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Q:
How to use grid-template-areas in react inline style?
So, I've been playing with css-grids in react when I noticed that grid-template-areas has a bit different syntax which might not be compatible in inline react styles. I'm not using any libraries just plain old react inline styles with style prop.
So what I'm aiming to do is similar to this.
.wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 100px 100px;
grid-template-areas: "header header"
"aside main"
"footer footer"
}
.header {
grid-area: header;
border: 1px solid red;
}
.main {
grid-area: main;
border: 1px solid green;
}
.aside {
grid-area: aside
}
.footer {
grid-area: footer;
border: 1px solid yellow;
}
Fidde: https://jsbin.com/lejaduj/2/edit?html,css,output
The layout is simple, "header" and "footer" covering all the columns and "aside" and "main" covering the half. This is just for demo purpose so I kept it simple.
Notice particularly how grid-template-areas has multiple values separated just by double quotes.
After some thought I thought we could use arrays in gridTemplateAreas in react inline styles. That didn't seem to work.
I again tried with template-literals which didn't work either.
Sandbox: https://codesandbox.io/s/zx4nokmr5l
So, is it just me that's hitting this obstacle or is this not supported yet in react?
I'd rather not use any extra library or framework in react to achieve this as much as possible.
A:
Just use backtick strings.
gridTemplateAreas: `
'header header'
'aside main'
'footer footer'
`
A:
if you need an object in style, this works
myStyle = {
display: 'grid',
gridTemplateAreas: "'header' 'content' 'footer'",
gridTemplateRows: '50px calc(100vh - 100px) 50px'
};
and use the style object inline
like I did using styletron
import { styled } from 'styletron-react';
const myStyle = {
backgroundColor: 'whitesmoke',
display: 'grid',
gridTemplateAreas: "'header' 'content' 'footer'",
gridTemplateRows: '50px calc(100vh - 100px) 50px'
};
const Layout = styled('div', (props) => (myStyle));
export default Layout;
A:
If the goal is to use grid-template-areas with the HTML style attribute (i.e., CSS inline styles), then use single instead of double quotes.
.wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 100px 100px;
/* grid-template-areas: "header header"
"aside main"
"footer footer"; */
}
.header {
grid-area: header;
background-color: aqua;
}
.main {
grid-area: main;
background-color: lightgreen;
}
.aside {
grid-area: aside;
background-color: yellow;
}
.footer {
grid-area: footer;
background-color: pink;
}
<body class="wrapper" style="grid-template-areas: 'header header' 'aside main' 'footer footer' ">
<div class="header">header</div>
<div class="main">main</div>
<div class="aside">aside</div>
<div class="footer">footer</div>
</body>
| 2024-02-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6949 |
Q:
2D integrals in SciPy
I am trying to integrate a multivariable function in SciPy over a 2D area.
What would be the equivalent of the following Mathematica code?
In[1]:= F[x_, y_] := Cos[x] + Cos[y]
In[2]:= Integrate[F[x, y], {x, -\[Pi], \[Pi]}, {y, -\[Pi], \[Pi]}]
Out[2]= 0
Looking at the SciPy documentation I could only find support for one-dimensional quadrature. Is there a way to do multidimensional integrals in SciPy?
A:
I think it would work something like this:
def func(x,y):
return cos(x) + cos(y)
def func2(y, a, b):
return integrate.quad(func, a, b, args=(y,))[0]
print integrate.quad(func2, -pi/2, pi/2, args=(-pi/2, pi/2))[0]
Wolfram|Alpha agrees
edit: I just discovered dblquad which seems to do exactly what you want:
print integrate.dblquad(func, -pi/2, pi/2, lambda x:-pi/2, lambda x:pi/2)[0]
A:
If you want to do symbolic integration, have a look at sympy (code.google.com/p/sympy):
import sympy as s
x, y = s.symbols('x, y')
expr = s.cos(x) + s.sin(y)
expr.integrate((x, -s.pi, s.pi), (y, -s.pi, s.pi))
| 2023-10-08T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9958 |
The present invention relates to a color masking parameter determining apparatus and more particularly to an apparatus, in a color sensor (color scanner), for determining color masking parameters to be used in transforming red (R), green (G), and blue (B) luminance signals obtained by the sensor to coordinates in the uniform color space.
In the fields of color printing, color television, and color copying machines, numbers of techniques on color signal transformation have so far been proposed. As an example, there is a technique by which an input color space (for example, the BGR system) is transformed to an output color space (for example, the CIE-L*, a*, b* system). When coordinates (L*, a*, b*) in the uniform color space are to be obtained from primary-color luminance signals (R, G, B) of an original obtained from a color-separation color scanner, the primary-color luminance signals (R, G, B) are first transformed to primary-color density signals (Dr, Dg, Db) using equation (1) and then the results obtained are transformed to the coordinates (L*, a*, b*) in the uniform color space using equation (2). ##EQU1## In equation (2), (a.sub.ij) are called color masking parameters.
In order to perform the above transform as accurately as possible, it is practiced to obtain the color masking parameters (a.sub.ij) by carrying out the method of least squares for the coordinates in the uniform color space. In concrete terms, N color patches (N: natural number) having known L*.sub.k, a*.sub.k, b*.sub.k (k=1, . . . , N) are measured by a color sensor and color masking parameters a.sub.11, a.sub.12, a.sub.13 minimizing equation (3) the value obtained by in lightness, for example, are sought: ##EQU2## This can be done by solving the simultaneous equations (4): ##EQU3##
In the apparatus for determining such color masking parameters, it is difficult to obtain the color patches to be used in obtaining the color masking parameters by sufficient number or at suitable intervals in the uniform color space. Therefore, methods not using actual color patches, but using values of simulative color patches obtained by simulation, have so far been known. For example, there is a method, disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Sho 61-50153, by which virtual color patches are selected at regular intervals and primary-color principal densities of cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) are transformed to primary-color luminance values (R, G, B) with Neugebauer equation used, and then color masking parameters are determined according to the values obtained.
