Next, the propeller and shaft began to disintegrate. Various sections split apart in a matter of seconds Finally, all that remained of the van was a pile of sad debris. Then, even that vanished, swallowed by the hungry earth.
Dr Tung continued his address to Alfred Garret.
"I see you used the dopplegang converter to power your strange van," said Dr Tung. "I assume you stole it with other items from the Central Power emergency packs?"
"No! I exchanged it for baccy," said the trainee wizard! ." Excanged! A fair and honest trade!"
"Fair and honest?" said Dr Tung. "Priceless alien equipment for a few bags of tobacco which may eventually give the users lung cancer?"
There was a pregnant pause.
Then Dr Tung continued: "However, Driver Garret you have had some good karma today," he said. "For example, you have avoided a fight with robot FIDO! I will now call him forth and ask him to demonstrate what he had in store for you. FIDO! Come out and discharge your weapon."
A carriage door opened and FIDO stepped onto the platform. The robot had a Mark Six Devastator loaded into a launcher protruding from his chest. He casually aimed the missile at a large outcropping of granite some distance from the station. With a blast of smoke and flame the rocket ignited. It flew across the river valley leaving a plume of exhaust. The Devastator impacted with a massive explosion.
The huge rock shattered and dammed the river.
The water immediately began to rise.
"If all else failed in terms of my plan, that would have been aimed at your flying machine!" said Dr Tung. "That was my fail safe!"
"Alas for me!" cried the trainee wizard, "All my works are in ruin! I have escaped the savage death demonstrated, but now I am doomed to go to MARS! Doomed by the very man who misled me with his book of second rate, inaccurate, magical rubbish!"
He began weeping bitterly. "If only Victorian Railways had stayed with steam! As a top link driver on the Southern Majestic I had the finest record in the business. I was a happy fellow until that dreadful day when I was retrenched! Sacked on two weeks notice after twenty five years of faithful service! It laid the seeds of rank bitterness. It made me very ready to use magic! Ready to steal alien equipment! Ready to steal and lie and covet! To be horribly selfish and self centered! Yes I confess! I confess! I confess to stealingSteal priceless alien gear for a few packs of tobacco in the full knowledge that the trade was biased and unfair!! And even the tobacco was whjich was also stolen from the Lilydale pub! I am triply guilty of crimes against elves, dwarves and my fellow human kind!. I am broken!"
He sobbed bitterly.""
Dr Tung reflected on thesehis words.
"But it is true that you were undone by a fake book about magic. A fake book whose author has already been punished, as I can personally attest! And much of your former life was good," said the doctor. "You were and are a brilliant driver! Your termination on two weeks notice was an undeserved and savage blow for a man once considered to be one of the finest steam engine drivers in all Australia."
"Can that be taken into account?" cried Alfred Garret.
"It must and will be taken into account. And I note that all your magical captives have now returned to normal life and are unscathed," said Dr Tung. "The former trolls are aboard a bus returning to Melbourne. Your enslaved mechanic has gone back to his garage. Your enraptured centaur has returned to his riding school. Your many entranced servants have all returned to conventional states. Many of them actually enjoyed the experience of working for you, rather than slaving away paying taxes! When all these factors are taken into account there may yet be one chance. A slender chance for you to minimize the horror of the anti magic therapy you must undergo on MARS, Alfred Garret!"
"A chance!" cried Alfred Garret, "What is that chance!"
"You must hope and pray that the people travelling in this carriage will forgive you. Should they do so you will get the chance to drive the steam engine Spitfire and assist them in their great Quest!"
He waved his hand at the steam engine, gently blowing off steam at the head of the train. Alfred Garrett caught his breath! A chance to drive a classic steam namer! And possibly the rarest steam engine ever seen in Victoria! In fact, definitely the rarest engine never before seen in Victoria! A chance to help in a monumental Quest!
Jake, Alaric and the dwarves now appeared at a carriage door and climbed down onto the platform. Five beings? Who were the other two? But surely five would be enough? Alfred Garret looked at the elves and dwarves he had hypnotized. He had hoped to ransom the fat elf who was supposed to be elvish royalty. How could he expect forgiveness?
He was attempting to prepare some kind of sobbing, pleading address when Dr Tung spoke. "Wizardry is a strange and unusual profession," said the Doctor, "But there are a few, a very few occasions when an individual's descent into the use of hypnotism and attempted magic can be partially excused. The case of the man standing before you, Steam Engine Top Link Driver Alfred T Garrett (retired) is one such example. As a trainee wizard he has entranced many good citizens to serve his own evil ends. On the other hand, as a top link steam engine driver he delivered thousands of passengers to their destination! He drove his mighty engine through rain and , through fog and snow, through thunder and lightening. He froze at his controls! He thundered on! Often he was given poor quality coal! Often, even his nose froze solid under the impact of biting cold weather! At other times he roasted under the savage heat of the sun and the blasting fury of a white hot coal fire. He had almost impossible schedules to keep. He stands before you now as a man who bitterly regrets his recent career! He now desires to atone by working without pay as your steam engine driver. As the one who might be deemed somewhat responsible for his demise into his current lamentable state I ask you grant him a short extension of his time on this earth. He will be obliged to return with me to MARS for treatment! But in the meantime, he will stand before you when danger threatens! He will be true your cause! You must now vote," said Dr Tung.
"All in favor?"
Alaric and the three dwarves all said Aye!
Jake then spoke.
"I say Nay! Because I am the driver," he said. "I am a trained driver who has passed his exam! I like driving! We do not require another driver!"
"Right now that is true," said Dr Tung. "But my scanty knowledge of your future indicates that you may need the services of a Top Link Driver in the future.."
"Oh, very well," said Jake. "He can drive the train while I finish eating. I am ving! I am so hungry that I may explire (expire) at any moment. I have not eaten a full,decent, filling meal since hundreds of years ago! It is cramanal (criminal) to ve a young growing person like me!"
He climbed back into the carriage.
The elf, dwarves and Dr Tung followed him and climbed up into the carriage.
Driver Garret now accompanied FIDO to the locomotive. The robot adjusted the heating bar to full output and then returned to the carriage. Soon the engine was hissing steam and the train began to move back towards Yea.
Spitfire was now under the sure hands of a great driver. Inside the coach the passengers were eating the meal laid out previously by FIDO.
Jake was still complaining about his state of hunger, while stuffing himself with all available food. CLEO's voice suddenly sounded.
"Alert! Current radio message being sent from UFO H.Q.
An excited male voice spoke: ".. major explosion near Homewood station was picked up by Sat Com.. photos show we have found athe ghost train!! Vicrail have no record of any train on the line. The railway is classified as closed. The train appears to consist of a steamn engine plus a single carriage It is now on the move proceeding towards Yea. Iintercept at Yea station in thirty minutes...Full authority to use lethal force!"
The transmission ended.
Apart from the regular de dum de dum of wheels pounding over steel tracks, there was total silence in the carriage.
Then Grumpy pulled out his knife and balanced it on one blue finger.
"I will also use lethal force!" he said. "I intend to take several of them with me!"
"Resisting force with force is not an optimum solution," said Dr Tung. "I remind you that the soldiers are armed with superior weapons. Knives against lasers and rifles is hardly an equal fight! Subterfuge is far more practical."
He spoke into a mobile phone: "Driver Garret! Increase speed to arrive at Year in 1520 minutes!"
Speed picked up rapidly.
The coach began to rock alarmingly.
They steamed on towards Yea.
The Mansfield railway runs inside a valley and Aas they approached a short uphill section leading into Yea station, they sawnoticed an Army road/rail/water vehicle already standing in the stationat the platform.
FIDO studied the vehiclerail car with telescopic eyes.
"It is not occupied," he said, "
"Well, well, well!" said Dr Tung, "The rail car is unattended! The crew are probably all in the public house! We can back in, JakeJugg it up to the rear of the coach and take off! That should give the Colonel something to put in his memoirs. CLEO, what is the description at of that vehicle parked in the station?"
CLEO:"It is a diesel APRT or Army Platoon Railway Transporter. It can be converted into a mobile barracks. It contains a portaloo, along with washing and cooking facilities. It can be used as a boat. It carries emergency rations."
Dr Tung: "Just what we need. Let's get it!"
They backed up to Yea station, still using the I/I device to remain invisible. On arrival , Little Sam crawled under the coach and attached the Army vehicle to the train. Unfortunately, he was carrrying the card pack and dropped another of the Stuff It cards onto the track.
It lay unnoticed as the blue dwarf fixed the rail car to the coach,
Grumpy now addressed Jake: "Oh Endlessness," he said. "I understand that you are the top geezer in charge of Central Power.Why not grant us lads a boon! G and give us our freedom! We can go in the tunnel to Chirnside Park and get on the Multiverse Express and go home!"
Jake said nothing.
"Your freedom!" said Alaric. "What have you done to get a boons!? You are convicts! What have you done to deserve freedom?"
The three dwarves now spoke together and listed ;
1. Building the tunnel to help you escape from Prison
2. Alerting you when his Endlessness went sleepwalking
3. Watering the steam engine at persoanal risk
4. And helping to steal an Army car and risk being shot!
"It sounds like a plausable case," said Dr Tung "Why not give them a boon and let them go home?"
"Plausible reasons? They have actually listed only three iimplausible reasons," said Alaric. "The first implausible reason was totally untrue. They were attempting to escape and we merely used a tunnel they had built. For that purpose and saying rude things about the Royal House!The second reason is doubtful as I was already wide awake. The third was obviously their job since they had done nothing at all except smoke, eat, drink and play cards. The and the fourth reason is just Dwarvish bulldust! Well, Your Majesty! What is your Royal decision on this matter?"
Jake had no idea what to say so he replied: "Ask CLEO!"
CLEO then said "The only way they can get their freedom is by being knighted! They could become Knights of the Oblong Table by Royal decree. That would give them their freedom. But who can knight them? Not Jake as he is an escaping prisoner! ! He needs treatment! Not Alaric as he does not have the rank. Not the Earthmen as they are but savages. just visitors Not me as I am a computer. Who is left?"
"I am left! I will knight them!" said FIDO suddenly.
He produced his sword.
"Kneel!"
All three dwarves knelt.
'By the authority of the Royal House I pronouce you knights of the Oblong Table,' he said, touching each dwarf in turn with the sword tip.
A blue light now shone on each forehead.
"It must be your royal power going through him," said Alaric to Jake. "He is your robot!" He added glumly:: "But tThere is no use in them going to Chirnside Park anyway. The Expresso station has probably imploded!"
"Not for us!" said Grumpy."You used a protective screen! We can still use the Multiverse Railway unimplode it to carry us despite the Force Screen.three workers. We would take you all but it will only work for the three of us. Code RedFive: Workers Emergency Retreat. When we get to Central Power we will see what we can do to help you!"
The three dwarves collected their tools and stepped out of the carriage.
They used some kind of device, shining a yellow light at one side of the track .
The entrance to a tunnel then appeared.
The dwarves walked inside.
The tunnel entrance disappeared.
Jake and Alaric helped FIDO load all the alien equipment onto the AAPTWith three minutes to spare, t
The steam train, towing the APRT, departed, heading towards Mansfield.
### Chapter 9
Arrival of the UFO Group
Exactly threeFive minutes later the main body of the UFO Division arrived at Yea station. A in a convoy of jeeps. The column screeched to a halt. Heavily armed troops wearing the "flying saucer" insignia of the UFO Group streamed out from the vehicles. They and swarmed into the rail yard. It would be an error to assume that these troops were weekend pretend soldiers. They were, in fact highly trained, tough, battle hardened and efficient.
Once the troops were in position there was absolutely no prospect of any escape.
. There was a clatter of blades as a UFO Division helicopter began circling overhead.
Colonel Viljoen spoke to the pilot via a throat microphone.
"Eagle One! Arm your weapons!" he snapped.
"Wilco, weapons armed," came a voice over the radio.
Sergeant Sarah now detailed five men to search the station. Using portable Crackerjacks the team smashed down a number of doors and two walls (an action which drew a bill for $280,000, sent to the federalVictorian Government by VicRail.)
The heavy old wooden doors splintered under the impacts, crumpling away, leaving only rusty hinges and an equally rusted lock on the facing side. The troops entered with guns cocked. They began searching the gloomy, dusty interior using powerful lamps. They found nothing except the contents of an old, worn Victoria Rail station masters desk. The desk was covered in dust but contained a pile of yellowing posters. The posters advertised: "An exciting weekend rail trip to Geelong." Otherwise, there was no sign of anything in the booking office. The search team duly moved on, smashing a series of doors. But all the station buildings were also totally disused and failed to show any sign of alien fugitives.
He was interrupted by a soldier who came in and saluted.
"No sign of anything in the station buildings, sir. The whole place was abandoned many years ago. We are now doing a sweep of the surrounding area." he said.
Colonel Viljoen pulled out his mobile phone and dialed.
The phone rang once and was instantly connected.
"Colonel Viljoen here, General. We've searched the station thoroughly. No sign of the ghost train. False alarm! I am going to Chirnside Park and leaving a squad here in case something turns up."
Colonel Viljoen put the cell phone back into his pocket.
Then he spotted athe Stuff It! playing card lying partly hidden under the seaton the track. He stretched down and picked up the card. He glanced at it then stuffed itthe card into his pocket and called his driver. "Back to Chirnside Park."
Before leaving he called Sergeant Sarah and said: "I'm leaving you in charge, Sergeant. Any sign of the aliens bads, start shooting."
He left in a swirl of dust.
Sgt Sarah placed four soldiers in guard positions on the platform. Other soldiers set up rocket launchers as ordered. Once the Colonel was out of sight, Sgt Sarah wandered across to a small takeaway bar. He returned to the station with a large packet of chips. Several soldiers pulled out pocket radios They began munching chips listening to the commentary of a football match being held in Melbourne.
### Chapter 10
No hiding place!
Inside the train conversation was impossible with the I/I device on. Then Dr Tung switched it off and sound returned. But now the roaring wind, the bellowing of the steam engine and the screech of wheels on the rusty track made conversation extremely difficult. The rail tracks were badly worn and not in alignment. This caused the vehicle to rock and sway like an enraged animal. This violent bucking made even staying aboard difficult. In fact, at speed there was the definite possibility of suddenly being thrown out over the side. Yet Dr Tung did not appear to be at all concerned about their frantic and dangerous speed.
He shouted into Jake's ear, asking for the railway line map.
It had been hidden in Jake's pack.
Hanging on to a door strap, Jake retrieved the map and handed it to Dr Tung.
The doctor carefully inspected a small section of the map.
"We must find somewhere to hide," he shouted.
"Impossible!" Jake yelled back. "There is no place to hide on a railway line! We are completely exposed! In any case, we will soon be derailed and killed when we hit points. The driver is a speed maniac! I am a fully qualified engine driver and know these things!"
"Cheer up! shouted the doctor. "This map shows two sidings between Molesworth and Cathkin. They both have large sheds. They will hide our vehicles!"
Dr Tung shouted to Driver Garret. "Begin slowing after milepost 90. We will investigate a possible hiding place somewhere beyond."
"Wilco!" shouted Driver Garret.
The two coupled vehicles raced on. Shortly, they began slowing as they passed a derelict station. Soon they were rolling along quite sedately as they neared a junction. A siding ran to the left. It led into a shed made from corrugated iron. The shed had numerous holes in the roof and it was streaked with rust.
A few old trucks were rotting away in the siding.
They stopped,.Dr Tung studied the shed and siding.
"Good!" he said, apparently satisfied.
"Move on!" he said. "Down the line you will see another junction. Stop again."
With Driver Garret controlling the train, they rolled slowly over the rusted track, passing a line of old coaches standing derelict. Eventually they reached a second junction and Driver Garret brought them to a stand.
The new junction was a carbon copy of the first.
The doctor appeared to reach a decision. He pointed to the shed.
"FIDO!" he said. "Oil the points ahead of the train and pull them so that we can travel into the junction. Then, enter the Enter that shed and set up four machine guns! Aim each gun out of a window. Put a full clip in each gun and rig to auto fire under radio control."
The robot picked up a pack and immediately left his seat at the rear or the vehicle. He oiled the points before pulling them over, then walked up the line to the shed and vanished inside.
Doctor Tung spoke to Drive Garret.: "Move forward to the shed. Pick up FIDO when he is reappearsready. Reverse onto the main line." he said. "Return to the first junction. We'll get under cover there."
They shunted down the siding. At the entrance to the shed, FIDO appeared and climbed aboard. They reversed onto the main line. FIDO climbed out and switched the points back before climbing back inside in his usual athletic manner. They reversed to a position ahead of the first set of points. FIDO again climbed out and oiled the points before throwing them. They proceeded into the shed.
FIDO now turned off the firebar and the steam train slowly cooled,
Shortly, FIDO came out of the shed and placed the I/I device about half way down the rail yard. He switched the device on. The track into the shed suddenly vanished.. The robot then pulled the points on the main line back to the straight ahead position. Finally, he returned to the rail trolley parked inside the shed.
### Chapter 11
Two matching cards....
While the escapees were busy, Colonel Viljoen was close to his destination.
The UFO Research Dept was now in charge of the investigation. They would have liked nothing better than to pull the oak tree out by its roots. The tree could then be carted back to Darwin for investigation. However, this was impossible due to the Greens who had arrived once the alien contact had been broadcast.. The investigation re Alien Occupation Underof Oak Tree was thus being held on site in situ.
A mobile tent had been set up beside the tree.
A sign announced: "GAS MAINS LEAK. STAY CLEAR."
Colonel Viljoen arrived. His jeep screeched to a stop.
The Colonel walked inside a tent which had been erected close to the oak tree. The troopers trapped inside the alien object stood frozen inside a glass like column. Col Viljoen looked at them somberly then He greeted the chief scientist of the UFO Group, Dr Sebastian Doddles. Unfortunately, that worthy boffin was unable to report a breakthrough. "We have been unable to penetrate a strange alien barrier inside the tree," he said. "We have used every available type of device but we can't get in!"
He indicated what looked like the outline of a small door incised in the trunk of the tree. "We believe this is the entry to an alien staircase."
Colonel Viljoen: "That is correct. An alien stood right there! He summoned a robot who shot our men. They closed a door and vanished down below.""
He looked sadly at the strange transparent artifact standing in the garden. It was holding four trooper in stasis. He continued: "We have been unable to corner the aliens! We have seen them but...they are armed with incredible weapons! A number ofTwelve crewmen have now been rendered permanently unfit for duty!"
Dr Doddle: "I see! Colonel! Would you recount the events which lead to these unfortunate losses?"
"Certainly! The UFO Group was alerted by a phone call from the resident of this house. We were investiagating when a massive hole opened over there..." he waved at the open golf course.."and a saucer flew into the hole, which than closed! Later, an alien appeared and a robot joined him. They shot these four unfortunate men! Both vanished and radar then spotted movement on some kind of underground railway. We used a chopper to track something moving at high speed underground. It stopped at by an alert near the Yea railway station. When our ground patrol vehicle arrived at that site they reported severalan aliens. Video showed a young boy with big ears and some kind of Star Wars sword! Then one The alien attacked the patrol vehicle with what appeared to be his an alien sword. He melted the laser gun, stripped off all the paint and left the crew mad and unfit for duty! Then the alien vanished. The railway line had been doctored to hide the fact that the aliens were using ground transport, some kind of railway vehicle, We sent another crew up the line to investigate. There was one report: alien in sight! Then there was some kind of incident and the vehicle travelled out of control,stripped of paint, glowing purple with the crew totally mad. It was finally stopped at Flinders Street after travelling at least 100 k. There was one other incident in which a train waiting at Lilydale station
Suddenly it apparently acquired two figures sitting in a locked rear carriage. The police broke in at Ringwood and shot the two figures. They turned out to be inflatable dummies. We thought recently that we had spotted the alien train via a satellite image but the train never arrived at Yea station. There is now no physical trace of the aliens."
"No physical trace??? That is not quite true, Colonel!" said Dr Doddle. "They left us an alien calling card! A card made of unknown materials!"
He produced the card dropped by Jake.Alaric at the site of the Underground Prison Complex.
Colonel Viljoen looked at the card as realization dawned.
"A calling card just like this, Dr Doddle!" he said, producing a matching card from his breast pocket. "They have not vanished! The aliens must be hiding somewhere on the Mansfield railway line! Somewhere near Yea!"
He raced back to his jeep and pulled out his mobile phone as the vehicle screeched away. He dialed a number which was answered after a short delay.
Colonel Viljoen: "Sergeant Sarah! This is Viljoen! Report!"
"Sir! We had a call from HQ about a rail car. They said a crew had left a railcar at this station.There is no car here! The crew are all blind drunk! The rail vehicle has gone. It has vanished!"
Colonel Viljoen: "Gone, Sergeant, I left you and a full platoon of men on guard. What have you been doing? Drinking in the pub?"
Sergeant Sarah: "No, sir! The delivery crew have been drinking at the pub!""
Colonel Viljoen: "The delivery crew! Arrest them immediately! I am on my way! Viljoen out!"
Colonel Viljoen sat in his jeep fuming as his vehicle proceeded towards Yea at breakneck speed. The aliens had almost certainly used some kind of device to steal the rail vehicle! And...as the officer in charge, he would face a courts martial! Suddenly he had a brighter thought.
The aliens were trapped! They were now attempting to escape in a rail vehicle
Probably to a rendezvous with a mother ship.... But now he knew the aliens could make their vehicle it vanish. They had some kind of device. But they could not make it progress without rails to run on! It would not run overland! The vehicle had no road wheels so they could not go off the track!!! The aliens must either turn back or go on to Mansfield. They were trapped!"
Colonel Viljoen dialed a new number. "Corporal Barry! This is Colonel Viljoen. Send a spare troop carrier to Yea at the double! Then send a detail to set up an ambush at Cheviot station on the Mansfield line! Remove the rails! Set up explosives around the ambush site."
"Yes, sir!" said Corporal Barry.
Colonel Viljoen studied his rail map and then phoned Cpl Barry again. "Send half your troops to Yarck, further east on the same line. Set up a second interception. Find a site where a derailment will do maximum damage!. Place explosives around the site! The aliens may double back down the line.They are invisible. We must ensure they are blown to bits!"
Corporal Barry: "Did you say that they are invisible, Sir?"
Colonel Viljoen: "Yes! That is what I said, Corporal. They are invisible and inaudible. They have some kind of alien device. They've left Yea station right under our (expletive deleted) noses. I will proceed up the line towards Mansfield using the troop carrier. The aliens are probably fleeing towards Mansfield but I want to cut the line in both directions in case they double back. I intend to flush them out. Stand by for action!"
Corporal Barry: "Yes, sir!"
The conversation was recorded by CLEO.
The Colonel headed back to Yea, telling his driver to move like a bat out of hell
Authors note: Police records reveal that cameras actually photographed a speeding vehicle at a number of points along the road to Yea. In theory, Colonel Viljoen's driver should have lost his license, accrued 23,642 demerit points and faced a long term in prison! Yet no arrest has ever been made. And according to government records, a vehicle with the number plate UFO 1 does not exist.
### Chapter 12
A cup of Elvish tea
Inside the railway shed the companions waited anxiously for events to unfold. The robot now made four cups of Elvish brew.
Soon, they were all sipping that marvelous drink.
Spirits rapidly lifted.
CLEO was scanning all frequencies and immediately played Colonel Viljoen's phone calls over her loudspeaker. After listening to the Colonel instructing his NCO to lift the rail lines ahead of them and behind them, Dr Tung said: "So! The Colonel has discovered that we have borrowed his rail vehicle! He has lifted the rails behind us and ahead of us! What can be done?"
Jake: "We can fly! CLEO! Do you have any air transport?"
"Through your own negligent attitude you are not qualified to fly anything !" said the computer. "I refuse to release expensive hardware to an untrained pilot!"
"What about FIDO? He can be the pilot!" said Jake.
"I will not risk hardware because you did not study!" said CLEO.
The computer appeared to have no comprehension of their desperate situation! They were in extreme danger!
Pursued by an army with orders to kill!
"You are a stupid piece of junk!" shouted Jake.
"Loss of temper indicates loss of cool," said Dr Tung. "We should not lose our cool by getting over heated!"
He indicated the railway map spread out on his knees.
"Colonel Viljoen is a skilled military commander. He has not left matters to chance. We must bluff our way out! FIDO! What armaments do you carry?"
FIDO: "I have been resupplied. I now have 10 Bren guns, five 10lb morters and five 20lb morters plus two ground to ground missiles and two ground to air missiles. I am fully prepared to liquidate a regiment or even a division!"
Jake listened with awe. His friendly fellow spotter was armed to the hilt and ready to kill!
Dr Tung: "Good! Take that device Alaric is carrying and put it outside this shed on the rail line. Switch it on. Then move about one kilometer up the line to the next shed. Set up the Brens facing the railway, aim at the far bank.Site the guns and the morters to fire over the railway and into a field behind. Aim the ground to ground missiles the same way.Wait for instructions before firing. Go!"
The robot hesitated. "Fire over?" he said. "But they have orders to kill us! Why not kill them and solve the problem?"
Dr Tung: " Because future visitors to this planet would not like to be shot to bits! That would be the certain result if you shoot these soldiers! Carry out my orders!"
The robot streaked out of the shed. In a blur of motion the I/I device was placed outside the shed door and a section of line abruptly vanished.
The robot then disappeared in the direction of Mansfield,
After about 15 minutes they suddenly heard the chug of a motorized trolley. Colonel Viljoen and his troops had arrived. They were inspecting the railway line as they traveled. At the first junction, Sergeant Sarah was in the leading seat. He noticed that the both rails ahead and the rails leading into the junction showed the marks of passage.
The trolley screeched to a halt.
"Colonel, the track up this spur line has been used! The track going up the main line has also been used," said Sergeant Sarah. "Which way should we search?"
"Search this spur first, Sergeant," said the voice of Colonel Viljoen. "The aliens probably ran up the main track for a short way to distract us. They hoped we wouldn't notice they had turned off. They may be hiding in that shed over there! You, blackfeller! Get out and earn your pay! See if there is any movement. Keep black head down. They have bad gun!"
The Aboriginal tracker hesitated and then jumped out. He moved towards the shed, sliding forward on his sJakeach, crablike. He had gone a few yards when he suddenly grinned and then shouted:
"Line in front of shed lifted! There is no line. They musta came this way, discovered there was no track, and reversed back down the line."
Colonel Viljoen. "Get back in and we'll carry on! Sergeant, put that tracker on a charge. He is not wearing a name tab and he has no beret or regulation socks and boots!"
Sgt Sarah "Yes,Sir! But just in case the aliens are playing some kind of trick I'll give the shed 50 rounds. With your permission, Sir?"
Col Viljoen: "Alright,Sergeant! We can all have go! Get the guns warmed up! Everybody out! Twenty rounds from each man, aiming at an invisible transporter inside that shed!" The troops debouched and lined up.
With exception of the unarmed tracker, the entire party opened up, aiming at various levels of the wooden shed. Bullets thudded into the rail vehicle after passing through the old wooden wall of the shed, However,several layers of bullet proof materials protected the fugitives crouching inside the Army vehicle.
The coach shuddered under the impact of a veritable rain of lead.
"Cease firing!"
The racket stopped.
Colonel Viljoen: "Well, if they were in there we have filled them full of holes! However, its much more likely that the aliens have gone on down the line. If we get moving we might even catch them! Safeties on! Return to the vehicle on the double!"
There was another series of clicks and the men ran back to the rail vehicle. It reversed over the points and proceeded down the line.
Dr Tung began counting out loud, on a measured beat.
He continued counting down slowly until he reached one hundred then. "CLEO! FIDO is to fire 50 rounds from the north window!"
They heard a gun open up.
It was followed by a series of alarmed shouts.
"CLEO! FIDO is to wait five seconds then fire 20 rounds from each gun in a random sequence! Then fire two ground to ground missiles!Wait 20 seconds! Then repeat!"
Gun fire now sounded. The brisk chatter of the guns controlled by FIDO was suddenly augmented as the troops opened fire.
Then successive massive rocket blasts rent the air.
The distant chatter of weapons continued.
### Chapter 13
He must see us all
Dr Tung was considering a plan as he said:"Assuming they see this train leave will the soldiers simply give chase? Can the rail trolley then continue down the line without trouble?" He considered the matter.
"No! This colonel is a careful man! Once the firing stops he will look into the shed, find nothing except the guns. He will then send troops to check this place! Therefore he must see the elves and the robot leave with the rest of us! He must see us all go! The railcar must leave with the steam train!. But how? We have no other transport...."
"Sir!" piped CLEO. "There is a 280 h.p. Walker Railmotor at the back of this shed. It has travelled 400,000 miles but the log book, which is shown on a computer historical record, says it was retired intact and running on Fri 18th August 1951. It is fully fuelled with diesel oil. Would that surfice for future needs?"
"It certainly will suffice! In fact, it must! Some oil, perhaps a tune up from FIDO....yes!! We must begin!You two." he pointed at Alaric and Jake. "Transfer food and drink from the railcar and put it inside the rail motor. Get as much food and drink as you can move in 10 minutes! And take FIDO's cooker as well. The food and drink may have to last you a while. Take all the Central Power stuff as well."
Jake and Alaric immediately began offloading cartons of food and drink from the railcar. CLEO was hidden and various items of Central Power gear were loaded onto the railmotor.
Dr Tung continued: "Driver Garret. Remove that alien device from the firebasr and put it with the other gear in Walker Railmotor,"
As Driver Garret hastened to comply Dr Tung continued: "CLEO! Radio the soldiers lifting the line at Cheviot. Use the Colonels voice. Tell them we have caught the aliens! They are to put the rails back. The squad will get 14 days leave to celebrate! They can depart as soon as the rails are back. Contact the soldiers working Yarck and give them the same message! Fourteen days special leave once they reconnect the the line! Finally, tell the soldiers at Yea to head back to barracks! In three minutes, tell FIDO to fire six morter rounds at 3 second intervals. The mortars should be aimed to fire into the gronnd in front of the soldiers. There are to be no casualties! I will have the I/I device. On my signal, FIDO is to fire all mortars. The train will appear and he is to run over and get on." There was a sudden whistling noise in the distance."Incoming!"A huge explosion followed. Small arms fire continued, now augmented by the incessant chatter of a machine gun. Three seconds later there was another massive bang. Dr Tung addressed Alaric and Jake;
"Well, gentlemen, it is time to part. We will take the Army in the wrong direction and leave you two with a clear run east.I trust you will find this railway you are seeking. We will need the I/I device! I wish we had another! We will also have FIDO on board for a short time, so the Colonel gets a good look at all of us! You will jump off as we pass this site. Good luck! Driver Garret and I will now say goodbye!"
The two men, followed by Jake and Alaric ran across the railyard and mounted the railcar. Engines at both ends of the vehicle started up with a deep, throaty roar. They rolled twards the sound of firing
Some distance up the line two mortar rounds exploded and then the firing from the building slackened.
"Keep at it lads!" cried the Colonel. "A months leave for anyone who bags an alien!"
Suddenly, his radar operator shouted:
"Sir! Train approaching on the line! Sounds like something heavy!"
Mortars inside the shed then fired in sequence, within five seconds. The soldiers ducked involuntarily. The golden figure of FIDO suddenly appeared, weaving to avoid the stream of bullets and running towards the railway. The rail car pulling the steam engine and coach suddenly winked into existence.
"Over here!" shouted Dr Tung, pushing his head out of the side window.
The soldiers then had a clear view of Jake, Alaric, Driver Garret and Dr Tung through the uncovered side of the rail car, with the steam engine behind. FIDO jumped aboard as the soldiers recovered and started to pepper the rail car.Then both the rail car and the steam engine vanished.
The radar operator shouted:
"They are moving down the line towards Yea!"
"After them!" shouted Col Viljoen. "Tally Ho!"
Chapter
Aboriginal machanic
Jake,Alaric, FIDO and CLEO were now all inside the Walker railcar. They had broken several international sprint records to reach the shed after jumping off the slowing train. They had not heard the steam train and its cargo leave due to the effect of the I/I device. They had heard Con Viljoen and his crew roar past in hot pursuit,
It had rapidly become quiet. Now they could only hear the wind rattling against the corrugated iron of their shed, CLEO's hardware was placed on a side shelf. The computer sat surveying events. FIDO then activated an extremely powerful vacumn and the vehicle rapidly became pristine.
FIDO continued installing the nuclear cooking stove. Jake and Alaric were stowing away plates,knives,spoons and cups on a makeshift counter on one of the seats. Containers of food and drink occupied another of the traverse seats. Once the chores were finished, Jake attemptied to connect the motor which had been idle for some sixty years.
The enginel failed to fire.
Then the aboriginal tracker suddenly arrived at the entrance to the wooden building. He was now dressed in a loin cloth. He approached silently and stood looking at them.
"G'Day, spirit people!" said the tracker."Don't worry! I'm no longer with the army, I've deserted and I'm going walkabout. I don't like that fat faced colonel! I just dropped in to say hello!"
CLEO squawked from the bench. "FIDO! Get him!"
Before the robot could move Jake made a decision.
"Don't attack him,FIDO,"he said. 'He's on the run like we are."
The tracker spoke again.
"Your engine don't sound happy," he said, "Needs bush mechanic!"
He walked into the hut, grabbed a set of rusted tools from a table and vanished under the Railmotor, There were several metallic sound effects and a string of what might be Mujambi curses.
The ex soldier then reappeared.
"Now you try again," he said.
Jake tried the starter again and the motor roared into life, filling the shed with smoke.
"Turn it off and we'll all have a cuppa," shouted the ex soldier.
He climbed aboard the vehicle. FIDO used his nuclear cooker and they all sat perched sideways on the long seats as the robot served tea.
"Good stuff this," said the soldier, sipping the brew and then nursing his cup.
"Spirit tea! Where you spirit people headin?"
"Down the line," said Jake. "We looking for a... a sort of special railway.."
"A proper spirit railway," said the tracker with satisfaction. "We seen spirit people before, long time back. This give me something to talk about when I get back.Can I cadge a ride down the line? Then I go long walkabout/"
The railcar was already loaded. Jake started the engine and they pulled out onto the main line. The railcar clattered on into the night. Once the engine warmed it was giving stirling service, Alaric sat on the front seat with the tracker and FIDO sat at the back of the bus. CLEO had already protested that Jake was still totally banned from driving any motor vehicle, Alaric had intervened and persuaded the computer that the ban did not apply to a retired rail car. He explained that a rail car was a motorized railway vehicle rather than a road vehicle.
It did not travel on a road. Thus Jake was allowed to drive.
CLEO was currently: "Considering Lord Alarics's analysis."
In the meantime Jake was driving at a reasonable speed. He was currently staring intently at the track ahead. A wandering moon, which kept vanishing behind clouds, gave some light. The railcar clattered through the deserted stations of Yark, Kanumbra. Merton and then Woodfield and Bonnie Doom without stopping.
They were now heading towards Maindample when a lbright light from directly above shone down on the railcar. A metallic voice ordered them to stop. Jake cut off the engine and braked. The Aboriginal soldier said: "Get you head down,spirit man! They probably after me for desertin".
"Are you giving up?" asked Jake.
"Naw! Just pullin' them away from you spirit men. They won't catch me!"
He climbed out of the railcar and stood with his hands up.
The voice of Colonel Viljoen boomed out: "Improperly dressed, AWOL and deserting! I'm going to throw the book at you, darkie!"
"You'll have to catch me first, Ding Dong!" shouted the tracker, using a derisive title used by the Colonels troops. The ex-tracker dashed across the track and vanished into thick bush. The helicopter sped after him, shining a light into the thick bush. Gradually, the light vanished in a series of stacatto hops towards the north,..
The railcar stood silent for a long period.
"They seem to have gone," said Jake. "I think we should carry on.
Once again the engine roared into life. Jake pushed in the worn gears and once again they were on the move. The ancient railcar was now rolling on towards Maindample. The station was shown on CLEO's map as being located 122.5 miles from Melbourne on the line to Mansfield. As they pulled into the station, which was overgrown with weeds, Jake suddenly decided to stop. He would consult the computer in respect to planning the next section of the journey.
He might also get a snack.
As they drew to a halt, FIDO brought out cups of Elvish tea.. Jake moved back from the drivers seat and they all sat together in the middle of the vehicle. Alaric held up CLEO's rail map. They could see the markings of a path. It started at Old Maindimple station and lead up to a mountain carrying the legend St Bernards Peak (8,650 ft.) On the map, a red light flickered on and off at the summit of the mountain.
"The light shows the possible location of Gateway Four." said CLEO. "Gateway Central's Notes on Gateways states that this Gateway is a One Way Request Stop. However, my Schedule states that the gate will be operative in 5 hours, local time."
"Well, there is no point in travelling further along the railway," said Alaric. "The Prince did well to stop here! He must have had a feeling that we were close to a Gateway."
Jake protested that the only feeling he had was hunger.
FIDO then produced a plate of sandwiches!!!
Jake began eating rapidly.
CLEO suddenly made an announcement: "As a safety measure, in case the Gateway is not fully operative I have broken out two sleighs from stores. FIDO has expanded the sleighs which may be strapped over your backpacks and used to slide back to this train if necessary. Each sleigh is the latest Super Zooper. These sleighs can attain very high speeds without the use of ski wax! They will not require waxing! Before you depart, would anyone care to hear a lecture on how to avoid hidden obstacles while sleighing downhill at high speed?"
Jake: "What I really need is a snowmobile to take me up to the peak. Do you have a snowmobile in your inventory, Miss Fusspot?"
"No, I do not have a snowmobile." said CLEO.
Jake climbed down from the carriage on to the dark platform. Alaric, similarly equipped, descended from the train. They left the station and began following a meandering muddy track towards the foothills of the mountain.
As they left, FIDO powered himself down. He stood motionless, next to his nuclear stove. In the carriage, only CLEO was still fully awake. The computer, powered by her internal battery, continued her task of scanning all frequencies while amusing herself by playing chess on the Internet (under the code name Jolly Molly.)
Away from the rail trolley, the party struggled upwards over a muddy track apparently made by mountain goats. The foothills suddenly became a steep, rocky incline. Under the weight of heavy packs and sleighs. They struggled upward, Even Alaric, who normally seemed to dance around, was obliged to simply plod on. Jake kept asking them to stop for a quick snack. Jake suggested they could return to the train, have a good meal and a long snooze. They could try again the following night. Alaric ruined this idea by reminding him that transport would appear that very night.
It might not then return for some very considerable time.
They must press on.
Jake now regretted the fact that he had not demanded a proper hot meal before leaving the carriage. Six sandwiches were hardly enough. He was even more regretful that he had stopped the railcar at all. It would have been far easier driving on than trudging up the side of a mountain.
However, Alaric would not agree to his frequent request for a rest and merely said they must press on. Shortly, the few stunted trees growing on the rock strewn hill gave way to a snowfield. It stretched upward, glistening in the moonlight. They crunched through the snow. Suddenly Jake's weariness vanished. He had an inspiring vision of himself as a member of the first party to ascend St Bernard's Peak! He was a member of The First Ascent! He would get a special badge and probably be featured on the news! He rehearsed a modest smile for TV. It would be important to look modest and unassuming. As they trudged forward, Jake planned his victory speech. He would ignore the popping lights of the cameramen. He would gaze at some unseen inner vision. "It was just another peak." he would say, slowly, after apparently thinking hard. "It is my aim, my unshakeable aim to climb all the worlds great peaks including this one." He would then mention the fact that this peak had probably beaten off hundreds of prior attempts. Even for an expert like himself the mountain had proved a challenge. There were difficult pitches up to and including Grade 1. This grade was regarded by many climbers as impossible! But he had prevailed!"
This imaginery scenario cheered him up immensely.
He plodded on quite cheerfully.
The peak was now visible a short distance ahead.
### Chapter 14
Interdimensional Bus Stop
Eventually, they reached a rocky plateau which proved to be the top of the mountain. They unpacked the sleds, sat down on them and waited. Above, the heavens sparkled with millions of brilliant, glittering stars. The clouds had vanished and a yellow crescent moon sat coyly just above the horizon.
Suddenly, there was a double explosion and a brilliant flash of green light. An object appeared in the sky to the north.
"It's a plane!" cried Alaric."It's a plane about to crash!"
They watched in horror as the bright object zoomed towards them. Just as it appeared certain to crash into the mountain, the object suddenly jerked upwards and executed a perfect landing on the flat mountaintop.
It rolled to a stop near to them.
"It's not a plane," said Jake. "It's an old bus!"
And the object did indeed appear to be a battered old bus. It was colored red. A large sign on one side said Multiverse Bus Company. Above the drivers cab a destination board read: Universe 1 Down. The bus stood with its engine running. The engine sounded rough, missing beats and back firing. Yellow smoke poured from the exhaust, causing the waiting passengers to cough and splutter. Abruptly, the engine stopped and the exhaust ceased. Lights inside the bus stayed on as the driver climbed out. The driver wore a cap with a shiny peak and a badge Multiverse Bus Co. He had a peculiar face. His eyes were set wide apart and he had no nose! There were only a pair of flat slits where his nose would normally be. He had another horizontal slit which might pass for a mouth. He did not appear to have any ears.
Still, he did appear to be friendly.
"Welcome all," said the driver. His horizontal slit of a mouth appeared to be the source of the words. "I'm gonna let 'er cool down before we jumps but you can git aboard. It be horrible freezin' out here! Can I sees youse fares?"
Jake produced his vial of Virtue.
The globe illuminated the entire mountaintop.
"Gawd!" said the driver "I'm suprised yous goin' on a bus wiz all that credit!":
He had a sudden thought.
"I knows! Yous big wigs from somewhere Up! Buyin' a sausage factory for your conglomoratation! Climb aboard and get warm while I waits for 'er to cool down a bits. I don't want 'er conkin' out in-between! The idea of conkin' out in between Universes makes me feel fraught! Proper fraught!"
The travelers all climbed onto the bus. They piled the sleighs and rucksacks into a luggage area and sat down. Inside, the lighting had a peculiar reddish hue. They sat on metal seats and immediately noticed the high temperature inside the bus.
"It's a trifle warm in here," said Jake.
"I can't get it proper warm because she is having a rest, little sir," said the driver. He appeared to have misunderstood the remark. "It is only a trifle warm right now. She's not givin' out 'er full 'eat. Yous'll have to shiver a bits till she warms up proper. She's usin' all 'er power to get fully charged."
He settled on a nearby seat as the elves and dwarves shrugged off their packs. They all started stripping clothes to cope with the waves of intense heat circulating inside the bus. The driver looked at them curiously.
"Well, sirs, is you visitors from an 'igher universe?" said the driver. "Dropped off on Zero for sight seein' and get some souvies? Next trip in a years time we should be goin' back up to Universe Plus One. That's assuming she can do it then. At the moment I don't think she could jump up! She needs a full rebore and a new fusion chamber. But what are youse plannin' to do down in Minus One.? Buy a factory for speculatin' ? Or will you be biddin' to build the sewage works? Streets is filfy. Gutters runnin'. Whole place stinks!"
He had a sudden idea. "Hey! Is you from Multiverse Central? You can tell the big wigs that this bus needs a full rebore and a new fusion chamber! Clapped out she is. Last year I was doing the run to One Up and she did it easy. But this year, even though we is going Down and its an easier run she is really feelin' her old bones! She ain't 'ad a proper service since you knows when! . And look at er, just look at 'er! She's stuffed that's what she is. I call Central and they just leave me on 'old. Anyhow, I'll try a quick twitch on the starter now! Finges crossed! We'll be off before you knows it!"
He went forward. and began adjusting knobs and levers.
Jake and Alaric immediately decided to get off the bus.
They scrambled to collect discarded clothes, rucksacks and sleighs as the driver moved to the drivers cabin and cranked the engine. As they fled the engine fired and burst into thunderous life. The bus shot directly upwards, moving in a shower of sparks before vanishing with two loud bangs.
They were left under the bright canopy of s.
"Well," said Alaric, "So much for the supposed news about Gateway Four. It is not a proper Gateway at all! A bus stop for a bus travelling down to a Minus Universe! Specifically going down to a planet which currently lacks even a sewage works! I suggest we sleigh back to the train and find out what to do next. See you at the station!"
With a whoop he pushed his sleigh over the edge of the plateau and vanished in a flurry of snow. Jake, preferred to lie flat on his sJackach and look down at the slope. He set off with a powerful kick. As the sleigh accelerated he decided that he should stand up and perform some acrobatic tricks on his descent. But disaster struck before he could stand up. His sleigh suddenly ran into a protruding rock and stopped abruptly.
Jake did not stop with his sleigh.
He continued to dive forward and plummeted into an icy crevice.
He fell headfirst into a deep ice cave.
CLEO waited in the railcar and shortly decided that Jake was over due. She sent FIDO to provide Search and Rescue. The robot drew skis from the equipment store. He climbed the mountain at high speed.
And saw Jake's sleigh sitting forlorn in front of a hole.
FIDO peered down the hole in the snow and saw Jake lying upside down. The problem of retrieving Jake, who was wedged between rocks some 30 feet down confronted FIDO. It did not trouble him for a second.
The robot braced himself and lowered both arms into the hole. The arms telescoped ourward to a truly astonishing length.
They eventually reached Jake, some thirty feet below.
The robotic thumbs,burrowing through the ice until they met around Jake's waist.
Metal fingers now clasped to form a secure hold.
Jake was effortlessly lifted to the surface.
He rose feet first in one smooth pull.
FIDO immediately placed Jake onto the sleigh, wrapped him in a thermo blanket and tied him down with a length of elastic rope. They began a rapid descent. FIDO held the sleigh firmly using one extended arm while sliding across and down the icy mountainside in a series of giant zig zags
FIDO brought the sleigh down to a place close to the path.
The robot now kicked off his skis and dropped his poles. He released Jake from the sleigh and carried his charge back to the station in his arms. Since he had already selected appropriate metal feet for the muddy condition, the robot did not lose his footing on the muddy path.
Alaric was eating sandwiches when FIDO returned.
"What happened?"
Jake mumbled a few confused replies about an ice cave. He was immediately put to bed. He was still wrapped in the thermal blanket but he was now also covered with three army blankets. He was given two aspirins and a drink.
He fell asleep and knew nothing until he awoke late the following afternoon.
CLEO sent FIDO back to retrieve ther skis and poles.
The robot was then admonished to "waste not ,want not."
### Chapter 15
Pernambuco!
When Jake finally woke up, Alaric was sitting a little further down the carriage, apparently studying CLEO's map. He greeted Jake with a distracted wave, saying only "Good afternoon, Prince, I trust you are feeling better". In fact, Jake was feeling much better and extremely hungry.
After Jake had carried out his toilet, FIDO brought him a large helping of hot steak and kidney pudding. This was followed by chocolate pudding accompanied by a bottle of pop (sparkling orange.)
CLEO advised him the meal would help rebuild his strength.
Alaric was looking at the map and apparently pondering some difficult problem. Once Jake had cleared his plate of hot pudding he was able to speak.
"Hey, Alaric, you look glum!" he said.
"I am deflated, your royal highness," said Alaric. "There are no more operating Gateways shown on CLEO's list. She is examining records to see if there was is an emergency exit Gateway left somewhere on this continent."
Jake considered this revelation. No more operating Gateways. They could not leave! They must do something else. He considered what something else might be. "We could go train spotting," he said, after considering the matter. "Flinders Street is a busy station on the East Coast main line. I could get namers at Flinders Street! We can go back to Lilydale. Get a train there!"
Alaric appeared to consider this plan.
"But Sire, is trainspotting a real option? We are both currently free only because we are lost!. The wicked Regent could send a squad of robo troops to nab us if he knew our whereabouts! The earth troops have been put off our track by a strategem – but for how long?"
Jake's pack was lying on a seat and CLEO's hardware was inside the pack. The computer was busy. She was using Quad Line One to play chess on the Internet. She was playing simultaneous chess against 75 international chess grand masters who believed they were playing against a Russian chess genius. CLEO's Quad Line Two was listening to human radio traffic. Quad Line Three was listening to phone traffic from UFO Divisional HQ. You might consider that CLEO was so busy that she would not even notice Alaric's remark. But her capacity to quad process meant that his remarks were recorded. They would be subject to analysis by quad line four.
Who is the wicked Regent?
While CLEO was busy playing chess, scanning all frequencies, listening to phone calls and computing the various possible meanings of Alaric's remark, Jake was reflecting on his own unfortunate circumstance.He had been quite happy living in the Underground Prison Complex, a comfortable underground home. It was true that sword training had been a harsh, daily grind. And his potential future career as a racing driver had been cruelly nipped in the bud by tyrannical jailer CLEO. With additional practice time on the car driving program he might have achieved his ambition. He could have become an internationally famous racing car driver! But against all these negatives he had always been well fed! That was the key issue! Three meals a day with two snacks! Of course, his train spotting results recorded in the area above the prison had turned out to be useless! But he had still enjoyed his spotting time. Then the whole thing had been ruined by Alaric's arrival! The elf's ridiculous idea that Jake was a Prince and that they must escape was the source of all his problems. Alaric buried his head in his hands and appeared to be sobbing. Even the dwarves noticed his distress.
"It's hopeless!" cried Alaric. "This Quest is doomed! Doomed. There are no more Gateways recorded in Australia. Two other Gateways are or were located on the other side of this planet! They are probably all now unusable. The Gateway on Atlantis vanished into the ocean 12,000 years ago during the Central Power Explorer phase.. That Gateway is still working on au _Jake_ atic but it is now sucking in planes and ships and sending them into a another dimension! I was planning to have it shut off once we reached Central Power. But we will never reach Central Power!
"Never?" said Jake. "Pernabuco! We can go spotting!"
Alaric suddenly stiffened and sat up abruptly. "Pernambuco! " he said. "Pernambuco! Your Highness you have remembered a word of Elvish !"
"What do you mean? It just slipped out!" said Jake.
"Exactly! It just slipped out from a mind that was horribly damaged by your forced transfer to this Universe! I had hoped that a time of recuperation would bring back both your memories and your Royal Powers! But one word is a beginning! Pernambuco! It means "What chance did I have?" Pernambuco!!"
"You may have hope but my sJackach has no hope! It is still empty!" said Jake morosely. He looked at the bowl in front of him and raised his eyebrows in a meaningful way at FIDO.
The robot was standing in his cooking area.
But there was no response.
Unfortunately. FIDO appeared to be recharging.
He was switched off.
There was no hope of a second helping.
Alaric He seemed to have recovered his usual good spirits. "Perhaps CLEO will discover the location of another Gateway. She is still searching."
There was a sudden keening explosive sound. A blue hole appeared on one side of the carriage and the three dwarves climbed out,following each other in sucession. The hole then vanished with an explosive clap.
The three dwarves stood on line at the inside front of the bus..
"Sir Stumpy at your service!" said Stumpy, bowing deeply.
"Sir Grumpy at your service!" said Grumpy, bowing and adding a flurish.
"And Sir Sam!" said Little Sam, dropping to one knee.
"Knights in the Royal service!"
CLEO suddenly spoke. "Big News! I have just beaten seventy five chess masters simultaneously, After the game, one of the Chess Masters sent me an email to say that I am a very smart cookie! I do not understand the use of the word cookie. Could anyone answer this query? Why would a winning chess player be compared to an edible biscuit?"
Sir Grumpy spoke, addressing the computer.
"Being a smart cookie is a slang phrase meaning a clever person. You were being compared to a clever person." he said. " I must immediately add that you are not as clever as a young dwarf like Sir Sam! And a young dwarf is never as smart as an old dwarf! The great Jackefits of experience always win in the end! And as for you,computer CLEO, you apparently did not notice our arrival by special delivery!"
"How did you get here?" asked Jake.
"On theMultiverse Express," said the dwarf. "We located your whereabouts with help from the Controller and then used a virtual tunnel to rejoin your party!"
Chapter 16
Routing Problem
"The Multiverse Express is the answer! But...but where is it?" said Alaric. "We can't find a working station!"
Sir Sam answered: "Strictly speaking the Multiverse Express is in non space. However, as the Royal party had a return ticket the Express will always stay close to the ticket holders, or again, as close as it can get in non space."
"How is that useful?" said Alaric angrily. "The Express may be as close as it can get but we cannot reach it without a station! Every station has been either extinguished by some kind of wind, or closed for repairs taking several thousand years, or sited on a barren hilltop and used for going to lower universes!" '
There was a pained silence, then Sir Grumpy spoke:
"Excellency! " he cried. "As Knights of the Oblong Table, now with large land holdings on Ozro, we have been instructed by the Central Power Master Computers to assist your goodselves with a virtual tunnel, which will create and instant station and allow transit to Central Power for your honoured selves!"
Sir Stumpy added: "After reminding you or your promise of gold and..."
Sir Sam concluded: "Jewels! We have a need to stock our planets with gnunks and some well bred scatcookers and..."
"Yes,yes,yes!" said Alaric hastily. He added: "I am sure His Elfness will be grateful and bestow the Royal Favours?"
He looked quizzically at Jake.
Jake said nothing.
CLEO was about to make some sarcastic comment when FIDO suddenly spoke,
"A Royal promise must be met and will be met!" he said.
"Well said!" added Jake.
"That settles it!" said Alaric. "His Elfness has spoken via the robot."
CLRO suddenly butted in. "Patching in phone call from Yea to UFO Comman. I am descrambling message online. It is using Enigma X231.
Phone whistles on speaker.
"Viljoen calling! Sir! Great news! We have caught the two human turncoats! Apparently the alien device ran out of power and there they were, parked at Yea station! Cheeky blighters! We have recovered both thr stolen army vehicle and the ghost steam train! The two men seemed cocky enough at first, the Chinaman swaggering about on the square outside the station but then some other alien device failed! The Chinaman obviously thought they were both going to vanish when he pressed a button but the device did not work! He was foaming at the mouth! Actually threw it down and jumped on it! Said it was rubbish dumped by Central Power! Second hand junk! Central Power throwaways! We recovered the object and have sent it to Chirside Park for testing.. We are still searching for the young boy with big ears. The crew of our second railcar—the second crew attacked --- have reported they were attacked by a golden robot.They are all pacifists but can be used in latrine prep. We are searching for the robot. It is probably hiding in the Yea area along with Big Ears and his alien mater. I have ordered my troops to shoot to kill any alien and to disable the robot by calling in a full air strike. Yea has been cleared of civilians and a state of emergency has been declared. I have locked the two turncoats inside the station waiting room. Two guards inside with them! I have requested a chopper to take them to Army Base "Kango" for transshipment to Psych Centre and detailed interrogation. The Divisional Tracker has gone AWOL and has not yet been found. I have issued an APB so he will be found and face a courts martial!"
A new voice came in:
"Message routed as requested. Prime Minister informed. Out!'
CLEO: "The doctor and his friend must be rescued! Jake can do it! He can take the Merlo Funny Gun and disable the soldiers! That will avoid killing anyone!"
"Hazard his Majesty!" said Alaric, appalled. "Never! Why not send FIDO? He's expendable! A mere robot!"
The mere robot seemed to perk up at the prospect to militray action.
"None of this is necessary!" cried Sir Sam. "We have been resupplied and we can now put in a virtual tunnel at Yea! Get the men out via the Multiverse Express. They will have to change at Central Power and catch a local to MARS. As a Medical Officer travelling with a Patient, all Dr Tungs costs will be entirely covered."
Sir Sam operated a small device and the blue tunnel reappeared. The keening noise was now more of an unbearable amplified screech. Sir Sam vanished into the blue tunnel and the sound effects then stopped.
FIDO served toasted bread and strawberry jam.
Jake had two helpings.
The blue light flashed back on, with more muted sound effects.
This time only Sir Sam appeared.
"The doc and his patient have gone on to Central Power via the Express," the dwarf reported. "Sir Grumy and Sir Stunpy are going back to Ozro to take care of our holdings. You can \use the Expresso to go back to Power. You will have a full trainload. I will help carry the Central Power equipment and take the train ahead of yours to Central Power. I will then take a local to Ozro."
They all loaded up with gear, nuclear stove, Central Power escape equipment and sundries. FIDO carried CLEO's hardware. With Sir Sam leading they walked up the blue light beam, which expanded to encompass the larger members of the party (Jake had the largest girth.)
On arrival they found themselves in an underground station with white tiled walls and a distinct smell of disinfectant. Sir Sam got into a single carriage train and vanished in what was presumably the direction of Central Power.
A new train arrived, this time with several coaches.
The Central Power gear was loaded and they piled into the coaches.
Alaric was happy at last.
"We are going home!" he said.
A voice boomed from the station wall.
"Discrepancy alarm! Tickets do not match passengers! Central Power luggage will be carried but passengers will be taken to Kardiff while tickets are investigated! Commence!"
There was a period of gentle acceleration, then metal cages suddenly shot up around the passengers and the train began to accelerate. The walls became a blur of white and then darkness. They dived into a horrid blend of peculiar blending multi colored fog supported by a cacophony of sound....
Chapter 17
No rest for the wicked
When Jake awoke he was on a regular train, sitting in an upholstered apartment labelled First Class. Alaric was sitting opposite and FIDO had contracted. He now looked like a golden,metallic box on the luggage rack.
CLEO's voice sounded stridenly.
The computer was apparently inside a package next to FIDO on the luggage rack.
"He is coming round! Obviously he is unsuited to zero dimensional travel! It is thanks to him, the Unreformed Criminal Jake , that we have been refused admission to enter Central Power! We have been placed in some weird sub Universe and its all his fault! Obviously, we have been sent here because convicts are not allowed on theMultiverse Express! Anyway, Lord Alaric, you and he must both wash now! You have not washed for several days!"
Alaric sJugg his head at the computers continued insistence that Jake was a convicted criminal and not Prince Jake. But he did not make the mistake of trying to argue with CLEO. Alaric and Jake meekly washed in the small toilet at the end of the carriage. They trooped back to the table and sat down.
A uniformed waiter appeared and served a memorable six course meal.
One delicious course followed another
Jake was at last fully replete.
Following this meal, it was now time for rest and reflection. Jake settled down comfortably, leaning against the padded armrest and preparing to have a well earned rest, starting with a nap.
His plans were immediately challenged.
The voice of CLEO sounded :
"A dragon is terrorizing Wales in this sub Universe!! "
As the computer spoke the carriage door suddenly opened. Two dark haired men dressed entirely in black climbed aboard.
"Druids!" said Alaric.
"We are indeed," said the leading figure. He suddenly knelt in front of Jake. "We are Druids in search of the Dragonslayer! Druids who have traveled the length of England and Scotland to find him! We now conduct the recognition ceremony. He produced a revolver.
He pointed the gun at Jake and said: "Hand over your money!"
Jake reacted with demonic fury. He swept back his overcoat and Shivver flashed into view to point at the Druids throat.
"It is him, Taff,!" croaked the kneeling Druid. "Definitely him! I tried to hold him up and everything went pear shaped! And his magic sword is at my throat! Exactly as stated in the Druidic! We have found the dragon slayer!"
He lowered his gun gingerly.
The sword point stayed at his throat.
The second druid now spoke: "Prince Jake! We beg you to clear Wales of the dragon. You are the chosen! You must vanquish a fearsome monster which has appeared from under the mountain. The mountain which carries the name of..." "Llanfairanfalanboggleleeprantergogglegoch,"
Jake pulled back the sword and replaced it in its sheath. "I am not Prince Jake! I may have elf ears but I am not an elf. I am not him and I am not a slayer of monsters! I do not intend to visit Wales."
The first druid had now put away his revolver.
He spoke: "Dragonslayer. I have something to show you."
The man produced an acorn which he showed to Jake. The acorn was badly scorched and had a fearsome crack across its shell. "Sire, the dragon is roaShivver and murdering hundreds of acorns with its fiery breath! They lie scorched and dying on the slopes of the Mountain! They cry for vengeance from the Dragon Slayer!" he cried. He dropped the scorched nut into Jake's hand.
Jake stared at the ravaged fruit of the oak.
His expression slowly changed. He pulled out Shivver and waved the sword which sparkled with a green light and spat fat green sparks. "Damn that dragon! Kill for the love of killing!" he shouted.."Where is the beast?"
At that moment an enormous blast of flame scorched the carriage window. "Right here Dragonslayer!" cried a loud voice. "I am right here. Come on out and start slaying!"
Jake stared out through the window which had cracked in the heat. He could see the huge form of a dragon! He could also see a mound of smoking coal, a few battered shrubs and his own doom waiting outside!
The railway coach, its locomotive and all its occupants had been twaddled into a railway siding near the entrance to a Welsh coal mine. Mined anthracite had originally been loaded onto a railway truck ready for transport. But the truck been tipped over by the dragon, using one powerful clawed foot. The coal had formed a glistening black pile. Under the searing impact of the dragons flaming breath, fifty tonnes had ignited and burnt explosively. This fierce fire had delighted the dragon. Once it was well in progress the dragon stopped acting as a flame thrower and merely stood watching, holding out one giant claw to warm himself. He sang a few bars of "Keep the Home Fires burning."
The same white hot blaze had scared the wits out of various onlookers hiding around the area. At this very moment, Jake's train arrived at a siding close by. The train pulled to a stop with the usual screeching of brakes and hissing of steam.
The dragon stopped singing and began reciting a poem.
"When he arrived in a curious train,
He saw a dismal vale of gloom,
The dragons breath had toasted all
Was this the final slayers doom?
"Well, that part is wrong!" cried the dragon, apparently commentating on his own poem. "I am a good lad!" He then recited: "Dragon name Blowtorch! Development type X 291. No team available! Gemini twins not located! Dragon now waiting !"
The dragon finished his speech with a peculiar song:
"Rock, bop, blowtorch bam bam bop!"
As the dragon sang, he thumped his massive feet on the ground, causing the entire valley to shake. Inside the carriage the occupants could clearly hear the dragons voice and feel the tremors. CLEO then spoke: "Blowtorch! That is the name of the escapee dragon of Perno! The dragon masters have offered a huge reward for his return! They even advertised on the inter dimensional news hoping he had reappeared somewhere in the Multiverse! They could not find him because he slipped into this world and he is now terrorizing the Druids! "
"And he is definitely terrorizing me!" said Jake morosely. He stared out of the carriage window looking up at the immense form of the dragon. "Look at him! He's gigantic!" His voice choked. "I've had lots of hard luck since I got sprung from the nick but this is it! My Final Fight! "
The dragon appeared to hear him.
"Hey, Jake!" cried the dragon. "There is no need to fight! I am a peaceful combat carrier! I only fight in space for big, big, big money! But I just want my riders!"
Inside the carriage, there was a stunned silence. Then Alaric spoke: "Sire, we must try to capture that dragon! There will be a huge reward for him! He is a trained dragon from Perno. We can wear flame proof suits, go out, subdue the dragon and then get the dragon masters to twaddle him back to his den!"
"I can hear you!" cried the dragon. "I can also tell you that your silly flame suits will be useless! You will be toasted, roasted and then turned into crisps! I will then be guilty of murder by cremation! I suggest you bring out the suits and put them on sticks so I can demonstrate my fire power!"
Jake: "Do you think he is bluffing?"
Alaric: "Perhaps we should call his bluff!"
"He may not be bluffing!" said CLEO. "Information from the Multinet states that Dragon Development Type X 291 has sufficient incendiary capability to totally destroy the supposedly fire resistant suits in my store. It will be necessary to confirm this information via an experiment. FIDO has placed the suits on the luggage rack. Put each suit on a stick, then hang the suits within the dragons vision and shout some insulting phrase. Before shouting, please retreat to a safe distance. If the suits survive then we may assume that the dragon is bluffing."
Jake and Alaric both collected a suit. The suits were one piece boiler type garments made of some shiny type material. They both climbed down from the side of the carriage out of the dragons view and collected two stout sticks. Jake sharpened one side of each stick using Shivver.
The sword crackled and spat sparks.
"I can see your little sticker!" cried the dragon. "It won't be any good inside my special field! I have full electromagnetics! I can melt that silly little thing just like I can melt your stupid suits!"
Jake hurriedly slid the grumbling sword back into its holster. In a kind of involuntary crouch, he lead Alaric around the back of the train. The pair then advanced towards the dragon in a crab walk. They moved cautiously, taking cover behind a few remaining blackened trees and bushes. Finally they reached a rock about 100 meters from the dragons vast form.
"We have brought the suits so you can demonstrate your supposed ability to destroy them!" cried Jake. "We are going to lean them against this rock on two poles and then we will retire to a safe distance. Please do not fire until the suits are in position! After that count to ten and then go! Agreed?"
"Of course!" said the dragon. "A free demo. I love a good fire!"
Cautiously, Jake and Alaric reached around the rock and put the suits into position. Each suit hung on a stick precariously balanced against the rock. "Start counting, dragon!" shouted Jake as they ran back behind the carriage. He had been trying to think of some way to insult the dragon but all he managed was a weak: "I assume you are clever enough to count to ten even if you can't spell!"
The dragons reply came in the form of a white hot jet of flame. The flame played briefly on the first suit, which almost immediately caught fire and crumbled into ash. A shower of sparks fell to the ground. A few strands of grass immediately caught fire. The dragon then zeroed in on the second suit and produced the same result.
The flame stopped.
"What do you mean I can't spell?" said the dragon. "I can spell better than you can! Everyone knows you can't spell! Of course, if we have a spelling competition, you will probably cheat and ask know all computer CLEO! Or should I say you will ask Princess Cleopatra? Where is she, CLEO?"
As Jake climbed into the carriage, CLEO spoke. "That dragon must be severely punished!" said the computer. "The disgusting beast has insulted the Princess Cleopatra! He must be punished and interrogated! He must know where the Princess is imprisoned! The Princess may lack even basic cosmetics! No lipstick or face powder! No perfume or bathing facilities! And that dragon may well be one of those responsible! He even may have eaten her alive!"
The dragon appeared to hear CLEO's remarks. He chortled and recited:
"CLEO thought that Blowtorch did the deed,
Kidnapped the Princess for a tasty feed!
But during ther trip she'd caught a pox,
And locked herself in a metal box!"
Jake stuck his head through the carriage window and shouted up to the dragon: "How do you know that poem?"
"There's no need to shout!" said the dragon. "I have perfect hearing and I have been able to hear everything said in your railway carriage. I can even hear CLEO talking to you on your sub woofer, although she thinks her voice is inaudible! In any case, to answer your question, the whole story is in a saga. I listened to it in my compound while I was waiting, waiting. waiting for Gemini, my riders who...." his voice dropped to a sad whisper...." never turned up."
"Never turned up?" said Jake.
"No! Never turned up although they were definitely invited..... and offered a huge contract.....and they would have ridden the best fighting dragon ever built! Brand new!"
The dragons voice broke and he suddenly began sobbing.
Massive teardrops spattered around the valley.
Steam rose from several hot areas of soil.
Jake turned back into the carriage. "What can he mean? They never turned up?" Jake asked Alaric. "Surely a dragon would have only one rider? Do they have a reserve rider or do they change riders at some point during contests? "
"Each fighting dragon has two riders, Sire," said Alaric. "One looks after each side as they conduct aerial fights. The dragon means that its team of riders failed to report for duty. The dragon would have been put back into its den while arrangements were made to find two new riders."
"Yes!" sobbed the dragon. "I hear you, Alaric the Fighting Mad Elf!! Put back into a lair! Nothing to do but listen to watch tv and listen to sagas! But then hHe helped me! He has brought me here to find my riders!"
"He?" said Jake. "Who is He?"
Chapter 18
Dragonslayer?
"He is the Gateway Controller, Jake!" said a cultured voice. The voice seemed to come from all around the carriage."And as for the Princess, what can one say? Never change dimensions when you are annoyed or upset! That is a Prime Rule. It would have certainly have helped if the Princess had read the Dimensional Travellers Guidebook properly. SuperSpeed reading may be impressive but if the reader fails to comprehend the material the exercise becomes ineffective! The Guidebook clearly states that you must be in a calm frame of mind when hopping dimensions!"
Alaric: 'It is the Gateway controller again! He must have opened a Gateway from the dragon's quarters to this spot! But why?"
The Gateway Controller answered immediately. "Correct! I did open a Gateway under Section 311/2 A. Why? Because this very special dragon was pining! Pining away in his luxury lair! The reason? He is designed to fight for glory! With his riders! Without them he became desolate! He has hardly eaten a good meal in a week! In fact, he has not eaten since he arrived in this sub dimension. He is simply burning coal to keep his mind occupied! I opened a special Gateway so he would be close to the Gemini twins! To give the three of them a faint chance of getting together. I told the druids to search for you! You can locate his riders and get them to the dragon! Doubtless CLEO will give you points when you complete that task."
The voice chuckled in amusement.
"But how am I to locate these Gemini twins?" said Jake.
"Even a stand in elf should not baulk at such an easy task," said the Controller reprovingly.
"I am not an elf!" shouted Jake angrily.
"I said a stand in elf!," said the Controller. "You are a good stand in! Ready to be a penny banger? And you definitely have elvish ears! And you have managed to get lost once again...."
"Shilamabosco!" shouted Jake furiously. "I am not a stand iin Elf. I am an Earth lad! I have been kidnapped! I have lost my ears!"
"Shilambosco!" said Alaric, butting in. "You have remembered another Elvish word! It means: I have lost my marbles!"
"A fairly perfect description of his current condition!" said the Controller. "It appears that all members of your party are in a similar state! However, you must all get on with your current task. Locate the Gemini twins and help this worthy dragon!"
There was silence in the railway coach.
Outside, the dragon continued to sob fitfully, occasionally blaShivver out a jet of fire which blazed across the Welsh valley and caused l the hidden onlookers to immediately duck for cover.
Jake stuck his head out of the carriage window and shouted. "What about the acorns?" he cried.. "You may have lost your riders but this forest has lost many of its children!"
"I am very sorry to have destroyed acorns!" the dragon blubbered. "It was a reflex. When I suddenly found myself here I started hyperventilating and became incendiary! I started firing up the coal dumps and a few trees! And then I just couldn't stop!"
He whimpered miserably.
"It is true!" said voice of the Controller. "I did not give him a briefing before translating him from his quarters in Pernod. I just felt sorry for him and shifted him here!"
Jake put his head back into the carriage and addressed Alaric and the druids. "Well, this certainly puts a different complexion on matters. It is a fact that I have nothing to do with this lost elf prince! I am merely a concerned human being caught up in all this! But I do believe that I should help the poor old thing. Then we can get back into the normal dimensions, travel to the Big Smoke and settle the matter of who I am once and for all! The fact I have someone else's ears is not conclonsive!"
CLEO immediately chimed in. "I assume you mean conclusive. I am no longer going to correct your spelling because you are beyond help! In any case, I am currently searching local Census records for the name Gemini. Oh, my goodness!"
The computer almost seemed to almost gasp.
"What have you found?" said Jake.
"I have found the Gemini twins! They are royalty! And they are imprisoned in the Black Tower! Imprisoned on the orders of King Winnie Bongo.. He has sentenced them both to death but he is afraid to promulgate the order in case he gets bad karma!"
Outside, the dragon suddenly perked up.
"Where is this Tower?" cried the dragon. "I will fly in and rescue my riders!"
The two druids, who had been sitting listening spoke.
"The Black Tower cannot be approached by air," they intoned together. "Because it is guarded by an ack ack gun which shoots down anything in flight! Thousands of birds have died simply attempting to fly over that deadly impregnable tower guarded by that horrible autmatic gun!! The Black Tower can be reached only by rail. The A23 road is closed due to shell holes and dead birds. The council workmen refuse to repair the road because of danger from falling shells. The Dragon Slayer and his Elf Lord must drive to the Tower in a steam engine! From the main line to Kardiff, they will take the branch line to the Black Tower through the Endless Tunnel. They will alight at Black Tower and proceed to climb the Death Path! But when they reach the summit they will find that the only way to gain entry to the prison is to kill the Undead Guardian and rescue the Gemini twins. The train is waiting!"
Jake, who had briefly recovered his nerve, once again fell into profound gloom. "I knew it!" he cried. "I must either fall off the Death Path or be slaughtered by the Undead Guardian! How can I kill a Guardian who is already dead?"
He turned to Alaric who was sitting white faced next to him.
Jake made a generous offer.
"Alaric, it is not necessary for you to accompany me and die as well!" he said. "Make your way back to Central Power! Take my pack! Use CLEO and the time machine and attempt to return to a proper dimension. Try to cop a few namers in my memory. There is no point in trying to retrieve the lost Stuff It cards. The Prince is lost! My own real home is beyond reach! Will I ever hear the sound of Bowed Balls (Bow Bells) again."
"Bowed Balls, Sire? What are they?" asked Alaric.
"They are bells which peal all over Undone, my old home, Alaric. Bowed Bells, (Bow Bells) located in Piccallily Circuits (Picadilly Circus.). But...I will never see my old Home again! I must now face my final doom!" said Jake miserably.
"The so called Death Path is not much of a problem," said CLEO suddenly. "There was a full set of builders plans in the Kardiff Library. My study of the old blueprints indicates that it is simply a stone staircase super cooled by a peculiar local weather condition. Because of a stationary downdraft fed by extremely cold air from the edge of space, the staircase is constantly encrusted with black ice! It is extremely slippery but by wearing mountain clothing, special boots with crampons and using a forward throwing climbers rope, you should be able to reach the top of the tower! This is where the Gemini twins are held,awaiting execution. I can provide mountaineering clothing, boots, two sets of crampons and an auJakeatic forward self attaching throwing rope. These items are being expanded from stores! However, the Undead Guardian may prove to be a more difficult problem. You might have been able to fell him using Shivver but he is protected by a Full Spectrum force field. If Shivver comes into contact with the force field it will short out. The field will then electrocute you via a lethal shock from your own sword! For the same reason, FIDO cannot do your fighting for you. He would almost certainly be shorted out and probably ruined forever via any contact between him and the Undead Guardian. In any case, FIDO cannot accompany you. He must stay here because if we are not successful he will have to report our demise to Central Power. FIDO must travel to a point where I hope he can re contact Central Power and report!"
Then Jake suddenly got a Big Idea.
"I can use my Gadder!" he said. "I can fire the Gadder at Maximum Penetration. I can stand back and shoot at this Undead bloke until he falls over. He may still be undead but while he is flat on his back we can scoot in. We can release the twins, get them back to the train and live happily ever after!
Note: _Jake_ 's "Gadder" is an Central Power catapult normally carried by FIDO in miniturized form.. _Jake_ has tried the Gadder a few times. It is an immensely powerful catapult.
Jake's mind suddenly flashed back to his months as a convict in jail. If only he had not been such a fool wanting to escape! He should have been a model prisoner! A happy train spotter! He would still be enjoying three good meals a day plus two filling snacks if he had not been stupid.
His mouth watered at the thought of food. Somehow, CLEO seemed to be aware of his musings. Possibly the computer was monitoring his saliva output. "The Druids plan is to give you a huge feast if you are successful!" said CLEO.
This statement settled the matter. FIDO was instructed to break out the expansion unit along with crampons, the forward throwing self attaching climbing rope and the Gadder. FIDO laid out these items outside the train. Jake and Alaric both changed into climbing gear. They checked the crampons by climbing up the side of the trench, using the crampons to bite into the soft ground. The special rope proved to be a remarkable device. It was only necessary to instruct the rope to "attach to highest point." Jake tested the rope by throwing it towards an oak tree with the instruction: "attach to highest point." The rope proved to be self propelled.
It zoomed up and anchored itself firmly to a point high up the tree trunk. The command: "Ease off!" then caused the rope to fall back and coil itself ready for the next job.
CLEO assured Jake that the rope would work in exactly the same way on a rock face. It would auJakeatically locate a crevice and form a firm belay. With crampons, auto rope and the Gadder, Jake felt reasonably well equipped to complete his mission and rescue the Geminis.
The Druids, the engine driver and the fireman had now left the train. They huddled in a trench, peering distrustfully over the edge at the weeping dragon. Jake and Alaric now took control of the engine, while FIDO piled their gear inside the carriage. The robot climbed into the carriage and slammed the door.. Jake closed the fire door and settled in the drivers seat with Alaric occupying the stokers seat. With the engine blowing off excess steam, Jake released the brake and wound up the regulator. The train began puffing up the line towards Kardiff.
The actual trip to the Black Tower proved brief and uneventful. They picked up speed rapidly, The train rounded a couple of curves and passed through a short tunnel. Apparently this was the so called "endless tunnel" which was presumably named by poetic license.
Finally, the track plunged into a cutting which immediately widened to incorporate a station Directly ahead, Jake saw a sign NO STOPPING PRISON AREA. A signal located at the far end of an overgrown platform cranked down instructing the train to proceed without stopping. Signs along the station platform announced: STATION CLOSED! NO STOPPING. STATION CLOSED. Jake ignored both the signal and the signs. He brought the engine to a stand in the middle of the platform and wound on the brake. The engine stopped directly outside a doorway marked The Black Tower. Behind the doorway they could see the tower itself, looming upwards, wreathed in tendrils of fog. The train stood hissing steam as Jake and Alaric both climbed down from the engine.
They started unloading their climbing gear
Jake suddenly recalled that he would need ammo for the Gadder. He climbed back into the engine, jumped down onto the track and collected a pocketful of pebbles. He climbed back onto the platform via the engine. He was immediately enveloped in a bitterly cold fog which crept down from the doorway opposite, Despite wearing insulated clothing both Alaric and Jake shivered. With chattering teeth, they collected the various items needed for the climb. Leaving FIDO to guard the train, they moved to a doorway at thCentral Power of the Black Tower.
Suddenly, Jake noticed an elevator on their right.
The elevator was marked: Black Tower, Authorized Personnel Only.
"We can use the elevator!" said Alaric happily. "We won't need to make a dangerous climb up hundreds of icy steps!" Before taking Alaric's advice, Jake put his head through the doorway and gazed upward. Black ice marked a series of steps marching towards the sky. The icy ascemt vanished from view as it climbed around a corner of the tower.
"This place is certainly well named," said Jake. "The Black Tower. It is indeed as black as an icy winters night on Oberon!"
"Sire, you have remembered another piece of Elvish lore!" said Alaric. "Oberon is a Central Power moon. Some winter nights it is horribly cold on the moon. Thus the phrase "Black as an icy winters night on Oberon!"
"Don't give me all that bull again!" said Jake. "It am not an Elf! I am an Earth lad and when I reach Undone and the Big Smoke you will meet my parents and friends! I will get my ABC back and that will give me a headstart on my Great Quest to Cop the Lot! That is a certainty! As certain as the fact that a ride in a lift is easier than a climb!"
He walked across to the elevator door and pressed a button. They waited as a whining noise announced the imminent arrival of a lift. Eventually, a door slid open and a well lit cage appeared. Jake threw in the coil of special climbing rope. He was about to throw in his rucksack and enter the lift himself when he froze in mid step. Looking down he could see only a gaping black void. The coil of rope had vanished! The elevator did not have a floor!
He could see only a black shaft diving downwards into the rock. Eventually, he heard a faint splash as the climbing rope reached the botJack of the shaft.
Jake stepped back carefully.
He addressed his rucksack,
"CLEO! Can I shout something to make the rope come back up?"
"Unfortunately the answer is negative," said CLEO/ "The rope has submerged in a subterranean lake 1000 meters below. It cannot be retrieved. You will have to climb without the rope. And by summoning the elevator you have already alerted the Undead Guardian that someone is trespassing. He is now alert and waiting for you at the top of the staircase. "
It might be assumed that Jake would immediately give up and run back to the train shouting that he wanted to go home to Undone. In fact, he gamely pulled on his crampons and attached the Gadder to his belt Then he indicated that he would lead the climb! Alaric strapped on his rucksack and donned his own crampons. He followed Jake onto the black ice which marked the first step of the staircase. In the dim light surrounding the tower, the elf glowed with a ghostly light. Below, through the roiling fog, they could see an immense rock face gleaming wet reaching down to a dark valley far below.
Jake started on the first step outside the doorway. Almost immediately he began helplessly windmilling as his feet found no purchase on the black ice. He was able to save himself from a fatal fall only by desperately digging in his crampons and managing to regain his balance.
"Get back!" he shouted. "We will have to find some other method of getting up!"
Alaric stepped back and Jake retreated, digging in his crampons as he inched his way backwards. Eventually, they were both back inside the doorway.
Jake now addressed CLEO.
"What should we do?" he said.
"It would probably be best if FIDO leads the ascent," said CLEO. "I have a short rope which you can attach yourselves to. In the event of a slip, FIDO may be able to belay you while you climb back to the steps. Alternatively, you may all fall and die as a roped up group! I will call FIDO."
The computer did not make any sound but FIDO immediately joined them. The robot had looped a climbing rope around his metal shoulders. He attached the rope to Jake's belt and then to Alaric's belt. Eventually, they were all roped up and FIDO led them out onto the staircase. The robot had changed his footwear into a pair of what looked like rubber boots. Long metal spikes stuck out from the soles. The robot appeared to be perfectly at ease on the forbidding staircase and the party started climbing. By digging in his crampons with a kind of kicking actIon, Jake found he could gain at least a semblance of a firm footing. They climbed three complete turns of the staircase without incident and then Jake told FIDO to halt while he got his breath back. As they rested Jake asked CLEO "What will happen to FIDO when we reach the top?"
"He will be electrocuted!" said the computer. "I will also be electrocuted if the Undead Warrior manages to get close to you! What would be the greater loss? A brilliant robot or a world champion chess player!"
"What about me?" cried Jake, his teeth chattering in the bitter cold of the exposed tower steps. "Surely I would be the greater loss? You are both machines! I am a human who has had bad luck!"
"You cannot be regarded as a human being because you have Elvish ears," said the computer. "You are actually a convicted elvish criminal. You are attempting to atone for your evil past! Move on! Report: This intense cold threatens to freeze up FIDO's joints!"
Chapter 19
The Airborne Cannot wait!
They moved forward, slowly circling the Black Tower. Some of the steps leaned downwards at acute angles so that even with the crampons digging deeply into the ice they were still balanced precariously over the dizzying drop. There was nothing to hang onto and a slip meant would mean certain death.
They advanced to a point about half way up the tower when a bird suddenly. It flew alongside and hovered, wings beating rapidly.
"Blow Torch is worried. He wants a sitrep," the bird croaked.
"We are half way! I intend to shoot the Undead Guardian!" said Jake.
The bird flew off, heading towards the distant Welsh coalmine where the dragon waited. The climbers pressed on, one agonizing step after another, digging crampons into the hard, black ice of the seemingly endless series of steps. As they climbed higher, the cold seemed to becaome more intense. Jake's feet and hand were numb.
His brain was also numb but that was more or less normal.
Abruptly they reached the final pitch of the tower. They moved slowly upward until at last the staircase ended. The way ahead now crossed a small courtyard at the top of the tower. However, any further progress was blocked by the awesome, frightening figure of a ragged knight in rusted armour.
The figure had a deathly white face.
This grim apparitIon was covered in frost and carried a long bow.
It spoke. "Who visits the Black Tower? Who will join in combat with the mighty Undead Knight to join his collection of frozen corpses?" said the knight in a harsh, deep voice.
He raised his bow with a frozen arrow already notched. "Advance into the arena! Kill or be killed! Do you wish to fight as individuals or as a tag team?"
"What is a tag team?" Jake addressed his question to CLEO as his small group stumbled up the remaining steps. Finally, they stood at the very top of the tower and unhitched the rope. Behind the knight they could see a low building.
A face was peering out from a small window which was partially clear of snow.
"He has been watching Wrestling on TV," said CLEO. "One wrestler fights until he is almost knocked senseless. But if that person is able to touch a second wrestler in his tag team he is allowed to rest and the second wrestler takes up the fight. However I do not see how a tag team can functIon when the first fighter has been killed! And I do not understand how he can be a tag team on his own when he is only one dead person or one undead knight. Ask him to explain the rules."
"Explain the difference between fighting as individuals or as a Tag Team?" shouted Jake.
"If you fight as individuals I will kill each of you in any order that is convenient," said the Undead Knight. "If you fight as a Tag Team I will program one arrow to kill you in sequence! You cannot kill me because I am already dead! I, myself and I are a complete tag team! We do not require any help!"
"OK, icicle, we'll fight creatively!" shouted Jake bravely. "You won't be able to kill any of us because you will be finally fully dead yourself!"
"I am already fully dead!" the knight replied "To be accurate I am Undead which is more or less the same thing. Are you ready to meet your end, Big Head?"
Jake drew out the Gadder.
With his teeth chattering and with frozen fingers he pulled a stone from his pocket and loaded the catapult.
He turned the control to Maximum PenetratIon.
"I have a brief message for you!" he shouted.
He drew back the Gadder and took aim on the knight. He released the missile. The stone flew, scorching through the air with an incredible rasping sound. The velocity of the stone appeared to be irresistible. However, the Undead Knight could apparently see the stone approaching. He did not even duck! Instead, he watched with interest as the stone smashed into some kind of invisible barrier and vanished with a crackle of flame and a puff of smoke.
"Well," said CLEO. "So much for the idea that his field only stops metal!"
"Was that feeble missile your only challenge?" said the Undead Knight mockingly.
He began to tension the arrow in his bow and aimed at Jake.
"Now what can we do?" cried Alaric. "He will electrocute FIDO with his electrical field. The same horrid field will short out our swords! We have no defense against his arrows! He will slaughter us and add our bodies to his collection of frozen meat!"
"Let's get back down the staircase," said Jake urgently. "We must get out of his line of fire! I definitely need to think!"
FIDO stepped back and took the lead. The robot retreated down the staircase. FIDO reached a point which was out of sight of the Undead Knight. He telescoped out one arm. Remarkably the arm curved and formed a hand rail around the edge of the tower. Jake and Alaric had something to grasp as they rushed back down the staircase.
Even with this aid they almost fell off, slipping on the treacherous frozen surface.
Finally they both rounded a corner and stopped next to FIDO.
Suddenly the messenger bird appeared, fluttering close by.
"The Airborne cannot wait!!!" cried the bird. " ETA 2 minutes!"
An ack ack gun suddenly began firing from a nearby valley. Suddenly, the immense figure of Blow Torch appeared, mighty wings outstretched, zooming down from behind a cloud. There was a massive blast of tightly focused flame from the dragons mouth. The ack ack stopped abruptly. The dragon then executed a superb Immelman roll and began diving almost vertically towards the top of the tower. The knight appeared to suddenly become aware of the attacking dragon! He raised his bow. But his action was too late. Blow Torch blasted a second burst of intense yellow fire. Bow and arrow both burst into flame and vanished. The Undead Guardian himself appeared to rock on his heels. He tried to reach a sword attached to his belt. His rocking motion intensified as flames played over his entire body. The sword glowed and became white hot before melting.
Suddenly, the knight crashed to the ground and lay still.
Smoke jetted from his blackened armor
He lay inert as Blow Torch landed on the open area of the tower.
The dragon filled a substantial portion of the courtyard.
Blow Torch gazed down the staircase as Jake peered back around a corner of the rock. The dragon inspected the surface of the stairs "All frozen up!" he said. "Stand back and jump up!"
Jake,Alaric hung on to FIDO's outstretch super arm so their feet were in the air.
FIDO stood solidly.
A blast of thinly layered fire scorched down the staircase, melting the ice, revealing pitted black rock below.The steps were completely warm and dry within a few seconds.
Jake and Alaric were now able to move back down from the rail, climb up the steps and join the dragon at the top of the tower.
As they stood surveying the surroundings, a door suddenly opened and two young girls stepped out onto the open space.
"Gemini's!" cried the dragon. "It's them! My riders have arrived! MY RIDERS!!!!" He started hopping around joyfully but stopped when the entire building began to shake alarmingly under the massive impact of his giant feet. The dragon continued: "My wonderful riders are here, the greatest riders in the Multiverse! I have found them! Eureka! Now we will joust the Pernod skies for Glory, Fame and Massive Riches!"
"Good heavens!" said the leading girl. "Glory, Fame and Massive Riches! Your offer sounds too good to be true! But, if we stay here we will eventually be executed on the orders of the mad tyrant who now rules our rightful realm! He is not a good loser! After we both thrashed him in the NatIonal Joust he has been quite unable to forgive and forget! He was initially beaten with my sisters mace which put a large dent in his helmet and gave him a king sized headache! He insisted on continuing to joust. In the second round I caught him with my lance and he fell off his horse! I had the point of my sword at his throat ready for the coup de grace. The crowd roared for the kill! But he pleaded for his life, babbling and bawling like a babe! I let him live! He had us arrested ten minutes later! We were thrown into this tower awaiting execution! How will he react to the dispatch of his Undead Knight? But I run ahead of myself! Let us follow protocol. I am the Princess Gemini One. My sister is the Princess Gemini Two! What is your name, dragon? And what are the names of the good looking boys and the metal man?"
She indicated Jake, Alaric and FIDO
"I am Blow Torch and they are my friends!" said the dragon. "They are Jake, Elf Lord Alaric and robot FIDO. There is a fourth member of the party. The Elvish Princess Cleopatra. She is a trifle.... indisposed and asleep! My friends climbed the Icy Steps and challenged the Undead Guardian in order to facilitate your release!"
"They are heroes then! True heroes! But, how did they come to be here in this backwater of a Universe?" asked the second Princess. "According to our family lore we are not in the normal universe at all. We are in some kind of cul de sac!"
The dragon answered, apparently having full knowledge of Jake's previous activities. "That is true, Riders Gemini! We are all currently in a fractal universe which is a kind of spin off from Universe Zero Plus. The Elvish Princess Cleopatra arrived at planet Earth in Universe Zero Plus. She was accompanied by FIDO and Jake. They had all returned to Earth from Central Power. Elf Lord Alaric joined them on earth. They had several unfortunate happenings which culminated when they attempted to get to Central Power! Instead, they landed in this fractal Universe. And they still need to retrieve two playing cards held on planet Earth in Universe Zero. In that Universe, a group of human soldiers and scientists are investigating events that occurred when Jake first moved! He was at that time living under an oak tree near to a house on Kingswood Drive, Chirnside Park, Victoria, Australia. Alaric and Jake ordered a stressed Multiverse Station to open and it imploded! They were then obliged to flee! Two important data cards, both disguised as playing cards were lost during this flight. Both cards must be retrieved! Riders! This presents me with an Idea. We must prove that we are worthy of our place in the Premier League The proof required is that I can do various complex maneuvers and that that my riders can do anything! We can pass the Competitors Admission Test by retrieving the two datal cards and returning them to this party. The cards are Magical Objects. Getting them will save a great deal of trouble and may even enable Jake to carry out his ultimate plan! He aims to be the great train spotter.
"How fascinating!" the two girls spoke in unison. "We must definitely help our Hero!" They both patted Jake fondly.
Jake blushed scarlet.
The dragon spoke again, his voice booming around the rocky courtyard of the tower. "In any event, we should return to more suitable surroundings. I will convey you! Please assume your fighting positions!"
The two girls seemed to understand exactly what was required. They climbed up and mounted a double saddle. In front of each rider, an assortment of lethal looking weapons gleamed in the dim light.
"What about us?" said Jake.
"It's a long way down! The steps are freezing up again already!"
"Hop on behind and I will give you a lift to the train!" said the dragon. Jake, Alaric and FIDO sat behind the two ladies. Jake had one arm around Gemini Two while Alaric clung on behind him.
FIDO sat at the back of the great beast, firmly attached by some kind of suckers which he had extruded from both hands and feet.
The dragon took off, chortling and singing "Come fly with me!"
They few in a great circle around the tower, gradually descending. Then with his great wings beating rapidly the dragon hovered at a spot close to the station. Jake, Alaric and FIDO scrambled down, first onto the dragons giant paws and then onto the ground.
The dragon flew off, rising rapidly, turning in the general direction of the coal mine. Jake and Alaric climbed into the carriage and changed back into their overalls. FIDO produced two cups of tea from some unknown store and they relaxed for a short break.
Jake reviewed his scanty plans. .
They must first get back into Universe Zero, in the year 2010. He would find his parents and explain that he would be away for a while. He needed to cop all the namers! He knew that CLEO had a Time Machine so he could travel back to 1952. He would allow CLEO to spot with him in order to avoid conflict! He had far greater plans than copping the lot for only one year! His target was all namers for all time! He could afford to share a little glory. CLEO could print a Super Platinum Rail Rover. This would allow him to travel anywhere, anytime. CLEO would travel in his satchel with his sandwiches. He would also need a book of Shed Passes, money for food, a sleeping bag for bunking down in stations and a few changes of clothing. Once he had copped all the LNER namers in 1952 he could move on to the LMS, the SR and the GWR.
Then and only then would he be prepared to help Alaric find this missing Elf Prince.. Following his initial record, he would assist on locating the Elf Prince, he would return to Earth, use the Time Machine and go on to cop every namer on every railway in every year since railways began!
But right now his primary objective must be to Cop the Lot at least for one year! Once he had achieved this ambition he was prepared to take part in a search for the missing Prince. He was motivated in this area by the fact that he would get his normal human ears back and also get massive rewards. The missing Prince must give him a big reward for returning the royal ears in a medical swop. Jake would return to earth and cop all steam namers on every region for every year since 1840! No one could ever surpass such a record!
How many namers were there on all regions between 1840 and 1960?
He asked CLEO. The computer said that there were 72,453 steam namers! Alaric listened patiently but said nothing. The total of possible namers then began to grew significantly. Jake told CLEO to include all foreign railways and their namers. With massive travel funds and a time machine he could actually cop the lot for all time internationally! After about two hours the number of namers from all countries since 1820 had grown to 243,451. Jake pronounced himself satisfied with this figure as the Super Spotters Absolute Target.
But, he still had the problem of getting back to Universe Zero.
CLEO admitted that she did not currently have a solution but she was working on it. Finally, Jake and Alaric left the carriage and climbed back into the engine cab. Jake reversed the engine. They clanked slowly backwards until they arrived at the site of the coal mine. Jake stopped the engine. Looking over the site of the mine they found a large throng busily putting up tables and cooking various items over bonfires.
Strangely, there was no sign of the dragon or his riders.
As the train arrived the people all stopped working and gathered around the engine. They began clapping and then singing softly:
The dragon returned and did a fancy roll,
And then dived into the smoking hole!
Two lovely Princesses cried goodbye!
Gone to a strange home in the sky!
Druids Taff and Taffy hurried forward and climbed into the engine. "Prince Jake!" said Taff. "You have fulfilled the prophecy! But the dragon has kidnapped two girls! Both are lost!"
"What happened?" asked Jake,
"The dragon came back and did a victory roll over the mine !" said the second druid. "Somehow the riders hung on! In fact they waved and shouted Goodbye! Bravery beyond belief! The dragon dived straight into the coal mine! He has taken two maidens to his dragons den!"
"The ladies will get riches and fame beyond hope!" said Jake. It was obvious that the druids did not understand his comments. They merely bowed and muttered what sounded like: "Hail to the Mighty Elf Prince!"
Jake gave up on his explanation and climbed down from the cab, followed by Alaric. He said: "Let's get stuck into the feast!"
The twenty course meal that followed provided another memorable occasion. Jake's only regret about such feasts was that they seemed to only occur at very extended intervals. At the end of the feast there was a presentation ceremony. The two chief druids presented Jake with a steam car! The car, a De Dion steamer which had been made in France had been smuggled into Wales. Apparently the druids had been so sure that Jake would come that a considerable portion of the treasury had been used to get a "suitable present." Jake admired the car, an open two seater with a large buggy seat behind. It was fuelled by logs and had a top speed of 20 mph. "You will be able to find plenty of wood along side the road," said the presenting druid. "Water should be refilled every 100 miles or so. We were told to point out that water cans are carried behind the chassis and that should ensure they are refilled whenever you get the chance."
A second presentation was made by a dignitary who had the title of "Jake Jones." This was apparently a title of great importance. This dignitary sang a short song in accompanied by drum, double bass and four guitars. the song was: "Its not unusual to be mad with anyone..." Quite how this fitted to the actual situation was not explained, Following the song "Jake Jones" presented Jake with a steam driven bow. This was quite a remarkable piece of ordinance. The bow had two canisters on either side. The canisters were filled with dry wood and light, The bow then gradually tensed and a short demo showed that it would fire a metal arrow straight through a large tree! Jake then retired and enjoyed a good night sleep.
On waking, he asked CLEO if she had now found any way to get back to "the normal Universe."
CLEO said that she was currently unable to get them back to Universe Zero. She was working on the task. To locate his parents Jake must give more details of his former place of residence. She needed the names of his parents, the names or nicknames of his friends, the name of his school, what hobbies he had, etc. Jake said that he may have lived near to either Picallily or Kings Crossings. The name of his parents must be the same as his own name.. CLEO then pointed out that Piccadilly and Kings Cross were two places which had been featured in a video he had watched while he was held in his original prison.
Could he remember any other place names?"
Jake was unable to remember any other places.
Instead he said: "Conjournicolly!"
Alaric immediately pounced on this word. The Elf Lord said it was an Elvish word which meant "stop bothering me with stupid questions!" This lead to the usual argument about Jake's identity. Jake said the matter could only be resolved by a quick trip back to Universe Zero. CLEO said that such a trip was impossible due to problems with the transfer equipment and the fact that there were in a sub universe.
At this impasse there was a sudden boom in the meadow and a Yellow Cab appeared!
"It is a Multiverse Yellow Cab!" cried Alaric. "Capable of navigated the Multiverse!"
After a few moments a cloud of steam dispersed and a driver peered out of the front cab. He said: "Special Delivery! Package for Prince Jake! Which is he?"
Alaric pointed to Jake and the driver handed over a small package.
It contained the two missing Stuff It cards along with a short note:
"Dear Prince _Jake_ , we knocked out Colonel Viljoen and fifteen soldiers plus a funny little man in a white coat. We have retrieved the enclosed magical objects! Lethal force was not necessary. We used only disabling karate chops! Regret delay but had to win enough funds to pay for a two way taxi trip so you could get home to EBase! We are joustingr next week in the Finals! We hope you will visit us soon. Love everyone at Team Blow Torch!
Alaric was stunned. "How can this be? They only left a couple of hours ago!"
The cab driver looked at him strangely.
"Don't you know anything about the Multiverse?" he said. "Time in this backwater passes extremely slowly. Blow Torch and his team have been fighting for months! Winning everything in sight. They must have made a huge amount even to pay this fare!" he said "It costs a fortune to travel outbound from Central Power. The cost of an inbound defies comprehension! The Multiverse Yellow Cab Company do not normally even offer inbounds! The cab goes back empty! They must have paid a staggering amount to get you an inbound!"
Alaric was overjoyed. His glowing form lit up until he was almost dazzling. "We have finally had a turn of good fortune, Prince Jake! Your brilliant victory at the Black Tower has secured us a ticket home! We have the Stuff It cards and a free trip! You can lead the search for your missing sister, the beautiful and adorable Princess Cleopatra!"
Jake: "The main concern is lack of namers! The namers I got in this wierd dimension don't count. They aren't even listed in a proper ABC! In this dimension there is no Flying Scotsman! There is no Sir Ralph Wedgewood! There is no Nottingham Forest! There are no proper namers at all! Therefore, I must get back to Universe Zero. I MUST COP THE LOT!"
"WE must cop the lot." squeaked CLEO, her voice sounding from Jake's back pack. "It's vital! WE MUST COP THE LOT!"
Then FIDO joined in! "We must all cop the lot!" he said.
"But we have no way of getting back to Universe Zero!" said Alaric patiently. "If we get home to Central Power we can plan a new trip and try again. With the return of Blow Torch we will also share an enormous reward. You can buy your own dimensional ship and try again!"
"Wait!" said Jake, struck by a brilliant idea. "We can use this taxi to get back to Universe Zero! I can find my parents and let them know I am OK. I must either live in Undone or Chirnside Park. I can check both! Then I can spot what's left of the namers and cop the lot! That will at least be something! Once I've got a decent start on copping the proper lot I am prepared to help you find the prince. Then I can get my ears changed back to normal and collect my reward! And then I can really get stuck in! I can buy a time machine and cop the lot for all time, all regions! LNER, LMS, GWR and Southern. In fact, I will do the entire planet for all time! I don't want some freak stealing any of my glory!"
"A freak? A freak? I am not a freak! One region is all I ask!" said CLEO. "One region will also do for me!" said robot FIDO. "I am also not a freak!"
The taxi driver spoke.
"You won't get back to Universe Zero in this taxi! "said the driver. "You can only go to Central Power in Universe One, via Wormhole 772/13. I have programmed my return to Central Power through that Wormhole and I can't make changes at this end. The meter is running!"
He pointed to a meter on the side of his cab.
The dial was whizzing around at high speed.
Smoke was trickling around the machine.
The driver continued. "I suggest you get in, sit down and shut up. If you stay around arguing, I'm off! Gone! Left! Vamoosed! I can say I couldn't find you! You will be stuck forever in this wierdo dump!"
He looked around at the druids.
His lip curled up in a sneer.
"Wierdo dump!" he repeated.
"Prince Jake, with my share of the enormous reward I can pay off my debts!" said Alaric. "I will even buy you a new transporter! My 60% will get you a trip anywhere in the Multiverse!"
"Your sixty percent!" said CLEO. "You are not due for sixty percent! Jake took all the risks and fronted against that horrible undead thing! As a Prisoner of the Crown he must get 100% so the Elvish Royal Crown will get 100%! And even that input would not be enough for him to pay off his unpaid speeding fines. They are constantly accruing interest!"
"Speeding fines!" cried Jake. "They were pretend fines on a holo car! I don't owe real money!"
"The court will consider that interesting plea!?" said CLEO.
The driver revved up the taxi impatiently.
The entire surrounding environment sJugg.
Jake finally made up his mind .
"I agree that it's best we get back to Central Power!" he said. "Everybody get in!"
He removed his pack and put it onto an empty seat. Alaric climbed aboard followed by FIDO. There was a sudden pop and the craft vanished from view of the assembled crowd.
Chapter 20
Exactly as the bard sang
"Exactly as the Bard sang!" said Taff.
"He came,
He saw,
He conquered,
And then he popped away !"
However, while Jake and his party had popped away from one place they were still traveling through a wormhole and a very peculiar eternity.
The cab rattled and sJugg, vibrating with strange lights and sounds.
Suddenly, Jake's pack burst open and Princess Cleopatra rolled out feet first onto the cab floor. This event was followed by a juddering screech and the light and sound show stopped. They had arrived at Central Power, directly outside the royal palace.
Jake followed the Princess out.
She did not speak but immediately made for a door leading into her private apartment. A squad of robot troopers rushed out from the Guardhouse and arrested robot FIDO. He was body cuffed, hand cuffed, foot cuffed and then carried into the Guardhouse
Alaric seemed bemused.
Eventually, he got his bearings and strode off towards his home near the palace.
The driver climbed out of his cab and now stood with an entirely false smile on his face. "Well, good sire!" he said. "I trust you enjoyed your trip and will reward your heroic driver! A driver who piloted you safely and speedily through that dreadful maze, that fearful jungle, that eerie strangeness that lies between Universes!"
"I have no money!" said Jake.
"You rotten tightfisted punk!" cried the driver.
He looked at the cab meter which had now stopped. "You owe me 3.5 trillIon!"
"But the fare was already paid!" cried Jake indignantly.
"The basic fare was already paid, yes! But you kept waffling on! The meter was running white hot! Three and a half trillion! And we will collect! We have our methods, punk!"
The taxi driver smirked before climbing back into his cab.
The cab vanished with a bright flash and an ear splitting roar.
Regent Ted and P.A Roger 001 came hurrying from the Palace.
"Robot FIDO is to be dismantled," said Regent Ted dramatically. "He is not a conventional robot! He is some kind of golden colour when he should be silver! He is believed to be a rebel with some kind of faulty software! And Colonel Viljoen has offered a reward of $10 billion dollars for information leading to your capture!"
He paused : "Have you got the data cards?"
Wearily, Jake handed over the two cards..
He was then allowed a night of blessed rest and another excellent breakfast before being summoned to the Reintegration Machine.
Regent Ted was waiting at the machine.
"Apparently there was some problem with the transfer computer," he said, "But the Princess returned from a holiday last night and she has fixed the machine. It is now working correctly. "
Before Jake could reply, the master computer suddenly spoke. It was the same the same cultured voice which Jake had last heard in Kardiff , an event which now seemed to have happened a few centuries ago.
"FIDO is part of Prince Jake," said the machine. "He must be brought here before reprocessing can begin. The full inventory includes human Jake, Regent Ted, FIDO, and the special Stuff It cards."
A period of urgent messages followed.
Eventually, FIDO was wheeled in by a platoon of robo troops.
The golden robot was secured with pinions on his arms and legs. His waist was fastened to a portable ultra laser which was set on auto in case of any attempt to escape. Since he was unable to move he was brought in on an anti grav trolley.
Alaric then came rushing into the room. He still seemed bemused.
"Prince Jake!" he cried. "Good luck on the transfer! The Princess has been found! Apparently she has been away on holiday, meditating!"
The Reintegration Process then began First, the machine asked for the Stuff It cards. The cards were fed into the machine and inspected. The master computer commented on the process. "These cards provide a record of the Princes genetic sequence -- and two cards have been very roughly treated! It appears they have been inspected by X Ray, and even immersed in acid! Fortunately the actual data sequence remains intact otherwise reintegration would be impossible! Next item should now enter!"
Jake walked in and stopped inside a blue chamber about half way down a long tube. Regent Ted followed. There was a puff of red smoke and a robot butler walked out of the tube. The persona of "Regent Ted" had vanished. A globe in the centre of the machine began to glow.
The glowing light became intense.
Finally, FIDO walked into the machine.
The globe began to pulsate rapidly,
A bolt of lightening suddenly flashed downwards FIDO's head. The robot jerked. An Elvish aura began to shine brightly around his body. Quite suddenly the metallic body vanished and the actual Elf Prince Jake appeared! Looking bemused he walked out from the machine. He was followed by Jake, who now had human ears!
Alaric stood transfixed at this unexpected event.
"Gesontimo Alaric!" said Prince Jake. "That was damned strange! I thought I was a robot and now I find that I am actually an elf! "
"And I thought he was you!" said Alaric, pointing at Jake.
"And I knew I was not the Prince," said Jake. "I thought Windsor seemed strange..My actual second name is Boyle."
"Correct, Jake Boyle! I am, of course, Prince Jake Windsor I arranged for you to visit Cerne on a school trip. You were transported to Central Power via the Large Hadron Collider which intersects with the Multiverse Railway. You were hired to be my human lookalike on my special train spotting trip!" said the Prince. "Cleopatra was worried that I might cop the lot and beat her! You were there as my cover! Your task was to divert any cops or military so I could get back to a Gateway. You would be safe as you are human. And you would be rewarded when your large internet blogging debt was paid. A simple, fool proof plan!"
Alaric: "Sire, what happened to the simple, fool proof plan?"
Prince Jake: "I planned to leave quietly.But Cleopatra found out! She was incredibly angry when she discovered we were about to leave for Earth! She was livid! Raving mad! She turned blue with rage and then insisted on coming! The fact that we only had two first class Multiverse Express tickets made no difference. She forced her way in! The translation machine could not handle the load and conked out! The result was a full scale translation error! And after all that we only got one namer!""
He walked over and put his arm around Jake's shoulder.
Chapter 21
Compulsion!
"But, you Jake, you have been a fantastic lookalike!" he said. "It's a shame that you were unable to spell! That was caused by the faulty translation. The machine was still trying to please the Chief Programmer. It gave CLEO every possible chance to put you in what she thinks is your proper place, To be blunt, in her mind your proper place is under her heel! The translation machine tried to carry out the translation program which was mainly centered on Cleopatra being in control of everything! This is what she said when we were about to leave. "I must be in total control and I must be invulnerable!"
The only way the machine could carry that out was to provide a prison and make her the computer warder! She was in total control and invulnerable. I thought I was robot FIDO and I had to obey CLEO! That was probably a reflection of what the Princess normally wants! She wants me and everybody else to obey her! She hates the idea that I will actually be in charge of Central Power some day. And after that disaster of an interdimensional train spotting trip, unfortunately, I will remain the royal elf who failed to cop the lot! "
"And I am the human who failed to cop the lot!" said Jake. "
He thought for a moment and then cheered up.
"However, I suggest a new plan! I have a massive reward from the Gemini's. I intend to buy a single seat transporter and a time machine and go back to earth in 1962 to cop the lot! Then I might do all regions back to Rocket, then the rest of the railways across the whole planet! I will cop a vast treasure which can never be duplicated. The boy who copped the whole lot for all time!"
"That is not very likely!" said the voice of Princess Cleopatra. She walked regally into the room and continued: "I would remind you, Jake, that you are wanted as a fugitive on earth! There is a huge reward on you! The fact that you now have peculiar shrunken ears will not save you! The UFO military people will believe you have had cosmetic surgery! Many crooks like you have such alterations for the purpose of disguise!"