In the above described techniques so far in use, a method to presume an ideal model is adopted in the simulation, but since the model does not conform well to actual phenomena, there has been a problem that the accuracy of the determined color masking parameters is not good. Accordingly, the present invention has as its object the provision of a color masking parameter determining apparatus, which needs production of only a small number of color patches and is capable of determining easily and economically the most suitable color masking parameters in conformity with actual phenomena. | 2023-11-20T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7098 |
Prevention of hepatitis B and C virus infection for prevention of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.
In Taiwan, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been common in medical practice since the 1960s. In 1969, Taiwan was shown to be a hyperendemic area of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection with a high rate of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positivity, 19% of the population being infected before the fourth decade of life. There is evidence indicating that more than 80% of chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and HCC are the sequelae of chronic HBV infection. In 1984, after 3 years of preparation, a programme to control cirrhosis and HCC began. All neonates born to HBsAg+ mothers were given Pasteur plasma-derived vaccine 5 micrograms i.m. at 1, 5 and 9 weeks with a booster at 12 months. In 1986, all neonates were included in this programme. In addition, beginning in 1987, all non-vaccinated preschool children were also immunized and susceptible medical personnel and people from HBsAg+ households were recommended to receive the vaccine. Using data obtained from the 7-year evaluation study on the efficacy of this vaccine and some historical data, the HBsAg positivity rate in people born in the first few years after 1986 was estimated to be 2.6%. This rate is expected to decrease to 0.2% in those born after around 1990. In July 1992, an anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) test was included in blood donor screening tests. This was followed by a decrease in the incidence of post-transfusion hepatitis (PTH) from 13 to 2.5% and there have been no anti-HCV+ PTH cases since. However, without immunization, the prevalence of HBsAg decreased among children in Taipei in 1989. This coincided with the widespread use of disposable syringes and needles and an improvement in the sterilization of medical instruments. Therefore, it is likely that HCV infection may also decrease as a result of these practices. Through the use of immunization and improved medical procedures, chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and HCC may decrease in Taiwan by around 95%. | 2023-08-10T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1357 |
Q:
Save image from URL with serializer
I am creating an API that saves images in a django model. Through the API is sent a URL and django is responsible for downloading the image and saving it in the model.
This is my model:
class Picture(Media):
image = models.ImageField(upload_to=picture_path, blank=True, null=True)
entity = models.CharField(max_length=20, choices=ENTITIES,
default=ENTITY_CLASIFICADO)
This is my serializer:
class PictureSerializer(serializers.ModelSerializer):
image = serializers.ImageField(max_length=None, use_url=True)
class Meta:
model = Picture
fields = ("pk", "image", "entity",)
From the URL I generate a PIL object. How do I specify the serializer that stores the object? My views.py
class PictureViewSet(generics.ListCreateAPIView):
def create(self, request, *args, **kwargs):
r = requests.get(request.data["url"])
img_temp = NamedTemporaryFile(delete = True)
img_temp.write(r.content)
Now, I'm saving the empty image field.
serializer = self.get_serializer(data=request.data)
I would like to add the PIL object to request.data and it looks like this:
<QueryDict: {'url': ['https://s3.amazonaws.com/cat/encabezado.jpg'], 'image': ['MY PIL IMAGE'], 'entity': ['clasificado'], 'csrfmiddlewaretoken': ['JRMLIXkxqg6sF5YP19NLTvgFOmVWH9ARSmM']}>
Thanks!
A:
you can do that directly in serialiser
So basically it is real life working example, note that we need to set image as relative path when setting it in attrs.
Also you need to check status of response, but this i'll leave up to you )
import os, uuid, requests
from django.conf import settings
from rest_framework.serializers import ModelSerializer
from .models import Audio
class AudioCreateSerializer(ModelSerializer):
class Meta:
model = Audio
fields = ['image']
def validate(self, attrs):
url = "http://youurlgoeshere.com/sddsjdsjdsjds.png"
data = requests.get(url)
response = requests.get(image_url)
random_name = uuid.uuid4().hex + ".png"
folder_name = "custom_images"
absolute_file_path = os.path.join(settings.MEDIA_ROOT, folder_name, random_name)
relative_path = os.path.join(folder_name, random_name)
with open(absolute_file_path, 'wb') as f:
f.write(response.content)
attrs['image'] = relative_path
return attrs
Also, i'll leave here how to define views
class AudioListView(ListCreateAPIView):
renderer_classes = [JSONRenderer]
queryset = Audio.objects.select_related("artist")
def get_serializer_class(self):
if self.request.method == "GET":
return AudioListSerializer
if self.request.method == "POST":
return AudioCreateSerializer
| 2024-02-04T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9603 |
www.blackairmaxcheap.com
25 kwi 2018 - 05:00:21
Zarejestrowany: 1 rok temu
Posty: 290
UNITED NATIONS yeezy boost 350 v2 for sale , Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday expressed his "deep regret" over the U.S. decision to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
"The Secretary-General regrets this development deeply, considering the major U.S. role in UNESCO since its founding," Guterres' deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a statement.
The U.S. government announced on Thursday that it would withdraw from UNESCO, after years of America distancing itself from the UN organization because of what it called the group's "anti-Israel bias."
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump defended Monday his controversial pardon of Joe Arpaio yeezy boost 350 womens for sale , a former sheriff of the U.S. state of Arizona, who was convicted of criminal contempt in a racial profiling case earlier this year.
"Well, a lot of people think it was the right thing to do," Trump said in a White House press conference when asked to respond to broad criticism, including some in his own party, over the pardon.
"He's done a great job for the people of Arizona. He is very strong on borders yeezy boost 350 mens for sale , very strong on illegal immigration," Trump argued, defending his decision to pardon the sheriff who took an outspoken and tough stance on immigration issues.
Arpaio, 85, was convicted late last month for willfully violating a 2011 court order that stops officers from detaining people simply on suspicion of being illegal immigrants.
The former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona yeezy boost 350 for sale , who had a reputation for his rough treatment of criminals, especially Hispanic ones, faced a maximum of six years in prison.