"Oh," said Jake. "Now I have become a genuine wanted criminal! A schoolboy who is a wanted criminal as a result of you forcing yourself into our party!"
The Princess did not appear to hear him.
She said: "You have, of course wasted the enormous reward paid by Pernod for the return of their dragon. My own personal rule is waste not, want not!"
"What do you mean, waste?" said Jake. "The reward was gigantic! I must have plenty of money. Enough to get the equipment and do the job, cop the lot!"
Princess Cleopatra continued coolly: "That is incorrect. First, the funds were actually sent to Prince _Jake_! You are not Prince Jake and therefore even if any funds remained they would not be your property! In any case, there are no funds left! You kept a Multiverse Yellow Cab waiting while the meter was running! Incredible! What astonishing stupidity! Treasury have already paid that bill, taking much of the remaining reward from Pernod! Finally, you..." she pointed at Jake again: "You had an unpaid Internet account for $60,000! That's the primary reason why you agreed to help my idiot brother! You only caught the train spotting bug yourself once you were in jail. As for my stupid brother, he agreed to pay off your bill in exchange for you acting as his bodyguard! All this on a train spotting trip to your home universe! Your huge Internet account bill was incurred because you were constantly playing an infantile internet computer game in which you took the part of the Wizard of the Solar System, _Jake_ Windsor! How perfect! You chose the name of the actual Elvish Prince in order to squander money playing a stupid game! And my moron brother offered to settle your bill in exchange for some kind of useless service in which you would act as his look alike bodyguard! That bill has also been paid. Balance now zero!""
She turned to the Prince. "Both of you two bumkins are now well and truly stuffed! The train spotting record is still there for the taking! One day, someone, somehow, someone will cop the lot But it definitely will not beyou or this bum!"
"This has all occurred because of your incredibly violent temper!" said the Prince calmly. "You forced yourself into the traveling party! In an attempt to protect you from danger I had only booked tickets for Jake and myself! I intended to make sure that Universe Zero was safe before exposing you to the trip."
Princess Cleopatra. "Exposing me! How ridiculous! How would any one on earth have recognized me? I would have simply posed as a normal train spotter."
"Well, posing as a normal human train spotter would not have been all that simple," said Jake, "You do have rather noticeable ears. They are not at all common on Earth! "
Princess Cleopatra. "Rubbish! I would have worn a scarf fastened with a diamond tiara! Possibly set with emaralds or rubies!"
Prince Jake broke in: "You caused all these problems through your own violent temper! In any case, the whole mess was engineered your half witted friend the translation computer. It could not handle the computing parameters that you demanded. It went bonky and mixed us all up, with you in the controlling role of "computer warder." What a shame! Bossy, temperamental and now the Earth Chess Champion! Typical! On top of everything else and your litany of errors you were absolutely raving angry at poor Jake! Simply because I had dubbed him a Knight! You believe all such appointments must be approved by yourself, Miss Superstar!"
There was a tight silence.
Princess Cleopatra: "Miss Supestar? Miss Superstar? Is that how you think of ME? I am always kind and thoughtful! I do not carry an ounce of pretension! I even put up with this disgraceful human being who you have made a Knight without real authority. You had no approval, nothing from father or mother and most importantly nothing from me! He is not a proper Knight! And how dare you address me as Miss Superstar! What a disgraceful thing to say about your own wonderful,caring,brilliant sister! "
She burst into tears and stalked out, leaving an uneasy silence.
Chapter 22
Penny Banger
"Well, Jake," said Prince Jake, recovering. "That's got rid of her! It appears you are now debt free so you can return to earth immediately. We will unfortunately have to abandon our plan to jointly cop the lot. But by using the time retarder we can put you back at the time and place you started from. You will arrive only a few hours of earth time after you left! Congratulations! Your internet debt has been paid and you are no longer under the thrall of your Internet provider!" He turned to Alaric, "By the way, what has happened to the Entry Structures? We were supposed to commence spotting from a structure in Scotland, somewhere near McBlaney station? But we actually arrived in Australia near Lilydale. Those Ozro dwarves apparently constructed two Underground structures and the one in Australia is being investigated by the UFO mob. What has happened to the Entry Structure in the north, in Scotland?"
"Still there, Your Majesty. Close to McBlaney station. It is a desolate spot so I believe it will be left to gradually rot away."
Prince Jake: "Well, Jake, you have come out of this well! Out of debt and out of thrall! A good outcome!"
"I may no be out of thrall but I have not copped the lot!" said Jake feverishly. "Surely, you know how it feels! This gnawing hunger! To be the immortal lad who copped the lot. What about a proper Royal thanks? What about a portable time machine, a transmitting camera, a load of old banknotes and small change, a universal Shed Pass, a universal meal ticket valued at any station cafe and brand new spotters ABC's -- for all four British regions?"
He thought for a moment and then rushed on.
"And ABC's for all the other countries, going back as far as possible. I will set the absolute limit! Copping the lot from the first edition of every ABC to the final editions! And you do not have to be left out! As I cop the lot you can share the glory! You can give me a transmitter so I will send back videos as I get the cops. You will also cop the lot in absteria!"
"Also?" said Prince Jake. "I will also cop the lot? By watching videos! That is obviously cheating and I am the Prince! If anyone is to cop the lot it must be me! I would remind you that you are the penny banger!"
"What does that mean, the Penny Banger?" said Jake.
Alaric: "It means you were to be sacrificed if the Prince was threatened! The ultimate role of a Knight of the Oval Table. To commit Hari Kari! To offer his life for the royal person."
"Sacrificed!" said Jake. "Offer my life for the royal person? Hari Kari! Hari Bullshit! I have never agreed to that!"
Alaric looked distressed.
"Your Majesty!" he said to the Prince. "Jake is still a commoner! He has no knowledge of knightly protocol. He should be sent back to Earth and left to stew."
Prince Jake meditated on this suggestion.
Finally, he summoned two guards. Jake was pinioned and carried into a robot driven vehicle. It had appeared in a small bay abutting the room. Prince Jake raised one hand in salute as Jake was pushed aboard.
The vehicle whizzed off into what started as darkness but rapidly became a kaleidoscope of violent light and sound. After what seemed to be hours of this nauseous display, and a strong feeling that he would be horribly sick, Jake found himself back inside the Large Hadron Collidor beneath the Cerne Nuclear Facility. He now recalled getting into a similar floating car before his wild adventure began. He climbed out shakily.
The robot vehicle vanished into the curve of the Accelerator tunnel. There was a muffled explosion as it disappeared from Universe Zero.
Chapter 23
Scotch Hop
Jake's form teacher, Mr "Toothy" Slack then appeared from an alcove. He was grinning from ear to ear, clearly demonstrating why he carried the knickname "Toothy" Slack. "Ah, there you are, Boyle," he said. He seemed immensely relieved. "We have all been searching for you! I thought you had been kidnapped! Or swallowed by a mini black hole! Or that your Internet service company had located you and knocked you off for non payment of your debt! Your body could have been stuffed somewhere in the tunnel or possibly used to generate experimental particles! I was actually about to phone your parents in Nepal and alert them to your disappearance! Not that I could have contacted them as on last report they were both two thirds of the way up K2, following an exciting new route. Anyway, you are back and I have news! An anonymous benefactor has paid your internet debt in full! Summons withdrawn! You are free!"
But was Jake still wanted by the UFO Army?
He asked "Toothy" Slack.
Jake: "Has there been any kind of search for an alien?"
Mr Slack: "There was something on the radio about an alien, this morning. Another UFO flap and a military outfit looking for aliens. There were supposed to be alien spies living under an oak tree in Chirnside Park! There was a huge sum offered for information leading to the arrest of "Jake Windsor", an alien who apparently has huge ears and is armed with some kind of alien weapon! I immediately thought of your Internet gaming name! The announcement was a few hours ago!"
A few hours!
The time machine had worked correctly.
Weeks of action had been compressed into a few hours!
"Toothy" Slack continued: " It was all rubbish!"
"Yes, all rubbish," said Jake. He thought: "The kind of rubbish that can get you imprisoned by an Elvish Princess who has turned into a computer.The kind of rubbish that gets your head festooned with massive ears, pursued by trainee wizards and entire army divisions. Rubbish that carries the definite possibility of being put in front of a firing squad."
But the important thing now was that he had his own ears back. And his massive internet debt had been paid, presumably by the elves Royal Mint. He was back to normal. He was free of debt and yet...... he was not free of a nasty compulsion which he had somehow picked up. A compulsion to cop the lot, to spot every named steam engine! To underline every namer in his ABC! An ABC which he still clutched in his hand. Once completed, with every namer underlined, it was an ABC which would be shown to cheering crowds of schoolboys! Examined in detail by officials from Railway Magazine who would marvel at his dedication and sheer talent. The editor would feature pages of namers,photographs and notes giving details of every cop! And pictures of himself, sooty and disheveled but standing in a grand pose. The lad who copped the lot!
But how? It was now 2015. The the bulk of his steam engine quarry had vanished many years ago! Hundreds of beautiful steam namers, wantonly destroyed in the name of progress! He could now only spot the handful which remained.. He could cop the remaining lot. But was it enough? What about the namers already sent to the breakers yards, cut with welding torches, smashed into raw metal, melted down to become consumer goods!
Copping the Lot meant seeing all the namers as they had been, complete and perfect, smelling of coal, smoke and steam, rolling past with grace and thunder, pulling immensely long trains Only that could slake his raging thirst! But now he was trapped. Trapped in time! Even now the Princess was probably cooking up some new plan. Plotting to get herself back to earth with a time machine. To beat her brother and smash his puny human assistant! And the royal cow would be fully equipped! Special camping gear, food machines, portable loo, a robot maid to help with bathing, make up, etc. Recording robots to keep notes and make vids. She would not want to spot in poverty! Only the best for her! Finally she would cop the lot! Which meant, of course, that she would be....
The girl who copped the lot!
What a horrible thought!
Somehow that possibility must be averted. Jake had finally realized his sacred duty. Fate had put him into the position of representing all boys on earth and elsewhere! The person who copped the lot must be a boy! Somehow, he must get a time machine, a universal shed pass, a suitcase full of money and a set of ABC's for every year back to whenever...
There must be a way!
Could he find a time machine somewhere? An experimental model? There was risk. In an experimental time machine he might finish up in a black hole. He might get crunched, fried, flash frozen or eaten by a giant worm! Yet it was a risk he had to take!
He must get back to his computer! Get cracking.
1) Search for time machine projects.
2) Volunteer to be a test pilot.
3) Get a load of old British currency.
4) Get back to 1968 and hide the machine in a secure place
5) Cop the lot for 1968! That would mean all four regions.
6) Retrieve the time machine and go back five years. Cop the lot.
7) Repeat until he arrived at the time where railways began!
8) Return to the present and publish his results in Railway Magazine.
Fast forward...
Jake was now sitting in his room at his Swiss hotel. He had been feverishly surfing the Internet, looking for time travel projects. Then his investigation s were interrupted when a hotel employee knocked on the door and told him that he had to pack for his flight back to Australia. This message brought a flurry of activity from Jake. He had no intention of returning to Australia when he could make a start on his ambition. He could at least cop all the remaining steam namers in Britain.
Jake rapidly filled a backpack, pushed his notebook computer into its special compartment and stuffed his passport, money, ABC's and other vital documents into his pockets. He left the hotel by climbing down the fire escape and getting a cab on the main road nearby. A few hours later he was in London. Now he needed somewhere to live while he commenced spotting all the remaining British namers. In his spare time he could then work out how to get a time machine in order to complete his full mission. He suddenly had an idea. Prince Jake had asked about a second underground building in Scotland. Apparently the elves did everything in duplicate, A second underground hideout had been constructed by the dwarves close to...where was it? MacBlaney Railway Station.. It must be still there! It would contain food supplies and drinks. They were probably all bottled or tinned so they would still be OK.
Jake had enough money to buy a ticket to MacBlaney.
Jake purched a packet of chips, a hot dog and some pop.
A short time later he was dozing on a fast electric train which took him up the East Coast Main line at 125mph. At Edinburgh he changed trains. He was now obliged to request a stop at MacBlaney. Finally he reached that remote station. Jake stepped onto the platform. He watched his train move smoothly away. Its lights faded into the semi darkness of the moor which closed in with an eerie feeling. Jake shivered but then pulled on his backpack and started walking alongside the track.
Despite keeping a sharp lookout, he almost missed the entrance he was seeking.. He actually found it marked by a large rock. The entrance was overgrown with thistles and blackberries. Eventually, Jake forced his way through the undergrowth and clambered down the rocky staircase inside. At last he felt safe. He was home! Jake fumbled in the darkness at the top of the steps and found a switch. He pressed it, reflecting on the fact that it might have been a good idea to buy matches and candles. But the lights suddenly came on! The Elvish power source was still working!
Jake dropped his gear and started rummaging. He found tins of beans, canned sausages and several bottles of Twisty Water! Moving to the Jakechen,Jake found a duplicate heater and a food input device. He would lack for nothing! He was able to serve a satisfying dinner. He was not yet in 1982 but he could train spot on the line next door, collect what came through and work at it.
He dusted off the sheets and climbed into the bunk.
He snuggled down.
But he had only dozed for a few moments when the quiet of his refuge was broken. A Multiverse taxi materialized in the corridor with a loud roar and a dazzling display of frenzied lights. Prince Jake had arrived! The taxi vanished as Jake braced himself for some kind of attack! But the Elf Prince was totally remorseful! He had treated Jake badly! It was due to the stress of discovering that he had been in several parts and needed reassembly! But now he wanted to atone! To retrieve his royal honor. He had secured a time machine! With it, everything would go perfectly. Prince Jake suggested they should spot LNER,1952.
They would jointly cop the lot (spot all the LNER namers.)
If Prince Jake was caught, Jake would not need to commit Hari Kari because Prince Jake had a demogifier which would take him directly to the nearest Multiverse Express station so he could travel back to Central Power. Jake would have to look after himself but as he would carry the Time Machine that should not be a problem!
The time travelling spotters then split up their belongings. Prince Jake said he normally had a royal assistant who would carry his money. He asked Jake to carry the Royal Purse. It contained five hundred pounds which Jake put in his wallet. Prince Jake was already packed and it took only a few moments for Jake to refill his rucksack.
They were ready to rumble.
They climbed up the rough staircase and trudged trackside to McBlaney station, crunching through loose gravel. It was now very early in the morning, around 2am. The railway was deserted, with only a signal light shining some distance away.The surrounding moors were bleak and eerie. Fog roiled around in the distance. An owl hooted mournfully. They walked through a damp, dark tunnel under the railway. Their footsteps echoed. The tunnel walls dripped. They climbed a staircase up to the platform. A stifled cough caught Jake's attention and he spotted a young man wearing a kilt and a deerstalker hat. The man was slumped on a platform seat, apparently asleep. The hat covered his features. He ignored them .
"Since the time machine is only programmed to project two people," said Prince Jake quietly, "It will not affect that guy waitng for a train."
He unpacked the time machine from its case. Several dials shone brightly, producing a pool of green light. Prince Jake and Jake stood in the lighted area, with darkness all around. The figure on the seat did not appear to notice. Prince Jake adjusted a knob to show 1952.
He pressed a button. There was a flash and a loud report.
To be continued _Peter Magycon_
139
|
2024-06-02T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5828
|
The Great Bee Fiasco
This is another piece having to do with my world project, but way before the series of events. In fact, these two characters were still teenagers here, while when the aforementioned events happen, they'll be in their late twenties.
When you’re seventeen, you tend to think you can get away with everything. I certainly thought that, but the thing was, I could. As a teen, I was one of the pranksters of the Srihan Military Academy, and I was very good at my proclaimed title. One trick after another, and I never once got caught. The teachers were aware of these jokes, but never had the evidence to get me in trouble, and besides, I was towards the top of my class anyways, so who would believe them that a top student was also the class clown? That isn’t to say I did this all on my own. My best friend, Miale Terezin, helped me. He was an unassuming child prodigy who made it into the Academy at age 14, two years earlier than normal, and my long-time friend. I would come up with whatever horrible plan we had for the poor unsuspecting adult we were targeting, while he would outline exactly how to execute this plan. We were partners, and if we were going down at any point, we went down together. Me and Miale as a pair tended to surprise people. I was rather popular with my classmates, particularly the girls, while Miale was the social outcast of the grade due to the fact that he told everyone exactly what he thought, which got him into trouble that I normally had to get him out of. However, there was one thing our classmates could agree on about us-we were the best pranksters the Academy had ever known, and there was one particular event that had earned us that title: The Great Bee Fiasco.
This started the same way all of our other pranks did-as an idea we came up with in the dormitories. We shared a room, a small, simple place with two meticulously made beds and blank walls. That’s military grade for you. There was also a cluttered desk in the corner, drowning under our homework and other trinkets, and a closet that never quite closed correctly, revealing the piles of clothes within it. Otherwise, it was very neat, orderly, and bland, and our unofficial headquarters. We could bounce ideas off each other long into the night with no one bothering us. Midnight was like our hour, though. Things began to pick up, and any idea could become a reality. On this particular night, somehow, the sentence of “Let’s prank the headmaster.” sounded like the most spectacular idea anyone could pitch. It was pitch black, save for the twilight candlelight that illuminated the small gap between our beds. Despite the lighting, Miale’s icy blue eyes glittered at this suggestion.
“Jerel, that’s risky. And extremely stupid. I love it.”
I couldn’t help but grin at this. This is why I loved having Miale as my partner. He was such a stickler to the rules, yet if you could tap into his risk-taking side he would take things to another level. I chuckled at his sudden bout of moxy, then replied “We better come up with something spectacular for this.” After a brief moment of silence passed through the room, I began to muse, not necessarily to myself, but to both of us.
“Physical pain is a little too simple for this, and it would be hard to get him with enough people to publicly embarrass him…”
The headmaster was a bit of an old coot, and doled out more punishment than anyone in the history of the Academy. As a result, all of the students and alumni despised him with a passion. The reason no one had ever attempted to do something to him is that he was flanked by a few attendants at all times, and was almost always holed up in his office, making it impossible to do anything without getting caught. But Jerel, I’m sure you’re asking, couldn’t you send him something horrible in a package? It’s tempting, yes, but everything is intercepted by his secretary. The hit would have to be in his office, and set up by an actual person. The difficult part was getting in and out of there without anyone knowing. Pulling it off meant going down in school lore.
“Bees!”
I got a questioning look from Miale, and I rushedly explained my exclamation “What if we used bees?! Everyone is afraid of bees!” This earned a chuckle from my partner, so I knew I had come up with something fantastic. There was a shuffling noise, and the sheets on the other bed moved like a ghost. “I’ll come up with a plan in the morning. I’m too tired right now.”
That was only the beginning.
Over the next few days, we hatched our plan. We had decided to get in through the window, and we’d have to make something to climb, since the office was on the second floor. We obsessively researched our surroundings and everything we would need to pull this off. The headmaster’s schedule, the places on campus where bees lived, how to catch and contain them, and even the best material to climb up. I even cashed in a few favors with some friends and got us a grappling hook, which was going to be essential. Most of the buildings on campus were elaborate and flowery, kind of like a cake made of plaster and bricks. Even if the interiors were awful, with the bright lights, empty walls, and creaky floors, they were still nice to look at from the outside. It also meant there were plenty of nooks and crannies for the hook to latch on to, assuming it didn’t break whatever we were putting weight on. It wasn’t like we could practice this endeavour either, since it would mean that the whole scheme could be easily tracked back to us if someone saw us doing so. We came up with the idea in the winter, so we were also going to have to wait until late spring to pull this off, since the school opened all the windows to make the heat a little more bearable. It made us antsy, and the teachers were finding that there was a significant lack of pranks occurring, and that we were on edge. They even had the nerve to try to get us to reveal what we were planning, which of course didn’t happen. Soon enough, winter transitioned into the damp, stuffy early spring that became ridiculously warm later on, causing the windows to be flung open in an attempt to ward off fidgeting students complaining about the temperature. The day was rather pleasant, and dry. We knew that the headmaster would be going to lunch with some army officials, and since the windows to his office would still be open, it was a prime time for us to make our move. We stood underneath the window, holding our grappling hook. Me and Miale stared at one another for a moment.
“May we be watched over by Lady Fortune-”
“-Otherwise we’re both going straight to hell and not coming back.”
Our mantra, acting as a child’s good luck charm. Holding my breath, I wound up our rope made of spare rags of the kitchen, and let it fly. Much to our relief, it hooked onto a crevice on the window, not budging when I gave it a firm tug. So I began to climb. If this academy had given us anything, it was fitness. Two years of brutal training was going into this climb, and made it a bit easier. Once I had crawled in, I let loose a breath that I hadn’t been aware was caught in my throat, and motioned for Miale to follow. The headmaster’s office was the only room in the whole school to mirror the exterior of the buildings. Velvety curtains framed the windows, and paintings glorifying the place of the army adorned the red and yellow walls. The desk was complicated, with many drawers, but we knew which one we were going for. Where he got his pens from. Once in the office, Miale carefully removed the jar of particularly peeved bees from his worn belt as I opened the drawer. As we were placing the jar inside, cap totally unscrewed, we heard a noise. He was back earlier than expected. Panicked, we slammed the drawer shut. The headmaster was still making small talk with his secretary, so Miale ran and slid down the rope. As I was going to take my turn, I heard the sound of a door unlocking. Making a split-second decision as my partner in crime stared at me with wide, frenzied eyes, I removed the grappling hook and jumped. Thankfully, the second floor wasn’t that high off the ground, so I wouldn’t be too badly hurt. Or so I thought. A sickening crack rang out as I hit the ground, and I bit my lip trying to not to scream, turning it into a pathetic whimper. There went my ankle. Miale looked upset “A-are you okay?!” I shook my head, motioning to my ankle, which he responded to by helping me up and getting me a walk to the nurse’s office, telling the nurse that I fell out of a tree. They believed us, thank goodness. Once I was in a cast, we were finally able to calm down and laugh. We had done it. We were amazing.
The next day, there was a rather sudden announcement in the mess hall, which was completely filled with barely enough space to walk between tables. Apparently, someone had the nerve to plant bees in the headmaster’s desk of all places, and he had to go to the hospital because he was allergic to bee stings. As rushed whispers rose around us, me and Miale just sat there quietly smiling to ourselves, tapping my cast a little, and fully aware of what we had done.
Subscribe
Get Teen Ink’s 48-page monthly print edition. Written by teens since 1989.
|
2024-04-06T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7149
|
Perhaps the only thing that changes more rapidly than technology in today's amped-up digital environment is the terminology used to describe that technology and its impact on consumers--and marketers. One recent example is the advent of the term "omnichannel" marketing, which many struggle to differentiate from another relatively recent term--"multichannel" marketing. Still, those who are most enmeshed in the field say there is a key distinction between the two, and it's one that will have an impact on marketers as they continue to seek ways of having a meaningful impact on the consumers they hope to engage. And, importantly, it's less about technology than it may seem.
Buying & Selling eContent Conference Announces CEO Panel
An updated conference agenda for Buying & Selling eContent has been posted to the web at http://www.buy-sell-econtent.com. The conference, scheduled for April 13-15 at Marriott's Camelback Inn and Resort, features an outstanding program and roster of speakers. This year the popular CEO panel is loaded with a top-notch group of CEOs from EContent 100 and Outsell 60 companies who will share their insights on the best ways to deliver products (value) to their customers and profits (money) to their shareholders or investors. The CEO panelists include Bob Carlson, IBM WebFountain, Stuart Clark, Interactive Data Corporation, Clare Hart, Factiva, Roger Krakoff, The Jordan, Edmiston Group, and Mike Tansey, Thomson Scientific.
|
2024-04-01T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7693
|
An assessment of the use of costs and quality of life as outcomes in endoscopic research.
Costs and quality of life are increasingly important study outcomes. We quantitatively and qualitatively assessed their use in recent endoscopic research. All Medline-retrieved 1985 to 1995 published gastrointestinal endoscopic research using cost and/or quality of life as outcomes were analyzed. Sixty-eight (1.2%) of an estimated 5568 publications discussed costs and/or quality of life as endoscopic outcomes (24 quality of life, 37 cost-effectiveness, 7 cost-benefit). Their use did not increase with time. Cost or quality of life was infrequently a primary study outcome. Twenty of 24 (83%) quality of life papers used an objective scale. However, of these, 15 of 20 (75%) used symptom indexes, performance scales, or other nonvalidated quality of life instruments. Two of 24 (8%) evaluated quality of life in nonmalignant disease. Eight of 40 (20%) papers claimed endoscopy was cost-effective, with no evidence of formal cost assessment. Ten of 32 (31%) substituted charges for costs. Of 21 papers reporting cost data, 4 (19%) specified cost type (e.g., direct vs other), 6 (29%) specified cost perspective, and 9 (43%) reported sensitivity analysis. Sixteen of 27 (59%) cost-effectiveness papers did not correlate costs with changes in a health outcome. The overall cost and quality of life assessment in endoscopic research has been limited and must be improved. Accurate cost and quality of life assessment will require cooperation between gastroenterologists and experts in these fields.
|
2024-07-23T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7714
|
Moderator:Welcome, Nicky, and thanks for joining us today. What about the IMS circuit suits your style? You have finished on the podium here on two very different motorcycles. One was a traditional frame in the Honda and one was a carbon-fiber frame Ducati. What about Indy just kind of jives with the way you ride?
Nicky Hayden:Well, unfortunately those results have been a few years ago. The last couple years, I haven't really been able to put up a big fight. I like Indy, I like a track to go left, I prefer. Indy is a great example. It is a track built for cars mostly, and I grew up doing left, and most Europeans grew up going right. I don't think it is a big difference, but I do like going left, and I have had some good opportunities there, and I don't really think about that. I look forward to this year and try to put up a good fight.
Moderator:How much difference did the new asphalt make last year for you guys?
Nicky Hayden:It was a big difference. The old track wasn't too bad, but there were a few spots that were getting pretty bad. It made the track a lot more fun and a lot more fast, and I think it opened up a few places where we can pass. Last year, the track was really rough on tires, and the surface was new and was quite abrasive. But I think with a year on the track, it should be better and be the best that we have ever seen the track.
Moderator:We also had rubber laid down on the road course last month with the GRAND-AM cars, and that is the first time that you guys had been there with rubber actually laid down on the road course. It used to be that you guys with the bikes were the only vehicles that raced on it since 2008, so the extra rubber that has been laid down has got to help, too.
Nicky Hayden:Yes, for sure, to clean it up and get some of the dirt off of it. When you first laid down new pavement, it is natural that it will be sharp and be kind of gritty, but when the tires go around it and start smoothing those edges down and you can certainly have a better grip and less wear on the tires. We will see how it is, and we use a bit different line than those cars, especially going the other way, so we will have to feel it out and see how the grip is. But I don't expect any problems.
Q:I was talking to Colin about the arm pump surgery, and I never knew this stuff existed, and I know that you have had it. Could you talk about how that is like a rite of passage for you guys? It seems like everybody gets it, and Colin said you have to be careful who does it or else you get nasty scars. How is your scar?
Nicky Hayden:I have got a pretty lengthy scar. So I actually had it done twice. Definitely arm pump is kind of weird, it comes and goes. And is not any clear reason to what has caused it. You can have it at one track and not at another, it can be bike-related, training-related. It doesn't take much to trigger when you are hold on to a 250-horsepower bike and fighting it, especially with these carbon brakes now. We can brake so hard, and the force, especially on the right hand, is a lot. But at the moment, mine is under control, so I don't want to talk about it too much.
Q:The one follow-up I had is since you jumped on the Indian and wore that old racing garb way back when, you kind of have been the spokesman and the front man for promoting this race at IMS. Do you still feel that way even though the results may not have been the way that you would have wanted? Do you still feel like a guy that wants to be the ambassador for promoting this race?
Nicky Hayden:Oh, I would say so. Of course, MotoGP promotes itself. It is the show, not me. But it is my home race. Laguna is an American round, but my true home race, I have to consider Indy. It is only three hours away, just across the bridge, so a lot more of my friends and family come to the race, and I grew up racing a lot in Indiana. Dirt tracks and even road racing there, so I consider it much more my home. I do enjoy and I do feel some obligation to promote the race and give back to here and there. But once I get there, it is business as usual, and I cannot change my routine too much.
Join
the conversation - Add your comment
Although the administrators and moderators of this website will attempt to keep all objectionable comments off these pages, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the poster, and neither Crash Media Group nor Crash.Net will be held responsible for the content of any message. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. If you find a message objectionable, please contact us and inform us of the problem or use the [report] function next to the offending post. Any message that does not conform with the policy of this service can be edited or removed with immediate effect.
Hayden has always been the same way, doesn't matter if it's contract time or not. Don't matter if he is at the top of the list of wanted riders or at the bottom. He is a professonal and a genuinly nice guy.
Those who bash on Hayden or think he isn't a winner are people who don't race, don't understand racing and have no clue what goes in GP. This is an AMA winner at a very young 20 years old (younger than Ben I believe) and has won a GP title as the #2 rider with the factory support behind their golden children (ala: Pedrobot). He has won despite the odds. He is indeed the HARDEST working guy in GP (those who argue otherwise are myopic). Best rider ever? Of course not. But on equal machinery he can run easily at the front with the "Aliens". Pedrobot has lots of wins, no title. Dovi sat on the factory team with how many wins? Not many and ZERO titles. Say what you want, Hayden is a winner and that's all that matters.
|
2023-09-25T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1173
|
---
abstract: 'It is well-known that peakons in the Camassa–Holm equation are $H^1$-orbitally stable thanks to the presence of conserved quantities and properties of peakons as constrained energy minimizers. By using the method of characteristics, we prove that piecewise $C^1$ perturbations to peakons grow in time in spite of their stability in the $H^1$-norm. We also show that the linearized stability analysis near peakons contradicts the $H^1$-orbital stability result, hence passage from linear to nonlinear theory is false in $H^1$.'
address:
- 'Departamento de Matemática - Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Avenida Colombo 5790, CEP 87020-900, Maringá, PR, Brazil'
- 'Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4K1'
author:
- Fábio Natali
- 'Dmitry E. Pelinovsky'
title: |
**Instability of $H^1$-stable peakons\
in the Camassa–Holm equation**
---
Introduction
============
The Camassa-Holm (CH) equation [@CH] $$\label{CH}
u_t - u_{txx} + 3 u u_x = 2 u_x u_{xx} + u u_{xxx}, \quad x \in \mathbb{R}$$ can be rewritten in the convolution form $$\label{CHconv}
u_t + u u_x + \frac{1}{2} \varphi' \ast \left( u^2 + \frac{1}{2} u_x^2 \right) = 0, \quad x \in \mathbb{R},$$ where $\varphi(x) = e^{-|x|}$ is the Green function satisfying $(1 - \partial_x^2) \varphi = 2 \delta$ with $\delta$ being Dirac delta distribution and $(f \ast g)(x) := \int_{\mathbb{R}} f(x-y) g(y) dy$ being the convolution operator. It is clear that $\varphi \in H^s$ for $s < \frac{3}{2}$, where $H^s := H^s(\mathbb{R})$ is the standard Sobolev space of squared integrable distributions equipped with the norm $\| f \|_{H^s} := \| \langle \cdot \rangle^s \hat{f} \|_{L^2}$ with $\langle x \rangle := \sqrt{1 + x^2}$ and $\hat{f}$ being the Fourier transform of $f$ on $\mathbb{R}$.
The purpose of function $\varphi$ is not only to rewrite the evolution problem for the CH equation (\[CH\]) in the convolution form (\[CHconv\]) that depends on the first derivative of $u$ in $x$ and does not depend on its higher-order derivatives. In addition, $\varphi$ expresses a particular family of solutions $u(t,x) = c \varphi(x-ct)$ with $c \in \mathbb{R}$ which are referred to as [*peakons*]{} (or [*peaked solitary waves*]{}). Indeed, the validity of these peakons as solutions to the CH equation in the convolution form (\[CHconv\]) can be checked directly from the identity $$- \varphi + \frac{1}{2} \varphi^2 + \frac{3}{4} \varphi \ast \varphi^2 = 0, \quad x \in \mathbb{R},$$ which is piecewise $C^1$ on both sides from the peak at $x = 0$.
Cauchy problem for the CH equation (\[CH\]) with the initial data $u_0 \in H^3$ was studied in the series of papers [@C1; @CE1; @CE2]. It was shown in Theorem 4.1 in [@C1] that if $y_0 := (1 - \partial_x^2) u_0$ does not change sign on $\mathbb{R}$, then the corresponding solution $u \in C(\mathbb{R}^+,H^3)$ exists globally in time. If there exists $x_0 \in \mathbb{R}$ such that $(x-x_0) y_0(x) \geq 0$ on $\mathbb{R}$, the same conclusion applies (Theorem 4.4 in [@C1]), whereas if $(x-x_0) y_0(x) \leq 0$ on $\mathbb{R}$, the local solution breaks in a finite time in the sense that the slope of the solution becomes unbounded from below in a finite time (Theorems 5.1 and 5.2 in [@C1]).
The condition $H^3$ on the initial data was used in [@C1; @CE1; @CE2] to control the auxiliary quantity $y_0$ and to extend local solutions to global solutions of the CH equation (\[CH\]). Without these requirements, local well-posedness of the Cauchy problem can be proven for initial data in $H^s$ for every $s > \frac{3}{2}$ [@LO; @RB] but cannot be pushed below and at $s = \frac{3}{2}$ because of lack of uniform continuity of the local solution with respect to initial data and the norm inflation [@B; @Molinet].
Cauchy problem for the CH equation in the convolution form (\[CHconv\]) with the initial data in $H^1$ was studied in [@BC1] (similar results appear also in [@Holden]) by means of a coordinate transformation of the quasilinear equation to an equivalent semilinear system. It was proven that the Cauchy problem for the equivalent semilinear system admits a unique global solution (Theorem 1 in [@BC1]), which provides a global conservative solution to the CH equation (Theorem 2 in [@BC1]) such that $$\label{conservative-solution}
\left\{ \begin{array}{ll} u(t,\cdot) \in H^1 & \mbox{\rm for every \;} t \in \mathbb{R}^+, \\
\| u(t,\cdot) \|_{H^1} = \| u_0 \|_{H^1} & \mbox{\rm for almost every \;} t \in \mathbb{R}^+.
\end{array} \right.$$ This global conservative solution is consistent with the two conserved quantities of the CH equation: $$\label{conserved-quantities}
E(u) = \int_{\mathbb{R}} (u^2 + u_x^2) dx, \quad F(u) = \int_{\mathbb{R}} u (u^2 + u_x^2) dx.$$ Moreover, it was proven in [@BCZ] that the global conservative solution to the CH equation (\[CHconv\]) is unique for every initial data in $H^1$. Continuous dependence from initial data and local well-posedness of the weak solutions $$\label{LWP-peakons}
u \in C((-T,T),H^1) \cap L^{\infty}((-T,T),W^{1,\infty}) \cap C^1((-T,T),L^2)$$ to the CH equation (\[CHconv\]) was established very recently in [@Linares] for every $u_0 \in H^1 \cap W^{1,\infty}$, where $W^{1,\infty}$ is the Sobolev space of functions with bounded first derivatives and $T > 0$ is a local existence time.
The previous study of stability of peakon solutions in [@CM; @CS] relies on the existence of conserved quantities (\[conserved-quantities\]). It was proven in [@CM] that the peakon $\varphi$ is a unique (up to translation) minimizer of $E(u)$ in $H^1$ subject to the constraint $3 F(u) = 2 E(u)$ (Proposition 3.6 in [@CM]), where $E(\varphi) = 2$ and $F(\varphi) = \frac{4}{3}$. Consequently, global smooth solutions $u \in C(\mathbb{R}^+,H^3)$ which are close to $\varphi$ in $H^1$ remains close to the translated orbit $\{ \varphi(\cdot - a) \}_{a \in \mathbb{R}}$ in $H^1$ for all $t > 0$ (Theorem 3.1 in [@CM]).
A different result on stability of peakons was proven in [@CS], which we reproduce here.
[@CS] \[theorem-CS\] Assume existence of a solution $u \in C((0,T),H^1)$ to the CH equation (\[CH\]) with either finite or infinite $T > 0$. For every small $\varepsilon > 0$, if the initial data satisfies $$\label{H1-initial}
\| u_0 - \varphi \|_{H^1} < \left(\frac{\varepsilon}{3} \right)^4,$$ then the solution satisfies $$\label{H1-final}
\| u(t,\cdot) - \varphi(\cdot - \xi(t)) \|_{H^1} < \varepsilon, \quad t \in (0,T),$$ where $\xi(t)$ is a point of maximum for $u(t,\cdot)$.
In Theorem \[theorem-CS\], the local solution $u \in C((0,T),H^1)$ to the CH equation (\[CH\]) may break in a finite time $T < \infty$ in the sense of Theorem 5.1 in [@C1]: $$\label{blow-up-criterion}
u_x(t,x) \to -\infty \quad \mbox{\rm at some} \;\; x \in \mathbb{R} \quad \mbox{\rm as} \;\; t \nearrow T.$$ Nevertheless, the $H^1$-norm of the solution $u \in C((0,T),H^1)$ remains finite as $t \nearrow T$ thanks to the energy conservation $E(u)$ in time $t$ up to the blowup time $T$. This implies that the bound (\[H1-final\]) remains valid in the limit $t \nearrow T$ and allows us to say that [*peakons of the CH equation are $H^1$ orbitally stable.*]{}
Various extensions of the $H^1$ orbital stability of peakons have been made recently. Orbital stability of peaked periodic waves in the CH equation was proven in [@Lenells2004b; @Lenells2005d]. Stability of peakons in another integrable equation called the Degasperis–Procesi equation was established in [@LinLiu] by extending ideas of [@CS]. Asymptotic stability of peakons in the class of $H^1$ functions $u$ with $y := (1-\partial_x^2) u$ being a non-negative finite measure is proven in [@Molinet1]. Asymptotic stability of trains of peakons and anti-peakons with $y$ being a sign-indefinite finite measure was constructed recently in [@Molinet2].
Multi-peakon solutions were constructed by many analytical and numerical tools [@S1; @Chertok; @H1; @Lund]. The local characteristic curve $x = \xi(t)$ for the Camassa–Holm equation (\[CHconv\]) is defined by the equation $$\label{characteristic-speed}
\frac{d \xi}{dt} = u(t,\xi(t)).$$ Since the multipeakon solution is known in the closed form $u(t,x) = \sum_{j=1}^N m_j(t) \varphi(x-x_j(t))$, where $\{ x_k(t), m_k(t) \}_{k=1}^N$ satisfies the finite-dimensional Hamiltonian system $$\frac{dx_k}{dt} = \sum_{j = 1}^N m_j \varphi(x_k - x_j), \quad \frac{d m_k}{dt} = -\sum_{j=1}^N m_j m_k \varphi'(x_k-x_j),$$ it is clear that the single peakons move along the local characteristic curves [@Lund] so that $$\frac{dx_k}{dt} = u(t,x_k(t)), \quad k \in \{1,2,\dots,N\}.$$ Global conservative solutions to the CH equation with multi-peakons were studied with the inverse scattering transform method in [@Kostenko], where the long-time behavior of solutions with peakons was investigated (see also [@S1; @Li]) and details of collisions between peakons and anti-peakons were given (see also [@BC1; @Molinet2]).
The purpose of this work is to address the question of stability of a single peakon in the time evolution of the CH equation beyond the $H^1$ orbital stability result of Theorem \[theorem-CS\]. We start with the linearized stability analysis and study evolution of the linearized equation around the peakons by using the method of characteristics. The same method is also useful to prove nonlinear instability of piecewise $C^1$ perturbations to peakons. This instability develops in spite of the $H^1$ orbital stability result of Theorem \[theorem-CS\].
The previous works avoid the question of linearized stability of peakons. It was noticed in [@CM] that “the nonlinearity plays a dominant role rather than being a higher-order correction", so that “the passage from the linear to the nonlinear theory is not an easy task, and may even be false". The authors of [@LinLiu] added that the peakons are not differentiable in $x$, which makes it difficult to analyze the spectrum of the linearized operator around the peakons.
By adding a perturbation $v(t,x-t)$ to the single peakon $\varphi(x-t)$ moving with the normalized speed $c = 1$ and dropping the quadratic term in $v$, we obtain the linearized equation for $v(t,x-t)$ from the CH equation in the convolution form (\[CHconv\]): $$\label{linCH}
v_t + (\varphi - 1) v_x + \varphi' v + \varphi' \ast \left( \varphi v + \frac{1}{2} \varphi' v_x \right) = 0, \quad x - t \neq 0.$$ In what follows, we use $x$ instead of $x-t$ thanks to the translational invariance of the convolution operator. After the change, the location of the peak of $\varphi$ is placed at $x = 0$. The following theorem represents the first main result of this work.
\[theorem-linear\] For every initial data $v_0 \in H^1$ satisfying $v_0(0) = 0$, there exists a unique global solution $v \in C(\mathbb{R}^+,H^1)$ to the linearized equation (\[linCH\]) satisfying $v(t,0) = 0$, $$\label{bound-1}
\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{H^1(0,\infty)}^2 = \| v_0 \|_{H^1(0,\infty)}^2 + 2 (e^t - 1) \int_0^{\infty} \varphi(s) \left( [v_0(s)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [v'_0(s)]^2 \right) ds$$ and $$\label{bound-2}
\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{H^1(-\infty,0)}^2 = \| v_0 \|_{H^1(-\infty,0)}^2 +
2 (e^{-t} - 1) \int_{-\infty}^0 \varphi(s) \left( [v_0(s)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [v'_0(s)]^2 \right) ds$$ for every $t > 0$.
In Theorem \[theorem-linear\], we confirm the expectation from [@CS] that the passage from the linear to the nonlinear theory may be false in $H^1$. Indeed, the sharp exponential growth of $\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{H^1(0,\infty)}$ in (\[bound-1\]) for the solution of the linearized equation (\[linCH\]) contradicts the bound (\[H1-final\]) in Theorem \[theorem-CS\] obtained for the solution of the full nonlinear equation (\[CHconv\]).
On the other hand, by solving the linearized equation (\[linCH\]) with a method of characteristics, we discover the intrinsic instability associated with the peaked profile of the traveling wave $\varphi$ (Lemma \[lem-2\]). This instability is related to the characteristics to the right of the peak for $x > 0$ but not to the left of the peak for $x < 0$.
Within the linearized equation (\[linCH\]), we also discover that if $v_0(0) \neq 0$, the continuous initial data $v_0 \in H^1$ generates a finite jump discontinuity in the solution $v(t,x)$ at the peak $x = 0$ for every small $t > 0$ (Lemma \[lem-1\]). This finite jump discontinuity is allowed in the domain of the linearized operator associated with the linearized equation (\[linCH\]) in $L^2$ (Remark \[rem-1\]), however it prevents the solution $v(t,\cdot)$ to stay in $H^1$ for every $t > 0$. Related to this fact, we prove that the single peak of a perturbed peakon in the CH equation in the convolution form (\[CHconv\]) moves with the speed equal to the local characteristic speed as in (\[characteristic-speed\]) (Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-2\]). This allows us to show that the constraint on the solution $v$ at the peak required in Theorem \[theorem-linear\] is satisfied identically in the time evolution of the full nonlinear equation (\[CHconv\]) (Remark \[rem-3\]).
Similarly, we show for the linearized equation (\[linCH\]) that if $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1$ with $v_0(0) = 0$ and $v_0'(0) \neq 0$, then $v(t,\cdot) \notin C^1$ for every small $t > 0$ because of the finite jump discontinuity of $v_x(t,x)$ at $x = 0$ for $t > 0$ (Remark \[rem-2\]). Compared to the constraint on $v$ at the peak, there is no way to maintain a constraint on $v_x$ at the peak and to prevent the finite jump discontinuity of $v_x(t,x)$ at $x = 0$ in the time evolution of the full nonlinear equation (\[CHconv\]).
The above facts suggest that the $L^2$-based spaces like $H^1$ or $H^2$ may not be the best spaces to study the intrinsic instability of peakons in the CH equation. Instead, we work in the space of bounded continuous functions on $\mathbb{R}$ which are piecewise continuous differentiable with a finite jump discontinuity of the first derivative at $x = 0$ and bounded first derivatives away from $x = 0$. This space is denoted by $C^1_0$: $$\label{C-1-0}
C^1_0 := \{ v \in C^0(\mathbb{R}) \cap C^1(\mathbb{R}^-) \cap C^1(\mathbb{R}^+); \quad v, \partial_x v \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}) \}.$$ The linear instability result of Theorem \[theorem-linear\] is easily extended to prove exponential instability of $\| v_x(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}}$ because of the characteristics to the right of the peak (Lemma \[lem-3\]). Unlike the linear instability in $H^1$ of Theorem \[theorem-linear\], which cannot be true in the nonlinear evolution due to the result of Theorem \[theorem-CS\], the linear instability in $C^1_0$ persists in the full nonlinear equation (\[CHconv\]) as the nonlinear instability of peakons with respect to piecewise $C^1$ perturbations (Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-5\]). The following theorem represents the second main result of this work.
\[theorem-nonlinear\] For every $\delta > 0$, there exist $t_0 > 0$ and $u_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ satisfying $$\label{initial-bound-theorem}
\| u_0 - \varphi \|_{H^1} + \| u_0' - \varphi' \|_{L^{\infty}} < \delta,$$ such that the global conservative solution to the CH equation (\[CHconv\]) with the initial data $u_0$ satisfies $$\label{final-bound-theorem}
\| u_x(t_0,\cdot) - \varphi'(\cdot - \xi(t_0)) \|_{L^{\infty}} > 1,$$ where $\xi(t)$ is a point of peak of $u(t,\cdot + \xi(t)) \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ for $t \in [0,t_0]$.
We note that the peakon $\varphi$ is located on the boundary between global and breaking solutions to the Camassa–Holm equation in the sense that $(1 - \partial_x^2) \varphi = 2 \delta$ is zero everywhere except at the peak. It is expected that some perturbations to the peakons lead to global solutions whereas some others break in a finite time in the same sense as (\[blow-up-criterion\]). The nonlinear instability result in Theorem \[theorem-nonlinear\] does not distinguish between these two possible scenarios because the bound (\[final-bound-theorem\]) is attained before the blowup time $T$. Note that we measure the instability of peakons in the same norm as the one used to study wave breaking in the Camassa–Holm equation in [@C1]. Although perturbations to the peakons are not smooth in $H^1 \cap C^1_0$, we have justified the same blow-up criterion in the method of characteristics for the solutions in $H^1 \cap C^1_0$ as the criterion (\[blow-up-criterion\]) for the smooth solutions (Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-3\]).
A general global conservative solution to the CH equation (\[CHconv\]) satisfies (\[conservative-solution\]) and may have finite jumps of the energy $E(u)$ in (\[conserved-quantities\]) at some time instances, which correspond to collision between peakons and anti-peakons [@BC1]. The initial data $u_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ in Theorem \[theorem-nonlinear\] exclude anti-peakons and hence no jumps of the energy $E(u)$ occur in the time evolution of the global conservative solution, which hence satisfies $u \in C(\mathbb{R}^+,H^1)$. Since $u_0 \in H^1 \cap W^{1,\infty}$, this unique global conservative solution coincides for $t \in (0,T)$ with the local solution (\[LWP-peakons\]) constructed in [@Linares] where the maximal existence time $T > 0$ may be finite because of the blow-up of the $W^{1,\infty}$ norm of the local solution. Again, this blow-up of the $W^{1,\infty}$ norm agrees well with the instability criterion (\[final-bound-theorem\]) in Theorem \[theorem-nonlinear\].
Study of the instability of peakons in the CH equation is inspired by the recent work [@EP; @GP1; @GP2] on smooth and peaked periodic waves in the reduced Ostrovsky equation, $$\label{redOst}
u_t + u u_x = \partial_x^{-1} u,$$ which is another generalization of the inviscid Burgers equation $u_t + u u_x = 0$. While smooth periodic waves are linearly and nonlinearly stable [@EP; @GP1], peaked periodic waves were found to be linearly unstable because the $L^2$-norm of the perturbation grows exponentially in time [@GP2]. The linear instability was found from the solution of the truncated linearized equation obtained by the method of characteristics and from the estimates on the solution of the full linearized equation. Nonlinear instability was not studied in [@GP2] due to the lack of global well-posedness results on solutions of the reduced Ostrovsky equation (\[redOst\]) in $H^1$.
Compared to [@GP2], we show here that the full linearized equation (\[linCH\]) can be solved by method of characteristics without truncation and that the nonlinear instability of peakons in the CH equation (\[CHconv\]) can be concluded from the linear instability of perturbations in $H^1 \cap C^1_0$.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows. Linearized evolution near a single peakon is studied in Section 2, where the proof of Theorem \[theorem-linear\] is given. Nonlinear evolution of piecewise $C^1$ perturbations to a single peakon is studied in Section 3, where the proof of Theorem \[theorem-nonlinear\] is given. Section 4 concludes the article with ideas for further work.
Linearized evolution near a single peakon
=========================================
Let us first simplify the linearized equation (\[linCH\]) by using the following elementary result.
\[lem-0\] Assume that $v \in H^1$. Then, for every $x \in \mathbb{R}$, $$\label{tech-comp}
\varphi' \ast \left( \varphi v + \frac{1}{2} \varphi' v_x \right)(x) =
- \varphi'(x) v(x) + \varphi'(x) v(0) - \varphi(x) \int_0^x v(y) dy.$$
Since integrals of absolutely integrable functions are continuous and since $\varphi, \varphi', v, v_x \in L^2$, the map $$x \mapsto \varphi' \ast \left( \varphi v + \frac{1}{2} \varphi' v_x \right)$$ is continuous for every $x \in \mathbb{R}$. Now, $H^1(\mathbb{R})$ is continuously embedded into the space of bounded continuous functions on $\mathbb{R}$ decaying to zero at infinity and thus, $v \in C(\mathbb{R}) \cap L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$. Integrating by parts yields the following explicit expression for every $x \in \mathbb{R}$: $$\begin{aligned}
\left( \varphi' \ast \varphi' v_x\right)(x)
& = & \left( \varphi'' \ast \varphi' v \right)(x) - \left( \varphi' \ast \varphi'' v \right)(x) \\
& = & \left( \varphi \ast \varphi' v \right)(x) - 2 \varphi'(x) v(x) - \left( \varphi' \ast \varphi v \right)(x) + 2\varphi'(x) v(0),\end{aligned}$$ which simplifies the left-hand side of (\[tech-comp\]) to the form: $$\varphi' \ast \left( \varphi v + \frac{1}{2} \varphi' v_x \right)(x) =
- \varphi'(x) v(x) + \varphi'(x) v(0) +\frac{1}{2}
\left( \varphi \ast \varphi' v\right)(x) +
\frac{1}{2} \left( \varphi' \ast \varphi v\right)(x).$$ Furthermore, we obtain $$\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{2} \left( \varphi \ast \varphi' v\right)(x) + \frac{1}{2} \left( \varphi' \ast \varphi v\right)(x) & = &
-\frac{1}{2} \int_{\mathbb{R}} \varphi(x-y) \varphi(y) v(y) \left[ {\rm sign}(y) + {\rm sign}(x-y) \right] dy \\
& = & - \int_0^x \varphi(x-y) \varphi(y) v(y) dy \\
& = & - \varphi(x) \int_0^x v(y) dy,\end{aligned}$$ which completes the proof of (\[tech-comp\]).
The Cauchy problem for the linear equation (\[linCH\]) can be written in the evolution form: $$\label{linCH-equiv}
\left\{ \begin{array}{l}
\frac{dv}{dt} = Av, \quad t > 0, \\
v |_{t = 0} = v_0, \end{array} \right.$$ where the linearization near the single peakon $\varphi$ for a perturbation $v$ in $H^1$ is given by $$\label{lin-op}
(Av)(x) = \left[ 1 - \varphi(x) \right] v'(x) + \varphi(x) \int_0^x v(y) dy - v(0) \varphi'(x), \quad x \neq 0,$$ thanks to Lemma \[lem-0\] and the translational invariance.
In order to define a strong solution to the Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]), we consider the operator $A : {\rm dom}(A) \subset L^2(\mathbb{R}) \mapsto L^2(\mathbb{R})$ with the maximal domain given by $$\label{dom-A}
{\rm dom}(A) = \{ v \in L^2(\mathbb{R}) : \quad Av \in L^2(\mathbb{R}) \}.$$ Since $\varphi(x) \to 0$ as $|x| \to \infty$ exponentially fast and $\varphi' \in L^2(\mathbb{R})$, ${\rm dom}(A)$ is equivalent to $${\rm dom}(A) \equiv \{ v \in L^2(\mathbb{R}) : \quad (1-\varphi) v' \in L^2(\mathbb{R}), \quad |v(0)| < \infty \}.$$
\[rem-1\] Since $\varphi(0) = 1$, $H^1$ is continuously embedded into ${\rm dom}(A)$ but it is not equivalent to ${\rm dom}(A)$. In particular, if $v \in H^1(\mathbb{R}^+) \cap H^1(\mathbb{R}^-)$ with a finite jump discontinuity at $x = 0$ then $v \in {\rm dom}(A)$ but $v \notin H^1$. However, the representation (\[tech-comp\]) in Lemma \[lem-0\] does not hold for solutions in ${\rm dom}(A)$ with a finite jump discontinuity at $x = 0$.
Let us consider the linearized Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]) in the space $C^1_0$ defined by (\[C-1-0\]). The following lemma shows that unless $v_0 \in C^1_0$ satisfies the constraint $v_0(0) = 0$, solutions to the Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]) do not remain in $C^1_0$ for $t \neq 0$.
\[lem-1\] Assume that $v_0 \in {\rm dom}(A) \cap C^1_0$ with $v_0(0) \neq 0$ and that there exists a strong solution $v \in C(\mathbb{R}^+,{\rm dom}(A))$ to the Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]). Then, $v(t,\cdot) \notin C^1_0$ for every $t \in (0,t_0)$ with $t_0 > 0$ sufficiently small.