The White House announced that Trump would pardon Arpaio last Friday night when Hurricane Harvey was about to make landfall in coastal areas of Texas State, an attempt criticized for burying the controversial announcement under a barrage of weather headlines.
However, Trump said he decided to announce the pardon Friday evening because he believed that more people would be watching television at that time for the sake of hurricane.
"I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally," he told reporters.
"Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration adidas x plr for sale , especially right before an election, an election that he would have won. And he was elected many times," he added.
Reading a prepared sheet of paper, Trump also rattled off other controversial pardons to the former official under his predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to defend his move.
Although Trump touted his decision was supported by people of Arizona, the pardon met criticism from the two Republican senators of the state.
Senator Jeff Flake said he would have preferred Trump to "honor the judicial process and let it take its course," while Senator John McCain said he believes the pardon "undermines Trump's claim for the respect of rule of law."
Arpaio was also known for campaigning for Trump last year and investigating groundless claims that Obama was not born in the United States.
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- A new study from University of Washington (UW) researchers finds evidence of poor computer security practices used in DNA sequencing tools.
By analyzing the security hygiene of common, open-source DNA processing programs adidas ultra boost mens for sale , researchers at the University of Washington (UW) confirmed that known security gaps could allow unauthorized parties to gain control of computer systems, potentially giving them access to personal information or even the ability to manipulate DNA results.
DNA is a system that encodes information in sequences of nucleotides. Rapid improvement in DNA sequencing has sparked a proliferation of medical and genetic tests that promise to reveal everything from one's ancestry to fitness levels to microorganisms that live in one's gut. However, some open-source software programs used to analyze DNA sequencing data were written in unsafe languages known to be vulnerable to attacks, in part because they were first crafted by small research groups who likely weren't expecting much adversarial pressure.
But as the cost of DNA sequencing has plummeted over the last decade, open-source programs have been adopted more widely in medical- and consumer-focused applications.
The findings by researchers at the UW Security and Privacy Research Lab and UW Molecular Information Systems Lab will be presented August 17 in Vancouver, B.C. adidas ultra boost uncaged for sale , Canada, at the 26th USENIX Security Symposium.
In the study, according to a UW news release this week, the researchers also demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to compromise a computer system with a malicious computer code stored in synthetic DNA. Through trial and error, the team found a way to include executable code, similar to computer worms that occasionally wreak havoc on the internet adidas ultra boost parley for sale , in synthetic DNA strands. When that DNA is analyzed, the code can become executable malware that attacks the computer system running the software, gaining control of the computer and potentially allowing the adversary to look at personal information, alter test results or even peer into a company's intellectual property.
Recommendations from the researchers to address vulnerabilities in the DNA sequencing pipeline inc. | 2023-11-08T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3108 |
Satellite Broadband
Can't get a fast ADSL broadband connection...??? Why not have a look at obtaining broadband via satellite. Having installed over 220 + sat systems and with download speeds of 30 mb + and upload speeds of 6 mb it is well worth considering. | 2024-07-08T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7869 |
Sedation during spinal anaesthesia: a case for the routine administration of oxygen.
We have studied the effect of sedation with midazolam on arterial oxygen saturation during spinal anaesthesia in two groups of patients: one group received supplementary oxygen, the other group breathed room air. A significant reduction in oxygen saturation was observed in patients not receiving supplementary oxygen; six of 15 patients in this group developed hypoxaemia or severe hypoxaemia which was corrected immediately by administration of oxygen. There were no episodes of hypoxaemia in any patient in the group receiving supplementary oxygen. It is concluded that oxygen should be administered routinely to patients receiving sedatives during spinal anaesthesia. | 2024-06-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9353 |
Domènec Torrent is a fraud.
Just four months ago, when he took over New York City Football Club midseason from Patrick Vieira, the Catalan coach was hailed as some kind of tactical savant, fresh off a decade seated at the right hand of Pep the Father Almighty and come down to MLS to save us all. He promised to preserve Vieira’s system, which after all was vaguely modeled on Manchester City’s, and to make only incremental adjustments. He promised to compete for trophies—if not this season, okay, maybe next year. He promised us the pinaple would be pretty.
The results have been anything but. Dome inherited an NYCFC side that sat a lofty third in the Eastern Conference on points per game and allowed them to slide all the way to, well, third in the Eastern Conference. Hmm okay bad example. But there has been genuine cause for alarm: Torrent’s points per game over his four months in charge have been a middling eleventh in the league, and from the start of September till last week only Orlando, Colorado, and San Jose were worse. Topping those three shouldn’t even qualify you for a participation trophy at your youth rec league’s season-ending pizza party.
Lately it’s been one big shame spiral in the Bronx. NYCFC lost at home to New England, as if Boston needed another sport to be happy about right now. They lost on the road to ten-man Minnesota (a team that is, to borrow Robert Frost’s description of Loons superfan Paul Bunyan, “a terrible possessor”). Six of NYCFC’s last ten games came against other Eastern Conference playoff teams, and until this week they’d gone winless in them. Fans were inconsolable. A #DomeOut hashtag started bubbling up on Twitter. The Extra Time Radio guys called NYCFC trash and bet a t-shirt on it. The club’s playoff hopes were widely written off.
But that, see—that was the fraudulent part.
The hideous lie that Dome has perpetrated on you, the pure-hearted men and women of the American soccer public, is to convince you that he’s made NYCFC worse. Oh sure, he’s had help from league shills pushing propaganda about how his team has “come unglued in terms of how and where they press, what they do when they win the ball back, and how to even build from the back.” They were in on the act. Dome knew you’d buy it because, come on, just look at his wins and losses. Look at the lack of goals. He must be a bad coach, right?