Assume that $v(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ for $t \in [0,t_0]$ with some $t_0 > 0$ and obtain a contradiction. If $v(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$, then it follows from (\[linCH-equiv\]) and (\[lin-op\]) for every $t \in (0,t_0)$ that $$\lim_{x \to \pm 0} \frac{dv}{dt}(t,x) = \pm v(t,0),$$ and since $v(0,0) = v_0(0) \neq 0$, we have $v(t,\cdot) \notin C(\mathbb{R})$ for every $t \in (0,t_0)$ with $t_0 > 0$ sufficiently small because of the finite jump discontinuity at $x = 0$. Consequently, $v(t,\cdot) \notin C^1_0$ for every $t \in (0,t_0)$.
Due to the reason in Lemma \[lem-1\], we set $v_0(0) = 0$ for the initial condition $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ in the Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]). Note that ${\rm dom}(A) \cap C^1_0 \equiv H^1 \cap C^1_0$. If $v \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ and $v(0) = 0$, then $(Av)(x)$ in (\[lin-op\]) is continuous at $x = 0$ and its definition can be extended for every $x \in \mathbb{R}$ by $$\label{lin-op-0}
(A v)(x) = \left[ 1 - \varphi(x) \right] v'(x) + \varphi(x) \int_0^x v(y) dy, \quad x \in \mathbb{R}.$$ The next result shows that the condition $v_0(0) = 0$ on $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ is not only necessary but also sufficient for existence of the unique global solution in $H^1 \cap C^1_0$ to the Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]) with (\[lin-op-0\]).
\[lem-2\] Assume that $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ with $v_0(0) = 0$. There exists the unique global solution $v \in C(\mathbb{R},H^1 \cap C^1_0)$ to the Cauchy problem (\[linCH-equiv\]) with (\[lin-op-0\]) satisfying $v(t,0) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$.
We solve the evolution problem (\[linCH-equiv\]) with (\[lin-op-0\]) by using the method of characteristics piecewise for $x > 0$ and $x < 0$. The family of characteristic curves $X(t,s)$ satisfying the initial-value problem $$\label{char}
\left\{ \begin{array}{l}
\frac{dX}{dt} = \varphi(X)-1, \\
X |_{t=0} = s, \end{array} \right.$$ are uniquely defined for every $s \in \mathbb{R}$ thanks to the Lipschitz continuity of $\varphi$ on $\mathbb{R}$. The peak location at $X = 0$ is the critical point which remains invariant under the time flow of the initial-value problem (\[char\]). For $s \in \mathbb{R}$ and $t \in \mathbb{R}$, we obtain the family of characteristic curves in the exact form $$\label{char-sol}
X(t,s) = \left\{ \begin{array}{ll}
\log\left[ 1 + (e^s - 1) e^{-t} \right], \quad & s > 0, \\
0, \quad & s = 0, \\
-\log\left[ 1 + (e^{-s} - 1) e^{t} \right], \quad & s < 0,
\end{array} \right.$$ with $\lim_{s \to 0^{\pm}} X(t,s) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$. Let us define $$\label{w-0}
w_0(x) := \int_0^x v_0(y) dy, \quad w(t,x) := \int_0^x v(t,y) dy,$$ then $w_0 \in C^1(\mathbb{R})$ with $w_0(0) = w_0'(0) = 0$. We are looking for the solution $w(t,\cdot) \in C^1(\mathbb{R})$ with $w(t,0) = w_x(t,0) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$. Substituting $v = w_x$ into $v_t = (1-\varphi) v_x + \varphi w$ yields $$w_{tx} + (\varphi - 1) w_{xx} - \varphi w = 0, \quad x \in \mathbb{R},$$ which can be integrated as follows: $$w_t + (\varphi - 1) w_x - \varphi' w = {\rm const} = 0, \quad x \in \mathbb{R},$$ where the integration constant is zero thanks to the boundary condition $w(t,0) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$. Along each characteristic curve satisfying (\[char\]), $W(t,s) := w(t,X(t,s))$ satisfies the initial-value problem: $$\label{w-eq}
\left\{ \begin{array}{l}
\frac{dW}{dt} = \varphi'(X(t,s)) W, \\
W |_{t=0} = w_0(s), \end{array} \right.$$ which can be solved uniquely in the exact form: $$\label{w-sol}
W(t,s) = w_0(s) X_s(t,s), \quad
X_s(t,s) = \left\{ \begin{array}{ll}
\frac{1}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}}, \quad & s > 0, \\
\frac{1}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}}, \quad & s < 0,
\end{array} \right.$$ with $\lim_{s \to 0^{\pm}} W(t,s) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$ thanks to $w_0(0) = 0$. Note the different limits $\lim_{s \to 0^{\pm}} X_s(t,s) = e^{\mp t}$ if $t \neq 0$, hence $X(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ if $t \neq 0$. Also note that $$\label{property-1}
X_s(t,s) > 0, \quad \mbox{\rm for every } \; s \neq 0$$ and $$\label{property-2}
X_s(t,s) \to 1 \quad \mbox{\rm as } \; |s| \to \infty.$$
Finally, we solve (\[linCH-equiv\]) with (\[lin-op-0\]) by using (\[char-sol\]) and (\[w-sol\]). Along each characteristic curve satisfying (\[char\]), $V(t,s) := v(t,X(t,s))$ satisfies the initial-value problem: $$\label{v-eq}
\left\{ \begin{array}{l}
\frac{dV}{dt} = \varphi(X(t,s)) W(t,s), \\
V |_{t=0} = v_0(s), \end{array} \right.$$ which can be solved uniquely in the exact form: $$\label{v-sol}
V(t,s) = v_0(s) + w_0(s) Y(t,s), \quad
Y(t,s) = \left\{ \begin{array}{ll}
\frac{(e^t-1) e^{-s}}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}}, \quad & s > 0, \\
\frac{(1-e^{-t}) e^s}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}}, \quad & s < 0,
\end{array} \right.$$ with $\lim_{s \to 0^{\pm}} V(t,s) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$ thanks to $w_0(0) = v_0(0) = 0$. Furthermore, $V(t,s)$ is continuously differentiable in $s$ piecewise for $s > 0$ and $s < 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$ since $v_0 \in C^1_0$ and $w_0 \in C^1$. Hence, $V(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$. Also, thanks to the properties (\[property-1\]) and (\[property-2\]), we have $V(t,\cdot) \in H^1$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$ since $v_0 \in H^1$ and $w_0 \varphi \in H^1$.
Finally, thanks again to the properties (\[property-1\]), (\[property-2\]), and $X(t,0) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$, the change of coordinates $(t,s) \to (t,X)$ is a $C^1_0$ invertible transformation so that the solution $v(t,\cdot) = V(t,s(t,\cdot))$ belongs to $H^1 \cap C^1_0$ and satisfies $v(t,0) = V(t,0) = 0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$.
By analyzing the exact solution $v(t,\cdot) \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ of Lemma \[lem-2\] in $t$, we show that $v_x(t,\cdot)$ grows in $t$ due to characteristics with $x > 0$. At the same time, if we add an additional constraint $v_0 \in L^1$ on the initial data, we can also show that $v(t,\cdot)$ remains bounded in the supremum norm as $t \to \infty$.
\[lem-3\] Assume that $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0 \cap L^1$ with $v_0(0) = 0$ and $\alpha := \lim_{x \to 0^+} v_0'(x) \neq 0$. Then, we have for every $t \geq 0$: $$\label{bounds-lin-1}
\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}(0,\infty)} \leq \| v_0 \|_{L^{\infty}(0,\infty)} + \| v_0 \|_{L^1(0,\infty)}, \quad
\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}(-\infty,0)} \leq 2 \| v_0 \|_{L^{\infty}(-\infty,0)}$$ and $$\label{bounds-lin-2}
\| v_x(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}(0,\infty)} \geq \alpha e^t, \quad
\| v_x(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}(-\infty,0)} \leq \| v_0' \|_{L^{\infty}(-\infty,0)} + 2 \| v_0 \|_{L^{\infty}(-\infty,0)}.$$
If $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ with $v_0(0) = 0$, we have $V(t,\cdot) \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}$ by Lemma \[lem-2\]. If in addition $v_0 \in L^1$, then $w_0 \in L^{\infty}$ thanks to the bound $\| w_0 \|_{L^{\infty}} \leq \| v_0 \|_{L^1}$.
We obtain by elementary computations: $$\label{elementary}
\max_{t \geq 0, s \geq 0} \frac{(e^t-1) e^{-s}}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}} = 1, \quad
\max_{t \geq 0, s \leq 0} \frac{(e^{-t}-1) s e^s}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}} = 1.$$ While the proof of the first equality is obvious, the proof of the second equality consists of several steps. For fixed $s \leq 0$, the function $$Z(t,s) := \frac{(e^{-t}-1) s e^s}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}}$$ is monotonically increasing in $t$ so that $$Z_{\rm max}(s) := \max_{t \geq 0} Z(t,s) = \lim_{t \to \infty} Z(t,s) = \frac{|s| e^{-|s|}}{1 - e^{-|s|}}$$ Then, $Z_{\rm max}(s)$ is monotonically decreasing in $|s|$ attaining the maximal value $1$ as $|s| \to 0$. It follows from (\[v-sol\]) and (\[elementary\]) that $$\label{V-estimate-1}
|V(t,s)| \leq |v_0(s)| + |w_0(s)|, \qquad t \geq 0, \quad s \geq 0$$ and $$\label{V-estimate-2}
|V(t,s)| \leq |v_0(s)| + \left| \frac{w_0(s)}{s} \right|, \qquad t \geq 0, \quad s \leq 0,$$ where it follows from (\[w-0\]) that $$\left| \frac{w_0(s)}{s} \right| \leq \| v_0 \|_{L^{\infty}}.$$ Bounds (\[bounds-lin-1\]) follow from the estimates (\[V-estimate-1\]) and (\[V-estimate-2\]).
By using the chain rule $U(t,s) = V_s(t,s)/X_s(t,s)$ for $U(t,s) := v_x(t,X(t,s))$, we obtain from (\[v-sol\]) the exact solution for $s > 0$ and $t > 0$: $$\label{u-sol}
U(t,s) = v_0'(s) \left[ 1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s} \right]
+ v_0(s) (e^t - 1) e^{-s} - w_0(s) \frac{(e^t-1) e^{-s}}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}}.$$ If $\alpha := \lim_{x \to 0^+} v_0'(x) \neq 0$, then the first bound in (\[bounds-lin-2\]) follows from the estimate $$\label{u-sol-limits}
\| U(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}(0,\infty)} \geq \lim_{s \to 0^+} U(t,s)
= \alpha e^t, \quad t \geq 0,$$ thanks to $w_0(0) = v_0(0) = 0$.
Similarly, we obtain from (\[v-sol\]) the exact solution for $s < 0$ and $t > 0$: $$\label{u-sol-neg}
U(t,s) = v_0'(s) \left[ 1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s} \right]
+ v_0(s) (1 - e^{-t}) e^{s} + w_0(s) \frac{(1 - e^{-t}) e^{s}}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}}.$$ By using the second equality in (\[elementary\]), we obtain from (\[u-sol-neg\]) that $$\label{u-sol-limits-neg}
|U(t,s)| \leq |v_0'(s)| + |v_0(s)| + \left| \frac{w_0(s)}{s} \right|, \quad t \geq 0, \quad s \leq 0,$$ which yields the second bound in (\[bounds-lin-2\]).
\[rem-2\] If $v_0 \in C^1$ with $v_0(0) = 0$ and $v_0'(0) \neq 0$, then $\lim_{s \to 0^{\pm}} U(t,s) = v_0'(0) e^{\pm t}$ so that $U(t,\cdot) \notin C^1$ for $t \neq 0$. Consequently, $v(t,\cdot) \notin C^1$ for $t \neq 0$.
The exponential growth of $v_x(t,\cdot)$ as $t \to \infty$ in Lemma \[lem-3\] discovers the linear instability of the peakon in the supremum norm on $v_x$. The same instability is observed in the $H^1$ norm, as formulated in Theorem \[theorem-linear\]. Below we prove equalities (\[bound-1\]) and (\[bound-2\]) in Theorem \[theorem-linear\] for $v_0 \in H^1$ with $v_0(0) = 0$ without additional requirements $v_0 \in C^1_0$ and $v_0 \in L^1$.
[*Proof of Theorem \[theorem-linear\].*]{} By working on $[0,\infty)$, wee use the exact solutions in (\[v-sol\]) and (\[u-sol\]), integrate by parts, and obtain $$\label{L2-norm-p}
\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{L^2(0,\infty)}^2 = \int_0^{\infty}\frac{[v_0(s)]^2}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}} d s +
\int_0^{\infty}\frac{[w_0(s)]^2 (e^t-1) e^{-s}}{[1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}]^3}ds$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
\| v_x(t,\cdot) \|_{L^2(0,\infty)}^2 & = & \int_0^{\infty} [v_0'(s)]^2 [1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}] d s
+ 2 \int_0^{\infty} [v_0(s)]^2 (e^t - 1) e^{-s} d s \\
\label{der-L2-norm-p}
& \phantom{t} &
+ \int_0^{\infty} \frac{[v_0(s)]^2 (e^t - 1) e^{-s}}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}} d s
- \int_0^{\infty}\frac{w_0^2(s)(e^t-1)e^{-s}}{[1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}]^3}ds.\end{aligned}$$ In order to obtain (\[L2-norm-p\]), we use (\[v-sol\]) and the chain rule to write $$\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{L^2(0,\infty)}^2 = \int_0^{\infty}
\left[ v_0(s) + w_0(s) \frac{(e^t-1) e^{-s}}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}} \right]^2 \frac{ds}{1 + (e^t - 1) e^{-s}}.$$ We expand the square and integrate the middle term by parts with the boundary conditions $w_0(0) = 0$ and $\lim_{s \to \infty} [w_0(s)]^2 e^{-s} = 0$ thanks to the Hölder inequality: $$[w_0(x)]^2=\left(\int_0^x v_0(s)ds \right)^2\leq x||v_0||_{L^2(0,\infty)}^2,\ \ \ \ \ \ x>0.$$ As a result, straightforward computations yield (\[L2-norm-p\]). The computations for (\[der-L2-norm-p\]) are similar but longer with three terms integrated by parts with the boundary conditions $v_0(0) = 0$ and $\lim_{s \to \infty} v_0(s) = 0$. Summing (\[L2-norm-p\]) and (\[der-L2-norm-p\]) yields (\[bound-1\]).
Computations on $(-\infty,0]$ are similar from the exact solutions in (\[v-sol\]) and (\[u-sol-neg\]). Integration by parts yield $$\label{L2-norm-p-neg}
\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{L^2(-\infty,0)}^2 = \int_{-\infty}^0 \frac{[v_0(s)]^2}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}} d s +
\int_{-\infty}^0 \frac{[w_0(s)]^2 (e^{-t}-1) e^{s}}{[1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}]^3}ds$$ and $$\begin{aligned}
\nonumber
\| v_x(t,\cdot) \|_{L^2(-\infty,0)}^2 & = & \int_{-\infty}^0 [v_0'(s)]^2 [1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}] d s
+ 2 \int_{-\infty}^0 [v_0(s)]^2 (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s} d s \\
\label{der-L2-norm-p-neg}
& \phantom{t} &
+ \int_{-\infty}^0 \frac{[v_0(s)]^2 (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}}{1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}} d s
- \int_{-\infty}^0\frac{w_0^2(s)(e^{-t}-1)e^{s}}{[1 + (e^{-t} - 1) e^{s}]^3}ds.\end{aligned}$$ Summing (\[L2-norm-p-neg\]) and (\[der-L2-norm-p-neg\]) yields (\[bound-2\]). $\Box$
Nonlinear evolution near a single peakon
========================================
Global existence and uniqueness of the conservative solution (\[conservative-solution\]) to the Cauchy problem for the CH equation in the convolution form (\[CHconv\]) with initial data $u_0 \in H^1$ was proven in [@BC1; @BCZ]. Continuous dependence of the conservative solution (\[LWP-peakons\]) for initial data $u_0 \in H^1 \cap W^{1,\infty}$ was proven in [@Linares]. We rewrite the Cauchy problem in the form: $$\label{CHevol}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
u_t + u u_x + Q[u] = 0, \quad t > 0,\\
u |_{t = 0} = u_0,
\end{array} \right.$$ where $$\label{Q-def}
Q[u](x) := \frac{1}{2} \int_{\mathbb{R}} \varphi'(x-y) \left( [u(y)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [u'(y)]^2 \right) dy, \quad
x \in \mathbb{R}.$$ The following lemma shows that $Q[u](x)$ is continuous for every $x \in \mathbb{R}$ if $u \in H^1$.
\[lem-nonlinear-1\] For every $u \in H^1$, we have $Q[u] \in C(\mathbb{R})$.
We can rewrite (\[Q-def\]) in the explicit form: $$Q[u](x) = \frac{1}{2} e^{x} \int_{x}^{\infty} e^{-y} \left( [u(y)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [u'(y)]^2 \right) dy -
\frac{1}{2} e^{-x} \int_{-\infty}^{x} e^{y} \left( [u(y)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [u'(y)]^2 \right) dy.$$ Each integral is a continuous function for every $x \in \mathbb{R}$ since it is given by an integral of the absolutely integrable function. Hence $Q[u]$ is continuous on $\mathbb{R}$.
The unique global conservative solution (\[conservative-solution\]) to the Cauchy problem (\[CHevol\]) satisfies the weak formulation $$\label{CHweak}
\int_{0}^{\infty} \int_{\mathbb{R}} \left( u \psi_t + \frac{1}{2} u^2 \psi_x - Q[u] \psi \right) dx dt
+ \int_{\mathbb{R}} u_0(x) \psi(0,x) dx = 0,$$ where the equality is true for every test function $\psi \in C^1_c(\mathbb{R}^+ \times \mathbb{R})$. We consider the class of solutions with a single peak placed at the point $\xi(t)$ so that $u(t,\cdot + \xi(t)) \in C^1_0$ for every $t > 0$, where $C^1_0$ is defined by (\[C-1-0\]). The following lemma shows that the single peak moves with its local characteristic speed as in (\[characteristic-speed\]).
\[lem-nonlinear-2\] Assume that there exists $T > 0$ such that the weak global conservative solution (\[conservative-solution\]) to the equation (\[CHweak\]) satisfies $u(t,\cdot + \xi(t)) \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ for every $t \in (0,T)$ with a single peak located at $x = \xi(t)$. Then, $\xi \in C^1(0,T)$ satisfies $$\label{peak}
\frac{d \xi}{dt} = u(t,\xi(t)), \quad t \in (0,T).$$
Integrating (\[CHweak\]) by parts on $(-\infty,\xi(t))$ and $(\xi(t),\infty)$ and using the fact that $u(t,\cdot) \in C(\mathbb{R})$, we obtain the following equations piecewise outside the peak’s location: $$u_t(t,x) + u(t,x) u_x(t,x) + Q[u](t,x) = 0, \quad \pm \left[ x-\xi(t) \right] > 0.$$ Since $u(t,\cdot) \in H^1$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}^+$, $Q[u]$ is a continuous function of $x$ on $\mathbb{R}$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}^+$ by Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-1\]. Therefore, the function $u(t,\cdot + \xi(t)) \in C^1_0$ satisfies: $$[u_t]^+_- + u(t,\xi(t)) [u_x]^+_- = 0, \quad t \in (0,T),$$ where $[u_x]^+_-$ is the jump of $u_x$ across the peak location. On the other hand, since $u(t,\xi(t))$ is continuous and $u(t,\cdot + \xi(t)) \in C^1_0$, we differentiate $u(t,\xi(t))$ continuously on both sides from $x = \xi(t)$ and obtain $$[u_t]^+_- + \frac{d \xi}{dt} [u_x]^+_- = 0, \quad t \in (0,T).$$ Since $[u_x]^+_- \neq 0$ if $u \notin C^1(\mathbb{R})$, then $\xi(t)$ satisfies (\[peak\]) and since $u \in C((0,T) \times \mathbb{R})$ due to Sobolev embedding of $H^1(\mathbb{R})$ into $C(\mathbb{R})$, then $\xi \in C^1(0,T)$.
In order to study the nonlinear evolution near a single peakon, we decompose the weak global conservative solution (\[conservative-solution\]) as the following sum of the peakon and its small perturbation: $$\label{decomp}
u(t,x) = \varphi(x-t-a(t)) + v(t,x-t-a(t)), \quad t \in \mathbb{R}^+, \quad x \in \mathbb{R},$$ where $v(t,\cdot) \in H^1$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}^+$ is the perturbation and $a(t)$ is the deviation of the perturbed peakon’s peak from its unperturbed position moving with the unit speed. If there exists $T > 0$ such that $v(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ for every $t \in (0,T)$, the global conservative solution (\[conservative-solution\]) satisfies $u(t,\cdot + \xi(t)) \in C^1_0$ for every $t \in (0,T)$, that is, it has a single peak at $\xi(t) = t + a(t)$. By Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-2\], $a \in C^1(0,T)$ satisfies the equation $$\label{peak-moves}
\frac{da}{dt} = v(t,0), \quad t \in (0,T).$$ Substituting (\[decomp\]) and (\[peak-moves\]) into the Cauchy problem (\[CHevol\]) yields the following Cauchy problem for the peaked perturbation $v$ to the peakon $\varphi$: $$\label{CHpert}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
v_t = (1 - \varphi) v_x + \varphi w + (v|_{x=0} - v) v_x - Q[v], \quad t \in (0,T),\\
v |_{t = 0} = v_0,
\end{array} \right.$$ where $w(t,x) = \int_0^x v(t,y) dy$ and the linear evolution has been simplified by using (\[tech-comp\]) in Lemma \[lem-0\]. Note that $x - t - a(t)$ in (\[decomp\]) becomes $x$ in (\[CHpert\]) thanks to the translational invariance of the system (\[CHevol\]) with (\[Q-def\]).
\[rem-3\] The dynamical equation (\[peak-moves\]) cancels the last term in the linearization at the peakon (\[lin-op\]) without additional requirement of $v |_{x=0} = 0$ imposed in Lemmas \[lem-2\] and \[lem-3\].
Related to the Cauchy problem (\[CHpert\]), we define the family of characteristic coordinates $X(t,s)$ satisfying the initial-value problem: $$\label{char-X}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
\frac{dX}{dt} = \varphi(X) - 1 + v(t,X) - v(t,0), \quad t \in (0,T),\\
X |_{t = 0} = s,
\end{array} \right.$$ Along each characteristic curve parameterized by $s$, let us define $V(t,s) := v(t,X(t,s))$. It follows from (\[CHpert\]) and (\[char-X\]) that $V(t,s)$ on each characteristic curve $x = X(t,s)$ satisfies the initial-value problem: $$\label{char-V}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
\frac{dV}{dt} = \varphi(X) w(t,X) - Q[v](X), \quad t \in (0,T),\\
V |_{t = 0} = v_0(s).
\end{array} \right.$$ The following lemma transfers well-posedness theory for differential equations to the existence, uniqueness, and smoothness of the family of characteristic coordinates and the solution surface.
\[lem-nonlinear-3\] Assume $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$. There exists $T > 0$ (finite or infinite) such that the unique family of characteristic coordinates $[0,T) \times \mathbb{R} \ni (t,s) \mapsto X \in \mathbb{R}$ to (\[char-X\]) and the unique solution surface $[0,T) \times \mathbb{R} \ni (t,s) \mapsto V \in \mathbb{R}$ to (\[char-V\]) exist as long as $v_x(t,\cdot) \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$ for $t \in [0,T)$. Moreover, $X$ and $V$ are $C^1$ in $t$ and $C^1_0$ in $s$ for every $(t,s) \in [0,T) \times \mathbb{R}$.
A simple extension of the proof of Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-1\] implies that if $f \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$, then $Q[f] \in C^1_0$. Every $C^1_0$ function is Lipschitz continuous at $x = 0$. In addition, since $v(t,\cdot) \in H^1$ for every $t > 0$, then $v(t,\cdot) \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$, hence the function $v(t,\cdot)$ is globally Lipschitz continuous when it is locally Lipschitz continuous. Since $\varphi$ have the same properties on $\mathbb{R}$ and $w(t,\cdot) \in C^1(\mathbb{R})$ if $v(t,\cdot) \in C(\mathbb{R})$, the right-hand-sides of systems (\[char-X\]) and (\[char-V\]) are global Lipschitz continuous functions of $X$ as long as the solution $v(t,\cdot) \in H^1$ remains $v(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ for $t \in [0,T)$ with some (finite or infinite) $T > 0$. Existence and uniqueness of the classical solutions $X(\cdot,s) \in C^1(0,T)$ and $V(\cdot,s) \in C^1(0,T)$ for every $s \in \mathbb{R}$ follows from the ODE theory. By the continuous dependence theorem, $X(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ and $V(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ for every $t \in [0,T)$.
Let us now show that $v(t,\cdot) \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ for $t \in [0,T)$ if $v_x(t,\cdot) \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$ for $t \in [0,T)$. By differentiating (\[char-X\]) piecewise for $s > 0$ and $s < 0$, we obtain $$\label{char-X-der}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
\frac{d X_s}{dt} = \left[ \varphi'(X) + v_x(t,X) \right] X_s, \quad t \in (0,T),\\
X_s |_{t = 0} = 1.
\end{array} \right.$$ with the solution $$X_s(t,s) = \exp\left(\int_0^t \left[ \varphi'(X(t',s)) + v_x(t,X(t',s)) \right] dt' \right).$$ If $v_x(t,\cdot) \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$ for $t \in [0,T)$, then $X_s(t,s) > 0$ for $t \in [0,T)$ piecewise for $s > 0$ and $s < 0$, hence the change of coordinates $(t,s) \to (t,X)$ is a $C^1_0$ invertible transformation. As a result, $V(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ implies that $v(t,\cdot) \in C^1_0$ for $t \in [0,T)$.
Since $\varphi(0) = 1$ and $v(t,\cdot) \in C(\mathbb{R})$ for every $t \in \mathbb{R}^+$, $X = 0$ is a critical point of the initial-value problem (\[char-X\]). Therefore, the unique solution of Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-3\] for $s = 0$ satisfies $X(t,0) = 0$. This limiting characteristic curve separates the family of characteristic curves with $s > 0$ and $s < 0$. Since $V(t,s)$ is $C^1$ in $t$ for every $s \in \mathbb{R}$ and Lipschitz continuous at $s = 0$ by Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-3\], the limiting value $V_0(t) := V(t,0)$ is $C^1$ in $t$ and satisfies $$\label{V-0}
\frac{d V_0}{dt} = - Q[v](0),$$ where we have used $w(t,0) = 0$.
In order to control $v_x(t,\cdot) \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$ for $t \in [0,T)$ needed in the condition of Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-3\], we differentiate (\[CHpert\]) in $x$ and obtain $$\label{CHder}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
v_{xt} = (1 - \varphi) v_{xx} - \varphi' v_x + \varphi v + \varphi' w
+ (v|_{x=0} - v) v_{xx} - \frac{1}{2} v_x^2 + v^2 - P[v], \quad t \in (0,T),\\
v_x |_{t = 0} = v_0',
\end{array} \right.$$ where we have used $(1 - \partial_x^2) \varphi = 2 \delta$ and have defined $$\label{P-def}
P[v](x) := \frac{1}{2} \int_{\mathbb{R}} \varphi(x-y) \left( [v(y)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [v'(y)]^2 \right) dy, \quad x \in \mathbb{R}.$$ It follows from (\[char-X\]) and (\[CHder\]) that $U(t,s) := v_x(t,X(t,s))$ on each characteristic curve satisfies the initial-value problem: $$\label{char-U}
\left\{
\begin{array}{l}
\frac{dU}{dt} = -\varphi'(X) U + \varphi(X) V + \varphi'(X) w(t,X) - \frac{1}{2} U^2 + V^2 - P[v](X), \quad t \in (0,T),\\
U |_{t = 0} = v_0'(s).
\end{array} \right.$$ Although $\varphi'(X)$ has a jump discontinuity at $X = 0$, the regions $\mathbb{R}^+$ and $\mathbb{R}^-$ for $s$ are separated from each other thanks to the fact that the limiting characteristic curve at $X = 0$ corresponds to the critical point of the initial-value problem (\[char-X\]). As a result, we consider the initial-value problem (\[char-U\]) separately for $s > 0$ and $s < 0$.
\[lem-nonlinear-4\] Assume $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ and $T > 0$ (finite or infinite) be given by Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-3\]. There exist unique solutions $[0,T) \times \mathbb{R}^+ \ni (t,s) \mapsto U^+ \in \mathbb{R}$ and $[0,T) \times \mathbb{R}^- \ni (t,s) \mapsto U^- \in \mathbb{R}$ to (\[char-U\]) as long as $v_x(t,\cdot) \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})$ for $t \in [0,T)$. Moreover, $U^{\pm}$ are $C^1$ in $t$ and $s$ for every $(t,s) \in [0,T) \times \mathbb{R}^{\pm}$.
Similarly to the proof of Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-1\], it follows that if $f \in H^1$, then $P[f] \in C^1(\mathbb{R})$. In addition, $\varphi'(X(t,s))$ are $C^1$ functions of $t$ and $s$ for $t \in [0,T)$ and separately for $s \in \mathbb{R}^+$ and $s \in \mathbb{R}^-$. Existence and uniqueness of solutions $[0,T) \times \mathbb{R}^+ \ni (t,s) \mapsto U^+ \in \mathbb{R}$ and $[0,T) \times \mathbb{R}^- \ni (t,s) \mapsto U^- \in \mathbb{R}$ to (\[char-U\]) follow from the ODE theory. By the continuous dependence theorem, $U^{\pm}$ are $C^1$ in $t$ and $s$ for every $(t,s) \in [0,T) \times \mathbb{R}^{\pm}$.
By Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-4\], we are allowed to define the one-sided limits $U_0^{\pm}(t) := \lim_{s \to 0^{\pm}} U^{\pm}(t,s)$ for $t \in [0,T)$. The functions $U_0^{\pm}$ are $C^1$ in $t$ and satisfy for $t \in (0,T)$: $$\label{U-0}
\frac{d U_0^{\pm}}{dt} = \pm U_0^{\pm} + V_0 - \frac{1}{2} (U_0^{\pm})^2 + V_0^2 - P[v](0).$$ By analyzing the time evolution (\[V-0\]) and (\[U-0\]), we finally prove the nonlinear instability of peaked perturbations to the $H^1$-orbitally stable peakon.
\[lem-nonlinear-5\] For every $\delta > 0$, there exist $t_0 > 0$ and $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ satisfying $$\label{initial-bound}
\| v_0 \|_{L^{\infty}} + \| v_0' \|_{L^{\infty}} < \delta,$$ such that the unique solution $v(t,\cdot) \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ to the Cauchy problem (\[CHpert\]) in Lemmas \[lem-nonlinear-3\] and \[lem-nonlinear-4\] satisfies $$\label{final-bound}
\| v_x(t_0,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}} > 1.$$
Combining (\[V-0\]) and (\[U-0\]) together yields the following equation for $t \in (0,T)$: $$\label{V-U-0}
\frac{d}{dt} (V_0 + U_0^+) = (V_0 + U_0^+) + V_0^2 - \frac{1}{2} (U_0^+)^2 + F_0,$$ where $$\begin{aligned}
F_0 & := & - Q[v](0) - P[v](0) \\
& = & \frac{1}{2} \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} \left[\varphi'(y) - \varphi(y) \right]
\left( [v(t,y)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [v_y(t,y)]^2 \right) dy, \\
& = & - \int_{0}^{+\infty} e^{-y} \left( [v(t,y)]^2 + \frac{1}{2} [v_y(t,y)]^2 \right) dy,\end{aligned}$$ and we have used $\varphi(-y) = \varphi(y)$, $\varphi'(-y) = - \varphi(y)$. By using an integrating factor, we rewrite (\[V-U-0\]) in the equivalent form $$\frac{d}{dt} \left[ e^{-t} (V_0 + U_0^+) \right] = e^{-t} \left[ V_0^2 - \frac{1}{2} (U_0^+)^2 + F_0 \right]
\leq e^{-t} V_0^2,$$ where the last inequality is due to $F_0 \leq 0$. Integrating the differential inequality yields the bound: $$\label{diff-ineq}
V_0(t) + U_0^+(t) \leq e^{t} \left[ V_0(0) + U_0^+(0) + \int_0^t e^{-\tau} V_0^2(\tau) d\tau \right], \quad t \in [0,T).$$
Since $\varphi'(x) \to \mp 1$ as $x \to \pm 0$ and $\varphi(x) \to 0$ as $|x| \to \infty$, whereas $v(t,\cdot)$ is small in the $C^1_0$ norm at least for $t \in [0,T)$, the coordinate $\xi(t) = t + a(t)$ for the peak’s location coincides with the location of the maximum of $u(t,\cdot)$ in the decomposition (\[decomp\]) for $t \in [0,T)$. By Theorem \[theorem-CS\], for every small $\varepsilon > 0$, if $\| v_0 \|_{H^1} < (\varepsilon/3)^4$, then $$\| v(t,\cdot) \|_{H^1} < \varepsilon, \quad t \in (0,T),$$ By Sobolev’s embedding, we have $$\label{bound-on-V0}
|V_0(t)| \leq \| v(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}} \leq \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} \| v(t,\cdot) \|_{H^1} < \varepsilon.$$ Let us assume that the initial data $v_0 \in H^1 \cap C^1_0$ satisfies $v_0(0) = 0$ and $$\label{eq-alpha}
\alpha := \lim_{x \to 0^+} v_0'(x) = -\| v_0' \|_{L^{\infty}} = -2 \varepsilon^2.$$ The initial bound (\[initial-bound\]) is consistent with (\[eq-alpha\]) if for every small $\delta > 0$, the small value of $\varepsilon$ satisfies $$\left(\frac{\varepsilon}{3} \right)^4 + 2 \varepsilon^2 < \delta,$$ which just specifies $\varepsilon$ in terms of $\delta$. With these constraints on $v_0$, the bound (\[diff-ineq\]) yields $$V_0(t) + U_0^+(t) \leq e^{t} \left[ \alpha + \varepsilon^2 \right] = - \varepsilon^2 e^{t},$$ or equivalently, $|V_0(t) + U_0^+(t)| \geq \varepsilon^2 e^{t}$. Hence, for every small $\varepsilon > 0$ there exists sufficiently large $$\tau := \log(2) - 2 \log(\varepsilon) > 0,$$ such that $|V_0(\tau) + U_0^+(\tau)| \geq 2$. This implies $|U_0^+(\tau)| > 1$ thanks to the bound (\[bound-on-V0\]).
If $T < \tau$, then $v_x(t,x) \to -\infty$ for some $x \in \mathbb{R}$ as $t \nearrow T$ by the condition of Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-3\]. Therefore, there exists $t_0 \in (0,T)$ such that the bound (\[final-bound\]) is true. If $T > \tau$, then the differential equation (\[V-U-0\]) is valid for $t \in [0,T)$ by Lemmas \[lem-nonlinear-3\] and \[lem-nonlinear-4\] so that the bound (\[final-bound\]) is true at $t_0 = \tau$ thanks to the bound $$\| v_x(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}} = \| U(t,\cdot) \|_{L^{\infty}} \geq |U_0^+(t)|, \quad t \in [0,T).$$ In both cases, the bound (\[final-bound\]) is proven.
The result of Lemma \[lem-nonlinear-5\] gives the proof of Theorem \[theorem-nonlinear\] thanks to the representation (\[decomp\]) and the characteristic equation (\[peak-moves\]) at the peak’s location at $x = \xi(t)$.
Conclusion
==========
We have shown that the passage from linear to nonlinear stability of peakons in $H^1$ is false for the Camassa–Holm equation because the linear result of Theorem \[theorem-linear\] gives linearized instability in $H^1$ whereas the result of Theorem \[theorem-CS\] gives nonlinear stability of peakons in $H^1$. On the other hand, we show that the linearized instability in $H^1 \cap C^1_0$ persists as the nonlinear instability result of Theorem \[theorem-nonlinear\]. The latter result is natural for the Camassa–Holm equation where smooth solutions may break in a finite time with the slopes becoming unbounded from below.
We conclude the paper with possible extensions of our main results. It is quite natural to prove instability of the peaked periodic waves with respect to the peaked periodic perturbations in the framework of the CH equation (\[CH\]). Furthermore, the same instability is likely to hold for peakons in the Degasperis–Procesi equation, although the linearized evolution may not be as simple as the one for the CH equation. Finally, the method of characteristics is likely to work to prove nonlinear instability of peaked periodic wave in the reduced Ostrovsky equation (\[redOst\]), which has been an open problem up to now.
[**Acknowledgements.**]{} This project was initiated in collaboration with Y.Liu and G. Gui during the visit of D.E. Pelinovsky to North-West University at Xi’an in June 2018. DEP thanks the collaborators for useful comments. The project was completed during the visit of F. Natali to McMaster University supported by CAPES grant. D.E. Pelinovsky is supported by the NSERC Discovery grant.
[99]{}
R. Beals, D.H. Sattinger, and J. Szmigielski, “Multipeakons and the classical moment problem", Adv.Math. [**154**]{} (2000), 229–257.
A. Bressan and A. Constantin, “Global conservative solutions of the Camassa-Holm equation", Arch. Rational Mech. Anal. [**183**]{} (2007), 215–239.
A. Bressan, G. Chen, and Q. Zhang, “Uniqueness of conservative solutions to the Camassa-Holm equation via characteristics", Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. [**35**]{} (2015), 25–42.
P. Byers, “Existence time for the Camassa-Holm equation and the critical Sobolev index", Indiana Univ. Math. J. [**55**]{} (2006), 941–954.
R. Camassa and D.D. Holm, “An integrable shallow water equation with peaked solitons", Phys. Rev. Lett. [**71**]{} (1993), 1661–1664.
A. Chertock, J.G Liu, and T. Pendleton, “Elastic collisions among peakon solutions for the Camassa–Holm equation", Appl. Numer.Math. [**93**]{} (2015), 30–46.
A. Constantin, “Existence of permanent and breaking waves for a shallow water equation: a geometric approach", Annales de línstitut Fourier [**50**]{} (2000), 321–362.
A. Constantin and J. Escher, “Global existence and blow-up for a shallow water equation", Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa Cl. Sci [**26**]{} (1998), 303–328.
A. Constantin and J. Escher, “Wave breaking for nonlinear nonlocal shallow water equations", Acta Math. [**181**]{} (1998), 229–243.
A. Constantin and L. Molinet, “Orbital stability of solitary waves for a shallow water equation", Physica D [**157**]{} (2001), 75–89.
A. Constantin and W.A. Strauss, “Stability of peakons", Comm. Pure Appl. Math. [**53**]{} (2000), 603–610.
J. Eckhardt and A. Kostenko, “An isospectral problem for global conservative multi-peakon solutions of the Camassa–Holm equation", Commun. Math. Phys. [**329**]{} (2014), 893–918.
E.R. Johnson and D.E. Pelinovsky, “Orbital stability of periodic waves in the class of reduced Ostrovsky equations", J. Diff. Eqs. [**261**]{} (2016), 3268–3304.
A. Geyer and D.E. Pelinovsky, “Spectral stability of periodic waves in the generalized reduced Ostrovsky equation", Lett. Math. Phys. [**107**]{} (2017), 1293–1314.
A. Geyer and D.E. Pelinovsky, “Linear instability and uniqueness of the peaked periodic wave in the reduced Ostrovsky equation", SIAM J. Math. Anal. [**51**]{} (2019).
Z. Guo, X. Liu, L. Molinet, and Z. Yin, “Norm inflation of the Camassa-Holm and relation equations in the critical space", arXiv: 1805.02377 (2018).
H. Holden and X. Raynaud, “Global conservative solutions of the Camassa–Holm equation: a Lagrangian point of view", Comm. PDEs [**32**]{} (2007), 1511–1549.
H. Holden and X. Raynaud, “Global conservative multipeakon solutions of the Camassa–Holm equation", J. Hyperbolic Differ. Equ. [**4**]{} (2007), 39–64.
J. Lenells, “Stability of periodic peakons", Int. Math. Res. Not. [**2004**]{} (2004), 485–499.
J. Lenells, “Stability for the periodic Camassa-Holm equation", Math. Scand. [**97**]{} (2005) 188–200.
L.-C. Li, “Long time behaviour for a class of low-regularity solutions of the Camassa–Holm equation", Commun. Math. Phys. [**285**]{} (2009), 265–291.
Y. Li and P.J. Olver, “Well-posedness and blow-up solutions for an integrable nonlinearly dispersive model wave equation", J. Diff. Eqs. [**162**]{} (2000), 27–63.
Z. Lin and Y. Liu, “Stability of peakons for the Degasperis–Procesi equation", Comm. Pure Appl. Math. [**62**]{} (2009), 125–146.
F. Linares, G. Ponce, and Th.C. Sideris, “Properties of solutions to the Camassa–Holm equation on the line in a class containing the peakons", Advanced Studies in Pure Mathematics [**81**]{} (2019), 196–245.
H. Lundmark and B. Shuaib, “Ghostpeakons and characteristic curves for the CamassaHolm, DegasperisProcesi and Novikov equations", arXiv: 1807.01910 (2018).
L. Molinet, “A Liouville property with application to asymptotic stability for the Camassa–Holm equation", Arch. Rational Mech. Anal. [**230**]{} (2018) 185–230.
L. Molinet, “Asymptotic stability for some non-positive perturbations of the Camassa–Holm peakon with application to the antipeakon–peakon profile", arXiv: 1804.06230 (2018)
G. Rodríguez-Blanco, “On the Cauchy problem for the Camassa-Holm equation", Nonlinear Anal. [**46**]{} (2001), 309–327.
|
2024-07-21T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6495
|
Teens with metabolic syndrome — a set of health conditions linked with the development of heart disease and diabetes — perform worse in school than their healthier counterparts, according to a new study.
Researchers studied 111 adolescents, including 49 with metabolic syndrome and 62 without, and found that those with the condition performed 5 to 15 percent worse on tests of their academic abilities.
Additionally, brain scans showed kids with metabolic syndrome had smaller hippocampuses, the part of the brain involved in learning and forming memories.
While much research has linked metabolic syndrome to health problems later in life, "this paper demonstrates is there is something going on in their brains today, not 20 years from now," said study researcher Dr. Antonio Convit, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.
"They're performing in the normal range, they're just not performing to their full potential," Convit said.
Metabolic syndrome is diagnosed in people who have at least three of these five criteria: high blood pressure, insulin resistance, high triglycerides, a large waist and low levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol.
Children in the study fell across a range, with some having none, one or two of the criteria. As the number of criteria that children met rose, their test scores declined, Convit said. While only a few differences were statistically strong, such as scores in math and spelling, the trend was clear.
"In none of those tests did the kids with metabolic syndrome score higher than the kids in the control group," he said.
While obesity has been a primary target for wellness programs, Convit said weight itself should not be the target, but the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, which can be assessed by a pediatrician and often improved by exercise. Extra weight alone isn't a problem in an otherwise active child, he said.
"You can have a kid who is quite fit who won't have these problems, even if they're carrying excess weight. It's the coach potato…who [has] the problem," he said.
Particular attention should be paid to kids with insulin resistance, Convit said. It is unclear how metabolic syndrome might lead to cognitive problems, but one theory is that insulin resistance makes it difficult for the brain to get sufficient glucose needed to fuel higher-level thinking and learning.
Dr. Jennifer Miller, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Florida who studies the connection between early-onset obesity and brain function, said that the causes of insulin resistance itself are unclear, but it is believed to have a strong genetic component.
Studies of elderly patients who are not physically fit have shown that cognitive function problems can be alleviated, to some degree, by exercise, Miller said.
The hope is that exercise could have a similar benefit in children.
"We know exercise improves insulin resistance, improves blood pressure, improves body weight, so it should help," Miller said. But a study in children has not been done.
Convit said he and his colleagues are beginning to explore that question in young adults.
Miller and Convit both expressed hope that research in this area would provide more incentive to parents and policymakers in promoting active lifestyles.
"I would hope that a study like this that shows an impact on cognition would have a much bigger impact on parents, in terms of their child's obesity," said Miller.
The study appears online today (Sept. 3) in the journal Pediatrics.
Pass it on: Kids with metabolic syndrome may do worse in school than their healthier counterparts.
Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
Copyright 2012 MyHealthNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
2023-08-06T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4892
|
Player agent Winston Rous, who manages top draft prospect Sam Walsh, doesn’t have any reservations about his clients ending up on the Gold Coast.
It was rumoured earlier in the year that some player agents were telling the Suns not to pick their players as they would simply leave in a few years, but Rous said his clients have found homes in Queensland.
“I think I’ve been close enough with some players going up there and having some success and doing quite well,” Rous told SEN’s Time On.
“Jarrod Witts is one who moved there and they’ve been excellent for him and really established his brand as a player and he’s had two of his career best years.
“I think all the people up there, now that they’ll have some continuity of staff, is exciting.”
Walsh is expected to be drafted by Carlton at pick one tonight and Rous doesn’t believe the pressure of the title will get to him.
“(Being pick one) wouldn’t affect Sam Walsh. He’s very good about just controlling what he can control and not focusing on anything he doesn’t need to,” he said.
“I think he’s handled himself with aplomb all year. There is pressure with pick one and you’re forever talked about whether it was the right pick, but I’m confident he’ll do well with it.”
The Suns hold picks two, three and six in tonight's draft.
For Tyrepower - Your trusted tyre experts
|
2023-08-05T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4193
|
Q:
AutoIndent bracket in Java Swing JeditorPane
I am working on a code-editor in java and i want to know how to auto-indent using brackets (open and close) like an actual code editor .
like this 1:
Array PrincipalVar = (Var => (OtherVar => (var3 => 3,
var4 => 8,
var6 => 1)
),
Var2 => (var => 1))
Editor is a JEditorPane. I tried some code, but nothing seem to work.
I have already file contening code, and I want to Re-Indent this file.
Code I already tried :
public String indentFileTry() throws FileNotFoundException{
LinkedList<Integer> inBracket = new LinkedList<Integer>();
String currentLine = "";
Scanner indent = new Scanner(new FileReader(f));
String ptu = "";
while(indent.hasNextLine()) {
currentLine = indent.nextLine();
currentLine = currentLine.trim();
char[] line = currentLine.toCharArray();
int i = 0;
while(i < line.length){ //Here I define the position of the Bracet for Indentation
if(line[i] == '('){
inBracket.addFirst(i);
}
i++;
}
if(!inBracket.isEmpty()){//here I indent with the position of the bracket and I remove the first(First In First Out)
if(!currentLine.contains(")")){
int spaceadded = 0;
String space ="";
while(spaceadded <= inBracket.getFirst()){
spaceadded++; space += " ";
}
currentLine = space + currentLine;
inBracket.removeFirst();
}else if(currentLine.contains(")")){
int spaceadded = 0;
String space ="";
while(spaceadded <= inBracket.getFirst()){
spaceadded++; space += " ";
}
currentLine = space + currentLine;
inBracket.removeFirst();
}
}
ptu += currentLine +"\n";
}
indent.close() ;
System.out.println(ptu);
return ptu;
}
A:
For the response, What I do is easy.
I made a LinkedList, and I use it like a FILO (First in Last out) like this :
public String indentFile() throws FileNotFoundException{
LinkedList<Integer> positionBracket = new LinkedList<Integer>();
String currentLine = "";
Scanner indent = new Scanner(new FileReader(f));
String stringIndented = "";
while(indent.hasNextLine()) {
currentLine = indent.nextLine();
currentLine = currentLine.trim();
char[] lineInChar = currentLine.toCharArray();
int i = 0;
int spaceadded = 0;
String space ="";
if(!positionBracket.isEmpty()){
while(spaceadded <= positionBracket.getFirst()){
spaceadded++;
space += " "; // We put same space like the last opened bracket
}
}
while(i < lineInChar.length){
if(lineInChar[i] == '('){ //If opened bracket I put the position in the top of the Filo
positionBracket.addFirst(new Integer(i));
}
if(lineInChar[i] == ')' && !countCom){
positionBracket.removeFirst(); //If closed bracket I remove the position on the top of the Filo
}
i++;
}
stringIndented += space + currentLine +"\n";
}
}
return stringIndented;
}
|
2024-03-04T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9715
|
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// iq / rgba . tiny codes . 2008 //
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------//
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#define WIN32_EXTRA_LEAN
#include <windows.h>
#include <mmsystem.h>
#include <GL/gl.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include "../config.h"
#include "../intro.h"
#define IQ_MZK 0
#define FKLANG_MZK 1
#if IQ_MZK
#include "../mzk.h"
#endif
#if FKLANG_MZK
#include "mmsystem.h"
#include "mmreg.h"
#include "../../../snd/cj-lovepotionnumber4-4klang.h"
#endif
#define SOUND 1
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
typedef struct
{
//---------------
HINSTANCE hInstance;
HDC hDC;
HGLRC hRC;
HWND hWnd;
//---------------
int full;
//---------------
char wndclass[4]; // window class and title :)
//---------------
}WININFO;
static const PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR pfd =
{
sizeof(PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR),
1,
PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW|PFD_SUPPORT_OPENGL|PFD_DOUBLEBUFFER,
PFD_TYPE_RGBA,
32,
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 8, 0,
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, // accum
32, // zbuffer
0, // stencil!
0, // aux
PFD_MAIN_PLANE,
0, 0, 0, 0
};
static WININFO wininfo = { 0,0,0,0,0,
{'i','q','_',0}
};
#if IQ_MZK
static const int wavHeader[11] = {
0x46464952,
MZK_NUMSAMPLES*2+36,
0x45564157,
0x20746D66,
16,
WAVE_FORMAT_PCM|(MZK_NUMCHANNELS<<16),
MZK_RATE,
MZK_RATE*MZK_NUMCHANNELS*sizeof(short),
(MZK_NUMCHANNELS*sizeof(short))|((8*sizeof(short))<<16),
0x61746164,
MZK_NUMSAMPLES*sizeof(short)
};
#endif
#if FKLANG_MZK
// define this if you have a multicore cpu and can spare ~10 bytes for realtime playback
// undef for sound precalc
#define USE_SOUND_THREAD
// MAX_SAMPLES gives you the number of samples for the whole song. we always produce stereo samples, so times 2 for the buffer
SAMPLE_TYPE lpSoundBuffer[MAX_SAMPLES*2];
HWAVEOUT hWaveOut;
#pragma data_seg(".wavefmt")
WAVEFORMATEX WaveFMT =
{
#ifdef FLOAT_32BIT
WAVE_FORMAT_IEEE_FLOAT,
#else
WAVE_FORMAT_PCM,
#endif
2, // channels
SAMPLE_RATE, // samples per sec
SAMPLE_RATE*sizeof(SAMPLE_TYPE)*2, // bytes per sec
sizeof(SAMPLE_TYPE)*2, // block alignment;
sizeof(SAMPLE_TYPE)*8, // bits per sample
0 // extension not needed
};
#pragma data_seg(".wavehdr")
WAVEHDR WaveHDR =
{
(LPSTR)lpSoundBuffer,
MAX_SAMPLES*sizeof(SAMPLE_TYPE)*2, // MAX_SAMPLES*sizeof(float)*2(stereo)
0,
0,
0,
0,
0,
0
};
MMTIME MMTime =
{
TIME_SAMPLES,
0
};
#pragma code_seg(".initsnd")
void InitSound()
{
#ifdef USE_SOUND_THREAD
// thx to xTr1m/blu-flame for providing a smarter and smaller way to create the thread :)
CreateThread(0, 0, (LPTHREAD_START_ROUTINE)_4klang_render, lpSoundBuffer, 0, 0);
#else
_4klang_render(lpSoundBuffer);
#endif
waveOutOpen ( &hWaveOut, WAVE_MAPPER, &WaveFMT, NULL, 0, CALLBACK_NULL );
waveOutPrepareHeader( hWaveOut, &WaveHDR, sizeof(WaveHDR) );
waveOutWrite ( hWaveOut, &WaveHDR, sizeof(WaveHDR) );
}
#endif
//==============================================================================================
static LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc( HWND hWnd, UINT uMsg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam )
{
// salvapantallas
if( uMsg==WM_SYSCOMMAND && (wParam==SC_SCREENSAVE || wParam==SC_MONITORPOWER) )
return( 0 );
// boton x o pulsacion de escape
if( uMsg==WM_CLOSE || uMsg==WM_DESTROY || (uMsg==WM_KEYDOWN && wParam==VK_ESCAPE) )
{
PostQuitMessage(0);
return( 0 );
}
if( uMsg==WM_CHAR )
{
if( wParam==VK_ESCAPE )
{
PostQuitMessage(0);
return( 0 );
}
}
return( DefWindowProc(hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam) );
}
static void window_end( WININFO *info )
{
if( info->hRC )
{
wglMakeCurrent( 0, 0 );
wglDeleteContext( info->hRC );
}
if( info->hDC ) ReleaseDC( info->hWnd, info->hDC );
if( info->hWnd ) DestroyWindow( info->hWnd );
UnregisterClass( info->wndclass, info->hInstance );
if( info->full )
{
ChangeDisplaySettings( 0, 0 );
ShowCursor( 1 );
}
}
static int window_init( WININFO *info )
{
unsigned int PixelFormat;
DWORD dwExStyle, dwStyle;
DEVMODE dmScreenSettings;
RECT rec;
WNDCLASS wc;
ZeroMemory( &wc, sizeof(WNDCLASS) );
wc.style = CS_OWNDC|CS_HREDRAW|CS_VREDRAW;
wc.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
wc.hInstance = info->hInstance;
wc.lpszClassName = info->wndclass;
if( !RegisterClass(&wc) )
return( 0 );
if( info->full )
{
dmScreenSettings.dmSize = sizeof(DEVMODE);
dmScreenSettings.dmFields = DM_BITSPERPEL|DM_PELSWIDTH|DM_PELSHEIGHT;
dmScreenSettings.dmBitsPerPel = 32;
dmScreenSettings.dmPelsWidth = XRES;
dmScreenSettings.dmPelsHeight = YRES;
if( ChangeDisplaySettings(&dmScreenSettings,CDS_FULLSCREEN)!=DISP_CHANGE_SUCCESSFUL)
return( 0 );
dwExStyle = WS_EX_APPWINDOW;
dwStyle = WS_VISIBLE | WS_POPUP;// | WS_CLIPSIBLINGS | WS_CLIPCHILDREN;
ShowCursor( 0 );
}
else
{
dwExStyle = WS_EX_APPWINDOW | WS_EX_WINDOWEDGE;
dwStyle = WS_VISIBLE | WS_CAPTION | WS_CLIPSIBLINGS | WS_CLIPCHILDREN | WS_SYSMENU;
}
rec.left = 0;
rec.top = 0;
rec.right = XRES;
rec.bottom = YRES;
AdjustWindowRect( &rec, dwStyle, 0 );
info->hWnd = CreateWindowEx( dwExStyle, wc.lpszClassName, "D - Four", dwStyle,
(GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN)-rec.right+rec.left)>>1,
(GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN)-rec.bottom+rec.top)>>1,
rec.right-rec.left, rec.bottom-rec.top, 0, 0, info->hInstance, 0 );
if( !info->hWnd )
return( 0 );
if( !(info->hDC=GetDC(info->hWnd)) )
return( 0 );
if( !(PixelFormat=ChoosePixelFormat(info->hDC,&pfd)) )
return( 0 );
if( !SetPixelFormat(info->hDC,PixelFormat,&pfd) )
return( 0 );
if( !(info->hRC=wglCreateContext(info->hDC)) )
return( 0 );
if( !wglMakeCurrent(info->hDC,info->hRC) )
return( 0 );
return( 1 );
}
//==============================================================================================
#if IQ_MZK
static short myMuzik[MZK_NUMSAMPLESC+22];
#endif
//==============================================================================================
int WINAPI WinMain( HINSTANCE instance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow )
{
MSG msg;
int done=0;
WININFO *info = &wininfo;
info->hInstance = GetModuleHandle( 0 );
//if( MessageBox( 0, "fullscreen?", info->wndclass, MB_YESNO|MB_ICONQUESTION)==IDYES ) info->full++;
if( !window_init(info) )
{
window_end( info );
MessageBox( 0, "window_init()!","error",MB_OK|MB_ICONEXCLAMATION );
return( 0 );
}
intro_init(wininfo.hDC);
#if SOUND
#if IQ_MZK
mzk_init( myMuzik+22 );
memcpy( myMuzik, wavHeader, 44 );
if( !sndPlaySound( (const char*)&myMuzik, SND_ASYNC|SND_MEMORY ) )
{
window_end( info );
MessageBox( 0, "mzk???", "error", MB_OK|MB_ICONEXCLAMATION );
return( 0 );
}
#endif
#if FKLANG_MZK
InitSound();
#endif
#endif
while( !done )
{
static long to = 0; if( !to ) to=timeGetTime();
long it = timeGetTime() - to;
while( PeekMessage(&msg,0,0,0,PM_REMOVE) )
{
if( msg.message==WM_QUIT ) done=1;
TranslateMessage( &msg );
DispatchMessage( &msg );
}
{
static int last_it = 0;
int m = it / 60000;
int s = (it / 1000) % 60;
int c = (it / 10) % 100;
// int fps = 1000 / t;
char title[255];
sprintf(title, "D - Four | [%d fps - %d ms/f] - %02d'%02d\"%02d (t=%dms)",
1000/(1 + it - last_it), it - last_it, m, s, c, it);
SetWindowText( info->hWnd, title );
last_it = it;
}
intro_do( it );
#if SOUND
#if IQ_MZK
if( t>(MZK_DURATION*1000) ) done = 1;
#endif
#if FKLANG_MZK
waveOutGetPosition(hWaveOut, &MMTime, sizeof(MMTIME));
// float aha = (&_4klang_envelope_buffer)[((MMTime.u.sample >> 8) << 5) + 2*2+0];
if (MMTime.u.sample > MAX_SAMPLES)
break;
#endif
#endif
SwapBuffers( info->hDC );
}
#if SOUND
#if IQ_MZK
sndPlaySound( 0, 0 );
#endif
#endif
window_end( info );
return( 0 );
}
|
2024-01-17T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7453
|
Molecular cloning, co-expression, and characterization of glycerol dehydratase and 1,3-propanediol dehydrogenase from Citrobacter freundii.
1,3-Propanediol (1,3-PD), an important material for chemical industry, is biologically synthesized by glycerol dehydratase (GDHt) and 1,3-propanediol dehydrogenase (PDOR). In present study, the dhaBCE and dhaT genes encoding glycerol dehydratase and 1,3-propanediol dehydrogenase respectively were cloned from Citrobacter freundii and co-expressed in E. coli. Sequence analysis revealed that the cloned genes were 85 and 77 % identical to corresponding gene of C. freundii DSM 30040 (GenBank No. U09771), respectively. The over-expressed recombinant enzymes were purified by nickel-chelate chromatography combined with gel filtration, and recombinant GDHt and PDOR were characterized by activity assay, kinetic analysis, pH, and temperature optimization. This research may form a basis for the future work on biological synthesis of 1,3-PD.
|
2024-02-09T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1637
|
The Tuesday Playlist: Finales, a Salute to Primetime Soaps, White Collar, The Taste
Tuesday
Jan 22, 2013 at 12:10 PMJan 22, 2013 at 9:04 PM
TV Guide
It's another ridiculously busy night of TV, with premieres and finales jousting for attention amid other distractions. It's just as well that CBS' top-rated lineup is taking a breather with repeats.
First, the farewells, going head to head. Once again, NBC sends away its reliably tear-jerking Parenthood (10/9c) earlier in the TV year than we'd like, but a limited run of 15 episodes beats the alternative. Shows like this don't tend to repeat well, and if a shorter run makes business sense - while freeing up the time period in the back half of the season for something else (in this case, a retooled Smash in two weeks) - then so be it. This fourth season has been Parenthood's strongest and most emotionally charged to date, especially in the storyline involving Kristina's breast cancer ordeal, providing Monica Potter and Peter Krause (as husband Adam) with their strongest dramatic material to date. Emmy voters, wake up and take note.
|
2023-09-10T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4689
|
Q:
Update values for multiple keys in python
What is the cleanest way to update the values of multiple keys in a dictionary to the values stored in a tuple?
Example:
I want to go from
>>>mydict = {'a':None, 'b':None, 'c':None, 'd':None}
>>>mytuple = ('alpha', 'beta', 'delta')
to
>>>print mydict
{'a':'alpha', 'b':'beta', 'c':None, 'd':'delta'}
Is there an easy one-liner for this? Something like this seems to be getting close to what I want.
EDIT:
I don't wish to assign values to keys based on their first letter. I'm just hoping for something like
mydict('a','b','d') = mytuple
Obviously that doesn't work, but I'm hoping for something similar to that.
A:
If you're trying to create a new dictionary:
d = dict(zip(keys, valuetuple))
If you're trying to add to an existing one, just change the = to .update(…).
So, your example can be written as:
mydict.update(dict(zip('abd', mytuple))))
If you're doing this more than once, I'd wrap it up in a function, so you can write:
setitems(d, ('a', 'b', 'd'), mytuple)
Or maybe a "curried" function that parallels operator.itemgetter?
|
2024-06-06T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1126
|
As Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker watches his presidential poll numbers sink lower and lower, he can take some solace in this:
He's not alone.
Walker has fallen the furthest. But other major contenders such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida have also been left in the dust by real estate baron Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
Are there second acts for struggling presidential hopefuls?
Can a sustained polling slump like the ones suffered this year by Walker, Bush and Rubio be overcome?
History doesn't offer many examples (partly because there was a lot less early polling in the past).
But the most tantalizing one may be Republican John McCain, whose campaign collapsed financially in 2007 and was presumed dead by many before the senator from Arizona roared back to life and won the nomination.
McCain lost about 15 points in the New Hampshire polls between the spring and fall of 2007, but then rode a 20-point surge to victory there.
"It's hard, but the McCain example demonstrates it's not impossible," said a GOP strategist who worked for McCain and did not want to be quoted by name. "Whoever does this is going to be a very skilled politician."
In McCain's case, it took mistakes by opponents, a core of die-hard supporters dating back to his first presidential bid, a bond with the early primary state of New Hampshire and the "capacity to drag a dead campaign forward on the strength of your personality," the strategist said.
Whether Walker can find a similar formula is a real question.
History offers far more examples of candidates who couldn't survive a polling plunge. But there's a decent chance this race will produce a true comeback story of some kind.
If the Republican nominee turns out to be Walker, Bush or Rubio — hardly a long-shot scenario even now — that will mean somebody bounced back from months of poor polling.
"I don't think there's any particular reason for (Walker's camp) to be optimistic, but I also don't think there's a need to be overly pessimistic," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist and founder of the school's Center for Politics. "I think Walker's consolation is he's got a lot of company in the Republican field scratching their heads saying what happened and what's going on?"
Walker and his backers argue that it's still early, and that most 2015 polls are reflecting shifts in media coverage and attention, not hard voter preferences.
Many scholars agree.
"Even politically engaged people who are going to vote in the primaries are not necessarily paying attention," says Georgetown University political scientist Hans Noel, co-author of an influential study of the nominating process, "The Party Decides."
Noel said if he were Walker, he wouldn't lose hope because of the polls. But he said he would be deeply frustrated about the suffocating effects of the Trump phenomenon on his ability to reset his campaign.
Walker has downplayed the polls, noting he won his 2012 recall election despite a slump a year before then.
"Heck, I was so far down in the polls in the spring of 2011, Time magazine called me Dead Man Walker," the governor told reporters Thursday. "I came back and won the recall with more votes...than we did in the original election. So none of this intimidates us."
To some observers, history may not be all that instructive about Walker's plight, since this race seems different in significant ways: the massive, 16-candidate GOP field; the voracious appetite of Republican voters for a political outsider; and changes in the length and nature of the "invisible primary" (the early campaigning that occurs before the first caucus or primary). The presence of super PACs funded by rich individuals means candidates can more easily survive a polling slump that would have dried up their funding in the past. That made it possible in 2011 for Republican Newt Gingrich to rebound from a major polling slide before the first contest — only to collapse again.
In this race, Trump and Carson together — two men who've never held office — are claiming more than 40% of the GOP electorate in many polls.
In an Iowa survey released by Quinnipiac Friday, 72% of Republicans said the best preparation for being president was working in business, not government.
Normally, people without experience in elected office can't maintain early success in presidential contests, said Charles Franklin of the Marquette University Law School. As examples, he cited Pat Robertson in 1988 and Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000.
"There's still a chance for a major reshuffling," Franklin said. "Let's not forget: We're one debate in, with — what? — eight debates to go."
While Walker's numbers have tanked, Franklin noted that all the candidates with experience in office have either lapsed into single digits or have been mired there to begin with.
In the national polling averages posted by RealClearPolitics.com, Walker has slipped from a peak of just over 17% on April 1 to just under 5% last week. Bush has slipped from a peak of nearly 18% in mid-July to just over 8% last week. And Rubio has slipped from a peak of just over 14% in early May to just over 5% last week.
Walker's slide has been even sharper in Iowa, where he was once the clear front-runner. In Quinnipiac's new Iowa survey, he has fallen to 3% from 25% in February and 18% in July. But his personal image among Iowa Republicans remained quite positive over that time. The numbers suggest Walker has been eclipsed more than rejected by Iowa Republicans: Only 5% said they could not support him, and only 15% have an unfavorable opinion of him (62% have a favorable view). Yet for Walker to derive any benefit from his positive standing in the state, Trump and/or Carson will have to falter.
"You're in a position where you don't really control your fate," the former McCain strategist said of Walker, Bush and Rubio. "You're just waiting for the bumper cars to collide and leave enough slots open to get considered again."
It's possible that no one is able to sustain himself or herself as the clear front-runner, said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report.
"I'm of the school that we might have four different winners for the first four contests," she said. "So then you go, 'Who was smart enough to put something together in the South?'"
The first four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — have very different electorates, meaning a candidate who is strong in one state may not be in another. Iowa and Nevada hold caucuses, rather than primaries, so their contests require intense organizing by candidates.
After that is Super Tuesday on March 1, when 13 states — eight of them in the South — hold primaries and caucuses.
Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
About Craig Gilbert
Craig Gilbert is the Journal Sentinel's Washington Bureau Chief and writes the Wisconsin Voter blog about politics and elections.
About Patrick Marley
Patrick Marley covers state government and state politics. He is the author, with Journal Sentinel reporter Jason Stein, of "More Than They Bargained For: Scott Walker, Unions and the Fight for Wisconsin.”
|
2023-12-22T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3884
|
Analysis and applications of nanoparticles in capillary electrophoresis.
Nanoparticles (NPs) exhibit unique chemical and physical properties that depend on their size, shape, and environment. NPs are emerging as new tools and techniques in the analytical study of various materials and in the biological and biomedical fields, because of their unique properties. Therefore, the quantitative and qualitative characterization of NPs has gathered increasing interest. Additionally, the NPs are being used in rapidly developing techniques to provide highly sensitive and specific analysis of various materials. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been demonstrated as a useful analytical tool for the characterization of NPs and for the evaluation of biological and biomedical studies using NPs because of its simple sample preparation and efficient resolution of a diverse size range of compounds. This paper gives a short overview of the analysis and applications of NPs in CE systems, with an emphasis on biological and biomedical studies.
|
2024-03-07T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7925
|
The search for a Casey County man who shot at police during a traffic stop on Wednesday, March 25, ended after he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday, according to Kentucky State Police.
Joe Mattingly III served as the Marion County attorney for more than 24 years and has been operating his own law firm in Lebanon for 18 years. But, what many people don’t know is that he almost played Major League Baseball.
Well, sort of.
“I was convinced until I got to high school that I was going to play second base for the Cincinnati Reds,” Joe said, laughing. “I was absolutely certain of that.”
The pomp may have been lower key, but the circumstance was just as important to the seven most recent graduates of the GED program at the Marion County Detention Center.
David Nelson, 36, was the first person at the jail to earn his GED after the implementation of a computer-only testing system.
"It's been 20 years since I dropped out of school. It was not easy," Nelson said.
For him, completing the GED, along with the substance abuse program at the jail, is a new step in his life.
|
2024-04-20T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1246
|
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/helper/constant.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/helper/enum.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/helper/utility.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/helper/theme.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/model/feedModel.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/model/user.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/page/profile/widgets/tabPainter.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/state/authState.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/state/chats/chatState.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/state/feedState.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/customWidgets.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/newWidget/customLoader.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/newWidget/customUrlText.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/newWidget/emptyList.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/newWidget/rippleButton.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/tweet/tweet.dart';
import 'package:flutter_twitter_clone/widgets/tweet/widgets/tweetBottomSheet.dart';
import 'package:provider/provider.dart';
class ProfilePage extends StatefulWidget {
ProfilePage({Key key, this.profileId}) : super(key: key);
final String profileId;
_ProfilePageState createState() => _ProfilePageState();
}
class _ProfilePageState extends State<ProfilePage>
with SingleTickerProviderStateMixin {
bool isMyProfile = false;
int pageIndex = 0;
@override
void initState() {
WidgetsBinding.instance.addPostFrameCallback((_) {
var authstate = Provider.of<AuthState>(context, listen: false);
authstate.getProfileUser(userProfileId: widget.profileId);
isMyProfile =
widget.profileId == null || widget.profileId == authstate.userId;
});
_tabController = TabController(length: 3, vsync: this);
super.initState();
}
@override
void dispose() {
_tabController.dispose();
super.dispose();
}
SliverAppBar getAppbar() {
var authstate = Provider.of<AuthState>(context);
return SliverAppBar(
forceElevated: false,
expandedHeight: 200,
elevation: 0,
stretch: true,
iconTheme: IconThemeData(color: Colors.white),
backgroundColor: Colors.transparent,
actions: <Widget>[
authstate.isbusy
? SizedBox.shrink()
: PopupMenuButton<Choice>(
onSelected: (d) {},
itemBuilder: (BuildContext context) {
return choices.map((Choice choice) {
return PopupMenuItem<Choice>(
value: choice,
child: Text(choice.title),
);
}).toList();
},
),
],
flexibleSpace: FlexibleSpaceBar(
stretchModes: <StretchMode>[StretchMode.zoomBackground, StretchMode.blurBackground],
background: authstate.isbusy
? SizedBox.shrink()
: Stack(
alignment: Alignment.topCenter,
children: <Widget>[
SizedBox.expand(
child: Container(
padding: EdgeInsets.only(top: 50),
height: 30,
color: Colors.white,
),
),
// Container(height: 50, color: Colors.black),
/// Banner image
Container(
height: 180,
padding: EdgeInsets.only(top: 28),
child: customNetworkImage(
'https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/457684585/1510495215/1500x500',
fit: BoxFit.fill,
),
),
/// User avatar, message icon, profile edit and follow/following button
Container(
alignment: Alignment.bottomLeft,
child: Row(
mainAxisAlignment: MainAxisAlignment.spaceBetween,
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.end,
children: <Widget>[
AnimatedContainer(
duration: Duration(milliseconds: 500),
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(horizontal: 10),
decoration: BoxDecoration(
border: Border.all(color: Colors.white, width: 5),
shape: BoxShape.circle),
child: RippleButton(
child: customImage(
context,
authstate.profileUserModel.profilePic,
height: 80,
),
borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(50),
onPressed: () {
Navigator.pushNamed(context, "/ProfileImageView");
},
),
),
Container(
margin: EdgeInsets.only(top: 90, right: 30),
child: Row(
children: <Widget>[
isMyProfile
? Container(height: 40)
: RippleButton(
splashColor: TwitterColor.dodgetBlue_50
.withAlpha(100),
borderRadius: BorderRadius.all(
Radius.circular(20),
),
onPressed: () {
if (!isMyProfile) {
final chatState =
Provider.of<ChatState>(
context,
listen: false);
chatState.setChatUser =
authstate.profileUserModel;
Navigator.pushNamed(
context, '/ChatScreenPage');
}
},
child: Container(
height: 35,
width: 35,
padding: EdgeInsets.only(
bottom: 5,
top: 0,
right: 0,
left: 0),
decoration: BoxDecoration(
border: Border.all(
color: isMyProfile
? Colors.black87
.withAlpha(180)
: Colors.blue,
width: 1),
shape: BoxShape.circle),
child: Icon(
IconData(AppIcon.messageEmpty,
fontFamily: 'TwitterIcon'),
color: Colors.blue,
size: 20,
),
// customIcon(context, icon:AppIcon.messageEmpty, iconColor: TwitterColor.dodgetBlue, paddingIcon: 8)
),
),
SizedBox(width: 10),
RippleButton(
splashColor:
TwitterColor.dodgetBlue_50.withAlpha(100),
borderRadius:
BorderRadius.all(Radius.circular(60)),
onPressed: () {
if (isMyProfile) {
Navigator.pushNamed(
context, '/EditProfile');
} else {
authstate.followUser(
removeFollower: isFollower(),
);
}
},
child: Container(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(
horizontal: 10,
vertical: 5,
),
decoration: BoxDecoration(
color: isFollower()
? TwitterColor.dodgetBlue
: TwitterColor.white,
border: Border.all(
color: isMyProfile
? Colors.black87.withAlpha(180)
: Colors.blue,
width: 1),
borderRadius: BorderRadius.circular(20),
),
/// If [isMyProfile] is true then Edit profile button will display
// Otherwise Follow/Following button will be display
child: Text(
isMyProfile
? 'Edit Profile'
: isFollower() ? 'Following' : 'Follow',
style: TextStyle(
color: isMyProfile
? Colors.black87.withAlpha(180)
: isFollower()
? TwitterColor.white
: Colors.blue,
fontSize: 17,
fontWeight: FontWeight.bold,
),
),
),
),
],
),
)
],
),
)
],
),
),
);
}
Widget _floatingActionButton() {
return FloatingActionButton(
onPressed: () {
Navigator.of(context).pushNamed('/CreateFeedPage');
},
child: customIcon(
context,
icon: AppIcon.fabTweet,
istwitterIcon: true,
iconColor: Theme.of(context).colorScheme.onPrimary,
size: 25,
),
);
}
Widget _emptyBox() {
return SliverToBoxAdapter(child: SizedBox.shrink());
}
isFollower() {
var authstate = Provider.of<AuthState>(context);
if (authstate.profileUserModel.followersList != null &&
authstate.profileUserModel.followersList.isNotEmpty) {
return (authstate.profileUserModel.followersList
.any((x) => x == authstate.userModel.userId));
} else {
return false;
}
}
/// This meathod called when user pressed back button
/// When profile page is about to close
/// Maintain minimum user's profile in profile page list
Future<bool> _onWillPop() async {
final state = Provider.of<AuthState>(context, listen: false);
/// It will remove last user's profile from profileUserModelList
state.removeLastUser();
return true;
}
TabController _tabController;
@override
build(BuildContext context) {
var state = Provider.of<FeedState>(context);
var authstate = Provider.of<AuthState>(context);
List<FeedModel> list;
String id = widget.profileId ?? authstate.userId;
/// Filter user's tweet among all tweets available in home page tweets list
if (state.feedlist != null && state.feedlist.length > 0) {
list = state.feedlist.where((x) => x.userId == id).toList();
}
return WillPopScope(
onWillPop: _onWillPop,
child: Scaffold(
floatingActionButton: !isMyProfile ? null : _floatingActionButton(),
backgroundColor: TwitterColor.mystic,
body: NestedScrollView(
// controller: _scrollController,
headerSliverBuilder: (BuildContext context, bool boxIsScrolled) {
return <Widget>[
getAppbar(),
authstate.isbusy
? _emptyBox()
: SliverToBoxAdapter(
child: Container(
color: Colors.white,
child: authstate.isbusy
? SizedBox.shrink()
: UserNameRowWidget(
user: authstate.profileUserModel,
isMyProfile: isMyProfile,
),
),
),
SliverList(
delegate: SliverChildListDelegate(
[
Container(
color: TwitterColor.white,
child: TabBar(
indicator: TabIndicator(),
controller: _tabController,
tabs: <Widget>[
Text("Tweets"),
Text("Tweets & replies"),
Text("Media")
],
),
)
],
),
)
];
},
body: TabBarView(
controller: _tabController,
children: [
/// Display all independent tweers list
_tweetList(context, authstate, list, false, false),
/// Display all reply tweet list
_tweetList(context, authstate, list, true, false),
/// Display all reply and comments tweet list
_tweetList(context, authstate, list, false, true)
],
),
),
),
);
}
Widget _tweetList(BuildContext context, AuthState authstate,
List<FeedModel> tweetsList, bool isreply, bool isMedia) {
List<FeedModel> list;
/// If user hasn't tweeted yet
if (tweetsList == null) {
// cprint('No Tweet avalible');
} else if (isMedia) {
/// Display all Tweets with media file
list = tweetsList.where((x) => x.imagePath != null).toList();
} else if (!isreply) {
/// Display all independent Tweets
/// No comments Tweet will display
list = tweetsList
.where((x) => x.parentkey == null || x.childRetwetkey != null)
.toList();
} else {
/// Display all reply Tweets
/// No intependent tweet will display
list = tweetsList
.where((x) => x.parentkey != null && x.childRetwetkey == null)
.toList();
}
/// if [authState.isbusy] is true then an loading indicator will be displayed on screen.
return authstate.isbusy
? Container(
height: fullHeight(context) - 180,
child: CustomScreenLoader(
height: double.infinity,
width: fullWidth(context),
backgroundColor: Colors.white,
),
)
/// if tweet list is empty or null then need to show user a message
: list == null || list.length < 1
? Container(
padding: EdgeInsets.only(top: 50, left: 30, right: 30),
child: NotifyText(
title: isMyProfile
? 'You haven\'t ${isreply ? 'reply to any Tweet' : isMedia ? 'post any media Tweet yet' : 'post any Tweet yet'}'
: '${authstate.profileUserModel.userName} hasn\'t ${isreply ? 'reply to any Tweet' : isMedia ? 'post any media Tweet yet' : 'post any Tweet yet'}',
subTitle: isMyProfile
? 'Tap tweet button to add new'
: 'Once he\'ll do, they will be shown up here',
),
)
/// If tweets available then tweet list will displayed
: ListView.builder(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(vertical: 0),
itemCount: list.length,
itemBuilder: (context, index) => Container(
color: TwitterColor.white,
child: Tweet(
model: list[index],
isDisplayOnProfile: true,
trailing: TweetBottomSheet().tweetOptionIcon(
context,
list[index],
TweetType.Tweet,
),
),
),
);
}
}
class UserNameRowWidget extends StatelessWidget {
const UserNameRowWidget({
Key key,
@required this.user,
@required this.isMyProfile,
}) : super(key: key);
final bool isMyProfile;
final User user;
String getBio(String bio) {
if (isMyProfile) {
return bio;
} else if (bio == "Edit profile to update bio") {
return "No bio available";
} else {
return bio;
}
}
Widget _tappbleText(
BuildContext context, String count, String text, String navigateTo) {
return InkWell(
onTap: () {
Navigator.pushNamed(context, '/$navigateTo');
},
child: Row(
children: <Widget>[
customText(
'$count ',
style: TextStyle(fontWeight: FontWeight.bold, fontSize: 17),
),
customText(
'$text',
style: TextStyle(color: AppColor.darkGrey, fontSize: 17),
),
],
),
);
}
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Column(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
children: <Widget>[
SizedBox(height: 10),
Padding(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(
horizontal: 10,
),
child: Row(
children: <Widget>[
UrlText(
text: user.displayName,
style: TextStyle(
color: Colors.black,
fontSize: 16,
fontWeight: FontWeight.w800,
),
),
SizedBox(
width: 3,
),
user.isVerified
? customIcon(context,
icon: AppIcon.blueTick,
istwitterIcon: true,
iconColor: AppColor.primary,
size: 13,
paddingIcon: 3)
: SizedBox(width: 0),
],
),
),
Padding(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(horizontal: 9),
child: customText(
'${user.userName}',
style: subtitleStyle.copyWith(fontSize: 13),
),
),
Padding(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(horizontal: 10, vertical: 10),
child: customText(
getBio(user.bio),
),
),
Padding(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(horizontal: 10, vertical: 5),
child: Row(
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
children: <Widget>[
customIcon(context,
icon: AppIcon.locationPin,
size: 14,
istwitterIcon: true,
paddingIcon: 5,
iconColor: AppColor.darkGrey),
SizedBox(width: 10),
Expanded(
child:customText(
user.location,
style: TextStyle(color: AppColor.darkGrey),
),
)
],
),
),
Padding(
padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(horizontal: 10, vertical: 5),
child: Row(
children: <Widget>[
customIcon(context,
icon: AppIcon.calender,
size: 14,
istwitterIcon: true,
paddingIcon: 5,
iconColor: AppColor.darkGrey),
SizedBox(width: 10),
customText(
getJoiningDate(user.createdAt),
style: TextStyle(color: AppColor.darkGrey),
),
],
),
),
Container(
alignment: Alignment.center,
child: Row(
children: <Widget>[
SizedBox(
width: 10,
height: 30,
),
_tappbleText(context, '${user.getFollower()}', ' Followers',
'FollowerListPage'),
SizedBox(width: 40),
_tappbleText(context, '${user.getFollowing()}', ' Following',
'FollowingListPage'),
],
),
),
],
);
}
}
class Choice {
const Choice({this.title, this.icon});
final IconData icon;
final String title;
}
const List<Choice> choices = const <Choice>[
const Choice(title: 'Share', icon: Icons.directions_car),
const Choice(title: 'Draft', icon: Icons.directions_bike),
const Choice(title: 'View Lists', icon: Icons.directions_boat),
const Choice(title: 'View Moments', icon: Icons.directions_bus),
const Choice(title: 'QR code', icon: Icons.directions_railway),
];
class ChoiceCard extends StatelessWidget {
const ChoiceCard({Key key, this.choice}) : super(key: key);
final Choice choice;
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
final TextStyle textStyle = Theme.of(context).textTheme.display1;
return Card(
color: Colors.white,
child: Center(
child: Column(
mainAxisSize: MainAxisSize.min,
crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.center,
children: <Widget>[
Icon(choice.icon, size: 128.0, color: textStyle.color),
Text(choice.title, style: textStyle),
],
),
),
);
}
}
|
2024-01-28T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9813
|
/*
* Copyright (C) 2007-2011 Google Inc. All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
* met:
*
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
* copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
* in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
* distribution.
* * Neither the name of Google Inc. nor the names of its
* contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
* this software without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
* "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
* LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
* A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
* OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
* SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
* LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
* DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
* THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
* (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
* OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
*/
#include "config.h"
#include "InjectedScriptManager.h"
#include "DOMWindow.h"
#include "InjectedScript.h"
#include "InjectedScriptHost.h"
#include "ScriptValue.h"
#include "V8Binding.h"
#include "V8BindingState.h"
#include "V8DOMWindow.h"
#include "V8HiddenPropertyName.h"
#include "V8InjectedScriptHost.h"
#include "V8Proxy.h"
#include <wtf/RefPtr.h>
namespace WebCore {
static void WeakReferenceCallback(v8::Persistent<v8::Value> object, void* parameter)
{
InjectedScriptHost* nativeObject = static_cast<InjectedScriptHost*>(parameter);
nativeObject->deref();
object.Dispose();
}
static v8::Local<v8::Object> createInjectedScriptHostV8Wrapper(InjectedScriptHost* host)
{
v8::Local<v8::Function> function = V8InjectedScriptHost::GetTemplate()->GetFunction();
if (function.IsEmpty()) {
// Return if allocation failed.
return v8::Local<v8::Object>();
}
v8::Local<v8::Object> instance = SafeAllocation::newInstance(function);
if (instance.IsEmpty()) {
// Avoid setting the wrapper if allocation failed.
return v8::Local<v8::Object>();
}
V8DOMWrapper::setDOMWrapper(instance, &V8InjectedScriptHost::info, host);
// Create a weak reference to the v8 wrapper of InspectorBackend to deref
// InspectorBackend when the wrapper is garbage collected.
host->ref();
v8::Persistent<v8::Object> weakHandle = v8::Persistent<v8::Object>::New(instance);
weakHandle.MakeWeak(host, &WeakReferenceCallback);
return instance;
}
ScriptObject InjectedScriptManager::createInjectedScript(const String& scriptSource, ScriptState* inspectedScriptState, long id)
{
v8::HandleScope scope;
v8::Local<v8::Context> inspectedContext = inspectedScriptState->context();
v8::Context::Scope contextScope(inspectedContext);
// Call custom code to create InjectedScripHost wrapper specific for the context
// instead of calling toV8() that would create the
// wrapper in the current context.
// FIXME: make it possible to use generic bindings factory for InjectedScriptHost.
v8::Local<v8::Object> scriptHostWrapper = createInjectedScriptHostV8Wrapper(m_injectedScriptHost.get());
if (scriptHostWrapper.IsEmpty())
return ScriptObject();
v8::Local<v8::Object> windowGlobal = inspectedContext->Global();
// Inject javascript into the context. The compiled script is supposed to evaluate into
// a single anonymous function(it's anonymous to avoid cluttering the global object with
// inspector's stuff) the function is called a few lines below with InjectedScriptHost wrapper,
// injected script id and explicit reference to the inspected global object. The function is expected
// to create and configure InjectedScript instance that is going to be used by the inspector.
v8::Local<v8::Script> script = v8::Script::Compile(v8String(scriptSource));
v8::Local<v8::Value> v = script->Run();
ASSERT(!v.IsEmpty());
ASSERT(v->IsFunction());
v8::Handle<v8::Value> args[] = {
scriptHostWrapper,
windowGlobal,
v8::Number::New(id),
};
v8::Local<v8::Value> injectedScriptValue = v8::Function::Cast(*v)->Call(windowGlobal, 3, args);
v8::Local<v8::Object> injectedScript(v8::Object::Cast(*injectedScriptValue));
return ScriptObject(inspectedScriptState, injectedScript);
}
void InjectedScriptManager::discardInjectedScript(ScriptState* inspectedScriptState)
{
v8::HandleScope handleScope;
v8::Local<v8::Context> context = inspectedScriptState->context();
v8::Context::Scope contextScope(context);
v8::Local<v8::Object> global = context->Global();
// Skip proxy object. The proxy object will survive page navigation while we need
// an object whose lifetime consides with that of the inspected context.
global = v8::Local<v8::Object>::Cast(global->GetPrototype());
v8::Handle<v8::String> key = V8HiddenPropertyName::devtoolsInjectedScript();
global->DeleteHiddenValue(key);
}
InjectedScript InjectedScriptManager::injectedScriptFor(ScriptState* inspectedScriptState)
{
v8::HandleScope handleScope;
v8::Local<v8::Context> context = inspectedScriptState->context();
v8::Context::Scope contextScope(context);
v8::Local<v8::Object> global = context->Global();
// Skip proxy object. The proxy object will survive page navigation while we need
// an object whose lifetime consides with that of the inspected context.
global = v8::Local<v8::Object>::Cast(global->GetPrototype());
v8::Handle<v8::String> key = V8HiddenPropertyName::devtoolsInjectedScript();
v8::Local<v8::Value> val = global->GetHiddenValue(key);
if (!val.IsEmpty() && val->IsObject())
return InjectedScript(ScriptObject(inspectedScriptState, v8::Local<v8::Object>::Cast(val)), m_inspectedStateAccessCheck);
if (!m_inspectedStateAccessCheck(inspectedScriptState))
return InjectedScript();
pair<long, ScriptObject> injectedScript = injectScript(injectedScriptSource(), inspectedScriptState);
InjectedScript result(injectedScript.second, m_inspectedStateAccessCheck);
m_idToInjectedScript.set(injectedScript.first, result);
global->SetHiddenValue(key, injectedScript.second.v8Object());
return result;
}
bool InjectedScriptManager::canAccessInspectedWindow(ScriptState* scriptState)
{
v8::HandleScope handleScope;
v8::Local<v8::Context> context = scriptState->context();
v8::Local<v8::Object> global = context->Global();
if (global.IsEmpty())
return false;
v8::Handle<v8::Object> holder = V8DOMWrapper::lookupDOMWrapper(V8DOMWindow::GetTemplate(), global);
if (holder.IsEmpty())
return false;
Frame* frame = V8DOMWindow::toNative(holder)->frame();
v8::Context::Scope contextScope(context);
return V8BindingSecurity::canAccessFrame(V8BindingState::Only(), frame, false);
}
} // namespace WebCore
|
2023-08-12T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7225
|
/*
* Copyright (c) 2008, 2018 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
*
* This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
* terms of the Eclipse Public License v. 2.0, which is available at
* http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-2.0.
*
* This Source Code may also be made available under the following Secondary
* Licenses when the conditions for such availability set forth in the
* Eclipse Public License v. 2.0 are satisfied: GNU General Public License,
* version 2 with the GNU Classpath Exception, which is available at
* https://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/license.html.
*
* SPDX-License-Identifier: EPL-2.0 OR GPL-2.0 WITH Classpath-exception-2.0
*/
package org.glassfish.api;
import java.io.File;
import java.lang.annotation.Documented;
import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.*;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.SOURCE;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;
/**
* Used in conjunction with {@link File} or {@link String} that represents a file
* to indicate that the path is absolutized.
*
* <p>
* Note that using {@link String} to represent a path name is discouraged,
* because of the lack of type safety.
*
* @author Kohsuke Kawaguchi
*/
@Retention(SOURCE)
@Documented
@Target({METHOD, PARAMETER, FIELD})
public @interface Absolutized {
}
|
2024-06-11T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2516
|
A computer system in which a plurality of storage apparatuses are formed as a cluster is known from a viewpoint of enhancement of reliability of the system against failures. This computer system is designed to realize dual data storage by connecting the plurality of storage apparatuses.
Specifically speaking, a copy pair relationship is established between a volume of a storage apparatus constituting a first site and a volume of a storage apparatus constituting a second site; and one volume becomes a primary volume and the other volume becomes a secondary volume. At normal times, a host system accesses the primary volume and write data to the primary volume is synchronously copied to the secondary volume, thereby realizing dual data storage.
The host system recognizes the secondary volume as the same volume as the primary volume. So, when the host system cannot access the primary volume due to whatever reason, the host system switches a path to the secondary volume at the second site and continues writing data to the secondary volume. This type of computer system is described in, for example, WO 2010/106579.
|
2024-06-23T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9352
|
1. Introduction {#sec1}
===============
The nuclear factor kappa B (NF-*κ*B) family consists of transcription factors activated in response to a variety of cellular stressors \[[@B1]\]. The transcription factor NF-*κ*B is a key component of the cellular response to damage, stress, and inflammation \[[@B2], [@B3]\]. The NF-*κ*B proteins consist of 5 subunits, which bind to DNA as a dimer; the most common of these subunits is the p65/p50 heterodimer. NF-*κ*B activation via the canonical pathway is mediated by inhibitory kappa B (I*κ*B) kinase (IKK), which is activated in response to a variety of pathogenic factors \[[@B4]\]. Activated IKK phosphorylates an inhibitory protein, I*κ*B, which results in I*κ*B degradation and thereby allows NF-*κ*B to translocate to the nucleus and to induce the synthesis of proinflammatory molecules. Studies that have utilised a direct blockade of the enzymatic activities of IKK, JNK, or p38 MAPK have demonstrated the great potential for such treatments to elicit anti-inflammatory effects. Selective inhibitors for different signal pathways, including the NF-*κ*B cascade, are therefore potentially useful in the treatment of inflammation. We have recently reported that synthetic inhibitors of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR-4), stress-activated protein kinase JNK (SAPK/JNK), and NF-*κ*B signalling (CLI-095, SP600125, and IKK Inhibitor XII, resp.) reduced the*in vitro* effect of LPS on macrophage-like RAW 264.7 cells. Among these three studied inhibitors, the suppressor of the NF-*κ*B cascade, IKK Inhibitor XII, has been shown to be the most effective antitoxic agent*in vitro* \[[@B5]\].
The first aim of present study was to determine whether IKK Inhibitor XII is effective*in vivo* and how the effectiveness of this inhibitor is affected when used in combination with other anti-inflammatory agents. To address these knowledge gaps, we used a mouse model of acute septic inflammation induced by LPS from the Gram-negative bacteria*Escherichia coli*. Numerous studies have reported an increase in the production of reactive oxygen species during sepsis. It is well known that mutual cross-talk exists between reactive oxygen species and NF-*κ*B signalling \[[@B6]\]. Since antioxidants act not individually, but synergistically, a mixture of vitamin E, ubiquinone Q~9~, and *β*-carotene was added to the animal diet. In addition, in an attempt to gain more insight on the effects of each fat-soluble antioxidant, we studied coenzyme Q~9~, *α*-tocopherol, and *β*-carotene in cellular model. Earlier we have shown that oxidative stress linked with acute inflammation can be prevented by the mixed dietary fat-soluble antioxidants coenzyme Q~9~, *α*-tocopherol, and *β*-carotene \[[@B7]\]. The second aim of the present study was to test if these antioxidants can reinforce IKK Inhibitor XII activity.
Finally, the third aim of study was screening the anti-inflammatory activity of IKK Inhibitor XII in combination with the thymic peptide thymulin. The activity of this peptide has been reported not only in the thymus but also in the bloodstream, affecting extrathymic immune cells \[[@B8]\]. At present, the role of thymic peptides in the control of septic inflammation is unclear. It has been shown that thymic peptides can affect signalling pathways during both normal conditions and systemic inflammation \[[@B9]\]. Other authors believe that the mechanisms of the anti-inflammatory effects of thymic peptides, including thymulin, may involve NF-*κ*B and p38 signalling cascades, which play crucial roles in inflammation \[[@B10], [@B11]\]. Recently we have demonstrated that thymulin*in vitro* and*in vivo* affected the NF-*κ*B cascade in tandem with the production of proinflammatory cytokines, nitric oxide, and heat shock proteins in immune cells \[[@B12], [@B13]\]. We hypothesised that the antioxidants and/or thymulin could act as adjuvants, strengthening the anti-inflammatory effect of IKK Inhibitor XII.
2. Materials and Methods {#sec2}
========================
2.1. Protocol of Experiments {#sec2.1}
----------------------------
Two independent series of*in vivo* experiments were performed. The first series included seven groups, with each group consisting of 4 mice, and the results of the study are shown on Figures [1](#fig1){ref-type="fig"} and [2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}. The second series performed at another point of time, included five groups, with each group consisting of 4 mice, and the results of the study are shown on Figures [3](#fig3){ref-type="fig"} and [4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}.
2.2. Animals, Animal Inflammation Model, Diet, Thymulin, and Inhibition of the NF-*κ*B Cascade {#sec2.2}
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Male Balb/c 8- to 10-week-old (25--27 g) mice were maintained under standard laboratory conditions (20--21°C, 10--14 h light-dark cycle, and 65% humidity) with food and water available*ad libitum*. The standard food pellets contained a balanced diet with proteins, vitamins, and minerals. The procedures followed were approved by the ethics committee of the institution and were in accordance with the Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Animals. A diet enriched with *β*-carotene (2 mg/kg body weight), *α*-tocopherol (2 mg/kg body weight), and ubiquinone Q~9~ (8 mg/kg body weight) was administered daily for 15 days prior to LPS treatment. All antioxidants were purchased from Sigma, USA. The antioxidant formula used took into account the approximate levels of these antioxidants in the animals\' tissues \[[@B14]--[@B16]\], such that each compound did not exceed its physiological level in mice. The antioxidant mixture was stirred into 2 g of pellets and was given daily before feeding at 8 am; antioxidants were fed to each mouse individually. Before morning feeding, animals in the other groups were fed pellets without antioxidants.
Inflammation was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from*Escherichia coli* (Serotype 026.B6, "Sigma," USA) (2.5 mg per kg body weight). Thymulin solution (1.5 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally 1.5 hr before LPS treatment and was prepared from serum thymic factor (American Peptides, USA), to which an equimolar concentration of ZnCl~2~ was added \[[@B17]\]. IKK Inhibitor XII, at concentrations ranging from 5 to 20 mg/kg was injected intraperitoneally 1 h prior to LPS treatment. Mice were decapitated 6 h after LPS injection in parallel with the corresponding control groups. All measurements were carried out individually for each mouse, with nine replicates.
2.3. Blood Plasma and Cells {#sec2.3}
---------------------------
Plasma was isolated from blood collected during the decapitation of animals. The blood samples were kept for 3--5 h at 4°*С* and centrifuged at 200 g; supernatants were then collected for cytokine assays. Lymphocytes from the spleen were isolated in 199 medium (Sigma, USA) containing 1% 1 M HEPES solution, 100 *μ*g/mL streptomycin, and 10% fetal bovine serum. Erythrocytes were lysed in Tris-buffered ammonium chloride (0.01 M Tris-HCl with 0.15 M NaCl---0.83% NH~4~Cl, 9 : 1). After washing, the samples were stored at a concentration of 1 × 10^8^ cells/mL in RPMI 1640 medium at −20°C until Western blotting was performed.
2.4. ELISA {#sec2.4}
----------
ELISA was used to determine the concentration of cytokines in blood plasma. ELISA Development Kits for mouse TNF-*α*, IL-1*α*, IL-6, IL-17, IL-10, and IFN-*γ* (Peprotech, USA) were used. To visualise binding, 100 *μ*L of ABTS green dye (Sigma, USA) dissolved in 0.05 M citrate buffer (pH 4.0) with 0.01% hydrogen peroxide was added. The optical density was measured at 405 nm with a plate spectrophotometer (Multiscan EX, Thermo Electron Corporation).
2.5. Western Blot Analysis {#sec2.5}
--------------------------
To prepare specimens, 1 × 10^8^ splenic cells were lysed using an ultrasonic disintegrator with constant stirring for 2 min. The total protein concentration of each sample was then determined by the Bradford method. The proteins in each sample were then precipitated in acetone, solubilised, boiled for 5 min, and stored at −70°C. Proteins were resolved by electrophoresis over a 10% PAGE gel and then transferred from the gel onto a nitrocellulose membrane (GE Healthcare, Amersham, UK) in a transblot chamber. After blocking, the membrane was exposed for 2 hr to antibodies against the following mouse proteins: HSP70 antibody (rabbit anti-mouse HSP 72, clone SPA-812, inducible form, StressGen), HSP90 antibody (rabbit anti-Hsp90*α* \[Hsp86\], StressGen), phospho-NF-*κ*B antibody (phospho-NF-*κ*B p65 \[Ser 536\], \#3031, Cell Signaling Technology, Danvers, MA), rabbit phospho- IKK*α*/*β* antibody II (Ser 176/180 (Cell Signaling Technology, USA), rabbit phospho-SAPK/JNK antibody to synthetic phospho-peptide SAPK/JNK, or rabbit TLR4 antibody (\#2246, Cell Signaling Technology, USA). After washing, the nitrocellulose membranes were incubated for 1 hr with the anti-rabbit biotinylated antibody (Jackson ImmunoResearch, West Grove, PA), and peroxidase-conjugated streptavidin was added for 1 hr. The loading control was a rabbit monoclonal antibody against a synthetic peptide near the carboxy terminus of human glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) (Cell Signaling). An ECL-plus chemiluminescent cocktail (Amersham/GE) was then used to develop the blots according to the manufacturer\'s instructions, and the blot was then exposed to film. Quantitative evaluation of protein bands was then performed using the Qapa computer program (Pushchino, Russia).
2.6. *In Vitro* Addition of Antioxidants {#sec2.6}
----------------------------------------
Fifty *μ*M ubiquinone, 10 *μ*M *α*-tocopherol, or 10 *μ*M *β*-carotene were added to the cultivating medium as water-alcohol emulsions (for Q~9~ and *α*-tocopherol) or a water-Tween 85 emulsion (for *β*-carotene). Samples with medium supplemented only with the equivalent amount of alcohol or Tween 85 served as controls. The cells were cultivated for 24 h at 37°C in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO~2~. In all cases, the final alcohol and Tween 85 concentrations did not exceed 1% in control or experimental samples.
2.7. Blood Glucose Measurements {#sec2.7}
-------------------------------
Blood glucose levels were assayed in all groups of mice prior to manipulations and at 1, 2, and 6 h after LPS treatment. During glucose measurement, the tail tip (2-3 mm) was excised and massaged to harvest a small volume of blood (1.0--10 *μ*L) which was placed into the hole of a blood glucose test strip (Accu-Chek Performa, Germany). Glucose measurements were obtained using a rapid blood glucose meter (Accu-Chek Performa, Germany).
2.8. Statistical Analysis {#sec2.8}
-------------------------
Statistical analysis was performed using Statistica/Win 6.0 software (Tulsa, OK). One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by a post hoc Tukey test was used to determine the significance of differences among groups, with *P* values ≤ 0.05 considered significant. All values were expressed as means (±SE).
3. Results {#sec3}
==========
Initial experiments were performed to reveal the abilities of each of used antioxidants (*β*-carotene, *α*-tocopherol, and ubiquinone Q~9~) to eliminate reactive oxygen species in murine peritoneal macrophages. It is well known that oxidative stress linked with LPS treatment results in proinflammatory cytokine response, including extremely TNF-*α* production \[[@B18]\]. So, we tested the protective effect of each of antioxidants by measuring the production of TNF-*α* level in LPS-treated macrophages as shown in [Table 1](#tab1){ref-type="table"}.
The series of observations strongly indicated that separately the addition of the ubiquinone, *α*-tocopherol, and *β*-carotene to the culture medium*in vitro* significantly decreased the TNF production in LPS-treated macrophages. In addition, effect of three mixed compounds was rather more appreciable, indicating synergistic interaction between fat-soluble antioxidants.
In each experimental group, blood glucose levels decreased to 70%--80% compared to controls one hour after LPS treatment, but rapidly recovered to the control level, being unaltered at 2 and 6 h. In addition, no substantial differences in blood glucose levels were found between experimental groups (data not shown). We can assume a glucose-independent mechanism of anti-inflammatory effects of agents studied.
3.1. The Effects of Dietary Antioxidants and IKK Inhibitor XII on LPS-Treated Mice Immunity {#sec3.1}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
### 3.1.1. Plasma Cytokines in LPS-Treated Mice Presubjected to Dietary Antioxidants and IKK Inhibitor XII {#sec3.1.1}
To examine the amounts of proinflammatory molecules associated with acute inflammation and the protective effect of the inhibitor and diet, the plasma cytokine concentrations were measured concurrently in seven mouse groups treated with IKK Inhibitor XII, dietary antioxidants, or a combination thereof. Treatment with LPS alone resulted in an expected increase in plasma proinflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-1*α*, IFN-*γ*, and TNF-*α*). There was more than 2-fold increase in plasma TNF-*α* levels and a more than 3-fold increase in IFN-*γ* levels ([Figure 1](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}).
Additionally, levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 increased by approximately 1.5-fold. This finding agrees with previously reported data that demonstrated that LPS*in vivo* increased IL-10 production in peritoneal mouse macrophages \[[@B7]\].
In mice pretreated with different concentrations of IKK Inhibitor XII, plasma cytokine values were significantly decreased, and the maximal effect was observed at a concentration of 20 mg/kg. The pretreatment of mice with dietary antioxidants affected cellular responses to LPS; in cells from mice treated with antioxidant-rich diet, plasma cytokine values were reduced ([Figure 1](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}). It should be noted that the effects of antioxidants on the inflammatory response measured by cytokine production were less suppressive than the effects induced by the IKK inhibitor; the difference, however, was statistically significant for IL-1*α*, IL-10, and IFN-*γ* values. Additionally, when mice were simultaneously exposed to the inhibitor and antioxidants, nonadditive effects from the IKK inhibitor and dietary antioxidants were observed.
### 3.1.2. Signal and Stress Proteins in LPS-Treated Mice Presubjected to Dietary Antioxidants and IKK Inhibitor XII {#sec3.1.2}
To examine the extent of NF-*к*B activation associated with inflammation, the levels of the phosphorylated dimer p65/RelA and phosphorylated IKK-*α*/*β* were measured by the immunoblotting of splenic lymphocytes. There was a more than 2-fold increase in phosphorylated p65, which correlated with a significant (more than 7-fold) increase in the level of phosphorylated IKK in these cells ([Figure 2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). The pretreatment of mice separately either with the inhibitor or with dietary antioxidants significantly decreased the phosphorylation of both p65 and I*к*B, and the combination of the inhibitor and antioxidants did not result in an additive effect.
To elucidate the role of an essential receptor for LPS and TLR4, we analysed cellular TLR4 levels using Western blot analysis. As shown in [Figure 2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}, the addition of LPS induced an expected significant increase in TLR4 levels in splenic cells. However, in the cells of mice pretreated with IKK Inhibitor XII or with antioxidants, these increases in TLR4 expression were completely ablated, indicating that the TLR4 pathway can be interregulated via NF-*к*B signalling as well as by the redox balance.
Additionally, to assess the level of stress response in LPS-treated mice, the expression of two inducible heat shock proteins, Hsp72 and Hsp90-*б*, was studied in splenic lymphocytes. LPS induced a 4-fold rise in Hsp90 expression and a more than 8-fold increase in Hsp72 production ([Figure 2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). Again, the pretreatment of mice with IKK Inhibitor XII or with antioxidants resulted in the complete ablation of Hsp72 and Hsp90-*α* spikes in cells after injection with LPS. Additionally, these two simultaneously applied treatments did not have a reciprocal interaction, as demonstrated by the measurement of both heat shock proteins, of cytokines, and of signalling proteins.
3.2. The Effects of Thymulin and IKK Inhibitor XII on LPS-Treated Mice Immunity {#sec3.2}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
### 3.2.1. Plasma Cytokines in LPS-Treated Mice Subjected to Thymulin and IKK Inhibitor XII {#sec3.2.1}
To determine whether thymulin with or without IKK Inhibitor XII can downregulate the*in vivo* response to LPS, the values of plasma IL-6, IL-17, IFN-*γ*, and TNF-*α* were measured in LPS-injected mice using five mouse groups indicated in the legend to [Figure 3](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}. Note that other panel of cytokines was tested in these experiments based on our previous data on thymulin activity. Indeed, these cytokines are predisposed to thymulin control \[[@B33]\].
Based on the above results, the optimal concentration of 20 mg/kg inhibitor was used in this experimental series examining the combined effect of thymulin with IKK Inhibitor XII. These experiments confirmed that an increase in plasma TNF-*α* levels occurs after LPS treatment, supporting the results of the experiments displayed in [Figure 1](#fig1){ref-type="fig"}. The pretreatment with thymulin or with IKK Inhibitor XII decreased the accumulation of the TNF-*α* in plasma. The concentration of plasma TNF-*α* in mice pretreated with the inhibitor and thymulin together did not significantly differ from that measured in LPS-treated mice. There was a more than 3-fold increase in plasma IFN-*γ* in mice treated only with LPS; both IKK Inhibitor XII and thymulin prevented this increase. The combined effect of the inhibitor and thymulin in preventing LPS-mediated increases of plasma IFN-*γ* was no greater than the individual activity of each agent.
In these experiments, we detected a significant increase in the concentration of IL-6 in LPS-treated mice, which was partly but not significantly decreased by pretreating the mice with IKK Inhibitor XII or with thymulin, demonstrating that these treatments could not completely ablate plasma IL-6 levels. It is important to note that when these two agents were administered together, IL-6 levels were still not completely normalised. In addition, there was a more than 3-fold increase in plasma IL-17 from LPS-treated mice, but the inhibitor and thymulin, alone or in combination, could not prevent the increase in IL-17 ([Figure 3](#fig3){ref-type="fig"}).
### 3.2.2. Signal and Stress Proteins in LPS-Treated Mice Subjected to Thymulin and IKK Inhibitor XII {#sec3.2.2}
Similar to results from the first experimental series, the treatment of mice with LPS resulted in the increased phosphorylation of RelA and IKK ([Figure 4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}).
Thymulin and particularly IKK Inhibitor XII reduced IKK phosphorylation. Interestingly, compared to separate treatments with peptide or with inhibitor, the combined treatment with thymulin and the inhibitor resulted in an apparent increase in the protective effect directed towards the prevention of excessive IKK phosphorylation. It has been previously shown that IKK Inhibitor XII*in vitro* affects the SAPK/JNK pathway in RAW 264.7 cells \[[@B5]\]. To examine the*in vivo* effects of the inhibitor and thymulin on the activity of SAPK/JNK signalling, the levels of phosphorylated SAPK/JNK were measured in lymphocytes from 5 animal groups. In contrast to linear RAW 264.7 cells, which generate two phosphorylated isoforms, JNK1 and JNK2,*ex vivo* cells expressed only a single form of phosphorylated SAPK/JNK. LPS induced an approximately 7-fold increase in SAPK/JNK phosphorylation, and in mice separately treated with thymulin or with IKK Inhibitor XII, the spike in phosphorylated SAPK/JNK significantly decreased. It should be noted that the combined treatment with thymulin and inhibitor resulted in a summation of their effects and the normalisation of SAPK/JNK phosphorylation.