Dome trusted you wouldn’t notice that even as the goals dried up, underlying stats were on the upswing. Dropping much-needed points to an opponent NYCFC outpossessed by 38 percentage points and outshot 31 to 2 was the perfect way to distract you from the fact that the team had spent the last few months quietly amassing more expected goals and conceding less than over any comparable period in the club’s short history. (Hey man, it’s hard to do math when you’re sobbing into a chicken bucket.) When xG did come up, fans who’d loved the stat in the summer had lost faith in its predictive power by fall. And nobody wanted to hear that the team was passing more often, more effectively, and closer to the other team’s goal than before, while opponents were doing the opposite. If the wins weren’t there, what good were numbers? Basically the whole #DomeOut scam depended on nobody reading this nerdy website—which, you know, fair enough. | 2024-02-06T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1325 |
Q:
What's the most performant but full-featured styling method in React.js
I have been reading a lot blog posts, best practices and slides (e.g. CSS in JS by Christopher Chedeau aka 'vjeux' which I think is great).
I totally understand why it is "better" to set your styling directly within your React Component, but I then found out that this might be limited as well. You may not use CSS pseudo-classes nor media queries to handle some responsive styling issues.
As someone who is used to do a lot of work with CSS and lately with SASS (which I still love) this drives me in some kind of cleavage, because I do not want to disclaim any styling property which standard CSS gives me.
My question now is:
Is it possible to have your styling within your React Components without those given disadvantages, and if: How would you actually do it to achieve the best performance and maximum of clarity.
A:
Check out https://github.com/FormidableLabs/radium. It's pretty cool. Here's an example where they show how to add media queries among other things.
var styles = {
base: {
backgroundColor: '#0074d9',
border: 0,
borderRadius: '0.3em',
color: '#fff',
cursor: 'pointer',
fontSize: 16,
outline: 'none',
padding: '0.4em 1em',
':hover': {
backgroundColor: '#0088FF'
},
':focus': {
backgroundColor: '#0088FF'
},
':active': {
backgroundColor: '#005299',
transform: 'translateY(2px)',
},
// Media queries must start with @media, and follow the same syntax as CSS
'@media (min-width: 992px)': {
padding: '0.6em 1.2em'
},
'@media (min-width: 1200px)': {
padding: '0.8em 1.5em',
// Media queries can also have nested :hover, :focus, or :active states
':hover': {
backgroundColor: '#329FFF'
}
}
},
red: {
backgroundColor: '#d90000',
':hover': {
backgroundColor: '#FF0000'
},
':focus': {
backgroundColor: '#FF0000'
},
':active': {
backgroundColor: '#990000'
}
}
};
| 2023-12-25T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4549 |
/*
* Copyright 2016 LinkedIn Corp.
*
* 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.linkedin.drelephant.analysis;
/**
* The interface to define common methods for each fetcher.
*
* There would be a different fetcher implementation given a different Hadoop version and a different application type.
*/
public interface ElephantFetcher<T extends HadoopApplicationData> {
/**
* Given an application id, fetches the data object
*
* @param job The job being analysed
* @return the fetched data
* @throws Exception
*/
public T fetchData(AnalyticJob job)
throws Exception;
} | 2023-12-08T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3913 |
Q:
How to setup an unprotected Ad Hoc (IBSS) Network and if possible with WPA encryption?
There are several tutorials out there to setup an Ad Hoc network, for example Ad Hoc setup in RPi 3. But how can I do this using systemd-networkd? And all what I've found is using unprotected communication without encryption. Is it possible to use a setup with WPA encryption?
A:
There are mainly three setups to have a peer to peer network:
unprotected ad-hoc interface by configuring the WiFi device
unprotected ad-hoc interface using wpa_supplicant
Only with suitable (RSN-IBSS capable) USB dongle:
protected ad-hoc interface using wpa_supplicant and WPA encryption
Tested with
Raspbian Stretch Lite 2019-04-08 updated on 2019-04-14.
Raspbian Buster Lite 2019-07-10 updated on 2019-08-22.
Updates done with sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade && sudo reboot.
♦ Setup systemd-networkd
For detailed information look at (1). Here only in short. Execute these commands:
# disable classic networking
rpi ~$ sudo -Es
rpi ~# systemctl mask networking.service dhcpcd.service
rpi ~# mv /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces~
rpi ~# sed -i '1i resolvconf=NO' /etc/resolvconf.conf
# enable systemd-networkd
rpi ~# systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service systemd-resolved.service
rpi ~# ln -sf /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
Configure interface wlan0 with this file. Give it your own ip address:
rpi ~# cat > /etc/systemd/network/08-wifi.network <<EOF
[Match]
Name=wl*
[Network]
Address=192.168.4.1/24
EOF
♦ Setup unprotected ad-hoc interface by configuring WiFi device
First Setup systemd-networkd.
To configure the wifi into ad-hoc mode we only have to execute two commands (don't do that now):
iw wlan0 set type ibss
iw wlan0 ibss join RPiNet 2412 # frequency 2412 is channel 1
For a mapping of frequencies to channels look at 3. I use a systemd unit so we can also stop the service. Create a new unit file with:
rpi ~# systemctl --force --full edit ad-hoc-interface@.service
In the empty editor insert these statements, save it and quit the editor:
[Unit]
Description=Unprotected ad-hoc (IBSS) interface
Requires=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device
Wants=network.target
Before=network.target
[Service]
Environment="SSID=IBSS-RPiNet" "FREQUENCY=2412"
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStartPre=/sbin/iw %I set type ibss
ExecStart=/sbin/iw %I ibss join $SSID $FREQUENCY
ExecStopPost=-/sbin/iw dev %I ibss leave
ExecStopPost=-/sbin/iw %I set type managed
[Install]
WantedBy=network.target
Enable the service:
rpi ~# systemctl enable ad-hoc-interface@wlan0.service
reboot.
Check with:
rpi ~$ iw dev
rpi ~$ iw dev wlan0 link
rpi ~$ ip addr
rpi ~$ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan | grep -B8 -A3 "SSID: IBSS-RPiNet"
You should be able to:
rpi ~$ sudo systemctl stop ad-hoc-interface@wlan0.service
rpi ~$ sudo systemctl start ad-hoc-interface@wlan0.service
To change the ssid and frequency you can edit the unit file:
rpi ~$ sudo systemctl --full edit ad-hoc-interface@wlan0.service
♦ Setup unprotected ad-hoc interface using wpa_supplicant
If you start from a fresh flashed Raspbian image then first Setup systemd-networkd.
If you have tried unprotected ad-hoc interface by configuring the WiFi device then do sudo systemctl --now disable ad-hoc-interface@wlan0.service.
Then Setup wpa_supplicant with this file and your settings (ssid) and enable it:
rpi ~$ sudo -Es
rpi ~# cat > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf <<EOF
country=DE
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
ssid="IBSS-RPiNet"
frequency=2412
mode=1 # IBSS (ad-hoc, peer-to-peer)
key_mgmt=NONE
}
EOF
rpi ~# chmod 600 /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
rpi ~# systemctl disable wpa_supplicant.service
rpi ~# systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service
I have found that the wpa_supplicant.service uses driver nl80211 by default. But it cannot handle ad-hoc mode (see developer section). We have to use driver wext. To modify the service we create a drop-in file:
rpi ~# systemctl edit wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service
In the empty editor insert these statements, save it and quit the editor:
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/sbin/wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-%I.conf -Dwext -i%I
reboot.
Check with:
rpi ~$ iw dev
rpi ~$ iw dev wlan0 link
rpi ~$ ip addr
rpi ~$ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan | grep -B8 -A3 "IBSS-RPiNet"
♦ Setup protected RSN (WPA) ad-hoc interface using wpa_supplicant
First of all it must be said that Raspberry Pi does not support encrypted IBSS connections!. You have to use an additional USB WiFi dongle that usually registers an interface wlan1. My dongle shows:
rpi ~$ iw list | less
Wiphy phy1
[..]
Device supports RSN-IBSS.
[..]
You cannot find this support entry for Wiphy pyh0 that is the on-board WiFi device.
So plug in your compatible WiFi dongle and if you start from a fresh flashed Raspbian image then first Setup systemd-networkd.
If you have tried unprotected ad-hoc interface by configuring the WiFi device then do sudo systemctl --now disable ad-hoc-interface@wlan0.service.
If you have tried unprotected ad-hoc interface using wpa_supplicant then do sudo systemctl --now disable wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service.
Then Setup wpa_supplicant with this file and your settings (ssid, psk and frequency) and enable it:
rpi ~$ sudo -Es
rpi ~# cat > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan1.conf <<EOF
country=DE
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
ssid="IBSS-RPiNet"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
proto=RSN
psk="verySecretPassword"
mode=1
frequency=2412
}
EOF
rpi ~# chmod 600 /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan1.conf
rpi ~# systemctl disable wpa_supplicant.service
rpi ~# systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan1.service
reboot.
Check with:
rpi ~$ iw dev
rpi ~$ iw dev wlan1 link
rpi ~$ ip addr
rpi ~$ sudo iw dev wlan1 scan | grep -B8 -A3 "IBSS-RPiNet"
♦ Installing additional nodes
On additional nodes setup ad-hoc mode just the same way you have done with the first one as shown above. The only difference is that you must give unique ip addresses in /etc/systemd/network/08-wlan0.network for each node of course.
♦ For developers and for troubleshooting
This are some things I have done to find the answer. I do not want to discard them because it has taken some effort and it may help me later and others on similar issues.
manual setup
For testing how it works you can execute these commands [2]. Be sure the interface isn't occupied by another service:
rpi ~$ sudo -Es
rpi ~# iw wlan0 set type ibss
rpi ~# ip link set wlan0 up
rpi ~# iw wlan0 ibss join RPiNet 2432
rpi ~# ip addr add 192.168.1.2/24 dev wlan0
rpi ~# ip route add 192.168.1.0/24 dev wlan0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.2
rpi ~# exit
rpi ~$ # check with:
rpi ~$ iw dev
rpi ~$ iw dev wlan0 link
rpi ~$ ip addr
rpi ~$ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan | grep -B8 -A3 "SSID: RPiNet"
You can do this also on a second raspi with another ip address, e.g. 192.168.1.3. Then you can ping it.
unusable background driver nl80211 with on-board wifi
On testing with wpa_supplicant using ad-hoc mode I always get a strange initialization that looks like this:
rpi ~$ iw dev
phy#0
Unnamed/non-netdev interface
wdev 0x2
addr 86:50:89:38:f2:93
type P2P-device
txpower 31.00 dBm
Interface wlan0
ifindex 3
wdev 0x1
addr b8:27:eb:06:e8:8b
type managed
channel 34 (5170 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 5170 MHz
txpower 31.00 dBm
Using another USB/WiFi dongle I do not get this strange Unnamed/non-netdev interface and I can use background driver nl80211. So it's definitely a bug on the Raspberry Pi.
When you get this Unnamed/non-netdev interface (type P2P-device) then you have a problem. It occupies the interface. When trying to iw wlan0 set type ibss I got the error messages:
Jul 07 22:06:17 wpa_supplicant[262]: nl80211: Failed to set interface into IBSS mode
Jul 07 22:06:17 wpa_supplicant[262]: wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
Looking with systemctl cat wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service you can see that wpa_supplicant is using first driver nl80211 and then driver wext. This is given by parameter -Dnl80211,wext
rpi ~$ systemctl cat wpa_supplicant@wlan0.service | grep '^ExecStart='
ExecStart=/sbin/wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-%I.conf -Dnl80211,wext -i%I
I found using background driver wext avoids this unnamed interface with on-board WiFi (wlan0). For a detailed verification of this issue you can look at Raspberry Pi 2018-04-18 - Cannot put device into adhoc mode. So we have to use a drop-in file to change the parameter to -Dwext.
refefences:
[1] Howto migrate from networking to systemd-networkd with dynamic failover
[2] Ad-hoc networking
[3] List of WLAN channels
[4] Raspberry Pi 2018-04-18 - Cannot put device into adhoc mode
[5] Kernel trace in brcmfmac wifi driver when joining ad-hoc network w/another brcmfmac device
[6] Linux WiFi Ad-hoc mode
[7] What is the difference between Ad-Hoc and Mesh Network? (also with p2p)
[8] Why Wi-Fi Direct can not replace Ad-hoc mode
| 2024-05-07T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7001 |
Q:
Applicable Design pattern
I have this working hierarchy already and the program runs as expected. Basically I have abstracted everything in a Base class and all other subclass adding their own methods.
abstract Class Base{
}
class A extends Base{
//new methods
}
class B extends Base{
//new methods
}
everything looks good until later (errr...new requirements) I realize I need to have a new class (lets call this class C) that extends both
class A and B. Now, in java its not possible to extend two concrete class.
class C extends A, B{
//new methods
}
I need both of the methods and variables in class A and class B but I dont know how to do this?