There was also a reduction in cellular Hsp72 expression in cells from inflammation-bearing mice that were pretreated with thymulin or the inhibitor ([Figure 4](#fig4){ref-type="fig"}). Collectively, these data demonstrate that the pharmacological inhibition of IKK/NF-*к*B and SAPK/JNK activation leads to the attenuation of LPS-related inflammation.
4. Discussion {#sec4}
=============
Over the last decade, an inhibitor of the NF-*к*B signalling pathway, IKK Inhibitor XII, has been discovered and investigated for its clinical potential in inflammatory diseases \[[@B18]\]. This inhibitor is a synthetic small hydrophobic molecule that can freely penetrate into the cell. IKK Inhibitor XII, a cell-permeable amino-diarylbenzamide compound, acts as a potential ATP site targeting inhibitor against IKK-1 and IKK-2. Interestingly, IKK Inhibitor XII, a selective inhibitor of NF-*к*B signalling that functions by decreasing NF-*к*B phosphorylation and thus reducing the probability of translocation of the NF-*к*B into the nucleus, also prevented SAPK/JNK activation in LPS-treated cells ([Figure 2](#fig2){ref-type="fig"}). These results coincide with findings demonstrating that SAPK/JNK signalling is regulated by the NF-*к*B pathway \[[@B19], [@B20]\]. Indeed, it is generally suggested that NF-*к*B activation plays a critical role in LPS-induced responses and that the suppression of NF-*к*B pathway activity prevents its ability to activate the transcription of a wide variety of genes encoding immunologically relevant proteins. It is also known that targeting IKK also may affect other pathways in addition to NF-*к*B. For example, IKK affects p53, FOXO3A, and HIF-1 in addition to NF-*к*B \[[@B21], [@B22]\].
We demonstrated that the pharmacological inhibition of the IKK/NF-*к*B pathway by IKK Inhibitor XII delays the proinflammatory response in LPS-treated mice. Thus, many processes are shown to be altered in mice undergoing inflammation, including increases in cytokine production, the stimulation of heat shock proteins and TLR4 expression, and the activation of NF-*к*B and SAPK/JNK signalling, were at least partially corrected*in vivo* by NF-*к*B inhibition. This finding provides additional experimental evidence that an increase of NF-*к*B activity plays a causal role in LPS-related inflammation.
Our data show that a diet supplemented with antioxidants prevents NF-*к*B activation in mice treated with LPS. It should be noted that several previous studies using similar animal inflammation models demonstrated that pretreatment with antioxidant N-acetylcysteine or N-acetylcysteine combined with *α*-tocopherol before endotoxin administration resulted in a decrease in NF-*к*B activation \[[@B23], [@B24]\], lowered TNF-*α* release, and increased survival \[[@B25]\]. In addition, the administration of N-acetylcysteine with vitamin E and *β*-carotene reduced lipid peroxidation and restored GSH levels in endotoxic rats \[[@B26]\]. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the genetic reduction of NF-*к*B reduced the amount of mitochondrial-derived ROS \[[@B27]\].
In the present study, we hypothesised that an excess of coenzyme Q in the diet, along with other fat-soluble vitamins, could be very useful due to the unique properties of ubiquinones as suppressors of cholesterol synthesis, thereby enhancing membrane fluidity. A significant decrease in cholesterol synthesis and a subsequent drop in the cholesterol concentration of the cellular membranes were observed in rats fed a diet supplemented with ubiquinone Q~9~. Additionally, the inhibition of cholesterol synthesis in lymphocytes cultivated*in vitro* with coenzyme Q~9~ was demonstrated \[[@B28], [@B29]\]. Interestingly, our data indicated that the preintervention with dietary antioxidants decreased the magnitude of the inflammatory response, but diet did not amplify the effect of IKK Inhibitor XII. These results demonstrating nonadditive anti-inflammatory effects of IKK Inhibitor XII and dietary antioxidants suggest antioxidant activity of the studied inhibitor. Thus, it can theoretically be assumed that there was a coincidental interaction between the protective mechanisms of the inhibitor and antioxidants, which may both be mediated via the reduction of reactive oxygen species. This assumption is consistent with recent data demonstrating that the inhibition of NF-*к*B activity reduces oxidative stress and damage*in vitro* and*in vivo* \[[@B27]\].
Thymic peptide thymulin, which is a metallopeptide consisting of a nonapeptide (Glu-Ala-Lys-Ser-Gln-Gly-Gly-Ser-Asp) that couples with zinc ions, mostly has inhibitory effects on immune responses \[[@B12], [@B30]\] and also stimulates endocrine systems, indicating its role in the recovery from inflammatory conditions \[[@B31]\]. Using thymulin as an immune-modulator in the second experimental line, we tested a repertoire of cytokines, including IL-6 and IL-17. Although IL-17 was identified more than 15 years ago as a product of CD4^+^ T cells, it was only recently proven that IL-17 is preferentially produced by a subset of T cells, specifically Th17, which have been shown to be very important in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease. Additionally, it has been shown recently that thymulin significantly reduces the disease severity in mice with acute experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis \[[@B32]\]. IL-17 and IL-6 are important in many disorders characterised by immune self-recognition, and IL-6 is known to induce the differentiation of Th17 cells \[[@B33], [@B34]\], but the role of Th17 cells in septic inflammation is still unclear. We demonstrated that the separate administration of the inhibitor and thymulin or their combination did not significantly change the plasma IL-17 concentration. Other cytokines, namely, TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma, were significantly decreased in mice that were pretreated with thymulin, IKK Inhibitor XII, or the combination thereof. These data support the assumption that Th17 cells do not play an active role in inflammatory pathogenesis induced by LPS. The plasma cytokine observations certainly do not provide a complete picture regarding the response to damage. It is possible that the release of cytokines is temporally differentiated, and the extent of release and utilisation seems to be nonsynchronous for different cytokines. Indeed, it was reported that after the intravenous administration of endotoxin in humans, plasma IL-6 increased slowly compared with plasma TNF-alpha \[[@B35], [@B36]\].
Alternately, monitoring short-lived signal and stress proteins in the cells enables a more complete evaluation of cellular responses. Indeed, inhibition of the IKK/NF-*к*B pathway using IKK Inhibitor XII delayed phosphorylation of both independent steps of NF-*к*B signalling, IKK, and p65. In addition, activation of the SAPK/JNK pathway also decreased in cells from LPS-plus-inhibitor-treated mice. The results of the present study demonstrate that thymulin enhances the activity of the IKK Inhibitor XII. Taken together, these results demonstrate that reducing NF-*к*B activity using both thymulin and IKK Inhibitor XII decreases the inflammatory response*in vivo*. The inhibition of NF-*к*B using thymulin plus NF-*к*B inhibitor offers what we believe to be a novel strategy for delaying or attenuating inflammatory diseases in patients with SIRS (systemic inflammatory response syndrome) or sepsis.
The work was supported by the Program "Molecular and Cellular Biology" and by the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research, project no. 13-04-00378. The authors thank language editing service of Nature Publishing Group for help with language editing.
Conflict of Interests
=====================
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.
{#fig1}
{ref-type="fig"} were used (1, control; 2, IB mice; 3, IB + Inh5; 4, IB + Inh10; 5, IB + Inh20; 6, IB + diet; 7, IB + diet + Inh20). Western blot analysis of extracts from isolated mice lymphocytes was provided using corresponding antibodies or anti-GAPDH antibody (bottom). Blot pictures show a single representative experiment from four independent experiments. Histograms below protein bands show protein levels calculated as mean relative units correspondingly to internal control and are the results of blots densitometry by program QAPA from four independent experiments. \*Significantly different from control, *P* \< 0.05. ^∧^Significantly different from LPS-group, *P* \< 0.05.](MI2014-724838.002){#fig2}
{#fig3}
{ref-type="fig"} were used. Western blot analysis of extracts from isolated mice lymphocytes was provided using corresponding antibodies or anti-GAPDH antibody as loading control (bottom). Blot pictures show a single representative experiment for four independent experiments. Histograms below protein bands show protein levels calculated as mean relative units correspondingly to internal control and are the results of blots densitometry by program QAPA from four independent experiments. \*Significantly different from control, *P* \< 0.05. ^∧^Significantly different from LPS-group, *P* \< 0.05. ^\#^Significantly different from (Inh+LPS)-group, *P* \< 0.05.](MI2014-724838.004){#fig4}
######
Effect of *in vitro* added antioxidants on TNF-*α* production in LPS-treated peritoneal macrophages from mice.
Control 1 Control 2 LPS LPS + Q~9~ LPS + *β*-carotene LPS + *α*-tocopherol LPS + antioxidant\'s mixture
------------ ----------- --------------- --------------- -------------------- ---------------------- ------------------------------
20.2 ± 2.5 23 ± 2.6 80.1 ± 9.8^a^ 32.4 ± 4.0^b^ 35.2 ± 4.1^ab^ 29.5 ± 3.1^b^ 18.1 ± 2.5^bc^
Macrophages were cultivated for 24 h; 50 *μ*M of ubiquinone, 10 *μ*M *α*-tocopherol, and 10 *μ*M *β*-carotene were added in cultivating medium as water-alcohol emulsions (for Q~9~ and *α*-tocopherol) or water-Tween 85 emulsion (for *β*-carotene). The samples with only medium supplemented with the equal amounts of alcohol or Tween 85 served as controls (control 1 and control 2, correspondingly); then 2.5 *µ*g/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from *Escherichia coli* was added to cells. TNF-*α* concentration shown in pg/mL was measured in the cell-free supernatants by ELISA kit. The final alcohol and Tween 85 concentrations did not exceed 1% in control or experimental samples. Each of values is the average mean ± S.D. from 12 duplicates.
^a^Significantly different from control, *P* \< 0.05; ^b^significantly different from LPS-treated cells, *P* \< 0.05; ^c^significantly different from LPS + Q~9~, LPS + *β*-carotene, and LPS + *α*-tocopherol-treated cells, *P* \< 0.05.
[^1]: Academic Editor: Fabio S. Lira
|
2023-11-13T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6612
|
Q:
Return All Nodes in Shortest Path as Object List
I have the following Cypher Query which works fine in the Neo4j 2.0.0.
MATCH (ab:Point { Latitude: 24.96325, Longitude: 67.11343 }),(cd:Point { Latitude: 24.95873, Longitude: 67.10335 }),
p = shortestPath((ab)-[*..150]-(cd))
RETURN p
The following Query in Neo4jClient gives the error: Function Evaluation Timed out.
var pathsQuery =
client.Cypher
.Match("(ab:Point { Latitude: 24.96325, Longitude: 67.11343 }),(cd:Point { Latitude: 24.95873, Longitude: 67.10335 }), p = shortestPath((ab)-[*..150]-(cd))")
.Return<IEnumerable<PointEntity>>("extract(n in nodes(p) : id(n))");
AND After following Another Similar work on Xclave:
http://geekswithblogs.net/cskardon/archive/2013/07/23/neo4jclient-ndash-getting-path-results.aspx
The Results value as : Function Evaluation Timed out.
var pathsQuery =
client.Cypher
.Match("(ab:Point { Latitude: 24.96325, Longitude: 67.11343 }),(cd:Point { Latitude: 24.95873, Longitude: 67.10335 }), p = shortestPath((ab)-[*..150]-(cd))")
.Return(p => new PathsResult<PointEntity>
{
Nodes = Return.As<IEnumerable<Node<PointEntity>>>("nodes(p)"),
});
How can I get all the nodes returned by the query in C# as a List of PointEntity Types?
EDIT :
I was able to get back the URIs of the nodes and relations from this code:
var pathsQuery =
client.Cypher
.Match("(ab:Point { Latitude: 24.96325, Longitude: 67.11343 }),(cd:Point { Latitude: 24.95873, Longitude: 67.10335 }), p = shortestPath((ab)-[*..150]-(cd))")
var results = pathsQuery.Return<PathsResult>("p").Results;
Following Craig Brett's blog here:
http://craigbrettdevden.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/retrieving-paths-in-neo4jclient.html
I tried to get the POCO but got error:
var paths = pathsQuery.Returns<PathsResult>("EXTRACT(n in nodes(p) : n) AS Nodes, EXTRACT(rel in rels(p) : rel) AS Relationships", CypherResultMode.Projection).Results;
Error:
'Neo4jClient.Cypher.ICypherFluentQuery' does not contain a definition for 'Returns' and no extension method 'Returns' accepting a first argument of type 'Neo4jClient.Cypher.ICypherFluentQuery' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
A:
I can't say why the first query isn't working, I can't test it right now as my version of Neo4j isn't letting me use parameters in my MATCH clause. However - I do get my version (below) responding fine. In terms of timing out, the [*..150] is quite a large potential traversal.
could you try running:
var pathsQuery =
Client.Cypher
.Match("p = shortestPath((ab:Point)-[*..150]-(cd:Point))")
.Where((PointEntity ab) => ab.Latitude == 24.96325)
.AndWhere((PointEntity ab) => ab.Longitude == 67.11343)
.AndWhere((PointEntity cd) => cd.Latitude == 24.95873)
.AndWhere((PointEntity cd) => cd.Longitude == 67.10335)
.Return(p => new PathsResult<PointEntity>
{
Nodes = Return.As<IEnumerable<Node<PointEntity>>>("nodes(p)"),
Relationships = Return.As<IEnumerable<RelationshipInstance<object>>>("rels(p)")
});
var res = pathsQuery.Results;
Where PathsResult is defined as:
public class PathsResult<TNode>
{
public IEnumerable<Node<TNode>> Nodes { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<RelationshipInstance<object>> Relationships { get; set; }
}
The benefit here is that the WHERE clauses are paramaterized.
|
2024-05-11T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8908
|
Bryant, the five-time NBA champion and 13-time All Star, can be seen yelling the slur 30 seconds in:
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT advocacy group, issued this statement:
“What a disgrace for Kobe Bryant to use such horribly offensive and distasteful language, especially when millions of people are watching. Hopefully Mr. Bryant will recognize that as a person with such fame and influence, the use of such language not only offends millions of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] people around the world, but also perpetuates a culture of discrimination and hate that all of us, most notably Mr. Bryant, should be working to eradicate.”
GLAAD, the prominent LGBT media advocacy and anti-defamation organization, took a more measured approach and called on the franchise to step up and educate:
“Discriminatory slurs have no place on or off the court,” said GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios. “Professional sports players need to set a better example for young people who use words like this on the playground and in our schools, creating a climate of intolerance and hostility. The LA Lakers have a responsibility to educate their fans about why this word is unacceptable.”
“What I said last night should not be taken literally,” he said. “My actions were out of frustration during the heat of the game, period. The words expressed do NOT reflect my feelings towards the gay and lesbian communities and were NOT meant to offend anyone.”
GLAAD and HRC are doing what advocacy organizations do. While there are bigger fights to fight, the heavy lift of stamping out homophobia in sports starts at the top. But those statements have nothing on what’s going on in comments sections of gay-related blogs, with people calling for his head.
One commenter wrote: “So we’re surprised when a rapist is also a homophobe?”
Another: “Kobe Bryant is a disgusting person. The LA Lakers are a sexist and homophobic organization.”
Another took aim at his apology, writing: “I think what he meant to say is: ‘It perfectly represents how I feel about the f#@king faggots.'”
Bryant should never have used that word, even if it came from a hardened competitor in the heat of a live sporting event. He doesn’t, and shouldn’t, get a free pass because he’s rich and famous. He was wrong. He definitely knows that. He apologized. And he needs to cut a huge check to the Trevor Project or an anti-bullying campaign of his choice. That much is clear.
But the venom for Kobe, and for those attempting to put his slur into context, is a bit misguided. I know that it’s tough to show restraint for people who don’t afford you the same courtesy, but it’s possible that not every time someone calls someone else a “fag” or says “that’s gay” they actually hate gay people, or even have the slightest problem with gay people. Do you think for one second that Kobe Bryant gives a crap about whether someone has same-sex attractions?
Bryant’s having a bad day, and he’s paying for a clear mistake, an obvious error in judgment. There are idiotic slip-ups, and there are real-deal homophobes that deserve every ounce of our rancor.
Let’s see which way this episode takes him before we continue to call for his blood. Instead, perhaps, we should hail this moment as progress. An athlete used an unusable slur and actually faced punishment for it. Nothing got swept under the rug, and nobody made apologies for him but himself.
If anything, while there’s no more arbitrary phrase than “teachable moment,” this episode tells other athletes that their words will be used against them, and it tells kids in and out of sports that people out there will stand up for them, even when an NBA superstar is standing on the other side.
The negative part of this chapter is closed. Now’s the time to work with Bryant, work with the Lakers, work with the NBA to use this moment to shape future actions. The ugly part’s over.
|
2024-03-23T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9987
|
Summer is just around the corner, and with it comes news of Syfy’s summer slate including new seasons of Dark Matter, Killjoys, 12 Monkeys, and Wynonna Earp, along with Grindhouse newcomer Blood Drive and our favorite moment...
In what must surely come as bittersweet news to fans of the series, Syfy’s 12 Monkeys has been renewed for a fourth season, which will also be its last. The network also announced that the series’ entire...
No, it isn’t a time twisted headline from 1995. Madeleine Stowe, who originally starred in the film version of Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys as Dr. Kathryn Railly, will guest in Syfy’s TV series this season, reports EW.com. The Revenge alum (Goodbye...
Syfy has announced premiere dates for season 2 of 12 Monkeys and a first season of Hunters from The walking Dead’s Gale Ann Hurd. 12 Monkeys returns for a second season comprising 13 episodes on Monday, April 18 at...
12 Monkeys is arguably the strongest addition to Syfy’s re-vamped slate of dark and gritty programming. Its fleshed out characters, complex relationships and intricate world building make it a prime example of what the network — and genre...
It’s been one hell of a ride, but Syfy’s 12 Monkeys is officially hurtling towards its final episode of the season on April 10. In episode 1×13 “Arms of Mine” Cole and Railly attempt a final confrontation with their...
Have you ever, out of a handful of viral apocalypse survivors, got the chance to go back in time and influence the creation (and destruction) of the very virus that wipes out over 6 billion people —...
12 Monkeys fans, we’ve got a brand new batch of images for the upcoming April 3 episode. This series hasn’t been short on time-jumping surprises and it looks like “Paradox” will be keeping up with tradition. The episode...
“Somebody, someday will judge us for what we’ve done.” Marcus Whitely delivers this gut wrenching line that stitches together the various table-turning events of 12 Monkeys “Divine Move.” While stirring, it’s what Whitley doesn’t say — the sentiment...
Straight from Syfy we’ve got a brand new gallery of images and a small synopsis for 12 Monkeys upcoming episode “Shonin.” In the March 27 episode, fans will see our anti-hero jumping back in time to carry out...
This week’s episode of 12 Monkeys probably gave you serious time-jumping whiplash — which seems like a pretty difficult task considering how much back and forth the show does already. However, the ADHD approach logically and effectively wove...
Syfy has renewed time-travel drama 12 Monkeys for a second season, it was confirmed today. Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett (Nikita), co-executive producers and writers of the pilot, will take over show runner duties as Natalie Chaidez leaves to...
12 Monkeys fans, we’ve got a collection of first look images to share with you from the show’s upcoming March 20 installment. In “Divine Move” Syfy teases that forces come to a head when Ramse does what...
Cole splinters back in time to the height of the plague in these first look images from 12 Monkey’s March 13 episode. Titled “Tomorrow” the episode will find Cole finds in 2017 at the height of the plague....
After playing with time(lines) the last two episodes, 12 Monkeys expands its past plot by generating even more threats. In the end, the creative choice to offer tangible consequences creates the series’ most cohesive episodic storyline to...
12 Monkeys fans, we’ve got first look images to share with you from the show’s March 6 episode. In “Yesterday” the Core that powers the time machine is fading, leaving Cole stuck in the past. But in...
12 Monkeys fans, we’ve got a collection of first look images from the show’s Feb. 27 episode to share. The episode, titled “The Keys” will see Cole, Railly and Aaron racing to stop the virus from being deployed...
Via Syfy: Syfy celebrates President’s Day with back-to-back marathons of the critically acclaimed series 12 Monkeys and Helix on Monday, February 16 from 9 AM – 7 PM (ET/PT). Fans will have a chance to watch or re-watch both series, which are both...
|
2024-06-02T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1610
|
[Evaluation of hospital care. An experiment at the Public Assistance Hospitals in Paris].
Since 1990 the Assistance Publique--Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) developed a policy of health care assessment in agreement with the implications of the law of July 31, 1991. The department of Evaluation of health care, in close collaboration with the local Committees which operate in most of the hospitals of AP-HP, performed during the last three years about fifty studies dealing with two main topics: professional procedures and quality of care. Through three specific selected studies, the authors emphasize the requirements of an assessment policy to efficiently contribute to the improvement of quality of care.
|
2024-02-06T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4417
|
The Iranian protesters currently participating in nationwide demonstrations to demand basic freedom and a regime change deserve international support. With European leaders mostly silent, President Trump has been right to tweet his support for the demonstrators, writes the Washington Post's editorial board. While Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has recognized their right to protest and even acknowledged that they had legitimate grievances, the protesters now need the Trump administration to hold him accountable to avoid bloodshed and violent crackdowns. America and the West should also do what they can to support peaceful protests.
Given that President Trump has previously blamed Iran for nearly all of the Middle East's problems and publicly accuses it of spreading destruction around the globe, it would behoove the anti-government protesters if he would not speak out on their behalf. Any support from the US government may do more harm than good at this point, argues Philip Gordon in the New York Times, especially as it is not yet known what the protest movement is really about or where it will lead. Many in the Trump administration argue that the only way for true change in Iran is through regime change, which is more likely to happen if mass protests don't have public support from Washington.
|
2024-07-17T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3658
|
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied most of the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Sixth Amendment grants criminal defendants the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury consisting of jurors from the state and district in which the crime was alleged to have been committed. Under the impartial jury requirement, jurors must be unbiased, and the jury must consist of a representative cross-section of the community. The right to a jury applies only to offenses in which the penalty is imprisonment for longer than six months. In Barker v. Wingo, the Supreme Court articulated a balancing test to determine whether a defendant's right to a speedy trial had been violated, and held that any delay of longer than a year would be "presumptively" (but not absolutely) prejudicial. The Supreme Court has held that the requirement of a public trial is not absolute, and that both the government and the defendant can in some cases request a closed trial.
The Sixth Amendment requires that criminal defendants be given notice of the nature and cause of accusations against them. The amendment's Confrontation Clause gives criminal defendants the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, while the Compulsory Process Clause gives criminal defendants the right to call their own witnesses and, in some cases, compel witnesses to testify. The Assistance of Counsel Clause grants criminal defendants the right to be assisted by counsel. In Gideon v. Wainwright and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court held that a public defender must be provided to criminal defendants unable to afford an attorney in all trials where the defendant faces the possibility of imprisonment.
Text
Rights secured
Speedy trial
Criminal defendants have the right to a speedy trial. In Barker v. Wingo, , the Supreme Court laid down a four-part case-by-case balancing test for determining whether the defendant's speedy trial right has been violated. The four factors are:
Length of delay. A delay of a year or more from the date on which the speedy trial right "attaches" (the date of arrest or indictment, whichever first occurs) was termed "presumptively prejudicial," but the Court has never explicitly ruled that any absolute time limit applies.
Reason for the delay. The prosecution may not excessively delay the trial for its own advantage, but a trial may be delayed to secure the presence of an absent witness or other practical considerations (e.g., change of venue).
Time and manner in which the defendant has asserted his right. If a defendant agrees to the delay when it works to his own benefit, he cannot later claim that he has been unduly delayed.
Degree of prejudice to the defendant which the delay has caused.
In Strunk v. United States, , the Supreme Court ruled that if the reviewing court finds that a defendant's right to a speedy trial was violated, then the indictment must be dismissed and/or the conviction overturned. The Court held that, since the delayed trial is the state action which violates the defendant's rights, no other remedy would be appropriate. Thus, a reversal or dismissal of a criminal case on speedy trial grounds means that no further prosecution for the alleged offense can take place.
Public trial
In Sheppard v. Maxwell, , the Supreme Court ruled that the right to a public trial is not absolute. In cases where excess publicity would serve to undermine the defendant's right to due process, limitations can be put on public access to the proceedings. According to Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, , trials can be closed at the behest of the government if there is "an overriding interest based on findings that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest." The accused may also request a closure of the trial; though, it must be demonstrated that "first, there is a substantial probability that the defendant's right to a fair trial will be prejudiced by publicity that closure would prevent, and second, reasonable alternatives to closure cannot adequately protect the defendant's right to a fair trial."
Impartial jury
The right to a jury has always depended on the nature of the offense with which the defendant is charged. Petty offenses—those punishable by imprisonment for no more than six months—are not covered by the jury requirement. Even where multiple petty offenses are concerned, the total time of imprisonment possibly exceeding six months, the right to a jury trial does not exist. Also, in the United States, except for serious offenses (such as murder), minors are usually tried in a juvenile court, which lessens the sentence allowed, but forfeits the right to a jury.
Originally, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial indicated a right to "a trial by jury as understood and applied at common law, and includes all the essential elements as they were recognized in this country and England when the Constitution was adopted." Therefore, it was held that juries had to be composed of twelve persons and that verdicts had to be unanimous, as was customary in England.
When, under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court extended the right to a trial by jury to defendants in state courts, it re-examined some of the standards. It has been held that twelve came to be the number of jurors by "historical accident," and that a jury of six would be sufficient, but anything less would deprive the defendant of a right to trial by jury. The Sixth Amendment mandates unanimity in a federal jury trial. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, while requiring states to provide jury trials for serious crimes, does not incorporate all the elements of a jury trial within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment. Thus, states are not mandated to require jury unanimity, unless the jury has only six members.
Impartiality
The Sixth Amendment requires juries to be impartial. Impartiality has been interpreted as requiring individual jurors to be unbiased. At voir dire, each side may question potential jurors to determine any bias, and challenge them if the same is found; the court determines the validity of these challenges for cause. Defendants may not challenge a conviction because a challenge for cause was denied incorrectly if they had the opportunity to use peremptory challenges.
In Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado (2017), the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires a court in a criminal trial to investigate whether a jury's guilty verdict was based on racial bias. For a guilty verdict to be set aside based on the racial bias of a juror, the defendant must prove that the racial bias "was a significant motivating factor in the juror's vote to convict."
Venire of juries
Another factor in determining the impartiality of the jury is the nature of the panel, or venire, from which the jurors are selected. Venires must represent a fair cross-section of the community; the defendant might establish that the requirement was violated by showing that the allegedly excluded group is a "distinctive" one in the community, that the representation of such a group in venires is unreasonable and unfair in regard to the number of persons belonging to such a group, and that the under-representation is caused by a systematic exclusion in the selection process. Thus, in Taylor v. Louisiana, , the Supreme Court invalidated a state law that exempted women who had not made a declaration of willingness to serve from jury service, while not doing the same for men.
Sentencing
In Apprendi v. New Jersey, , and Blakely v. Washington, , the Supreme Court ruled that a criminal defendant has a right to a jury trial not only on the question of guilt or innocence, but also regarding any fact used to increase the defendant's sentence beyond the maximum otherwise allowed by statutes or sentencing guidelines. In Alleyne v. United States, 11-9335 (2013), the Court expanded on Apprendi and Blakely by ruling that a defendant's right to a jury applies to any fact that would increase a defendant's sentence beyond the minimum otherwise required by statute. In United States v. Haymond (2019), the Court will decide whether jury fact finding is also required if a federal supervised release revocation would carry a mandatory minimum prison sentence.
Vicinage
Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution requires defendants be tried by juries and in the state in which the crime was committed. The Sixth Amendment requires the jury to be selected from judicial districts ascertained by statute. In Beavers v. Henkel, , the Supreme Court ruled that the place where the offense is charged to have occurred determines a trial's location. Where multiple districts are alleged to have been locations of the crime, any of them may be chosen for the trial. In cases of offenses not committed in any state (for example, offenses committed at sea), the place of trial may be determined by the Congress.
Notice of accusation
A criminal defendant has the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. Therefore, an indictment must allege all the ingredients of the crime to such a degree of precision that it would allow the accused to assert double jeopardy if the same charges are brought up in subsequent prosecution. The Supreme Court held in United States v. Carll, , that "in an indictment... it is not sufficient to set forth the offense in the words of the statute, unless those words of themselves fully, directly, and expressly, without any uncertainty or ambiguity, set forth all the elements necessary to constitute the offense intended to be punished." Vague wording, even if taken directly from a statute, does not suffice. However, the government is not required to hand over written copies of the indictment free of charge.
Confrontation
The Confrontation Clause relates to the common law rule preventing the admission of hearsay, that is to say, testimony by one witness as to the statements and observations of another person to prove that the statement or observation was true. The rationale was that the defendant had no opportunity to challenge the credibility of and cross-examine the person making the statements. Certain exceptions to the hearsay rule have been permitted; for instance, admissions by the defendant are admissible, as are dying declarations. Nevertheless, in California v. Green, , the Supreme Court has held that the hearsay rule is not the same as the Confrontation Clause. Hearsay is admissible under certain circumstances. For example, in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), the Supreme Court ruled that while a defendant's out of court statements were admissible in proving the defendant's guilt, they were inadmissible hearsay against another defendant. Hearsay may, in some circumstances, be admitted though it is not covered by one of the long-recognized exceptions. For example, prior testimony may sometimes be admitted if the witness is unavailable. However, in Crawford v. Washington, , the Supreme Court increased the scope of the Confrontation Clause by ruling that "testimonial" out-of-court statements are inadmissible if the accused did not have the opportunity to cross-examine that accuser and that accuser is unavailable at trial. In Davis v. Washington , the Court ruled that "testimonial" refers to any statement that an objectively reasonable person in the declarant's situation would believe likely to be used in court. In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009), and Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. 647 (2011), the Court ruled that admitting a lab chemist's analysis into evidence, without having him testify, violated the Confrontation Clause. In Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344 (2011), the Court ruled that the "primary purpose" of a shooting victim's statement as to who shot him, and the police's reason for questioning him, each had to be objectively determined. If the "primary purpose" was for dealing with an "ongoing emergency", then any such statement was not testimonial and so the Confrontation Clause would not require the person making that statement to testify in order for that statement to be admitted into evidence.
The right to confront and cross-examine witnesses also applies to physical evidence; the prosecution must present physical evidence to the jury, providing the defense ample opportunity to cross-examine its validity and meaning. Prosecution generally may not refer to evidence without first presenting it.
In the late 20th and early 21st century this clause became an issue in the use of the silent witness rule.
Compulsory process
The Compulsory Process Clause gives any criminal defendant the right to call witnesses in his favor. If any such witness refuses to testify, that witness may be compelled to do so by the court at the request of the defendant. However, in some cases the court may refuse to permit a defense witness to testify. For example, if a defense lawyer fails to notify the prosecution of the identity of a witness to gain a tactical advantage, that witness may be precluded from testifying.
Assistance of counsel
A criminal defendant has the right to be assisted by counsel.
In Powell v. Alabama, , the Supreme Court ruled that "in a capital case, where the defendant is unable to employ counsel, and is incapable adequately of making his own defense because of ignorance, feeble mindedness, illiteracy, or the like, it is the duty of the court, whether requested or not, to assign counsel for him." In Johnson v. Zerbst, , the Supreme Court ruled that in all federal cases, counsel would have to be appointed for defendants who were too poor to hire their own.
In 1961, the Court extended the rule that applied in federal courts to state courts. It held in Hamilton v. Alabama, , that counsel had to be provided at no expense to defendants in capital cases when they so requested, even if there was no "ignorance, feeble mindedness, illiteracy, or the like." Gideon v. Wainwright, , ruled that counsel must be provided to indigent defendants in all felony cases, overruling Betts v. Brady, , in which the Court ruled that state courts had to appoint counsel only when the defendant demonstrated "special circumstances" requiring the assistance of counsel. Under Argersinger v. Hamlin, , counsel must be appointed in any case resulting in a sentence of actual imprisonment. Regarding sentences not immediately leading to imprisonment, the Court in Scott v. Illinois, , ruled that counsel did not need to be appointed, but in Alabama v. Shelton, , the Court held that a suspended sentence that may result in incarceration can not be imposed if the defendant did not have counsel at trial.
As stated in Brewer v. Williams, , the right to counsel "[means] at least that a person is entitled to the help of a lawyer at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated against him, whether by formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment." Brewer goes on to conclude that once adversary proceedings have begun against a defendant, he has a right to legal assistance when the government interrogates him and that when a defendant is arrested, "arraigned on [an arrest] warrant before a judge", and "committed by the court to confinement", "[t]here can be no doubt that judicial proceedings ha[ve] been initiated."
Self-representation
A criminal defendant may represent himself, unless a court deems the defendant to be incompetent to waive the right to counsel.
In Faretta v. California, , the Supreme Court recognized a defendant's right to pro se representation. However, under Godinez v. Moran, , a court that believes the defendant is less than fully competent to represent himself can require that defendant to be assisted by counsel. In Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, , the Supreme Court ruled the right to pro se representation did not apply to appellate courts. In Indiana v. Edwards, 554 U.S. 164 (2008), the Court ruled that a criminal defendant could be simultaneously competent to stand trial, but not competent to represent himself.
In Bounds v. Smith, , the Supreme Court held that the constitutional right of "meaningful access to the courts" can be satisfied by counsel or access to legal materials. Bounds has been interpreted by several United States courts of appeals to mean a pro se defendant does not have a constitutional right to access a prison law library to research his defense when access to the courts has been provided through appointed counsel.
See also
Trial in absentia
United States constitutional criminal procedure
References
External links
Kilman, Johnny and George Costello (Eds). (2000). The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation.
CRS Annotated Constitution: Sixth Amendment
Chin, Gabriel and Scott Wells. (1998). Can A Reasonable Doubt have an Unreasonable Price? Limitations on Attorneys Fees in Criminal Cases, 41 Boston College Law Review 1.
06
Category:United States Sixth Amendment case law
Category:1791 in American law
Category:1791 in American politics
Category:United States criminal constitutional law
|
2023-10-25T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9405
|
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <dlfcn.h>
#include "forkserver.h"
#include "forkserver_config.h"
#if !DISABLE_HOOKING
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//Types, Function Prototypes, and Globals ////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//In order to allow for the hooking of functions, regardless of their arguments, we define the hook
//function as having a ton of void * arguments. This allows us to pass these arguments on (regardless
//of whether they actually exist or not).
typedef void * (*orig_function_type)(void *, void *, void *, void *, void *, void *, void *, void *);
//Whether or not we've already started the forkserver
static int init_done = 0;
//A pointer to the original function that we hooked
static orig_function_type orig_func = 0;
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//Function Hooking ///////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
#ifdef __APPLE__
//Define a fake prototype here, otherwise it will complain when it's used.
void CUSTOM_FUNCTION_NAME(void);
#define FUNCTION CUSTOM_FUNCTION_NAME
#define NEW_FUNCTION new_##FUNCTION
#define DYLD_INTERPOSE(_replacment,_replacee) \
__attribute__((used)) static struct{ const void* replacment; const void* replacee; } _interpose_##_replacee \
__attribute__ ((section ("__DATA,__interpose"))) = { (const void*)(unsigned long)&_replacment, (const void*)(unsigned long)&_replacee };
#else //LINUX
#if USE_LIBC_START_MAIN
#define FUNCTION __libc_start_main
#else
#define FUNCTION CUSTOM_FUNCTION_NAME
#endif
#define NEW_FUNCTION FUNCTION
#endif
//Convert FUNCTION into "FUNCTION" so we can use it to call dlsym
#define STRINGIFY_INNER(s) (#s)
#define STRINGIFY(name) STRINGIFY_INNER(name)
#define FUNCTION_NAME STRINGIFY(FUNCTION)
#if USE_LIBC_START_MAIN
static orig_function_type orig_main = 0;
void * fake_main(void * a0, void * a1, void * a2, void * a3, void * a4, void * a5, void * a6, void * a7)
{
__forkserver_init();
return orig_main(a0, a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7);
}
#endif
void * NEW_FUNCTION(void * a0, void * a1, void * a2, void * a3, void * a4, void * a5, void * a6, void * a7)
{
void * ret;
if(orig_func == 0)
orig_func = (orig_function_type)dlsym(RTLD_NEXT, FUNCTION_NAME);
#if USE_LIBC_START_MAIN //we're hooking __libc_start_main
orig_main = a0;
ret = orig_func((void *)fake_main, a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7);
#else //We're hooking a custom function
#if RUN_BEFORE_CUSTOM_FUNCTION //If we want to run before the hooked function
if(!init_done) {
__forkserver_init();
init_done = 1;
}
#endif
ret = orig_func(a0, a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6, a7);
#if !RUN_BEFORE_CUSTOM_FUNCTION //If we want to run after the hooked function
if(!init_done) {
__forkserver_init();
init_done = 1;
}
#endif
#endif
return ret;
}
#ifdef __APPLE__
DYLD_INTERPOSE(NEW_FUNCTION, FUNCTION)
#endif
#endif //!DISABLE_HOOKING
|
2024-04-27T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4970
|
Congressional Republicans are furious – and take a stand.
Congressional Republican leaders laid into House Democrats over their illegitimate so-called impeachment inquiry that is designed to deprive President Trump of basic procedural fairness and boot him from office at bullet-train speed.
“Overturning the results of an American election requires the highest level of fairness and due process, as it strikes at the core of our democratic process,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote on Twitter Oct. 8, as reported by The Hill.
“So far, the House has fallen far short by failing to follow the same basic procedures that it has followed for every other President in our history,” he added.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also weighed in the same day on Twitter.
McCarthy wrote that the president “is right to call out this rushed process because Democrats refuse to protect the transparency and basic fairness that have been integral to previous impeachment proceedings.”
“House Democrats have wanted to undo the results of the 2016 election for three years, and now they’re rushing a sham impeachment process,” he added.
The statements from McConnell and McCarthy came as White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent a letter to Democrat leaders in the House accusing them of working to “overturn the results of the 2016 election” and violating the Constitution with “legally unsupported demands” for evidence from Trump administration officials.
“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” Cipollone wrote.
“Because participating in this inquiry under the current unconstitutional posture would inflict lasting institutional harm on the Executive Branch and lasting damage to the separation of powers, you have left the President no choice,” he added.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) replied in histrionic fashion.
“For a while, the President has tried to normalize lawlessness. Now, he is trying to make lawlessness a virtue,” she said. “The White House letter is only the latest attempt to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the President is above the law.”
It was Sept. 24 that Pelosi purported to launch “an official impeachment inquiry” by the House as news spread that President Trump asked the president of Ukraine to assist in a probe into the leftist plot to remove him office, as well as to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son’s shady dealings in that country.
This “official impeachment inquiry” is unprecedented in the annals of presidential impeachment sagas.
Pelosi was in such a frenzied rush to oust Trump she didn’t bother asking the House of Representatives, whose constitutionally-specified duty is to consider impeachment, to go on record on the matter. Even though the House had a recorded vote all three previous times it considered impeaching a U.S. president, Pelosi discarded 151 years of precedent.
Bill Clinton, who was impeached but not convicted in the Senate, went through it.
On Oct. 8, 1998, the House voted 258-176 to approve what is called a “simple resolution” (meaning it affects only one chamber of Congress) authorizing “the House Committee on the Judiciary, acting as a whole or by any subcommittee thereof appointed by the chairman for the purposes hereof and in accordance with the rules of the Committee, to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House to exercise its constitutional power to impeach President Clinton.”
Richard Nixon, who probably would have been impeached if he hadn’t resigned, also went through it.
On Feb. 6, 1974, the House voted 410-4 to approve a resolution authorizing “the House Committee on the Judiciary to investigate fully and completely whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to impeach President Richard M. Nixon.”
Even a widely disliked post-Civil War president went through the process. In the end he was impeached but his enemies fell one vote short of convicting him in the Senate.
Abraham Lincoln’s successor, President Andrew Johnson, was afforded due process by the House which voted to initiate the impeachment process. “The Joint Committee on Reconstruction rapidly drafted a resolution of impeachment, which passed the House on February 24, 1868, by a vote of 126 to 47,” according to the U.S. Senate’s history pages. “Immediately, the House proceeded to establish an impeachment committee, appoint managers, and draft articles of impeachment.”
Moving measures through the House at breakneck speed, Americans learned during the Obamacare legislative saga, is a Pelosi specialty. She infamously said during that process that reading the massive bill wasn’t realistic. “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it,” she said.
As this writer argued previously, the only reason not to go through a formal vote on opening an impeachment inquiry is to railroad the president and eliminate the possibility of lawmakers being held accountable by Americans. All Americans, no matter their views on our president, deserve to know where their representatives stand on this all-important issue.
But Democrats don’t care about fairness, or democracy, for that matter.
They are creating “a Star Chamber ‘impeachment’ process fueled by anonymous whistleblowers and selective leaks that is not so much designed to remove the president, though they would if they could, but to manipulate the 2020 election,” William A. Jacobson writes at Legal Insurrection.
Since even before Donald Trump was elected president the Left has been trying to make the normal presidential job-related things he has been doing look abnormal. There were anti-Trump protesters outside the Trump International Hotel in the nation’s capital in the dark wee hours of Nov. 9, 2016, not long after the media called the race for Trump. The manufactured, media-driven mass hysteria directed against Trump has grown exponentially over time.
All the tricks the Democrat-media complex have attempted to force Trump from the White House have failed.
We now know that the plot to use fake intelligence from Russia from a dossier compiled by a Trump-hating British spy to surveil Trump’s campaign and transition team was ordered by then-President Barack Hussein Obama. That phony dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee was used to fraudulently obtain surveillance warrants from the secret U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
On Oct. 2 former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Obama directed the intelligence community to spy on Trump, a move that “set off a whole sequence of events” that led to semi-senile former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s anticlimactic report on the Left’s beloved Russian electoral collusion conspiracy theory, the Washington Sentinel reports.
“One point I’d like to make, Anderson, that I don’t think has come up very much before, and I’m alluding now to the president’s criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn’t do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling. If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation.”
The rest of the media ignored this damning admission from Clapper so they could continue bashing Trump.
And the phony impeachment process continues.
|
2024-01-07T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4342
|
Extremists in prisons: How do you curb Islamist recruitment behind bars?
Separate hate preacher cells will only work alongside deradicalisation efforts
With disastrous funding cuts and dramatic overcrowding in prisons, the Labour Party is right to point out the broad brush structural flaws in the government’s plans to tackle radicalisation in prisons.
Labour’s criticism is all about ‘broken window theory’ – for all targeted efforts to change extremist individuals, reduce the vulnerability of prisoners to radicalisation, and prevent charismatic Islamist recruiters from their modus operandi, if we can’t really change the environment they’re in, what is the point?
But this is low-hanging fruit for Labour, and the party must join the specific policy debate about how to counter extremism, in or out of the prison estate.
Despite its failings, the government does understand radicalisation, and Ian Acheson’s inquiry into extremism in prisons makes welcome progress on the topic, with several key recommendations.
How did we get here?
The number of Islamist extremists in prisons has increased for three reasons:
1. First is that a global jihadist insurgency has reached Europe, and while groups like Al Qaeda may have been dispersed into a franchise model, and ISIS are on the back foot militarily, there remains support around the world for this totalitarian ideology and this is reflected disproportionately in the prison population.
2. Second, the expansion of counter-terrorism legislation post-2001 and surveillance operations to mechanise that has meant that beyond committing a terrorist attack, it is now a terrorism-related offence to glorify terrorism, incite terrorism, travel to commit terrorism, and plan terrorism, and that more people doing so are being caught.
3. Third, a systemic blindness or ‘institutional timidity’, as Acheson put it, when dealing with Islamist extremism over the last 20 years, has not just pervaded the prison system, but also various other UK institutions, meaning we are now trying to respond to a problem and simultaneously trying to prevent it from getting worse.
These factors combine to leave our prisons as net exporters of extremism.
What is to be done?
Acheson is right that we need a comprehensive strategy to change this.
We must safeguard the general prison population (Muslim or otherwise) who may be vulnerable to radicalisation and recruitment by Islamist extremists, by addressing their grievances, being fair while firm, and by taking a broader rehabilitative approach to incarceration.
But we must understand that some will use their time behind bars to continue their modus operandi – recruiting for an Islamist cause – and these may not necessarily be ‘hardened terrorists’ like Michael Adebolajo.
They may be charismatic recruiters in for terrorism-related offences like Anjem Choudary, or those inside for other offences, who happen to be extremists.
For that we need to stop them communicating with their target audience, and we need to communicate better ourselves.
Outside of prison that may mean blocking their twitter accounts and not inviting them on the BBC, on the one hand, and promoting counter-narratives to the ‘Us versus Them’ rhetoric they trumpet, on the other.
Inside prison, that means temporarily separating the key radicalisers and recruiters from their target audince, and ensuring that we can offer alternative solutions that are as compelling as the overly-simplified, exclusivist interpretation of Islam that they push.
And as we know in counter-extremism, rather than purely contesting the space occupied by extremists, it often bears more fruit to pivot sideways and change the environment as well as the methods.
This is what, if implemented properly, the recommended specialist units should do.
For all of this, we need to properly resource a rehabilitation programme and these specialist units, and we need to properly train prison staff to ensure that these reforms are sustainable and outlast the current threat posed by extremism.
Division of labour
One smart way of doing this, as Acheson recommends, is joining up processes from arrest through to probation. Prison officers are crucial to this full spectrum plan, so we must support them to implement this and ensure they are sufficiently resourced.
Lastly, I think it sensible to ensure that the rehabilitation work for terrorism-related offenders, the safeguarding work for the general prison population, and the promotion of positive alternatives to extremism isn’t all carried out by the same people.
Prison Imams already have a tough task on their shoulders caring for the spiritual wellbeing of inmates and facing intimidation from inmates.
While they may be experts in faith, they are not necessarily experts in Islamist ideology, the complex psychological process of radicalisation, or how to counter these phenomena.
The most we can ask of prison Imams is that they promote an Islam that is compatible with human rights and British values, that they identify and call out Islamist extremism when they see it, and that they work as part of a multi-agency team in the deradicalisation and rehabilitation process.
3 Responses to “Extremists in prisons: How do you curb Islamist recruitment behind bars?”
And how are those people who find solace in islamist ideology go to the prison in the first place – for what crimes? I’d tend to assume (without really hard data to rely on) that a significant part of the crimes commited by them are crimes linked to poverty. And this lower-class connected to ethnical background perspective might be something helping development of a mindset that would welcome islamist ideology (using as it was mentioned in the post, “us” versus “them” narrative).
It is a really low-hanging fruit for the Labour.
|
2024-04-09T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1206
|
FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining a conventional access control, and FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining problems of the conventional access control.
In a computer system illustrated in FIG. 1, two clusters 1-0 and 1-1 (CL0 and CL1) share a single System Storage Unit (SSU) 2. Each of the clusters CL0 and CL1 has a processor, such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU).
The cluster CL0 rewrites an access region 21 of the SSU 2 according to the following procedure. First, the cluster CL0 refers to a value of a table 22 which indicates whether the access region 21 is presently rewritable. The table 22 is written with values indicating whether each of the access regions within the SSU 2 are rewritable. If the access region 21 that is to be rewritten by the cluster CL0 is in a rewritable state, the cluster CL0 rewrites the value in the table 22 and acquires a right to store. On the other hand, if the access region 21 that is to be rewritten by the cluster CL0 is in a non-rewritable state, the value in the table is reread a number of times and the cluster CL0 waits until this access region 21 assumes the rewritable state. From the time when the table 22 is read until the time when the table 22 is rewritten, access to the same table 22 by the other cluster CL1 is held as illustrated in FIG. 2. A table rewrite instruction for rewriting the table 22 is called a LOCK instruction, and the data length of the LOCK instruction is 8 bytes or less, for example.
When the cluster CL0 secures the right to store to the access region 21 by reading the table 22, the cluster CL0 rewrites the access region. After the rewriting of the access region 21 by the cluster CL0 ends, the cluster CL0 releases the right to store by rewriting the table 22.
For the sake of convenience, a case will be considered where the other cluster CL1 desires to use the data in the access region 21 after the access region 21 has been rewritten by the cluster CL0, in a state where the cluster CL0 is rewriting the access region 21. In this case, the cluster CL0 rewrites the access region 21 according to the procedure described above. For this reason, in order for the cluster CL1 to confirm the end of updating the access region 21 by the cluster CL0, it is either preferable for the cluster CL1 to (A) read the table 22 and find out that the cluster CL0 is not executing the rewriting and confirm the entry of the updated data by reading the data in the access region 21 or, (B) read only the data in the access region 21 and store to the access region 21 data which enables judgement as to whether the updating by the cluster CL0 has ended completely (that is, it is not during the storing), so that the cluster CL1 can confirm the entry of the updated data by reading only the data in the access region 21.
Of the methods (A) and (B) in which the cluster CL1 confirms whether the updating of the access region 21 by the cluster CL0 has ended, a high-speed processing can be expected by the latter method (B), because the method (B) only requires the instruction to be executed once. However, even in the case of the method (B), if the access region 21 is being updated by the cluster CL0, the cluster CL1 must repeat the access a number of times and wait until the updating of the access region 21 by the cluster CL0 is completed. Moreover, due to improvements in the memory access speed in recent years, the transfer process between the cluster CL0 or CL1 and the SSU 2 affects the improvement of the memory access speed more than the internal process of the SSU 2. Consequently, it contributes more to the improvement of the memory access speed by reducing the number of instructions issued to the SSU 2 from each of the clusters CL0 and CL1.
A method has been proposed in which a specific memory access means secures a predetermined address range, and other memory access means are excluded within the predetermined address range, in order to enable free reading and storing by the specific memory access means. However, it is preferable to issue an instruction again in order to release the predetermined address range which has been secured.
The applicant is aware of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications No. 3-160552, No. 61-259362, No. 10-27131 and No. 5-2569.
According to the conventional access control, it is difficult to speed up the procedure in which one cluster confirms the end of updating an access region by another cluster. For this reason, there was a problem in that it is difficult to increase the operation speed of a computer system in which a plurality of clusters share a storage unit.
|
2023-11-27T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6486
|
Q:
Visual Studio Option hangs
Have anyone experience a problem when you click OK button in Visual Studio 2010, VS would hangs? VS used 100% of cpu power of one of cores. Event I didn't change any setting and click OK, it would still run into this issue.
A:
I imported the default "Visual C# Development Settings" (.vssettings) and it fixed the issue.
|
2024-06-26T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6546
|
Share this article on LinkedIn Email
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner thinks it's time rival McLaren gets a grip on 'simple mathematics' and stops complaining about front wing flexing of the RB7, amid renewed controversy about bending bodywork in Formula 1.
Although accusations that Red Bull Racing's front wing is flexing at high loads to help improve downforce have been around since the middle of last year, the FIA has never found anything wrong with the designs of Red Bull's cars either last year or this.
But that has not stopped fresh intrigue about what the nose of the Red Bull Racing car is doing at high speed - and McLaren's Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton both raised questions about what the reigning world champions are up to in Malaysia.
Button said in the official FIA press conference in Malaysia on Thursday: "I know a few people that I have spoken to say it flexes more than what they expect is correct, but I haven't really spent much time looking at it."
Horner, who has repeatedly insisted that his team's car has always complied with the regulations, appeared frustrated on Thursday however when it was mentioned that McLaren's drivers have again cast doubt on the team's front wing design.
Grabbing a notebook from a table of reporters to help display why it appears from photographs that the front wing of the RB7 appears closer to the ground than other cars, Horner said: "Right, shall I explain it in very basic words how it works...
"McLaren have developed a car that has a very low rear ride height, and therefore a low front wing for them doesn't work. We run quite a high rake angle in our car, so inevitably when the rear of the car is higher, the front of the car is going to be lower to the ground.
"It is obvious science, and therefore our wing complies fully with the regulations. It will look lower to the ground because the rake in our car is higher. It is simple mathematics."
Horner said that it was not up to McLaren to decide whether or not Red Bull Racing was running a legal design - as that was a matter only for the FIA.
"We take it is a compliment to be honest as you," he said about the return of talk about his team's car design.
"I think our front wing has been tested more than any other in the pit lane and it complies with the regulations, and that is what we have to do. We don't have to pass a McLaren test, we have to pass an FIA one - and it complies fully with that.
"They [McLaren] have developed a car that is effectively a different philosophy to ours and so the benefit that we see from the front wing is different to the one that they would see from the front wing. That is the basis behind it fundamentally."
World champion Sebastian Vettel was also unmoved by the fresh talk about the front wing design - as he thought the issue had been laid to rest in 2010.
"To be honest, I didn't read a lot about that [the wing] in the last one and a half weeks, but when I heard that, I first checked the date and whether we were talking about 2010 or 2011," he explained, before cheekily making a reference to suggestions last year that Red Bull Racing had even been running an illegal ride-height control mechanism.
"I was a bit confused because I thought we had left that one behind, so I'm just looking forward to the ride height lever for qualifying! What do you want me to say? I haven't got much to say, to be honest. We run the car as we run the car, we had a good weekend in Melbourne and we focus on what's going on."
|
2024-01-18T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1064
|
Transforaminal epidural steroid injection for the treatment of severe back pain caused by cement leakage during kyphoplasty procedure.
Kyphoplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that is increasingly used to treat pain caused by compression fractures of vertebral bodies. A 56-year-old woman who had a compression fracture on the vertebral body of L5 vertebra was admitted to the Algology Department with a severe low back and leg pain. Kyphoplasty was planned for pain relief. She suffered severe pain in her back and left leg immediately after the procedure because of a leakage of injected cement through the fracture line. After injection of triamcinolone and bupivacaine transforaminally into the L5-S1 anterior epidural space, her pain complaints ended. If radicular pain symptoms caused by cement leakage are secondary to a chemically mediated non-cellular inflammatory reaction, transforaminal epidural steroid injection should be useful.
|
2024-07-28T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7055
|
I often regret calling my book, How to Find a Career With Your Humanities Degree in 126 Days. It kinda sounds like a scam. But when I wrote the book, I had a plan: I believe 18-weeks (126 days) is all the time any humanities major needs to build the skills to land a full-time career. I spent a lot…
Yesterday, I received an email from Eden. She wanted to share her story about why she decided not to go to law school. Since bailing on law school, she’s been writing a blog about following her own career path with freelancing and traveling the world. Here is her story. My name is Eden, I’m 23 years old, and I spent…
A fiercely smart man wrote me an email and we talked about a few things. I asked him to share his story about academia. He received a PhD in philosophy. And then decided to quit the academic life and find a new job. Does he regret his choice? Here’s what he had to say: “I would like to share lessons…
Hallelujah. A few weeks ago, I got this email from a nice woman who bought my book and followed my advice. The story has a twist. (I’ve removed her name and details at her request). This is her sellout story: About a year ago I decided to start reading your book and working the steps. Mostly because I had nothing…
When building our skills and advancing our careers, we tend to reach for the same skills again and again. But there’s a simple way to make your skills more valuable and career more secure. It’s a path that people like Elon Musk, Matthew Inman (creator of the Oatmeal), and Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) have all used to amplify their core talent and earn more money.