Any hints on how do I do this change?
I am not that good in design pattern so i thought of asking it here.
Thanks
UPDATE
This is actually a JSF Managed Bean wherein I abstracted everything in a Base Managed Bean and all other subclass overriding/adding their own implementations on top of the base managed bean.
There is just a new requirement that was added wherein I needed the functionality of both subclasses (A and B) into a new subclass (C)
A:
Refactor your code and make A and B and Base interfaces instead of classes and use interface inheritance instead of implementation inheritance.
Then you can implement both A and B (this is how multiple inheritance is supported in Java)
A:
Either use composition or use inner class.
class C extends A {
B b = ... // this is one option
class D extends B {
// this is another option
}
}
| 2024-07-10T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4050 |
Q:
Retrieving row index from data frame
Here is a small example of what I m trying to do
x<-c(11,38,24)
z1<-c(26,42,23,61,11)
z2<-c(52,38,82,99,74)
z3<-c(19,72,28,24,25)
dat<-data.frame(z1,z2,z3)
I want to know which value of the first column of dat is equal to the first element of x, which value of the second column of dat is equal to the second value of x, and so on. Once I have determined these values I want to know what row each element is in.
For example, the first value of x matches the element in the fifth row of the first column of dat, the second value of x matches the element in the second row of the second column of dat, ect.
I want my output to be a vector that looks like this
vec<- c(5, 2, 4)
A:
You can use mapply.
mapply(function(a, b) which(a == b), dat, x)
# z1 z2 z3
# 5 2 4
And to get your exact desired result, set the USE.NAMES argument to FALSE
mapply(function(a, b) which(a == b), dat, x, USE.NAMES = FALSE)
# [1] 5 2 4
| 2024-02-08T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7820 |
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and two colleagues on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence are pushing the Obama administration to disclose the limits of its controversial policy on killing Americans in drone attacks.
The senior senator from Oregon, joined by fellow Democrats Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, want to learn how and when Americans can be targeted outside of declared war zones.
"Specific details regarding lethal counterterrorism actions will sometimes need to be kept secret to ensure that the U.S. government can act effectively against very real threats to our country, but we firmly believe that the laws and rules that govern the executive branch's actions should always be public," they wrote on Thursday. "We believe that every American has the right to know when their government believes it is allowed to kill them."
In their two-page letter to White House Counsel Neil Eggleston, the senators noted that they reviewed the opinions of Justice Department lawyers on the targeting of Americans during overseas counterterrorism operations.
They said they had no quarrel with the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American slain in a September 2011 drone attack in Yemen. Al-Awlaki, an al Qaida recruiter, was suspected of helping to plot the failed Christmas Day 2009 airline bombing by would-be martyr Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, known as the Underwear Bomber.
The drone attack that killed al-Awlaki also killed Samir Khan, who edited al-Qaida's English speaking propaganda magazine. Khan, who also lived much of his life in the U.S., had served as an inspiration for Mohamed Mohamud, a Somali-American convicted last year of attempting to detonate a massive fertilizer bomb at Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square in late 2010.
Mohamud wrote articles for Khan's "Jihad Recollections" magazine, and the two traded dozens of emails, according to trial testimony in Portland's U.S. District Court.
"To be clear," the senators wrote, "we believe that under the circumstances that existed at the time, the decision to use lethal force against (al-Awlaki) was a legitimate use of the president's authorities. But we also believe that the limits and boundaries of the president's power to authorize the deliberate killing of Americans need to be laid out publicly with much great specificity."
Here are some of the hottest stories from The Oregonian politics team over the last few days: | 2023-09-05T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6349 |
// Copyright 2016 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.
#include "services/ui/ws/event_matcher.h"
#include "base/time/time.h"
#include "services/ui/public/interfaces/event_matcher.mojom.h"
#include "testing/gtest/include/gtest/gtest.h"
#include "ui/events/event.h"
#include "ui/events/mojo/event_constants.mojom.h"
#include "ui/gfx/geometry/point.h"
namespace ui {
namespace ws {
// NOTE: Most of the matching functionality is exercised by tests of Accelerator
// handling in the EventDispatcher and WindowTree tests. These are just basic
// sanity checks.
using EventTesterTest = testing::Test;
TEST_F(EventTesterTest, MatchesEventByType) {
mojom::EventMatcherPtr matcher = mojom::EventMatcher::New();
matcher->type_matcher = mojom::EventTypeMatcher::New();
matcher->type_matcher->type = ui::mojom::EventType::POINTER_DOWN;
EventMatcher pointer_down_matcher(*matcher);
ui::PointerEvent pointer_down(ui::TouchEvent(
ui::ET_TOUCH_PRESSED, gfx::Point(), base::TimeTicks(),
ui::PointerDetails(ui::EventPointerType::POINTER_TYPE_TOUCH, 1)));
EXPECT_TRUE(pointer_down_matcher.MatchesEvent(pointer_down));
ui::PointerEvent pointer_up(ui::TouchEvent(
ui::ET_TOUCH_RELEASED, gfx::Point(), base::TimeTicks(),
ui::PointerDetails(ui::EventPointerType::POINTER_TYPE_TOUCH, 1)));
EXPECT_FALSE(pointer_down_matcher.MatchesEvent(pointer_up));
}
TEST_F(EventTesterTest, MatchesEventByKeyCode) {
mojom::EventMatcherPtr matcher(mojom::EventMatcher::New());
matcher->type_matcher = mojom::EventTypeMatcher::New();
matcher->type_matcher->type = ui::mojom::EventType::KEY_PRESSED;
matcher->key_matcher = mojom::KeyEventMatcher::New();
matcher->key_matcher->keyboard_code = ui::mojom::KeyboardCode::Z;
EventMatcher z_matcher(*matcher);
ui::KeyEvent z_key(ui::ET_KEY_PRESSED, ui::VKEY_Z, ui::EF_NONE);
EXPECT_TRUE(z_matcher.MatchesEvent(z_key));
ui::KeyEvent y_key(ui::ET_KEY_PRESSED, ui::VKEY_Y, ui::EF_NONE);
EXPECT_FALSE(z_matcher.MatchesEvent(y_key));
}
TEST_F(EventTesterTest, MatchesEventByKeyFlags) {
mojom::EventMatcherPtr matcher(mojom::EventMatcher::New());
matcher->type_matcher = mojom::EventTypeMatcher::New();
matcher->type_matcher->type = ui::mojom::EventType::KEY_PRESSED;
matcher->flags_matcher = mojom::EventFlagsMatcher::New();
matcher->flags_matcher->flags = ui::mojom::kEventFlagControlDown;
matcher->key_matcher = mojom::KeyEventMatcher::New();
matcher->key_matcher->keyboard_code = ui::mojom::KeyboardCode::N;
EventMatcher control_n_matcher(*matcher);
ui::KeyEvent control_n(ui::ET_KEY_PRESSED, ui::VKEY_N, ui::EF_CONTROL_DOWN);
EXPECT_TRUE(control_n_matcher.MatchesEvent(control_n));
ui::KeyEvent shift_n(ui::ET_KEY_PRESSED, ui::VKEY_N, ui::EF_SHIFT_DOWN);
EXPECT_FALSE(control_n_matcher.MatchesEvent(shift_n));
}
} // namespace ws
} // namespace ui
| 2024-01-29T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8441 |
/*PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS CODE*/
/*This code was generated using the UMPLE 1.21.0.4666 modeling language!*/
/**
* Version of the Oven with a low-cohesion, hight-coupling state machine
*/
// line 28 "Ovens.ump"
public class Oven2
{
//------------------------
// MEMBER VARIABLES
//------------------------
//Oven2 Attributes
private int leftTime;
//Oven2 State Machines
enum Cook { OFF, ON }
private Cook cook;
enum Ovenstate { s2_1, s2_2, s2_3, s2_4 }
private Ovenstate ovenstate;
//------------------------
// CONSTRUCTOR
//------------------------
public Oven2()
{
leftTime = 0;
setCook(Cook.OFF);
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_1);
}
//------------------------
// INTERFACE
//------------------------
public boolean setLeftTime(int aLeftTime)
{
boolean wasSet = false;
leftTime = aLeftTime;
wasSet = true;
return wasSet;
}
public int getLeftTime()
{
return leftTime;
}
public String getCookFullName()
{
String answer = cook.toString();
return answer;
}
public String getOvenstateFullName()
{
String answer = ovenstate.toString();
return answer;
}
public Cook getCook()
{
return cook;
}
public Ovenstate getOvenstate()
{
return ovenstate;
}
public boolean enterTime(Integer t)
{
boolean wasEventProcessed = false;
Ovenstate aOvenstate = ovenstate;
switch (aOvenstate)
{
case s2_1:
if (t>1)
{
// line 33 "Ovens.ump"
leftTime = t;
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_2);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
}
if (t==1)
{
// line 34 "Ovens.ump"
leftTime = t;
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_3);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
}
break;
case s2_2:
if (t>1)
{
// line 37 "Ovens.ump"
leftTime = t;
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_2);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
}
if (t==1)
{
// line 38 "Ovens.ump"
leftTime = t;
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_3);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
}
break;
case s2_3:
if (t>1)
{
// line 42 "Ovens.ump"
leftTime = t;
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_2);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
}
if (t==1)
{
// line 43 "Ovens.ump"
leftTime = t;
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_3);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
}
break;
default:
// Other states do respond to this event
}
return wasEventProcessed;
}
public boolean start()
{
boolean wasEventProcessed = false;
Ovenstate aOvenstate = ovenstate;
switch (aOvenstate)
{
case s2_2:
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_4);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
case s2_3:
setOvenstate(Ovenstate.s2_4);
wasEventProcessed = true;
break;
default:
// Other states do respond to this event
}
return wasEventProcessed;
}
public boolean setCook(Cook aCook)
{
cook = aCook;
return true;
}
private void setOvenstate(Ovenstate aOvenstate)
{
ovenstate = aOvenstate;
// entry actions and do activities
switch(ovenstate)
{
case s2_4:
// line 47 "Ovens.ump"
cook = Cook.ON;
break;
}
}
public void delete()
{}
public String toString()
{
String outputString = "";
return super.toString() + "["+
"leftTime" + ":" + getLeftTime()+ "]"
+ outputString;
}
} | 2024-02-21T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8829 |
Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is a less invasive surgical alternative for patients with vessel narrowing due to atherosclerosis and other diseases and conditions. In a conventional PTCA procedure, a dilatation catheter is inserted into the cardiovascular system, under local anesthesia, to a desired position within the culprit vessel. The catheter includes an inflatable balloon formed of a non-porous membrane at its distal end, and means for inflating the balloon. As is illustrated in FIG. 1A, balloon 10 is positioned so that it traverses or crosses stenotic lesion 12 within artery 14. As is illustrated in FIG. 1B, balloon 10 then is inflated with a radiopaque liquid at relatively low pressures. This liquid compresses balloon 10 against lesion 12, and expands artery 14 in a direction generally perpendicular to its wall, thereby dilating the lumen of the artery. Such compression may cause damage within the arterial wall, illustrated by the wavy lines in FIG. 1B. Following this procedure, balloon 10 is deflated and the catheter withdrawn.