I recently finished the amazing book Man’s Search for Meaning, written by a concentration camp survivor. The book has a simple premise: what was everyday life like in a concentration camp and in such a horrible existence can you find meaning? When Vicktor directly addresses his friend Otto, a man who he has just made memorize his last vows, and…
Hey gang, I’m very happy to today to share some expert career tips from Sarah Landrum. Sarah is a freelance writer and career blogger. She is also the founder of Punched Clocks, a blog for career happiness and success. I LOVE her advice that when employers talk about experience they actually mean something different. How to overcome the experience gap …
|
2024-04-01T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3177
|
Latest Stories
Just two days before Christmas, in one of those delicious stories the internet was built for, the popular website Bleacher Report -- and some guy (from Portland, Oregon!) named Tom Sunnergran, dropped a bomb on Heat small forward Danny Granger. "D...
(Update: Chaz Adams, Fort Lauderdale's public affairs manager, sent the following response to this story: To clarify, the meeting was called by Commissioner Trantalis as a District 2 meeting and not coordinated with any other Commissioner or the M...
The Florida Supreme Court fired a shot across the bow of Broward Sheriff Scott Israel yesterday. In a 5-2 decision, the court ruled BSO cops had no right to stop and arrest Shawn Tracey, whom they stopped with a brick of cocaine and $23,000 cash. ...
Alan Cherry was a gruff son of a bitch. He was smart. Broward County politicians -- particularly cops -- quaked when they heard his name. Cherry died this past weekend. He was 64. I worked with Cherry long ago in a Sun Sentinel bureau in Pembroke ...
Uber, the controversial car service that has earned a cult following but irked cabdrivers nationwide, has arrived in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. On its website, the company announced UberX service starts today: "We've had an awesome time ...
In one of the bloodiest incidents in recent Palm Beach County history, three teenagers were murdered Monday in Mangonia Park. Nineteen-year-old Carley Chapman and 17-year-olds Martavious Brown and Se'sawn Danford were shot to death in a Mangonia P...
|
2024-05-14T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6019
|
On Friday, Donald Trump tweeted the headline to a recent Washington Examiner story, which read: “Border rancher: ‘We’ve found prayer rugs out here. It’s unreal.’” As the headline suggests, the story is about a New Mexico rancher who claims to have seen prayer rugs—typically used by observers of Islam—near the U.S.-Mexico border. After the headline, Trump added this: “People coming across the Southern Border from many countries, some of which would be a big surprise.”
His decision to amplify the Examiner piece has since come under scrutiny. Why? Because the prayer-rug story sounds an awful lot like something that happens in Sicario: Day of the Soldado, as several people have pointed out on Twitter.
The 2018 action film, which revolves around the drug war along the border, opens with border agents chasing after a group of migrants—one of whom turns out to be a Muslim suicide bomber. He kneels, prays, then detonates his bomb. After that, agents come across abandoned prayer rugs along the border; in the next scene, three suicide bombers walk into a store in Kansas City and kill innocent civilians.
The rancher quoted in the Examiner piece does not give her name, or provide photos or evidence of any sort regarding the prayer rugs she allegedly saw. “So I obviously don’t have any proof of it,” she states in a video interview that does not show her face. She does, however, say that she has had conversations with “agents” who have told her that the number of immigrants from countries besides Mexico has “drastically” increased. According to the Examiner piece, the residents in her remote town do not have a local police department; they rely, instead, on the county sheriff’s department and U.S. Border Patrol. The rancher says that she has encountered Guatemalan and Honduran migrants, but “I’ve never seen any Middle Easterners.”
This tweet is not the first time Trump has apparently echoed plot points in the Sicario franchise while ostensibly speaking about real events at the U.S.-Mexico border. The president has also claimed that women are being taped up and trafficked via the southern border, a reality that has been disputed by immigration and human-trafficking experts. “I think his statements are completely divorced from reality,” said Ashley Huebner, associate director of legal services at the National Immigrant Justice Center, in an interview with The Washington Post. “That’s not a fact pattern that we see.” Other experts told the Post that it is possible women are being taped up and trafficked, and that they could not speak to information the president might have received from law-enforcement officials; that said, they agreed, this is not a frequent occurrence, as he seems to allege it is.
However . . . what Trump describes is, once again, a plot point in the Sicario franchise. Could it be, then, that real governmental talking points are being lifted from movies, so that Trump can find new reasons to justify his proposed, costly border wall? Vanity Fair has reached out to the White House for comment.
Either way, one thing is clear: in the midst of all this talk, the longest government shutdown in history is still ongoing.
More Great Stories from Vanity Fair
— A red carpet Rorschach test
— Don’t worry, Nicole Kidman and Rami Malek are friends
— Are we nearing the end of human civilization?
— Why some Democrats are reconsidering Obama’s legacy
— Bird Box, explained
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.
|
2023-10-30T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5043
|
i don't think she has. they never hung out in high school and just started
living together in jan. they were more friendly rather than friends.
hopefully it will be fun. she seems really nice.
|
2023-09-29T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2030
|
Theoretical studies have been carried out on the structure of the endohedral CoGe10- cluster anion using ab initio (HF) and density functional theory (DFT-B3LYP) methods in conjunction with effective core potential basis sets (LanL2DZ and LanL2DZ*). For the important structures, all-electron basis sets plus polarization and diffuse functions (6-31+G*) are also used. At the levels of calculations employed, the bicapped tetragonal antiprism structure with D-4d symmetry is found to be most stable. Compared with the small fragments [Co + Ge-10(-)(D(4)d)], this structure is 97.7 kcal/mol more stable at the B3LYP/LanL2DZ level. Other low-energy structures have also been optimized on the potential energy surface of the endohedral CoGe10- cluster anion. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
|
2024-02-08T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3788
|
Q:
Python: Write a program that counts positive and negative numbers and computers the average of numbers
I saw a similar post, but it included functions, which mine does not.
Objective: Write a program that reads an unspecific number of integers, determines how many positive and negative values have read, and computes the total and average of the input values (not counting 0's) while the program will halt at 0.
ISSUE I AM HAVING: When using the following test values
1,
2,
-1,
3
I get the following:
The number of positives: 1
The number of negatives: 2
The total amount of numbers used: 3
The average is 1.33 which is 4 / 3
It should be:
The number of positives: 1
The number of negatives: 3
The total amount of numbers used: 4
The average is 1.25 which is 5 / 4
My Attempt below:
positive_number = 0
negative_number = 0
average = 0
count = 0
new_number = 0
user_input = eval(input("Enter enter as many integers as you want, 0 will halt: "))
if user_input == 0:
print("You didn't enter any number, code ended")
else:
while user_input != 0:
user_input = eval(input("Enter enter as many intergers as you want, 0 will halt: "))
if user_input == 0:
print("You didn't enter any number, code ended")
elif user_input != 0 and user_input > 0:
new_number += user_input
positive_number += 1
count += 1
else:
user_input != 0 and user_input < 0
new_number += user_input
negative_number += 1
count += 1
average = (new_number / count)
print("\nThe number of positives:", positive_number)
print("The number of negatives:", negative_number)
print("The total amount of numbers used:", count)
print("The average is", format(average,".2f"), "which is", str(new_number), "/", str(count))
What is causing such error? I can only assume that this is a minor fix?
A:
I've fixed the problems in your code and refactored to trap error conditions and removed unnecessary complications:
positive_number = 0
negative_number = 0
average = 0
count = 0
total = 0
user_input = None
while user_input != 0:
try:
user_input = int(input("Enter enter as many intergers as you want, 0 will halt: "))
except ValueError:
user_input=0
if user_input > 0:
total += user_input
positive_number += 1
count += 1
elif user_input<0:
total += user_input
negative_number += 1
count += 1
if count==0:
print("You didn't enter any number, code ended")
else:
average = total / count
print("\nThe number of positives:", positive_number)
print("The number of negatives:", negative_number)
print("The total amount of numbers used:", count)
print("The average is", format(average,".2f"), "which is", str(total), "/", str(count))
|
2023-09-01T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3073
|
[Diagnostic value of 99mTc-methoxy-isobutyl-isonitril and 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate scintimammography in the preoperative evaluation of breast cancer].
To compare and establish the value of 99mTc-MIBI (methoxyisobutiylisonitrile) and 99mTc-MDP (methylene diphosphonate) scintigraphy in patients with suspicion of breast cancer. The study included 105 patients. All patients were evaluated before surgery by 99mTc-MIBI and 99mTc-MDP scintigraphy. Thoracic SPECT study (Multispect II, Siemens) was performed 10 min. after i.v. injection of 99mTc-MIBI and 2 hours after i.v. injection of 99mTc-MDP. Final diagnosis was achieved after operation by histology. 99mTc-MIBI scintigraphy showed a better sensitivity (87%) than the 99mTc-MDP scintigraphy (81%) and the results are similar in specificity and validity, too. The results suggest that 99mTc-MIBI scintigraphy is a useful method in the preoperative diagnosis of patients with suspicion of breast cancer.
|
2024-01-10T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2822
|
GREEN PUBLIC WORKS — AN HISTORIC INVESTMENT PROGRAMME TO DRIVE THE TRANSITION TO SUSTAINABILITY
1 Establish the Green Public Works (GPW), a public investment agency that will channel Europe’s resources into green transition projects around the continent.
2 For all EU institutions, switch to a Genuine Progress Indicator system of accounting rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
3 Introduce a new Regulation to clarify that the European Central Bank must prioritise employment, social progress and environmental protection.
4 Abandon the dominant model of public-private financing and invest in the transition directly.
5 Adopt a multi-stakeholder governance model for the European Investment Bank (EIB), ensuring that decisions are made with input from scientists, activists, country representatives and other key groups.
6 Fund the green transition by mobilising a coalition of Europe’s public banks — led by the European Investment Bank — to issue green bonds to raise at least five percent of Europe’s GDP in funding that can be channelled into the GPW.
7 Establish multilateral working groups on the green transition at the European System of Central Banks.
8 Intervene in the design of global prudential standards to introduce punitive capital requirements for investments in fossil fuel-heavy and environmentally destructive projects and businesses in the Basel framework.
9 Spend GPW funding on guaranteeing decent public jobs to all European residents who seek one. These jobs will be based on a three-day weekend or four-day working week with lower overall working hours. They will provide workers and communities of democratic control over their workplaces. And they will be local — ensuring that all European residents can earn fair wages in their local communities.
10 Use the GPW to fund an income guarantee for workers in fossil-fuel industries.
11 Fund a Care Income to compensate activities like care for people, the urban environment, and the natural world.
12 Devolve investment decisions made under the GPW to national, regional, and municipal government levels.
13 Allocate distinct lines of funding within the GPW for experimentation in increasing public participation in investment decision making — with a view to entrenching greater participation in local governance.
14 Simplify funding application and reporting processes, and include a free-to-use support service, ensuring greater participation and access of grassroots civil society organisations in investment decision making.
15 Provide incentives for authorities to set up local GPW agencies, to help steer investment decisions and provide technical support.
16 Tie all GPW funding to strict public-procurement criteria that shift public spending towards green materials, fossil-free energy, and community wealth building. Issue funding to authorities that subscribe to a shared set of fundamental principles, including democracy, transparency, and sustainability.
17 Fund a Green Solidarity Network to unite twinning and cooperation arrangements between municipalities, regions, farmers, and communities — enhancing horizontal information-sharing and political decision-making across the continent.
18 Develop a GPW Tracking Tool to allow for public scrutiny and monitoring of GPW-funded projects.
19 Introduce a new EU Public Integrity Authority with the power to investigate and refer violators of European common standards and national regulations to national enforcement agencies.
20 Invest in the European Anti-Fraud Office to reinforce capacity to investigate abuse of public money across the EU.
21 Fund a major buy-back programme for vacant housing stock, repurposing it for public use wherever practicable.
22 Refurbish and retrofit existing housing stock for sustainability through large scale participatory and integrated, neighbourhood-level initiatives to ensure every home is well insulated and in good repair.
23 Accommodate needs created by the changing climate in all new housing, which will be safe and non-toxic, and designed with the participation of the communities that will ultimately use it.
24 Ensure that construction processes are accountable to workers and communities. New buildings will be suitable given the location and nature of existing structures, avoid creating damp or other hazards through unsuitable retrofits, and minimise emissions of greenhouse gases and other environmental breakdown.
25 Establish a Mobility Cohesion Fund to invest in the integration and improvement of Europe’s public transport systems, ensuring cohesion in mobility within and between Europe’s rural communities, towns, cities, regions and countries.
26 As part of the Mobility Cohesion Fund, make all municipal public transport around the continent free at the point of use or available at a low cost that incentivises its use.
27 To ensure maximum mobility for all Europeans — including persons with disabilities — fund a fleet of public taxis and car-pooling services.
28 Invest in an integrated, efficient high-speed rail system using sustainably produced energy, combined with a kerosene tax on intra-EU flights, to eventually replace air travel within the continent.
29 Support the public buy-out of utilities companies across EU member states.
30 Fund projects and organisations engaged in cooperative approaches to socio-digital innovation, such as community-owned internet service providers.
31 Create a democratically-controlled European Data Commons to unlock the power of aggregated data for the common good, while safeguarding privacy, individual sovereignty, security and anonymity.
32 Introduce a European Health and Care Standard, a minimum standard for public healthcare across the continent. Make GPW funding available to parts of Europe that fall below it.
33 Fund a Europe-wide Training Guarantee, supporting opportunities for jobs training across the continent.
34 Invest in shared public services across the continent — from public parks to childcare centres.
35 Support the emergence of workplace democracy across the continent, focusing investment on worker cooperatives and community-led projects based on municipal or local ownership.
36 Invest in establishing the Green Horizon 2050 research and development programme.
37 Ensure that any technologies or techniques developed under the Green Horizon 2050 programme are open source and devised in collaboration with other countries to support the emergence of sustainable economies across the globe.
38 Make GPW transition funding available to firms that meet a high standard of both sustainability and worker empowerment.
39 Establish the Europe Award, a prize for firms that meet the principles of the Green New Deal for Europe and make great strides towards sustainability and workplace democracy.
40 Channel investments towards reinvigorating Europe’s rural communities, supporting environmentally-sustainable food production across the continent.
ENVIRONMENTAL UNION — AN EMERGENCY PACKAGE OF LEGISLATION, REWIRING EUROPE FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND SOLIDARITY
41 Declare a climate and environmental emergency in the EU and commit to continuously updating targets to align with the scientific consensus.
42 Introduce legislation mandating that Europe’s economies operate within the planetary boundaries.
43 Base legislation on detailed data collection on the health of natural systems and new targets for biodiversity across the EU — which must be gathered with a view to informing the legislative process.
44 Replace the EU emissions trading scheme with a fee-and-dividend system, after piloting the new model on a small scale and with the participation of Europe’s residents.
45 Introduce legislation to shut down tax havens, which deprive the European public of vital funds that must be mobilised in support of the transition.
46 Introduce additional fiscal measures, such as an environmental damages tax and a financial transaction tax, to generate funds to support communities on the frontline of the climate and environmental crises.
47 Introduce a new ‘Euro 7’ vehicle emissions standard to prohibit the production of fossil fuel vehicles. This will prohibit dividends for shareholders, or pay for directors of corporations who fail to comply after a transitional period.
48 Pass a new Public Enterprise Directive to codify the right of EU member states and regional states to create golden shares in manufacturing companies to decarbonise production.
49 Amend the Railways Directive to electrify all rail in Europe.
50 Legislate to collect data and phase out all aeroplane flights with comparable times to rail alternatives.
51 Renegotiate the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships to require decarbonisation of fleets to limits of available technology.
52 Negotiate a new International Convention for the Elimination of War Industry to free countries around the world to invest in the fight against climate damage.
53 Encourage taking energy utilities back into public ownership using the Open Method of Coordination and require public voting rights in public utilities.
54 Amend the Electricity Directive, Renewable Energy Directive, and Gas Directive to require 100 percent clean and sustainable energy generation.
55 Introduce robust fossil fuel subsidy reporting standards under the NECP.
56 Link GPW funding to fossil fuel subsidy withdrawal during a transitional period — ensuring that no taxpayer shoulders the burdens of the transition, particularly in fossil-fuel dependent countries.
57 Entrench durability and sustainability at the heart of European manufacturing. As part of that, enhance consumer rights to products of lasting and durable quality, while enshrining in law a right to repair and recyclability.
58 Introduce a new Supermarkets and Stores Directive to require traffic light labelling for carbon and nutrition, no unnecessary plastic, decarbonising transport, a living wage for agricultural workers, and effective enforcement.
59 Introduce new legislation governing both domestic and international supply chains, ensuring that they achieve a reduction in material throughput in Europe and are grounded in principles of justice.
60 Require companies to account for climate risks, and reserve capital fossil fuel assets, on the assumption of paying full compensation for damage caused.
61 Fast-track progress of the Technical Working Group on sustainable finance, and incorporate the taxonomy of social and green investments into a new, punitive prudential framework.
62 Building on the new taxonomy, make emergency amendments to Europe’s prudential rules to penalise investments in non-renewables. In addition to introducing a new ‘brown penalising factor’ for banks and insurers, extend the same principle to securities financing transactions, introducing ‘brown penalising’ margins and haircuts.
63 To safeguard depositors, legislate for the separation of commercial and investment banking, as well as robust and mandatory new disclosure requirements on non-renewable investments.
64 Democratise finance through an Economic Democracy Directive that empowers people to exercise control through elected representatives over all voting rights attached to investments on their money.
65 Expand the mandate of Europe’s financial regulators to monitor progress against climate, environmental and social indicators — and to support the smooth implementation of the new requirements.
66 Entrench sustainability within all firms, amending the Company Law Directive to codify a duty on directors to invest in renewable and sustainable energy, transport, buildings and other practices, with multiplying damages for delay, enforceable by investors, employees, creditors and representative environmental groups.
67 Empower businesses and others to make transparent agreements to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and pollution exempt from competition rules.
68 Make agricultural subsidies conditional upon increasing ‘ecological focus areas’ with forests, meadows and rewilding, from five percent to 20-50 percent of farmed land.
69 Make agricultural payments conditional upon sustainable land practices, including eliminating all unnecessary tilling, fertilisation, pesticides, and machinery, to prioritise retention and reduction of carbon.
70 During a transitional period, withdraw subsidies for big farming corporations and businesses entirely upon the completion of restoration in the natural environment — redirecting the funds towards sustainable food production.
71 Adopt the Common Food Policy, a framework that realigns the various sectoral policies affecting food systems, puts an end to conflicting policy objectives and their hidden costs and puts trade in the service of sustainable development.
72 Terminate all Investor State Dispute Settlement agreements, and introduce the right of communities and democratic representative groups to bring claims to enforce trade rules.
73 Renegotiate the World Trade Organisation rules to include human rights, including the right to the benefits of science, a clean environment and labour standards.
74 Recalibrate EU trade rules to support diversified, self-sustainable economies in Europe and around the world, according to the principle of decarbonisation.
75 Revise Europe’s international development policies to align with the priorities of the Common Food Policy.
76 Recognising that environmental destruction is a threat to human and non-human life, introduce an Environmental Abuse Directive to codify the civil wrong for contributing towards climate and environmental damage, with personal and punitive liability for those who profit from pollution.
77 Recognise that climate damage is criminal damage, and that ecocide is also a crime.
78 Reorient international criminal law to recognise climate damage that amounts to ecocide is a ‘crime against humanity’.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COMMISSION — RESEARCH, MONITORING, AND RECOMMENDATION
79 Establish an Environmental Justice Commission to monitor implementation of the programme along the dimensions of international, intersectional and intergenerational justice.
80 Ensure that the EJC is guided by principles of equal distribution, recognition, and participation of communities across Europe.
81 Structure the EJC across four tiers, from Chairpersons elected to represent EU member-states down to People’s Panels that inform the EJC’s work.
82 Empower the EJC to investigate issues pertaining to environmental justice and propose recommendations to legislative bodies both inside Europe and around the world to address them.
83 The EJC should investigate the international dimension of environmental justice, ranging from trade relations to the rules of the game for transnational corporations.
84 The EJC should address intersectional inequalities inflicted by the environmental crisis and its variable impact on communities in Europe.
85 The EJC should pay particular attention to the challenge of intergenerational justice — both looking addressing past injustices and promoting tools to ensure that future generations inherit a habitable world.
|
2023-09-11T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9106
|
README -- Tk test suite design document.
This directory contains a set of validation tests for the Tk commands.
Please see the tests/README file in the Tcl source distribution for
information about the test suite.
|
2023-09-08T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2415
|
Q:
LINQ Expression Tree
I want to generate expression trees using the API for the following:
var managers = dataContext.Employees.Where(e => e.Subordinates.Any());
Additionally, how do I then generate the expression tree to do this:
var managedEmployees = managers.ToDictionary(key => key.Manager, value => value.Subordinates.Select(s => s.FullName));
I've come up with the following so far for the .Where(), but it errors because it doesn't like the type parameters in new Type[] { typeof(Func<Employee, IEnumerable<Employee>>) }.
ParameterExpression employeesParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Employee), "e");
MemberExpression subordinatesProperty = Expression.Property(employeesParameter, typeof(Employee).GetProperty("Subordinates"));
MethodCallExpression hasSubordinates = Expression.Call(typeof(Enumerable),
"Any",
new Type[] { typeof(Employee) },
subordinatesProperty);
LambdaExpression whereLambda = Expression.Lambda(hasSubordinates, employeesParameter);
MethodCallExpression whereExpression = Expression.Call(typeof(Queryable),
"Where",
new Type[] { typeof(Func<Employee, IEnumerable<Employee>>) },
dataContext.Employees.AsQueryable(),
whereLambda);
A:
I got this. The type parameters on Any and Where need to be Employee, not IQueryable<Employee> or IEnumerable<Employee> because it's just looking for the type parameters, not the actual types. I believe you also need an Expression.Constant(dataContext.Employees) instead of straight dataContext.Employees.
ParameterExpression employeesParameter = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Employee), "e");
MemberExpression subordinatesProperty = Expression.Property(employeesParameter, typeof(Employee).GetProperty("Subordinates"));
MethodCallExpression hasSubordinates = Expression.Call(typeof(Enumerable),
"Any",
new Type[] { typeof(Employee) },
subordinatesProperty);
LambdaExpression whereLambda = Expression.Lambda(hasSubordinates, employeesParameter);
MethodCallExpression whereExpression = Expression.Call(typeof(Queryable),
"Where",
new Type[] { typeof(Employee) },
Expression.Constant(dataContext.Employees),
whereLambda);
|
2023-09-25T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/9696
|
Some of England's top clubs could face large tax demands if Rangers' administrators BDO fail to overturn their 2015 defeat in the so-called 'Big Tax Case' at the Supreme Court next week.
That Scottish Court of Sessions ruling was a reversal of two earlier tribunal hearings which cleared the club's use of employee benefit trusts (EBTs) between 2001 and 2010, a decision that gave Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) the chance to reclaim some of the £49million it claimed it was owed when Rangers went into administration in 2012.
Europa League Bayer Leverkusen beat Rangers to set up Inter Milan clash in Europa League quarter-finals 06/08/2020 AT 17:48
The hearing in the UK's highest court takes place on March 15-16 and another HMRC win could see several other clubs that used the tax-avoidance vehicle being sent accelerated payment notices for income tax and interest.
Andy Wood, a director of Enterprise Tax Consultants, told Press Association Sport he has already helped one English club concerned about the Rangers case to reach a six-figure deal with the taxman over their EBT for a senior official. The Cheshire-based tax expert also said he was aware of "five or six" other private settlements.
Wood said: "The Rangers case has become known as 'the Big Tax Case' and that's not really an exaggeration because the issues involved have left many other clubs very worried about what the outcome might mean.
"They're not only concerned about the possible impact on their ability to attract, retain and reward the very best talent they can but the prospect of HMRC demanding large amounts in tax.
"In addition to the cases I am aware of in which clubs have made payment, I know of further instances in which clubs have received tax demands after disclosing their own use of EBTs.
"Although most of the immediate financial burden rests with clubs which have put these schemes in place, players who have taken loans from the trusts may not be spared as an imminent change in the law would require them to pay tax on monies not repaid by 2019.
"Being asked to stump up large sums may come as a shock for players, especially those in retirement who do not have the earning capacity they once might have had. Some might even be forced into bankruptcy."
Once popular with high earners in finance and football, EBTs enabled companies to circumvent income tax by paying money into trusts that would then be paid out to the beneficiaries of those trusts, the employees, in the form of loans.
HMRC finally tightened the rules around EBTs in 2010, ending Rangers' use of them and precipitating the financial crunch that saw the club thrown out of the Scottish Premier League and forced to rejoin the pyramid in the fourth tier.
Rangers versus HMRC was arguably the highest-profile example of a series of disputes between the national game and the public purse in the first decade of this century, with bitter and costly contests taking place at clubs such as Plymouth, Portsmouth and Sheffield Wednesday, too.
The advent of tighter financial rules in the game has improved matters but HMRC is still annoyed that football creditors get priority treatment in financial crises at clubs.
When asked to comment on Wood's claim it was making deals with clubs over unpaid EBT-related taxes, an HMRC spokesman told Press Association Sport: "HMRC does not do deals and we don't settle for less tax from EBTs than we would get from going to court.
"HMRC is committed to delivering a level playing field for all taxpayers, ensuring those who have used schemes don't derive any long-term advantage over those who play by the rules."
Scottish League Cup Forster the hero as 10-man Celtic beat Rangers in final 08/12/2019 AT 15:56
|
2023-08-09T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6238
|
Cellular adhesion molecules on vascular smooth muscle cells.
Several studies during the last years have shown that, in addition to endothelial cells, vascular smooth muscle cells also express the cellular adhesion molecules ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 in atherosclerosis, restenosis and transplant vasculopathy. In vitro studies have characterized stimulatory and inhibitory factors that regulate the expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 on cultured smooth muscle cells. There is evidence for a role of adhesion molecules on smooth muscle cells for leukocyte accumulation and activation of mononuclear cells. Some recent data suggest that the expression of adhesion molecules on smooth muscle cells are cell cycle-dependent and influence smooth muscle cell proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 on smooth muscle cells may contribute to the inflammatory reaction in the vascular wall and may actively be involved in the progression and stability of atherosclerotic plaques.
|
2024-03-02T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2315
|
Yep, I'll bet Pensacola Kid has changed his opinion of that ever since H. Harvey. I know my family & friends in the area say it's best not to stand too long in one place outside these days or you're likely to take root and sprout leaves!! LOL
AngelGirlNavarre Beach Life Moderator
Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 BSB
It was a freak that is stormed here like it did. Trust me on this one, come June the water will turn off and by late July we would have had a trace of rain and everything will be burned up. Happens every single year.
|
2023-12-24T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/4556
|
‘The Brady Bunch’ Rebooted for CBS by Vince Vaughn, Seriously
It’s been kind of a slow day for TV news, what with most of the major Television Critics Association press tour panels having taken place, but in some cases a slow day is just the calm before the storm. That’s why we’re equally delighted, bewildered and horrified to announce that ‘The Brady Bunch’ will be gracing our TV screens once more in the near future, with a rebooted cast. Also, Vince Vaughn is behind it. Yeah, it’s that kind of day.
Deadline is reporting that CBS has begun development on a ‘Brady Bunch’ reboot to be co-developed, and executive produced by film funnyman Vince Vaughn, and written by Mike Mariano (‘Raising Hope,’ ‘My Name Is Earl’). The multi-camera revival will be helmed by CBS TV studios, which to date has brought about revivals of ‘Hawaii Five-0,’ ‘90210,’ and The CW’s upcoming ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
Far from your typical reboot however, the updated ‘The Brady Bunch’ will follow a divorced Bobby Brady, with children of his own, who remarries a women with kids and fathers another child with her as well. Unlike the original series, in which Carol Brady (Florence Henderson)’s previous husband went unaddressed, it’s said that Bobby Brady and his new wife’s respective ex-spouses will play a larger role in the series.
Vaughn supposedly came up with the idea, teaming with Mariano and Lloyd Schwartz, son of the late Sherwood Schwartz, to executive produce along with Victoria Vaughn and Peter Billingsley through Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show Prods. CBS TV previously own the rights to ‘The Brady Bunch’ by inheriting them from Paramount TV.
While so far Vaughn’s ‘Brady Bunch’ has only received a script order, it would mark the largest attempt to re-vitalize the franchise since the various spinoffs, TV movie reunions, musical, and and moderately-successful movie franchise. No word if any of the original cast will have any involvement.
What say you? Do you think we’re ready for ‘The Brady Bunch’ to make their way back to TV? Who would you like to see take on any of the iconic roles? Give us your take on this unexpected revival in the comments below!
|
2024-06-08T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5012
|
// ------------------------------------------------------------
// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
// Licensed under the MIT License (MIT). See License.txt in the repo root for license information.
// ------------------------------------------------------------
#include "stdafx.h"
using namespace std;
using namespace Common;
using namespace HttpClient;
using namespace HttpCommon;
void SendRequests(IHttpClientSPtr client, ComponentRootSPtr const& root);
void StartThreads(IHttpClientSPtr &client, ComponentRootSPtr const& root, vector<unique_ptr<AutoResetEvent>> &threads);
void StartHttpClient(int numberOfThreads);
ByteBufferUPtr GetBytesToSend(string const&);
void WebSocketCloseReceived(shared_ptr<HttpClientWebSocket>);
void WebsocketClient();
void AbortRequestClient();
void ContainerAttach(wstring const & url, wstring const & clientCertThumbprint = wstring());
string requestString = "data store is designed is subtly--and yet profoundly--different than how an object system is designed.Object systems are typically characterized by four basic components : identity, state, behavior and encapsulation.Identity is an implicit concept in most O - O languages, in that a given object has a unique identity that is distinct from its state(the value of its internal fields)--two objects with the same state are still separate and distinct objects, despite being bit - for - bit mirrors of one another.This is the identity vs. equivalence discussion that occurs in languages like C++, C# or Java, where developers must distinguish between \"a == b\" and \"a.equals(b)\".The behavior of an object is fairly easy to see, a collection of operations clients can invoke to manipulate, examine, or interact with objects in some fashion. (This is what distinguishes objects from passive data structures in a procedural language like C.) Encapsulation is a key detail, preventing outside parties from manipulating internal object details, thus providing evolutionary capabilities to the object's interface to clients.3. From this we can derive more interesting concepts, such as type, a formal declaration of object state and behavior, association, allowing types to reference one another through a lightweight reference rather than complete by-value ownership (sometimes called composition), inheritance, the ability to relate one type to another such that the relating type incorporates all of the related type's state and behavior as part of its own, and polymorphism, the ability to substitute an object in where a different type is expected.Relational systems describe a form of knowledge storage and retrieval based on predicate logic and truth statements.In essence, each row within a table is a declaration about a fact in the world, and SQL allows for operator-efficient data retrieval of those facts using predicate logic to create inferences from those facts.[Date04] and[Fussell] define the relational model as characterized by relation, attribute, tuple, relation value and relation variable.A relation is, at its heart, a truth predicate about the world, a statement of facts(attributes) that provide meaning to the predicate.For example, we may define the relation \"PERSON\" as{ SSN, Name, City }, which states that \"there exists a PERSON with a Social Security Number SSN who lives in City and is called Name\".Note that in a relation, attribute ordering is entirely unspecified.A tuple is a truth statement within the context of a relation, a set of attribute values that match the required set of attributes in the relation, such as \"{PERSON SSN='123-45-6789' Name='Catherine Kennedy' City='Seattle'}\".Note that two tuples are considered identical if their relation and attribute values are also identical.A relation value, then, is a combination of a relation and a set of tuples that match that relation, and a relation variable is, like most variables, a placeholder for a given relation, but can change value over time.Thus, a relation variable People can be written to hold the relation{ PERSON }, and consist of the relation value";
string abortString = "Abort request";
int __cdecl wmain(int argc, __in_ecount(argc) wchar_t* argv[])
{
UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(argc);
UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(argv);
HeapSetInformation(GetProcessHeap(), HeapEnableTerminationOnCorruption, NULL, 0);
CommonConfig::GetConfig(); // load configuration
int numberOfThreads = 30;
if (argc >= 2)
{
if (wcscmp(L"Http", argv[1]) == 0)
{
printf("Starting http client\n");
StartHttpClient(numberOfThreads);
}
else if (wcscmp(L"Websocket", argv[1]) == 0)
{
printf("Starting websocket client\n");
WebsocketClient();
}
else if (wcscmp(L"AbortRequest", argv[1]) == 0)
{
printf("Starting client for abort request\n");
AbortRequestClient();
}
else if (wcscmp(L"ContainerAttach", argv[1]) == 0)
{
if (argc < 3)
{
//Command line examples:
//HttpTransport.TestClient.exe ContainerAttach "ws://sfcontainerdev:19007/Nodes/Node03/$/ContainerApi/containers/65b2d3900219/attach/ws?logs=1&stdout=1&stdin=1&stderr=1&stream=1"
//HttpTransport.TestClient.exe ContainerAttach "ws://sfcontainerdev:19007/Nodes/Node03/$/ContainerApi/containers/65b2d3900219/attach/ws?logs=1&stdout=1&stdin=1&stderr=1&stream=1" D100CA0577F471A4B9525CC561E765C177300979
printf(".exe ConsoleAttach <wsURL> [ClientCertThumbprint]\n");
return -1;
}
if (argc < 4)
{
ContainerAttach(argv[2]);
}
else
{
ContainerAttach(argv[2], argv[3]);
}
return 0;
}
else
{
printf(".exe <Http>/<WebSocket> \n");
return -1;
}
}
else
{
StartHttpClient(numberOfThreads);
}
getchar();
return 0;
}
void WebsocketClient()
{
auto websocket = make_shared<HttpClientWebSocket>(L"ws://localhost:19007/mytest", L"", HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator());
ComponentRootSPtr root = make_shared<ComponentRoot>();
printf("Opening websocket..\n");
AutoResetEvent event;
auto operation = websocket->BeginOpen(
[websocket]()
{
printf("Close callback received");
WebSocketCloseReceived(websocket);
},
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
auto error = websocket->EndOpen(operation);
printf("Open completed with %d\n", error.ReadValue());
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
return;
}
auto requestBody = GetBytesToSend(requestString);
KBuffer::SPtr buffer;
KBuffer::Create(static_cast<ULONG>(requestBody->size()), buffer, HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator());
byte* buf = (byte *)buffer->GetBuffer();
for (int i = 0; i < requestBody->size(); ++i)
{
*buf = (*requestBody)[i];
}
printf("Sending message\n");
auto contentType = KWebSocket::MessageContentType::Binary;
operation = websocket->BeginSendFragment(
buffer,
static_cast<ULONG>(requestBody->size()),
true,
contentType,
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
error = websocket->EndSendFragment(operation);
printf("Sending message completed with %d\n", error.ReadValue());
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
return;
}
KBuffer::SPtr fragmentBuffer;
auto status = KBuffer::Create(512, fragmentBuffer, HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator());
UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(status);
ByteBuffer receivedMessage;
printf("Receiving message \n");
while (true)
{
operation = websocket->BeginReceiveFragment(
fragmentBuffer,
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
ULONG bytesReceived;
bool isFinalFragment;
KBuffer::SPtr tempBuffer;
error = websocket->EndReceiveFragment(operation, tempBuffer, &bytesReceived, isFinalFragment, contentType);
printf("Receive fragment completed with %d, bytes received %d\n", error.ReadValue(), bytesReceived);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
return;
}
if (contentType != KWebSocket::MessageContentType::Binary)
{
printf("Content type not binary\n");
return;
}
byte *fragBuf = (byte*)fragmentBuffer->GetBuffer();
for (ULONG i = 0; i < bytesReceived; ++i)
{
receivedMessage.push_back(*fragBuf);
fragBuf++;
}
if (isFinalFragment)
{
break;
}
}
if (receivedMessage.size() != requestBody->size())
{
printf("Received message size doesn't match %d expected - %d\n",
static_cast<int>(receivedMessage.size()),
static_cast<int>(requestBody->size()));
return;
}
else
{
printf("Received message of size %d\n",
static_cast<int>(receivedMessage.size()));
}
printf("Initiating close");
WebSocketCloseReceived(websocket);
}
void WebSocketCloseReceived(shared_ptr<HttpClientWebSocket> clientWebSocketSPtr)
{
KSharedBufferStringA::SPtr clientCloseReason;
KSharedBufferStringA::Create(clientCloseReason, "going away", HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator());
AutoResetEvent event;
auto statusCode = KWebSocket::CloseStatusCode::GoingAway;
auto operation = clientWebSocketSPtr->BeginClose(
statusCode,
clientCloseReason,
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
AsyncOperationSPtr());
event.WaitOne();
auto error = clientWebSocketSPtr->EndClose(operation);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
printf("Close failed with %d\n", error.ReadValue());
return;
}
printf("Close Succeeded\n");
}
void StartHttpClient(int numberOfThreads)
{
ComponentRootSPtr root = make_shared<ComponentRoot>();
IHttpClientSPtr client;
auto error = HttpClientImpl::CreateHttpClient(
L"TestClient",
*root,
client);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
printf("Creating client failed with %S\n", error.ErrorCodeValueToString().c_str());
return;
}
vector<unique_ptr<AutoResetEvent>> threads;
for (int i = 0; i < numberOfThreads; i++)
{
threads.push_back(make_unique<AutoResetEvent>());
}
Stopwatch stopWatch;
stopWatch.Start();
StartThreads(client, root, threads);
HANDLE handles[MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS];
for (int i = 0; i < threads.size(); ++i)
{
handles[i] = (*threads[i]).GetHandle();
}
::DWORD status = ::WaitForMultipleObjects(static_cast<DWORD>(threads.size()), handles, TRUE, INFINITE);
stopWatch.Stop();
if (status < WAIT_OBJECT_0 + threads.size())
printf("Succeeded... \n");
else
printf("failed \n");
printf("Total time elapsed %ld seconds\n", static_cast<long>(TimeSpan::FromMilliseconds((double)stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds).TotalSeconds()));
}
void StartThreads(IHttpClientSPtr &client1, ComponentRootSPtr const& root, vector<unique_ptr<AutoResetEvent>> &threads)
{
UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(client1);
printf("Starting %d threads ... \n", static_cast<int>(threads.size()));
TimeSpan timeout = TimeSpan::FromMinutes(1);
for (int i = 0; i < threads.size(); ++i)
{
AutoResetEvent & threadEvent = *threads[i];
IHttpClientSPtr client;
HttpClientImpl::CreateHttpClient(
L"TestClient",
*root,
client);
Threadpool::Post(
[&threadEvent, client, &root]()
{
SendRequests(client, root);
threadEvent.Set();
});
}
printf("Started %d threads ... \n", static_cast<int>(threads.size()));
}
void SendRequests(IHttpClientSPtr client, ComponentRootSPtr const& root)
{
IHttpClientRequestSPtr clientRequest;
printf("Starting 5000 requests\n");
TimeSpan timeout = TimeSpan::FromMinutes(1);
for (int i = 0; i < 5000; ++i)
{
auto error = client->CreateHttpRequest(
L"http://localhost:19007/mytest",
timeout,
timeout,
timeout,
HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator(),
clientRequest);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
Assert::CodingError("Creating client request failed with {0}", error);
}
clientRequest->SetVerb(*HttpConstants::HttpPostVerb);
AutoResetEvent event;
ByteBufferUPtr requestBody = GetBytesToSend(requestString);
clientRequest->SetRequestHeader(*HttpConstants::ContentTypeHeader, L"application/text");
auto operation = clientRequest->BeginSendRequest(
move(requestBody),
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
ULONG winHttpError;
error = clientRequest->EndSendRequest(operation, &winHttpError);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
if (winHttpError == ERROR_WINHTTP_CANNOT_CONNECT)
{
printf("Client request failed because it cannot connect to the server\n");
continue;
//Assert::CodingError("Client request failed because it cannot connect to the server");
}
else if (winHttpError == ERROR_WINHTTP_TIMEOUT)
{
Assert::CodingError("Client request failed because the server didnt respond on time");
}
else if (winHttpError == ERROR_WINHTTP_CONNECTION_ERROR)
{
printf("Client request failed because of connection error\n");
continue;
}
Assert::CodingError("Client request failed with winHttpError - {0}", winHttpError);
}
operation = clientRequest->BeginGetResponseBody(
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
ByteBufferUPtr body;
error = clientRequest->EndGetResponseBody(operation, body);
if (error.IsError(ErrorCodeValue::NotFound) || !error.IsSuccess())
{
USHORT statusCode;
wstring description;
clientRequest->GetResponseStatusCode(&statusCode, description);
Assert::CodingError("Client request failed with {0}", statusCode);
}
string message(reinterpret_cast<CHAR *>((*body).data()), body->size());
if (message != "<b><i>Hello from Gateway</b></i>")
{
USHORT statusCode;
wstring description;
clientRequest->GetResponseStatusCode(&statusCode, description);
Assert::CodingError("Invalid message from server - got {0}", message);
}
}
printf("Finishing 1000 requests\n");
}
void AbortRequestClient()
{
ComponentRootSPtr root = make_shared<ComponentRoot>();
IHttpClientSPtr client;
auto error = HttpClientImpl::CreateHttpClient(
L"AbortRequestClient",
*root,
client);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
printf("Creating client failed with %S\n", error.ErrorCodeValueToString().c_str());
return;
}
IHttpClientRequestSPtr clientRequest;
TimeSpan timeout = TimeSpan::FromMinutes(1);
error = client->CreateHttpRequest(
L"http://localhost:19007/mytest",
timeout,
timeout,
timeout,
HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator(),
clientRequest);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
Assert::CodingError("Creating client request failed with {0}", error);
}
clientRequest->SetVerb(*HttpConstants::HttpPostVerb);
AutoResetEvent event;
ByteBufferUPtr requestBody = GetBytesToSend(abortString);
clientRequest->SetRequestHeader(*HttpConstants::ContentTypeHeader, L"application/text");
auto operation = clientRequest->BeginSendRequest(
move(requestBody),
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
ULONG winHttpError;
error = clientRequest->EndSendRequest(operation, &winHttpError);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
if (winHttpError == ERROR_WINHTTP_CANNOT_CONNECT)
{
printf("Client request failed because it cannot connect to the server\n");
return;
}
else if (winHttpError == ERROR_WINHTTP_TIMEOUT)
{
Assert::CodingError("Client request failed because the server didnt respond on time");
return;
}
else if (winHttpError == ERROR_WINHTTP_CONNECTION_ERROR)
{
printf("Client request failed because of connection error\n");
return;
}
Assert::CodingError("Client request failed with winHttpError - {0}", winHttpError);
}
operation = clientRequest->BeginGetResponseBody(
[&event](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
event.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
event.WaitOne();
ByteBufferUPtr body;
error = clientRequest->EndGetResponseBody(operation, body);
if (error.IsError(ErrorCodeValue::NotFound) || !error.IsSuccess())
{
USHORT statusCode;
wstring description;
clientRequest->GetResponseStatusCode(&statusCode, description);
Assert::CodingError("Client request failed with {0}", statusCode);
}
printf("Reached the end of AbortClient");
}
ByteBufferUPtr GetBytesToSend(string const &requestBodyString)
{
ByteBufferUPtr requestBody = make_unique<ByteBuffer>();;
BYTE *byte = (BYTE *)requestBodyString.c_str();
for (int i = 0; i < requestBodyString.length(); ++i)
{
requestBody->push_back(byte[i]);
}
return requestBody;
}
static bool detachSequenceReceived = false;
ByteBufferUPtr ContainerAttach_GetInput()
{
static bool ctrlpReceived = false;
ByteBufferUPtr requestBody = make_unique<ByteBuffer>();
auto ch = (char)_getch();
if (ch == 17 /*ctrl-q*/)
{
if (ctrlpReceived)
{
detachSequenceReceived = true;
}
}
else
{
ctrlpReceived = (ch == 16 /*ctrl-p*/);
}
requestBody->push_back(ch);
return requestBody;
}
DWORD ContainerAttach_GetDwordFromBytes(byte const *b)
{
return (b[3]) | (b[2] << 8) | (b[1] << 16) | (b[0] << 24);
}
void ContainerAttach_ProcessIncomingStream(ByteBuffer const & body)
{
if (body.empty()) return;
int index = 0;
while (index < body.size())
{
auto b = body[index];
if (b == 0 || b == 1 || b == 2) // check for docker stream headers in non-tty mode
{
DWORD size = ContainerAttach_GetDwordFromBytes(&(body[index + 4]));
string str((char *)(&body[index + 8]), size);
if (b == 2)
{
std::cerr << str;
}
else if (b == 0)
{
std::cout << str;
}
else if (b == 1)
{
std::cout << str;
}
index = index + 8 + size;
continue;
}
//tty mode
index++;
if (b == 0x1b)
{
b = body[index++];
if (b == 0x5d /* ']' */)
{
// skip OSC sequenece
while ((index < body.size()) && (body[index++] != 0x7));
}
else if (b == 0x5b /* '[' */)
{
// skip escape sequenece
while (index < body.size())
{
auto ch = (char)(body[index++]);
if ((ch == 'm') || (ch == 'K') || (ch == 'H') || (ch == 'f') || (ch == 'l') || (ch == 'h'))
{
break;
}
}
}
else
{
std::cout << "unknown escape code: " << hex << b << endl;
}
}
else
{
std::cout << b;
}
}
}
BOOLEAN ValidateServerCertificate(PVOID, PCCERT_CONTEXT)
{
return TRUE;
}
void ContainerAttach(wstring const & url, wstring const & clientCertThumbprint)
{
HANDLE hStdin = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
DWORD mode = 0;
GetConsoleMode(hStdin, &mode);
SetConsoleMode(hStdin, mode & (~ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT));
KFinally([=] { SetConsoleMode(hStdin, mode); });
CertContextUPtr clientCert;
if (!clientCertThumbprint.empty())
{
X509FindValue::SPtr findValue;
auto err = X509FindValue::Create(X509FindType::FindByThumbprint, clientCertThumbprint, findValue);
if (!err.IsSuccess())
{
wcout << "Failed to convert '" << clientCertThumbprint << "' to thumbprint: " << err.ErrorCodeValueToString() << endl;
exit(1);
}
err = CryptoUtility::GetCertificate(
X509StoreLocation::CurrentUser,
X509Default::StoreName(),
findValue,
clientCert);
if (!err.IsSuccess())
{
wcout << "Failed to load certificate '" << clientCertThumbprint << "' : " << err.ErrorCodeValueToString() << endl;
exit(1);
}
}
KHttpClientWebSocket::ServerCertValidationHandler handler(nullptr, ValidateServerCertificate);
auto websocket = make_shared<HttpClientWebSocket>(
url,
L"",
HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator(),
4096,
4096,
5000, // 5 seconds
10000, // 10 seconds - WINHTTP_OPTION_WEB_SOCKET_CLOSE_TIMEOUT
nullptr,
clientCert.get(),
handler);
ComponentRootSPtr root = make_shared<ComponentRoot>();
{
wcout << "[opening] " << url;
AutoResetEvent openCompleteEvent;
auto operation = websocket->BeginOpen(
[websocket]() { WebSocketCloseReceived(websocket); },
[&openCompleteEvent](AsyncOperationSPtr const &) { openCompleteEvent.Set(); },
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
openCompleteEvent.WaitOne();
auto error = websocket->EndOpen(operation);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
printf("\n[failed] error: 0x%x\n", error.ReadValue());
return;
}
printf("\n\n");
}
Threadpool::Post([websocket, root]
{
auto contentType = KWebSocket::MessageContentType::Binary;
for (;;)
{
KBuffer::SPtr fragmentBuffer;
auto status = KBuffer::Create(512, fragmentBuffer, HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator());
KInvariant(SUCCEEDED(status));
ByteBuffer receivedMessage;
for (;;)
{
AutoResetEvent receiveCompleteEvent;
auto operation = websocket->BeginReceiveFragment(
fragmentBuffer,
[&receiveCompleteEvent](AsyncOperationSPtr const &)
{
receiveCompleteEvent.Set();
},
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
receiveCompleteEvent.WaitOne();
ULONG bytesReceived;
bool isFinalFragment;
KBuffer::SPtr tempBuffer;
auto error = websocket->EndReceiveFragment(operation, tempBuffer, &bytesReceived, isFinalFragment, contentType);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
return;
}
byte *fragBuf = (byte*)fragmentBuffer->GetBuffer();
for (ULONG i = 0; i < bytesReceived; ++i)
{
receivedMessage.push_back(*fragBuf);
fragBuf++;
}
if (isFinalFragment)
{
break;
}
}
ContainerAttach_ProcessIncomingStream(receivedMessage);
}
});
for (;;)
{
auto requestBody = ContainerAttach_GetInput();
uint toSend = (uint)(requestBody->size());
KBuffer::SPtr buffer;
KBuffer::Create(toSend, buffer, HttpUtil::GetKtlAllocator());
byte* buf = (byte *)buffer->GetBuffer();
memcpy_s(buf, requestBody->size(), requestBody->data(), requestBody->size());
auto contentType = KWebSocket::MessageContentType::Binary;
AutoResetEvent sendCompleteEvent;
auto operation = websocket->BeginSendFragment(
buffer,
toSend,
true,
contentType,
[&sendCompleteEvent](AsyncOperationSPtr const &) { sendCompleteEvent.Set(); },
root->CreateAsyncOperationRoot());
sendCompleteEvent.WaitOne();
auto error = websocket->EndSendFragment(operation);
if (!error.IsSuccess())
{
return;
}
if (detachSequenceReceived)
{
printf("\n[detatched]\n");
break;
}
};
}
|
2023-08-12T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8931
|
Birth Sign
Birthday
Birthplace
Popularity
About
French soccer player who joined Paris Saint-Germain on loan from Monaco in 2017. During his 2016-2017 regular season, he scored a total of 14 goals for Monaco. He became a prominent member of the French national team, helping lead the team to a World Cup Championship in 2018.
Before Fame
In his youth, he began playing soccer for AS Bondy, where his father was a coach.
Trivia
He made his debut on the French national team in March 2017 in a match against Luxembourg.
Family Life
His father Wilifried was his soccer agent as well as a coach; he has a younger brother named Adeyemi Mbappé.
|
2024-05-21T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8843
|
INTRODUCTION {#sec1-1}
============
*Ascaris lumbricoides* is the largest common nematode causing human ascariasis\[[@ref1]\] and 33% of the world population are estimated to be infested with it.\[[@ref2]\] It is mentioned in ancient Greko-Roman and Chinese texts, making it probably the earliest record of helminthic infection of mankind. The first scientific description of the genus *Ascaris* was given by Linnaeus in 1758, followed a century later by Epstan and Grassi who showed that the infection is preceded by ingestion of eggs.\[[@ref3]\]
*Ascarias* is common in tropical countries with low standards of hygiene, malnutrition, heavy rainfall and where untreated sewage is discharged into rivers, lakes and agricultural land or is used as fertilizer. The clinical disease spectrum comprise of pulmonary, intestinal (including intestinal obstruction), appendicular, hepatobiliary and pancreatic ascariasis. However human ascariasis is silent in the majority of infected persons or only associated with vague abdominal symptoms. In children, it can lead to stunted growth, impaired learning, protein-energy and vitamin deficiencies.\[[@ref4][@ref5]\]
It is estimated that about 60 million of those infected are at risk of developing some form of morbid disease.\[[@ref6]\] However, clinical disease occurs with heavy worm loads (13-40 worms) and around 10,000-20,000 deaths occur annually globally due to severe disease.\[[@ref6][@ref7][@ref8]\] Epidemics of ascariasis can occur.\[[@ref9]\] It is important to separate "infection" from "disease" and recognize the magnitude of the problem especially while formulating control and eradication strategies.
LIFE CYCLE {#sec1-2}
==========
Man is infected by ingesting food, raw vegetables or water contaminated by mature ova. Children are mostly infected by contaminated fingers, toys and soil. To complete their life cycle, the worms leave the human body as eggs and re-infect it as larvae. The eggs hatch in the duodenum after being stimulated by gastric juice and the resultant rhabditiform larvae migrate to the cecum. They penetrate the epithelium to reach the portal vein and then the liver. Some will migrate through the hepatic veins or the lymphatics to be carried to heart and lungs. There they cross the capillary wall into the alveolar space and reach the bronchial tree. They molt twice during this journey and ascend to the larynx and hypopharynx before being swallowed.\[[@ref10][@ref11]\] In the upper gastrointestinal tract, they attain sexual maturity by 2-3 months and molt again to become adult worms. The adult worm resides in the jejunum as a facultative anaerobic organism, with a life-span of 6-18 months. Since adult worms do not multiply inside their host, manifestation of clinical disease depends on their absolute number. Female worms are bigger; approximately 20-40 cm and can produce a large number of eggs daily (\~240,000/female) which pass out in the feces.\[[@ref3]\] In the soil the fertilized eggs require 10-15 days to become infectious. Clay soil favors their survival. The eggs are resistant to cold weather, chemical water purifiers, disinfectants and can remain viable and infectious for up to 10 years\[[@ref12]\] making eradication difficult.
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS {#sec1-3}
==============================
The world-wide distribution of *A. lumbricoides* has resulted in 1.4 billion people being infected with it\[[@ref13]\] and most of them belong to South East Asia. However, it has acquired the character of a global disease due to increases in international travel.\[[@ref6]\] Still the major burden is felt by the tropical countries which have moist soil and good rain. In the tropics, up to 70% of the children are found to be infected.\[[@ref14]\] South-East Asian countries and China show prevalence rates of 41-92%\[[@ref15]\] while in parts of Africa, it is about 95%.\[[@ref16]\] Bangladesh is also highly endemic with a prevalence rate of 82%. In India, high prevalence rates are found in Tamil Nadu (85%)\[[@ref17]\] and Kashmir (70%).\[[@ref12]\] [Table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"} shows the prevalence of roundworm infection as reported by some workers from different parts of India.\[[@ref18][@ref19][@ref20][@ref21][@ref22][@ref23][@ref24][@ref25][@ref26]\] According to a World Health Organization report, advanced countries have the lowest rate of infection, and immigrants from endemic countries contribute to the bulk of infection there.\[[@ref27]\] Still in some rural parts of Europe, the prevalence may reach as high as 52%.\[[@ref12]\] This may be due to the so called "stratified" distribution\[[@ref28]\] because the infection rates are found to be highly segregated in certain population within the same region.
######
Prevalence of Ascariasis in different Indian Studies
PREVALENCE AND PROPAGATION OF INFECTION {#sec1-4}
=======================================
Prevalence of ascariasis is directly proportional to the population density in a region (overcrowding), sanitation status, educational level, use of untreated sewage/human excreta as manure for vegetable production, dietary and personal hygiene (e.g., eating unwashed food). 30% of adults and 60-70% of children harbor the adult worm in high endemic areas. In general, socio-economic improvement is associated with a falling prevalence. For example, Japan had prevalence of 80% after World War II which drastically fell to 0.04% in 1992; whereas the high endemicity in lesser developed Latin American countries over the same period remained almost unchanged.\[[@ref29]\] This indicates that improvement in living standards, which is inversely proportional to the prevalence and infection rates in the society, is an important factor in control strategy. One way of propagating the infection is by "seeding" of the soil through eggs present in the feces of small children, who are re-infected by the eggs while playing in the contaminated soil.\[[@ref3][@ref13]\] There seems to be an age related change in the intensity of infection in the same individual.\[[@ref30]\] In endemic areas, the prevalence rises at 2-3 years of age becoming maximum by the age of 8-14 years. Then it declines to a much lower level in the adult.\[[@ref31]\]
Intensity of infection and reinfection {#sec2-1}
--------------------------------------
The observation, that clinically manifest diseases are restricted to a relatively small segment of those infected (1.2-2 million per annum in endemic zones worldwide)\[[@ref12][@ref32]\] with only a heavy worm load, means that there exists an uneven, "stratified" distribution of the infection demonstrating a negative binomial distribution.\[[@ref33]\] This may be partly due to an increased susceptibility (genetic, behavioral or spatial) to acquire heavy infection in some than in others.\[[@ref33][@ref34][@ref35][@ref36]\] However, the reasons for such individual susceptibility is not definitely known.\[[@ref30]\] Immunity is an important determinant of heavy infection serving as a regulatory mechanism in natural infection\[[@ref16]\] although protective immunity is incomplete.\[[@ref37]\] Studies are exploring the possible contribution of the host immunological reactions in influencing the global helminth burden.\[[@ref38][@ref39]\] Continuous exposure to infective eggs leading to progressive accumulation of worms over years also plays a major part in producing heavy infection. In endemic areas children are more likely to show heavy infection than adults (70% vs. 49%).\[[@ref12]\] Of these, 80% get re-infected within 6 months of eradication therapy. This is found to be commoner in those who had prior heavy infection, implying individual susceptibility.\[[@ref36]\]
HEPATO-BILIARY ASCARIASIS (HBA) {#sec1-5}
===============================
This is one type of human ascariasis, which is seen more commonly now in the endemic zones and in the earlier days the diagnosis was made either at autopsy or at laparotomy. Even then, the magnitude of the problem was probably underestimated because the worms move in and out of the bile ducts actively from the duodenum and therefore many would have been absent from the biliary tree at the time of surgery.\[[@ref12]\] Since the late 80\'s and early 90\'s increasing number of reports from several parts of the world has drawn attention to this entity\[[@ref40][@ref41][@ref42][@ref43]\] especially as a cause for common bile duct (CBD) obstruction and stricture.\[[@ref44][@ref45]\] In Indian studies from Kashmir, at highly endemic area, ascariasis was found to be the cause in 36.7% cases of 109 patients with proven biliary and pancreatic disorders.\[[@ref46][@ref47]\] HBA is quite frequently seen in children in South Africa while in Philippines, 20% of all biliary diseases are reported to be due to dead or live worms.\[[@ref48]\] However in one series from Middle-East, there were only two cases of biliary ascariasis found in 668 Jordanian patients evaluated by endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) for biliary/pancreatic disease and unexplained upper abdominal pain.\[[@ref49]\]
*A. lumbricoides* has a natural inclination to migrate and seek small orifices.\[[@ref50]\] Heavy worm infestation or other intestinal infections of viral, bacterial or parasitic origin (leading to altered gut motility) are the usual pre-requisites to reach the duodenum from their natural habitat-the jejunum. However, host reaction to an adult worm can by itself alter the vasomotor reflexes and secretory responses which in turn affect the intestinal tone and motility.\[[@ref51]\] From the duodenum, it can enter the ampulla of Vater to lodge: (a) In the ampulla itself (b) the CBD or (c) the hepatic ducts or anywhere in the biliary tree. It can also enter the orifice of the cystic duct and block it while traversing the CBD, but relatively rarely enters the gall-bladder or the pancreatic duct.
CLINICAL FEATURES {#sec1-6}
=================
There is a female preponderance (F:M ratio of 3:1) in HBA as studies have shown higher prevalence of roundworm infestation in females.\[[@ref21][@ref52]\] HBA is commonly seen in the mid-thirties with a range of 4-70 years.\[[@ref53]\] It is less common in children because they tend to present more with intestinal rather than biliary obstruction. This may partly be due to very small caliber of the biliary system in children.\[[@ref54]\] Persons who may be at a greater risk of developing HBA include:
a)Those who had prior biliary surgery (cholecystectomy, choledocholithotomy, sphincteroplasty, endoscopic sphincterotomy.\[[@ref44][@ref45][@ref55]\]b)Pregnant when compared with non-pregnant women\[[@ref56]\] probably owing to hormonal effects on the ampula during the pregnancy.c)Disturbance of the environment around the worm e.g., fever, anesthetics and tetrachlorethylene.\[[@ref16]\]
Modes of presentation {#sec2-2}
---------------------
Biliary colic in HBA presents as acute onset right hypochondrial pain which may be recurrent or continuous lasting a few days. It occurs due to entry of the worm into the ampullary orifice from the duodenum. Cholangitic features such as shaking chills, fever and mild jaundice are seen only occasionally.Acute cholangitis in HBA is an emergency\[[@ref53]\] , presenting with high grade fever, chill, icterus and upper abdominal pain. On examination, there is hypotension, tender hepatomegaly, leucocytosis, raised bilirubin (mostly conjugated) and raised liver enzymes - especially serum alanine aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase. Those going on to develop pyogenic cholangitis, pus forms, which may be seen at the ampullary orifice or can be aspirated by ERCP.Acute cholecystitis is suspected by right hypochondrial pain and guarding, vomiting and fever. The pain may be referred to the interscapular area or the tip of the right shoulder. Tenderness and a palpable mass in the right hypochondrium may be present. The temperature is usually of low grade and there is no shock. The gall-bladder reveals thickened wall with distension and biliary sludge is usually found.\[[@ref57]\]Hepatic abscess may be solitary or multiple and contains pus. There is tender hepatomegaly, high fever, intercostal tenderness and edema along with right hypochondrial pain. These abscesses may result from dead ova released by female worms migrating up the CBD, producing a granulomatous inflammatory reaction with subsequent breakdown with eosinophil infiltration. It may be commoner in children.\[[@ref16]\]
Hemobilia can very rarely occur as a result of biliary ascariasis.\[[@ref58]\]
DIAGNOSIS {#sec1-7}
=========
The diagnosis depends upon demonstrating the worm in the biliary tree in a clinical set-up compatible with the conditions described above, especially in an endemic zone. This is not always easy because frequently most of the worms move in and out of the ducts within 7 days.\[[@ref12]\] Ultrasonography is a highly sensitive and specific in visualizing a worm in the biliary system, as well as monitoring its mobility to and from the ducts over time.\[[@ref12][@ref45][@ref59][@ref60]\] A worm, which has not changed its position after 10 days in the duct system, is usually a dead and macerated one. The drawback of ultrasonography is in not being able to detect worms in the duodenum or the ampullary orifice and thereby has been reported to miss up to 50% cases of HBA.\[[@ref53]\] ERCP is helpful in these situations both for diagnostic and therapeutic aspects.\[[@ref42][@ref61][@ref62]\] The worms appear commonly as linear, smooth filling defects with or without characteristic movements but without distal acoustic shadowing, and may also be seen as parallel filling defects "Railway tract" sign,\[[@ref63]\] curved defects or transverse loops across the ducts.\[[@ref40][@ref64]\] Worms in the gall-bladder appear as long tubular coiled echogenic structure which may be rapidly mobile and is easier to diagnose than biliary ductal ascariasis.\[[@ref56]\] Computed tomography (CT) will reveal the worms as cylindrical structures.\[[@ref62]\] Sometimes CT may be used for better visualization of the dilated ductal system.\[[@ref59]\]
Stool examination may show *Ascaris* eggs in stool. Many a times the patient passes an adult worm with vomitus or with stool.
Peripheral eosinophilia, due to larval invasion of the blood, is very common.\[[@ref1][@ref10][@ref11]\] Aspiration of the pus from hepatic abscesses may reveal *Ascaris* ova\[[@ref53][@ref65]\] because larval stages or the ovas are more likely to produce inflammation leading to granulomatous necrosis than adult worms.\[[@ref51]\]
Although antibodies against ascariasis develop in infected persons, they are not of much help in the immuno-diagnosis, owing to extensive cross-reactivity with other helminthic antigen.\[[@ref16]\]
RELATIONSHIP OF BILIARY LITHIASIS AND ASCARIASIS {#sec1-8}
================================================
In general, only brown pigment stones are associated to some extent with infections of the gall-bladder.\[[@ref66]\] In the tropics gall-stones were considered to be relatively rare due to higher dietary fiber, compared to the western diet.\[[@ref67]\] However, in Asian population, gall-stones are now increasingly being found to be of either the cholesterol or the black (rather than brown) pigment variety, a pattern similar to that in the West.\[[@ref68]\] It is well-known that any biliary obstruction (complete, incomplete or recurrent) leads to impaired bile drainage with secondary bacterial infection and bacterial infection has been reported in about 66% cases of CBD stones.\[[@ref69]\] The common offending organism is usually *Escherichia coli* which (and also other bacteria) produce beta-glucoronidase and it deconjugates the bilirubin glucoronides in bile.\[[@ref70][@ref71]\] The resultant unconjugated bilirubin precipitates with calcium to form calcium bilirubinate stones in the future. In addition, it also serves as a nidus for cholesterol stones.\[[@ref70]\] As already mentioned, biliary sludge is often seen in HBA presenting with acute acalculous cholecystitis. The biliary sludge is composed of cholesterol crystals, mucin and calcium bilirubinate granules.\[[@ref72]\] This provides an appropriate milieu for future gall-stone formation\[[@ref73]\] and adult worm, ova and larvae can all initiate bile duct stones.\[[@ref74]\] Indeed, part of macerated dead worms were found to form nidus of such stones in patients with HBA when followed-up for several years, and these stones usually were composed of calcium bilirubinate layers\[[@ref53][@ref55]\] although the eggs of the worm can also serve as a nidus.\[[@ref43]\] But gall-bladder and CBD stones were rarely found in patients with previous HBA and instead tended to occur in the intrahepatic biliary ducts, as reported in one large study from India involving 500 patients of HBA.\[[@ref12]\] This may in part be due to the relative lack of propensity of the worm to enter the gall-bladder as mentioned earlier. In contrast, in the far east, primary CBD stone are seen quite frequently to follow bacterial infection secondary to biliary ascariasis.\[[@ref75]\] Strong epidemiologic correlations between ascariasis and the entity of recurrent pyogenic cholangitis (RPC) exist.\[[@ref43]\]
Relationship with RPC {#sec2-3}
---------------------
This condition was first described in 1954 in Hong Kong and is also called "Asiatic or Oriental cholangio-hepatitis" and is seen commonly in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China, Korea and South East Asia.\[[@ref75]\] It is also increasingly being seen in the west, and is probably a result of the migration of Oriental Nationals to these countries.\[[@ref76]\] It is characterized by biliary sludge, intrahepatic bile duct stones and chronic secondary bacterial infection. The subjects are thin, young and occasionally malnourished. Recurrent upper abdominal pain, cholestatic jaundice and fever with chill are characteristic and the frequency of such recurrent attacks increase over time. Cholangiograms will demonstrate both the intra and extra hepatic biliary tree to be filled with soft "biliary mud". The biliary radicles are dilated with excessive branching and single or multiple biliary strictures of variable length.\[[@ref12]\] In many patients with severe distortion of biliary ducts, recurrent episodes of cholangitis appear to be self-perpetuating in absence of active ascariasis. In longstanding cases, hepatic abscess and scarring may result.\[[@ref75]\] This is exacerbated by recurrent biliary sepsis as a result of papillitis and sphincter of Oddi motor dysfunction which is probably related to the mechanical injury of the papilla caused by the worm invading the orifice.\[[@ref77]\] In addition, there is a breakdown of normal defense mechanisms and the enteric bacterial flora may reach the intrahepatic bile tree via the portal system.\[[@ref76]\] RPC and ascariasis shows similar geographical distribution\[[@ref78][@ref79]\] and over 5% of HBA develop RPC after 2 or more years. Stones are common in RPC (90% cases) and 50% occur in CBD or common hepatic ducts whereas 15% of them have stones in the gall-bladder.\[[@ref76]\] Conversely 10% of RPC have a definite evidence of ascariasis.\[[@ref43]\]
The stones in RPC are pigment stones with layers of bilirubinates deposited on top of a nidus. More importantly, the nidus of biliary stones in 72% of RPC is formed by part or whole of *Ascaris* worm which confirms the significant role of this helminth in cholelithiasis.\[[@ref43][@ref80]\] All these strongly imply that hepatic duct stones found in RPC may be an aftermath of biliary damage by biliary ascariasis especially recurrent, frequent in endemic zones.
TREATMENT OF HBA {#sec1-9}
================
The patients with HBA are to be hospitalized without delay because in them the worm load is usually high. In addition, co-existing mechanical intestinal obstruction are common (especially in young children) but may also follow deworming during or after institution of treatment. It must be remembered that excretion products of the worms can cause marked bowel contraction.\[[@ref81]\] Similarly, associated acute pancreatitis may complicate the clinical course and there is a definite mortality risk in those with hemorrhagic pancreatitis.\[[@ref41]\]
Pure biliary ascariasis have a negligible mortality \<2%.\[[@ref82]\] The principles of treatment of biliary ascariasis are:\[[@ref83]\]
Treatment of cholangitis or cholecystitis by conservative means.Oral administration of anthelminthics, which allows the paralyzed worms to be expelled by normal intestinal activity.Endoscopic and Surgical treatment.
Coexistent obstructive jaundice and intestinal obstruction in documented cases of HBA is usually an indication for surgery.\[[@ref4]\]
Conservative treatment includes broad-spectrum antibiotics, analgesics, intravenous fluid and electrolytes and most of the acute acalculous cholecystitis patients recover without any complications.\[[@ref47][@ref53][@ref61]\] However in acute pyogenic cholangitis, more specific antibiotics are indicated depending on the biliary pus culture and sensitivity results. The pus is obtained by duodenoscopy or ERCP from the pus points in the papillary orifice or bile aspiration respectively. Other common therapeutic measures to treat endotoxic shock are also to be instituted including correction of metabolic acidosis. However most of them require some form of interventional treatment to improve morbidity and mortality.
Chemotherapy: An ideal antihelminth should be:\[[@ref30]\]
Safe at high therapeutic dosage,Inexpensive, easily available and easy to administer orally,Stable and effective for a long time in different climatic conditions.
Oral anthelminths act by paralyzing the adult worm but none can affect the larval stage. They are administered only if the patient has passed flatus or feces. The worm clearance is usually completed by 3 days in most cases depending on the gut transit time, pre-existing diarrhea and worm load.\[[@ref84]\] Preferably a soluble preparation is given.\[[@ref85]\] Direct instillation of anthelminthic e.g., piperazine citrate in the biliary tree surgico-endoscopically is not helpful and is not recommended.\[[@ref12]\] Treatment failure may occasionally occur and persistent eosinophilia should alert one to this possibility.\[[@ref86]\] The names, dosage and important contraindications are mentioned in [Table 2](#T2){ref-type="table"}.\[[@ref87][@ref88][@ref89]\]
######
Efficacy of anti-ascarial drugs with their mode of action
Recently, an oriental study involving 50 cases of infected biliary ascariasis has claimed 96% efficacy using Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture.\[[@ref90]\]
Endoscopic and surgical interventions are indicated when patients do not respond to energetic conservative treatment within few days after hospitalization or when the worm is not expelled from the biliary tree after 3 weeks despite vermifuge.\[[@ref12][@ref91]\] Acute pyogenic cholangitis needs biliary decompression or drainage in most cases.\[[@ref47][@ref61][@ref77][@ref92][@ref93]\] According to some, cholangitis with biliary strictures or with worms in the gall-bladder are also indications for surgery.\[[@ref94]\] Endoscopic worm extraction from ampullary orifice rapidly relieves the symptoms in biliary colic.\[[@ref47][@ref53][@ref61]\] This may also be necessary in acute pyogenic cholangitis as an urgent measure. In almost 100% cases, endoscopic worm extraction from the ampulla is successful and from the bile ducts in 90% cases by using the endoscopic basket. The complications of endoscopic procedures in such cases are low (6%) consisting mainly of hypotension and cholangitis.\[[@ref61]\] Therefore endoscopic extraction of the worms by snares, dormia basket or biopsy forceps is becoming the treatment of choice in biliary ascariasis.\[[@ref94]\]
Percutaneous needle drainage under ultrasound guidance or rarely surgically is necessary in hepatic abscesses which are large.
Gall-bladder ascariasis usually requires cholecystectomy; but as a whole it is encountered less frequently than bile duct ascariasis.\[[@ref95]\] Laparotomy is indicated if ERCP is not available for worm extraction in the patients who deteriorate during hospitalization. It must be remembered that acute pancreatitis, intestinal obstruction with complications (like volvulus, gangrene or perforation) may be present alongwith HBA which can be identified on hospitalization by ultrasonographic and biochemical studies.
In RPC, recurrent cholangitis with obstructing stones may be managed by placing a Roux-en-Y jejunal conduit for biliary access.\[[@ref96]\]
CONCLUSION {#sec1-10}
==========
HBA common in endemic zone and mostly presents with acute pain abdomen and they are diagnosed by ultrasonography or ERCP, but many cases are probably missed because of active migration of the worm to and from the biliary tree. They carry a good prognosis and respond to conservative therapy with oral anthelminthics. In non-responders (acute pyogenic cholangitis, worm in gall-bladder), endoscopic and surgical removal of the worm is necessary. Associated intestinal obstruction and acute pancreatitis should be looked for especially in children. Long-term effects of HBA include RPC and in some cases liver abscesses. There may be an association with biliary lithiasis/gall-stones with HBA in our region but it needs confirmation.
There is still lack in understanding of some epidemiological aspects of ascariasis namely a non-uniform mode of infection in the same community and the unknown genetic or environmental factors which make an individual more susceptible to heavier infection than others. Questions regarding the universal mode of management of certain sub-groups of HBA (e.g., in acalculous cholecystitis) remain to be answered whether urgent surgical intervention should be resorted to or not, or how long should one wait in such a patient who does not improve with conservative management. In our country (high endemic zone), finding a patient with g all-bladder sludge, ascariasis and/or symptoms suggestive of HBA pose another problem regarding their future mode of management should cholecystectomy be done or is vermifuge only needed if the patient responds to medical treatment? If cholecystectomy is contemplated in view of the possibility of future development RPC, then should it be an elective procedure? How often should they be followed-up? Cost factors, the degree of potential disability, risks and benefit of surgical interventions in these situations need further probing. More pointed indications of conservative versus operative procedures should be formulated and works in this direction needs to be carried out in well controlled studies in future.
**Source of Support:** Nil.
**Conflict of Interest:** None declared.
|
2024-01-04T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3152
|
Q:
Why does my cat hold its mouth slightly open sometimes after smelling something?
On occasion, my cat will sit there with their mouth open, usually after smelling something new.
It looks similar to panting, but without the heavy breathing or a protruding tongue.
What is the reason for this? Is it a reaction to particular smells? We refer to it as the "stink face", but does it really indicate that a scent was disagreeable?
A:
This would be the Flehmen response: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flehmen_response
Many animals will do this to move air over a specialized scent gland which is used to identify pheromones for reproductive and communication purposes. Our cats will do it for anything they think smells interesting, usually before they go to investigate more closely.
|
2024-07-02T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/2657
|
Rocky-shore communities as indicators of water quality: a case study in the Northwestern Mediterranean.
The collection of 152 samples from the upper sublittoral zone along the rocky coasts of Catalonia (Northwestern Mediterranean) was carried out in 1999 in order to test the suitability of littoral communities to be used as indicators of water quality in the frame of the European Water Framework Directive. Detrended correspondence analysis were performed to distinguish between different communities and to relate communities composition to water quality. Samples collected in reference sites were included in the analysis. Mediterranean rocky shore communities situated in the upper sublittoral zone can be used as indicators of the water quality: there is a gradient from high to bad status that comprises from dense Cystoseira mediterranea forests to green algae dominated communities. The geographical patterns in the distribution of these communities show that the best areas are situated in the Northern coast, where tourism is the main economic resource of the area, and the worst area is situated close to the metropolitan zone of Barcelona with high population and industrial development. Thus, Mediterranean sublittoral rocky shore communities are useful indicators of water quality and multivariate analysis are a suitable statistical tool for the assessment of the ecological status.
|
2023-12-07T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5900
|
£100K Health Lottery Jackpot for Lincolnshire Grandmother
Last Updated: Monday 21st July 2014, 15:39 pm
One lucky Lincolnshire grandmother has scooped the impressive £100,000 top prize in the Health Lottery after matching all five main numbers drawn. 66-year-old Alma Pullen matched the numbers 9, 13, 19, 22 and 28 on Saturday 5th July but didn’t discover her win until the following week while shopping.
While Alma browsed the aisles at her local supermarket, her husband and granddaughter took the ticket to be checked by a clerk. “My granddaughter ran up to me and said the amount of money was too big to hand out there and then,” said Alma, who realised she must have won a substantial prize. However it wasn’t until Alma finally rang the Health Lottery and spoke to a helpful representative that she realised she’d won the coveted top prize.
Alma, who works three days a week as a civil servant, said the money would be used to provide financial security for her and her husband and to buy some treats for her close family. Despite the big win Alma, who has worked in her current position for over 30 years, revealed that she has no plans to retire from her job. “I still intend to carry on as I enjoy it,” she said. “I love the social aspect of working.”
The Pullens have been playing the Health Lottery since October of last year and said it was the low ticket price and donations to health-focused initiatives which attracted them. “I shall definitely keep playing the Health Lottery. I like the fact that money goes towards worthy causes,” said Alma, “but I am probably going to have to change my numbers, I don’t think there is much chance of the same ones coming up again.”
The Health Lottery donates 20% of all proceeds to a variety of health-related good causes across the UK. Draws are held every Wednesday and Saturday and tickets cost just £1 per line. If you’d like to participate in the next game, follow the Lottery Tickets tab to find out how to play!
|
2024-04-21T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1747
|
Article content continued
B.C. Premier John Horgan spoke to reporters Wednesday about the protesters, saying they have the right to peacefully demonstrate but they need to allow others their liberty, and allow people to go other way.
Horgan was referring to protests outside the Legislature in Victoria Tuesday, when pipeline demonstrators blocked employees and journalists from entering the building, pushing, swearing and shouting.
He said the incident was “unacceptable” and he was surprised the protest took an aggressive turn, and apologized to all the Legislature staff. He said he doesn’t want to live in a world where politicians force police to arrest demonstrators, adding that it was up to the courts to decide and issue injunctions.
On Wednesday, Victoria Police said four people had reported assaults during Tuesday’s events at the Legislature. Three of the individuals received non-life threatening injuries, while the fourth reported no physical injuries but damaged equipment.
Police are asking anyone with information about these incidents to contact investigators at 250-995-7654.
|
2023-09-19T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1681
|
Erythrocyte glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase in lichen planus.
Cotton et al [1] comparing glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD) activity in biopsies from patients with lichen planus (LP) with that in normal skin suggested that LP might be associated with a congenital abnormality of the enzyme in the skin. Ryan et al. [7] were unable to confirm these results. It is known that individuals with erythrocyte G-6-PD deficiency show a similar decrease of the enzyme in the skin [2] and that skin biopsies can be used to diagnose favizm [3]. The increased incidence of LP in the tropics [6, 8] coincides with the prevalence of erythrocyte G-6-PD deficiency in the same geographical region. The semi-quantitative method of Motulsky did not reveal any difference of erythrocyte G-6-PD activity between patients with LP and control subjects [5]. The present study reports the results obtained with a more sensitive method of erythrocyte G-6-PD determination in a group of Africans with LP. Thirty Nigerian patients with typical clinical picture of LP (23 men and 7 women), aged 15--45 were studied. Control 30 subjects were matched for age, sex and tribe and included persons suffering from scabies and mild pyogenic and superficial mycotic infections. The activity of the erythrocyte G-6-PD was determined at 37 degrees C using the WHO method [9]. Normal values for Northern Nigerians are 1200 +/- 234 mu/1010 red cells. The results (Fig. 1) show a decrease of the erythrocyte G-6-PD activity in patients with lichen planus (P less than 0.01). No relationship between erythrocyte G-6-PD activity and extensiveness, activity or age of onset of the skin lesions was found. The finding of decreased erythrocyte G-6-PD activities in patients with LP in an area where an increased incidence of this skin disease coincides with higher frequency of favizm might suggest a biochemical overlap between these two conditions. Holzmann et al [4] have suggested that the reverse situation of mutual exclusiveness exists between G-6-PD deficiency and psoriasis. In regions with high frequency of G-6-PD defiency psoriasis is uncommon.
|
2024-06-16T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/1318
|
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The housing crisis still has a choke hold on America: In September, 81,312 homes were lost to foreclosure, according to a report released Thursday.
RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties, said that 851,000 homes have been repossessed by lenders since August 2007.
In September, 265,968 troubled borrowers received foreclosure filings - such as default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. That's a decline of 12% from the record high number of filings in August, but 21% more than in September 2007.
All told 765,558 foreclosure filings were made on U.S. properties in the third quarter of this year - up 3% from the second quarter and 71% from the same period last year.
"We have never seen a foreclosure cycle like this one before," said Rick Sharga, Realty Trac senior vice president. Other periods of elevated foreclosure rates have been preceded by signs of economic weakness. However, "in this cycle, we have foreclosure problems that have caused an economic downturn."
States step up
The most recent monthly dip in foreclosure filings was caused largely by decisions by several states to relax housing laws.
"Much of the 12% decrease in September can be attributed to changes in state laws that have at least temporarily slowed down the pace at which lenders are moving forward with foreclosures," Realty Trac CEO James Saccacio said in a statement.
For instance, California - one of the states hardest-hit states in the housing crisis - has a new law that requires banks to contact struggling homeowners at least 30 days before delivering a notice of default. That's helped to drastically slow the number of foreclosure filings in the state.
"In September, we saw California [defaults] drop 51% from the previous month," said Saccacio. "That had a big impact on the national numbers since California accounts for a third of the nation's foreclosure activity."
North Carolina passed a similar law, and notices of default there fell by 66% in September.
Unfortunately, even these extensions aren't saving most troubled borrowers. "The intention is very worthwhile, but I think the net result in most cases is simply delaying the inevitable," said Sharga.
"If a few homeowners are able to stay in their homes as a result of the legislation, then it had a positive effect," said Sharga. However, "the longer you are in foreclosure, the harder it becomes to pay the debt you owe to get out of foreclosure," he added.
Circumstances in Massachusetts illustrate his point. That state enacted a law back in May requiring lenders to give troubled homeowners 90 days notice before initiating foreclosure, which pushed the number of foreclosure filings it reported way down for several months. But in September, when the law expired, filings spiked.
"Initial foreclosure filings in Massachusetts jumped 465% from August to September after being much lower than normal in June, July and August," said Saccacio.
Nevada once again had the nation's highest foreclosure rate, with one out of ever 82 homes in foreclosure. Florida had the second highest rate in September, with one in every 178 homes in default. California came in third, with one in every 189 homes there receiving foreclosure filling last month.
Waiting to see what's next
As foreclosures continue to wreck havoc across the nation's housing market, the U.S. government has announced unprecedented efforts to absorb toxic debt and shore up investor confidence. The "Hope for Homeowners" rescue bill went into effect Oct. 1 and will allow some troubled borrowers to refinance into mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Authority. And more recently, a massive financial rescue plan calls for Treasury to buy up troubled assets, mostly backed by bad loans, to stabilize the financial system.
However, as home buyers and lenders wait to see the effects of the plans, "there is a lot of uncertainty in the market right now," said Sharga.
Still, he thinks that the market could be nearing a bottom, even as uncertainty remains high.
"If everything goes right, we will be done with almost all the subprime loans by sometime in the first quarter of 2009," said Sharga. "The market could start to stabilize at that point."
The bad news: The housing market will be flooded with bank-owned homes. "We are estimating that by the end of this year, between one quarter and one third of all homes for sale will be bank owned properties," he said.
That could push down prices even more, perpetuating a vicious cycle, but it might also start to attract bargain hunters who may absorb some of the massive housing inventory.
|
2023-08-15T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6573
|
The Trump administration has written to Congress, officially triggering the 90-day consultation period required before renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico can begin.
Robert Lighthizer, who was sworn in Monday as the United States trade representative, wrote to Congressional leaders in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to officially give notice that President Donald Trump intends to initiate negotiations "regarding modernization" of NAFTA.
The letter says the Americans intend to initiate talks "as soon as practicable," but no earlier than 90 days from this notice, as required by current U.S. trade law. That means the earliest Canada's negotiators could be sitting down with their counterparts to discuss their opening positions would be Aug. 16.
The letter did not, however, offer details about what the scope of these negotiations would include.
Lighthizer writes about the need to update chapters that "do not reflect modern standards," and mentions digital trade specifically as being only in its infancy when NAFTA was negotiated in the early 1990s.
Since the signing of NAFTA, we have seen our manufacturing industry decimated, factories shuttered, and countless workers left jobless. President Trump is going to change that. - U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
It mentions the need for new provisions to "address intellectual property rights, regulatory practices, state-owned enterprises, services, customs procedures, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, labour, environment and small and medium enterprises."
Lighthizer's department is not required to publish its specific negotiating objectives until 30 days before the start of talks, meaning precise details about what the U.S. wants to update or add in a reworking of the agreement may not be confirmed until July.
Before issuing Thursday's letter, Lighthizer held two days of meetings with congressional committees this week, as also required by U.S. trade rules.
Canada is ready to negotiate. We look forward to improving <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NAFTA?src=hash">#NAFTA</a> for all three countries. <a href="https://t.co/NuD3O10rr1">https://t.co/NuD3O10rr1</a> —@AmbMacNaughton
In a statement, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who has emerged as a leading voice for the administration on trade issues, said Thursday's letter notifies "not just Congress, but all our trading partners, that free and fair trade is the new standard for U.S. trade deals.
"Since the signing of NAFTA, we have seen our manufacturing industry decimated, factories shuttered, and countless workers left jobless. President Trump is going to change that," Ross said.
'Important juncture'
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland emphasized Thursday that the three-month notice period is an anticipated part of the U.S. process, and Lighthizer gave Canada advance notice of his letter.
In particular, she mentioned the labour and environment chapters as areas that would benefit from modernization. "We can do constructive work together," she said, bringing them up to the 21st century standards Canadians expect.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (right) met with Senators Patrick Leahy (left) and John McCain during her visit to Washington Tuesday. Canadian officials and parliamentarians are making a co-ordinated push to make sure their American counterparts understand the importance of cross-border trade.
No formal process is required to prepare for talks under Canadian law, but Freeland said the government has been consulting closely with "the provinces and territories, industry, unions, civil society, think-tanks, academics, Indigenous peoples, women, youth and the general public" to figure out Canada's interests.
"We are at an important juncture that offers us an opportunity to determine how we can best align NAFTA to new realities — and integrate progressive, free and fair approaches to trade and investment," she said.
Freeland said it was premature to speak about the timelines for the talks.
But all three countries know that elections next year — first the presidential vote in Mexico, and then midterms for the U.S. Congress — could be disruptive if progress isn't made before next spring.
Steve Verheul, the chief negotiator for Canada's new trade agreement with the European Union, is expected to play a central role in the NAFTA talks.
"What Canada has said from Day 1 is that we are ready to come to the table at any time," Freeland told the House of Commons Wednesday evening.
"Something we can all agree on is Canada has the best trade negotiators in the world, and it will be a terrific team that goes to the table with us."
Freeland was the first foreign official Lighthizer met earlier this week.
"He said that was quite intentional," she said. "He wanted to show the importance of the key accords to Canada."
'Trilateral negotiation'
Trump has voiced a preference for bilateral trade talks as the best way for the U.S. to exact a good deal from a trading partner.
Freeland was asked about perceived efforts by the U.S. to pit Canada and Mexico against each other in the lead-up to these talks.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland says Canada is ready to come to the negotiating table any time. (Mike de Paul/CBC)
"NAFTA is a trilateral agreement, so the negotiations to modernize NAFTA need to be conducted in a trilateral fashion," she said.
Freeland will travel to Mexico next week to meet her counterparts and further prepare for negotiations.
Mexico's foreign minister was meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington Thursday.
"The government of Mexico welcomes this development," Luis Videgaray told reporters. "We are prepared, we are ready to work together ... to make this trade agreement better."
"We understand that this is a 25-year-old agreement," he said. "The world has changed, we've learned a lot and we can make it better."
|
2023-08-12T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/3009
|
Fiedler still the guy
Dolphins Insider
10/04/2004
Even though Jay Fiedler pretty much made the same type of mistakes that got him benched at halftime of the opener and got A.J. Feeley benched after two starts, he will get the starting nod again Sunday when the Dolphins face the Patriots at Foxboro, Mass.
"The focus this week is beating New England, and I believe that Jay gives us the best chance, gives our team the best chance, to do that," Coach Dave Wannstedt said Monday. "That's all we're thinking about right now."
Fiedler struggled against the Jets, with two interceptions and two lost fumbles. One of the interceptions was returned 66 yards for a touchdown by Jets cornerback Donnie Abraham, who stepped in front of fullback Rob Konrad, who had lined up wide on the play.
"You don't know how they're going to adjust," Wannstedt said of the way defenses cover the play. "They could have a linebacker out covering them, they could have a corner out covering them.
"The breakdown in the play was that if the corner is covering your running back, you don't go there with the ball. That was the mistake on the interception. You look for another option where maybe you have a wide receiver on the linebacker where you have the matchup advantage."
That touchdown was the third given up by the Dolphins offense this season. What makes that worse is the fact the offense has scored only two.
|
2024-04-23T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/6006
|
Q:
Creating laps in ArcGIS for Desktop?
I have one layer of roads(polylines) and another one that marks the intersections(points) of those roads.
The task is to create laps(one circuit of a racecourse or track) of 2000m, 5000m and so on. They have to be rounds so the startng point is the same as the endpoint.
I have built a network in ArcMap and I did a spatial join between these two layers, but I don't know how to go from there or if I'm even on the right track.
I'd like a solution for ArcMap 10.2.2.
A:
I tested the following seemingly weird idea:
Take a NODE of a dangle-free graph
Find set of nodes that are closer than half of required total length
(L), count of them = N
Create lap/path NODE=>permutation of (N,2)=>NODE.
Prohibit using the travelled edges and nodes
Calculate length of lap (l)
Break if abs(L-l)/L < tolerance and select relevant edges/nodes,
otherwise set NODE to next node in the graph and go to 1.
Try this idea on below graph and you’ll see that most of all possible lap lengths (3,4,5,6) can be found rather quickly. The only exception is 7.
Strange, but true, it works for much larger networks.
Script below designed to work as a tool to be run from active mxd.
It expects to have two layers called “NODES” and “LINKS” in the mxd.
The fields that matter are shown below:
Field “fi” in links table stores FID of node at the start of the link, “ti” – the same for end of line.
I tested script (you’ll need networkx module installed) on a graph with 750 edges and 509 nodes. Note: result greatly depends on first node(s) location, unless user set findBest equal True. One of the lines shown below was derived using findBest=True option and the same L = 4000 m and it took significantly more time to compute:
Script:
import arcpy, traceback, os, sys
import itertools as itt
sys.path.append(r'C:\Users\felix_pertziger\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages')
import networkx as nx
try:
def showPyMessage():
arcpy.AddMessage(str(time.ctime()) + " - " + message)
## RUN SETTINGS
TARGET=4000
TOLERANCE=0.05
## SET TO TRUE TO FIND BEST POSSIBLE SOLUTION
findBest=False
## FIND LAYERS and FIELDS
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("CURRENT")
theNodesLayer=arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd,"NODES")[0]
result=arcpy.GetCount_management(theNodesLayer)
nNodes=int(result.getOutput(0))
theLinksLayer=arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd,"LINKS")[0]
arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management(theLinksLayer, "CLEAR_SELECTION")
linksFromI,linksToI="fi","ti"
## CREATE GRAPH
G=nx.Graph()
with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(theLinksLayer, ("FID",linksFromI,linksToI,"Length")) as cursor:
for m, f,t,c in cursor:
G.add_edge(f,t,weight=c)
G[f][t]['rw']=c
G[f][t]['no']=m
## INITIAL CONDITIONS
arcpy.SetProgressor("default")
Found=False;ratioMax=100
## MAIN LOOP
for ij, node in enumerate(G.nodes()):
arcpy.AddMessage("Processing %i out of %i" %(ij,nNodes))
aBmNodes=[]
for other in G.nodes():
L=nx.dijkstra_path_length(G,node,other)
if L>TARGET/2:continue
aBmNodes.append(other)
aBmNodes.remove(node)
for chain in itt.permutations(aBmNodes, 2):
arcpy.SetProgressorPosition()
aList=list(chain)
one=node; aList.append(one)
lTotal=0; path=[one]
for two in aList:
gL=nx.dijkstra_path(G,one,two)
## BLOCKING ATTEMPT to TAKE THE SAME ROAD
for i,t in enumerate(gL):
if i==0:
f=t; continue
lTotal+=G[f][t]['weight']
path.append(t)
G[f][t]['weight']=1e6
f=t
one=two
f=path.pop(0)
## BLOCKING ATTEMPT to GO THROUGH SAME NODE
control=path[:]
if len(path)>len(set(control)):
continue
## RESTORE ORIGINAL WEIGHTS
for t in path:
G[f][t]['weight']=G[f][t]['rw']
f=t
ratioCur=abs(TARGET-lTotal)/TARGET
if ratioCur<ratioMax:
bestList=aList[:]
bestPath=path[:]
ratioMax=ratioCur
arcpy.AddMessage('Best match so far %i' %lTotal)
if abs(TARGET-lTotal)/TARGET<=TOLERANCE:
Found=True
if not findBest:break
if Found and not findBest:break
## SELECT NODES TRIO and LINKS for LAP
quer='"FID" IN '+str(tuple(bestList))
arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management(theNodesLayer, "NEW_SELECTION", quer)
f=bestPath[-1]; ListOfLinks=[]
for t in bestPath:
ListOfLinks.append(G[f][t]['no'])
f=t
quer='"FID" IN '+str(tuple(ListOfLinks))
arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management(theLinksLayer, "NEW_SELECTION", quer)
except:
message = "\n*** PYTHON ERRORS *** "; showPyMessage()
message = "Python Traceback Info: " + traceback.format_tb(sys.exc_info()[2])[0]; showPyMessage()
message = "Python Error Info: " + str(sys.exc_type)+ ": " + str(sys.exc_value) + "\n"; showPyMessage()
|
2023-11-02T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/7518
|
Q:
Calculate Difference between dates by group in R
I'm using a logistic exposure to calculate hatching success for bird nests. My data set is quite extensive and I have ~2,000 nests, each with a unique ID ("ClutchID). I need to calculate the number of days a given nest was exposed ("Exposure"), or more simply, the difference between the 1st and last day. I used the following code:
HS_Hatch$Exposure=NA
for(i in 2:nrow(HS_Hatch)){HS_Hatch$Exposure[i]=HS_Hatch$DateVisit[i]- HS_Hatch$DateVisit[i-1]}
where HS_Hatch is my dataset and DateVisit is the actual date. The only problem is R is calculating an exposure value for the 1st date (which doesn't make sense).
What I really need is to calculate the difference between the 1st and last date for a given clutch. I've also looked into the following:
Exposure=ddply(HS_Hatch, "ClutchID", summarize,
orderfrequency = as.numeric(diff.Date(DateVisit)))
df %>%
mutate(Exposure = as.Date(HS_Hatch$DateVisit, "%Y-%m-%d")) %>%
group_by(ClutchID) %>%
arrange(Exposure) %>%
mutate(lag=lag(DateVisit), difference=DateVisit-lag)
I'm still learning R so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Edit:
Below is a sample of the data I'm using
HS_Hatch <- structure(list(ClutchID = c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L,
2L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 4L, 5L, 5L, 5L, 5L, 5L, 5L
), DateVisit = c("3/15/2012", "3/18/2012", "3/20/2012", "4/1/2012",
"4/3/2012", "3/18/2012", "3/20/2012", "3/22/2012", "4/3/2012",
"4/4/2012", "3/22/2012", "4/3/2012", "4/4/2012", "3/18/2012",
"3/20/2012", "3/22/2012", "4/2/2012", "4/3/2012", "4/4/2012",
"3/20/2012", "3/22/2012", "3/25/2012", "3/27/2012", "4/4/2012",
"4/5/2012"), Year = c(2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L,
2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L,
2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L, 2012L,
2012L), Survive = c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L,
1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L)), class = c("tbl_df",
"tbl", "data.frame"), row.names = c(NA, -25L), .Names = c("ClutchID",
"DateVisit", "Year", "Survive"), spec = structure(list(cols = structure(list(
ClutchID = structure(list(), class = c("collector_integer",
"collector")), DateVisit = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character",
"collector")), Year = structure(list(), class = c("collector_integer",
"collector")), Survive = structure(list(), class = c("collector_integer",
"collector"))), .Names = c("ClutchID", "DateVisit", "Year",
"Survive")), default = structure(list(), class = c("collector_guess",
"collector"))), .Names = c("cols", "default"), class = "col_spec"))
A:
Collecting some of the comments...
Load dplyr
We need only the dplyr package for this problem. If we load other packages, e.g. plyr, it can cause conflicts if both packages have functions with the same name. Let's load only dplyr.
library(dplyr)
In the future, you may wish to load tidyverse instead -- it includes dplyr and other related packages, for graphics, etc.
Converting dates
Let's convert the DateVisit variable from character strings to something R can interpret as a date. Once we do this, it allows R to calculate differences in days by subtracting two dates from each other.
HS_Hatch <- HS_Hatch %>%
mutate(date_visit = as.Date(DateVisit, "%m/%d/%Y"))
The date format %m/%d/%Y is different from your original code. This date format needs to match how dates look in your data. DateVisit has dates as month/day/year, so we use %m/%d/%Y.
Also, you don't need to specify the dataset for DateVisit inside mutate, as in HS_Hatch$DateVisit, because it's already looking in HS_Hatch. The code HS_Hatch %>% ... says 'use HS_Hatch for the following steps'.
Calculating exposures
To calculate exposure, we need to find the first date, last date, and then the difference between the two, for each set of rows by ClutchID. We use summarize, which collapses the data to one row per ClutchID.
exposure <- HS_Hatch %>%
group_by(ClutchID) %>%
summarize(first_visit = min(date_visit),
last_visit = max(date_visit),
exposure = last_visit - first_visit)
first_visit = min(date_visit) will find the minimum date_visit for each ClutchID separately, since we are using group_by(ClutchID).
exposure = last_visit - first_visit takes the newly-calculated first_visit and last_visit and finds the difference in days.
This creates the following result:
ClutchID first_visit last_visit exposure
<int> <date> <date> <dbl>
1 1 2012-03-15 2012-04-03 19
2 2 2012-03-18 2012-04-04 17
3 3 2012-03-22 2012-04-04 13
4 4 2012-03-18 2012-04-04 17
5 5 2012-03-20 2012-04-05 16
If you want to keep all the original rows, you can use mutate in place of summarize.
|
2023-10-09T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/5600
|
All original contents copyright 2010 & 2015, all rights reserved.(permissions)
Chapter 26. Learning from the gay rights movement.
The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. . . . The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members. No matter what the religious faith of the members may be, this fundamental need of good citizenship should be kept before them. The Boy Scouts of America . . . is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training. Declaration of Religious Principle, Bylaws of Boy Scouts of America
We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirements in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts. Because of these beliefs, the Boy Scouts of America does not accept homosexuals as members or as leaders, whether in volunteer or professional capacities. Boy Scouts of America Position Statement: Homosexuality and the BSA.
The parallels between atheists and gays are many. Both atheists and gays can “pass” as heterosexuals or religionists if they do not identify themselves. Absent that self-identification, they will often be assumed to be heterosexual or religious, as the case may be. Further, both gays and atheists are raised in a society where most presume they will grow up to be heterosexual or religious. An atheist child in a religious family may feel a similar sense of isolation and loneliness to that of a gay child. Growing up, the gay or atheist child must often learn to reject the assumptions of the dominant culture and to stand on his own with pride.
Both “gay” and “atheist” are affirmative identities. There are many people who have homosexual relations (Ted Haggard for example, see Chapter 17) who do not assume the identity of being gay. Similarly, there are many more people who do not believe in religion than the few who affirmatively identify themselves as atheists. One of the distinguishing elements of identity is pride. Gays have been building their pride for more than 40 years, atheists have some catching up to do.
Additionally, both gays and atheists suffer from social stigma and discrimination. Five hundred years ago, both atheism and homosexuality were crimes punishable by death. Even in some countries today, both homosexual activity and apostasy (specifically, renouncing the Muslim faith) remain punishable by death. The Boy Scouts of America singles out both gays and atheists as people unfit for membership. The Christian right attacks gays and atheists with equal fervor. The general public views gay and atheist candidates as the least desirable to serve as president. An old proverb counsels, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” There are natural parallels between the gay and atheist movements.
The path of the gay rights movement over the past 50 years has lessons for atheists. Think about it, 50 years ago, gay relations were illegal in all states. However, gays have taken concrete steps to improve their lot. Now a U.S. Supreme Court decision affirms their right to relationships, 21 states prohibit discrimination against gays, 8 states have domestic partnership laws and 5 states plus the District of Colombia recognize gay marriage. Gays, once a horribly stigmatized minority, are now ranked ahead of atheists in a poll asking who the electorate might choose to be president.
Fighting for gay rights.
The birth of the modern gay rights movement, the Stonewall Rebellion, was marked by three days of riots which started when police tried to harass the patrons of a New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969. The patrons and protestors labeled themselves “homosexuals.” But that was about to change.
In the fertile civil rights environment of the era, the Gay Liberation movement began. On the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, thousands of New Yorkers marched in a gay pride parade. Parades were also held in Chicago and Los Angeles. Each year the number of cities and countries conducting “pride” parades has grown–all on or around the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. The world’s largest celebration occurs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with over 3 million attending, the largest celebration in the U.S. is in San Francisco, with over a million attending.
The people previously known as “homosexuals” adopted a new name, “gay.” Formerly a derisive term, it became both a name and an identity. Slogans like “gay is good” and “gay and proud” were popularized.
Gay Liberation also used symbols. One early symbol was the Greek letter lambda (λ), for liberation. Some gay organizations still have “lambda” in their names. Others used an inverted pink triangle (▼)–the symbol used by Nazis to identify gays in the concentration camps where they were exterminated along with the Jews. But in 1978 a San Francisco artist designed the rainbow flag, which has become the most recognized symbol of gay pride. If you live in a larger city, you will likely see rainbow flags, or variations of rainbow flags, on many vehicles and businesses.
The gay rights movement identified itself from its inception as a civil rights movement. As such, it built coalitions with other groups. Women’s liberation was a natural ally, but other coalitions formed as well. For example, in San Francisco, unions wished to boycott Coors beer. Gay politician Harvey Milk worked to get Coors removed from gay bars, thereby earning him union support in his run for political office.
Gay Liberation worked with the political system to recognize gay rights. From ending police harassment, the movement quickly moved to affirmative rights. Policies and laws against discrimination were promoted in businesses and cities. San Francisco, Ann Arbor and East Lansing first adopted gay rights ordinances in 1972. In 1974 AT&T became the first major national company to adopt an equal opportunity policy for gays. Such small steps have led to statewide anti-discrimination laws in 21 states, plus anti-discrimination laws and policies in countless cities and companies nationwide.
Gays and their allies have also worked in the fields of art and entertainment to create more positive gay images. One of the first Hollywood movies with central gay characters, 1970’s The Boys in the Band, opened the floodgates for numerous others that followed. Ellen DeGeneres’ disclosure she was a lesbian in 1997, and the incorporation of her character as a lesbian on the Ellen show were big news. Gay characters are now so common in television and movies that the review I read before seeing the 2009 movie Taking Woodstock did not even mention that the main character was gay. And on TV, talk show host Wanda Sykes speaks of her wife without anyone blinking an eye. Even the all-American comic book, Archie has added a gay character. Gays have come a long way and the media has helped.
The gay rights movement has not only worked on the social side of the spectrum, but on the legal side as well. Victories include the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, overruling the few state laws that still prohibited gay sex, as well as state court decisions in Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa and California authorizing gay marriage.
The gay rights movement has also become an economic force. In the early days, activists marked their bills “gay money” to make the point that gays are a strong economic force. Some advertisers caught on early–Subaru successfully marketed its automobiles to lesbians. The liquor industry was a pioneer in advertising to the gay market. Coors beer, once subject to a boycott by unions and gay rights activists, later began sponsoring gay events and advertising in the gay media. Today, advertising to the gay market is frequent and occurs without much notice or comment. The power of the gay dollar has been recognized.
Many strategies have worked effectively for the gay rights movement, but probably the most effective is “coming out.” Within the gay world, not disclosing your status is known as “being in the closet,” while becoming open is known as “coming out of the closet,” or simply “coming out.” Early in the gay rights movement, activists insisted that being “out” was essential to recognition of gay rights. They reasoned that everyone knows someone gay, even if they do not realize it. It would be easy to oppose gay rights if you had never met a gay person, but if you know your favorite elementary school teacher is gay, your grocer is gay, your barber is gay, your neighbor is gay, and each of them is a fine and likeable person, then it is much harder to oppose gay rights. Seventy-seven percent of Americans say they know a gay person, an increase of 35 percentage points since 1992.
The gay rights movement established a “national coming out day,” October 11, to encourage gay people to be more open. A coming out brochure reads, “Gay . . . Americans are sons and daughters, doctors and lawyers, teachers and construction workers. We serve in Congress, protect our country on the front lines and contribute to the well-being of the nation at every level. In all that diversity, we have one thing in common: we each make deeply personal decisions to be open about who we are with ourselves and others--even when it isn’t easy. We express that openness by telling our friends, family, co-workers and even strangers that--among all the other things we are--we’re also gay.”
The brochure lists advantages of coming out:
• Living an open and whole life.• Developing closer, more genuine relationships.• Building self-esteem from being known and loved for who we really are.• Reducing the stress of hiding our identity.• Connecting with others who are GLBT.• Being part of a strong and vibrant community.• Helping to dispel myths and stereotypes about who GLBT people are and what our lives are like.• Becoming a role model for others.• Making it easier for younger GLBT people who will follow in our footsteps.
If you reread the preceding paragraphs about coming out and substitute “atheist” for “gay,” almost every provision applies to atheists as well.
Over the years, you probably have met a gay person who takes the coming out strategy quite seriously. He will have a rainbow flag on his car, a gay button on his jacket, a T-shirt that says “how dare you presume I am straight,” and still he will find a way to speak about being gay in just about every conversation. It can be a bit amusing, but it is a necessary process, and it is a process that atheists should consider. How many times have you heard of a loud, out and proud atheist? We need more of them.
At one point, openly gay celebrities were few and far between. Quentin Crisp’s publication of The Naked Civil Servant in 1968 pushed him to the fore, and Elton John’s public declaration he was bisexual in 1988 was big news. Now, entire books and Websites contain seemingly endless lists of gay celebrities. But the impact of role models is important. Celebrities who are open about their status help to reduce discrimination and serve as role models for younger people. Atheist celebrities currently seem more secretive about their lack of religion than they do about their sexuality.
Of course, the analogy between gays and atheists has its limits. To a large degree, gays need each other to find love and support. Gay bars have been a gathering point for centuries. But to be honest, I have never heard of an atheist bar. Also, living honestly with one’s sexual orientation may be more key to the happiness of an individual than atheism. At first this seemed obvious to me. But the more I think about it, the more I am unsure. Atheism is a key element of my personality and I could no more comfortably attend church, sing hymns and pray, than a gay person could marry a spouse of the opposite sex. Nonetheless, I do think that sexual orientation is a more core distinguishing factor than the lack of religion.
That said, the number of gay people in the world is relatively fixed. Heterosexuals, despite the claims of the Christian right, do not convert to homosexuals and homosexuals do not convert into heterosexuals. Religion, however, can be changed. A large number of atheists were once religious and each year the number of atheists grows. We are not limited to remaining 1% or 20% of the population. Eventually, we will be the majority.
The correlation between the gay rights movement and the atheist movement is not complete. Nonetheless, the movements are similar. Gays have significantly improved their rights and societal standing in America over the past 40 years, while atheists have not. The gay rights movement has adopted valuable strategies that the atheist movement can use as well; strategies like agreeing on a name, choosing a symbol, developing an identity and most importantly, coming out. The next chapter discusses actions atheists may wish to consider to improve the effectiveness of the atheist movement.
Update: Although religionists have not abandoned their battle against gays, society has changed significantly in the years since I wrote Born Atheist. On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, held that American gays and lesbians have a Constitutional right to marry in every American state. The progress gays and lesbians have made to secure the right to marry should be inspirational and instructive for atheists.
|
2023-09-17T01:26:36.242652
|
https://example.com/article/8462
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.