Despite the general success of PTCA, the dilated lesion can undergo an aggressive neointimal healing response resulting in restenosis within the first year after dilation, as is illustrated in FIG. 1C. Such restenosis may be amplified by abrupt recoil of artery 14 resulting from lesion elasticity, vessel dissection, vasospasms, or the like, e.g., resulting from damage to the intima or media of the arterial wall. Alternately, or additionally, restenosis of the artery may occur. For example, an inflammatory response to PTCA, e.g., due to damage to the artery, may induce tissue proliferation 12′ around the site of the stenotic lesion. Thrombotic occlusions may also block the artery near the site of the stenotic lesion. As FIG. 1C illustrates, restenosis of the artery may arise from a thickening of the arterial wall and/or a narrowing of the lumen of the artery, and the subject may need additional treatment in order to restore patency.
Stenting is a commonplace technique used to try to prevent and/or treat restenosis, and frequently is employed as an adjunct to PTCA. During the stenting procedure, a metal mesh (stent) is deployed against the wall of the dilated artery and serves as a scaffold to hold open the artery. However, stents may occlude due to thrombosis, or the formation of a clot in the stent. Because the stent is a foreign object, the body's immune system also may respond with cell proliferation, resulting in restenosis. Such proliferation may be reduced by coating the stent with drugs such as paclitaxel, to reduce the growth of neointimal scar tissue, but such drugs also limit healing of the arterial wall and thus increase the chance of delayed clot formation.
It has been suggested that restenosis may be reduced by applying a drug directly to the lesion during the PTCA procedure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,306,250 to March et al. discloses a porous membrane that is mechanically or hydraulically expanded into contact with a stenotic lesion. After the membrane is expanded, a liquid containing a drug such as heparin or colchicines is caused to flow through the pores in the membrane and into contact with the lesion. The expansion and drug-delivery mechanisms are independent of each other in order to avoid leakage of the drug through the pores until the membrane is fully expanded.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,458,568 to Racchini et al. discloses a selectively permeable balloon that both dilates a passageway and delivers a drug, such as a fixative. The permeability of the balloon is controlled by wetting the pores of the membrane using a pressure based on the surface tension of the liquid, the contact angle of the liquid on the membrane, and the pore diameter, and/or applying a current, and/or applying high frequency sound waves. The fixative quickly kills or otherwise renders the tissue inert, and hardens the vascular structure in a dilated condition. Racchini et al. discloses that such fixation prevents or reduces re-closure due to vasospasm, and also retards or stops the biological processes that lead to restenosis.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,279 to Hofling discloses a catheter that includes hollow needles that can be used to inject medicine within the wall of a blood vessel.
Although the delivery of a drug such as heparin to a stenotic lesion may be useful, blood flowing through the artery may quickly wash the drug away from the affected area, thus reducing the efficacy of the treatment. Such drugs also have little effect on vessel recoil and vasospasm. While Hofling discloses needles for injecting a drug directly into the wall of a blood vessel, the number of needles that can be used is limited, thus constraining the extent to which the medicine can be delivered. Additionally, the gauge of the needles used is relatively large, which increases the risk of dissection. While fixation of an artery such as disclosed in Racchini et al. may reduce the chances both of restenosis and recoil, the mechanism by which this fixation is accomplished—killing and hardening arterial tissue—impairs the artery's ability to heal itself and may potentially damage the surrounding healthy tissue.
In view of the foregoing, it would be useful to provide a balloon that dilates a blood vessel and that may be used to deliver a therapeutic agent to the dilate blood vessel without rupturing either the balloon or the blood vessel.
It would also be useful to provide a balloon that delivers a therapeutic agent at a sufficient pressure and velocity to penetrate to a controlled depth within, or even beyond, the wall of a dilated blood vessel, without rupturing either the balloon or the blood vessel.
It would also be useful to provide a therapeutic agent that, when delivered to a controlled depth within, or even beyond, the wall of a dilated blood vessel, inhibits recoil and restenosis of the blood vessel without killing a portion of the blood vessel. | 2024-04-02T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/2996 |
/**
* Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
* or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
* distributed with this work for additional information
* regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
* to you 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 org.apache.cxf.systest.type_substitution;
import javax.xml.ws.Endpoint;
import org.apache.cxf.testutil.common.AbstractBusTestServerBase;
public class Server extends AbstractBusTestServerBase {
public static final String PORT = allocatePort(Server.class);
protected void run() {
Object implementor = new CarDealerImpl();
String address = "http://localhost:" + PORT + "/jaxws-type_substitution/cardealer";
Endpoint.publish(address, implementor);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
Server s = new Server();
s.start();
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
System.exit(-1);
} finally {
System.out.println("done!");
}
}
}
| 2024-03-02T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8711 |
Ross Barkley figures prominently on a list of players being considered by Tottenham as they seek greater attacking support for Harry Kane.
Standard Sport understands Spurs have made a tentative enquiry about the Everton midfielder, who has struggled to gain the confidence of manager Ronald Koeman — notwithstanding an improved performance in last night’s 2-1 win over Arsenal.
Barkley, 23, is out of contract at the end of next season, after signing a four-year deal worth about £65,000 a week in 2014.
In order to persuade Everton even to think about selling Barkley, it is thought clubs would have to offer a minimum £35million. It would also be difficult to put together a deal in January — when sides are reluctant to discuss deals for important players — but Tottenham are known to have looked at the situation closely.
Barkley is one of the leading examples of the Everton youth system, having made his competitive debut in August 2011, aged 18. He has since made more than 100 appearances and was in the England squads for the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016.
Yet it has not all been plain sailing for Barkley and Tottenham are exploring whether he could be tempted away from Merseyside.
Although Mauricio Pochettino has plenty of players who can make up the trio behind Kane in a 4-2-3-1 system, he still believes Spurs need a man who can carry the ball at pace and beat opponents.
During the summer, Tottenham added Moussa Sissoko — for a fee that could reach £30m — and Georges-Kevin Nkoudou to their attacking-midfield ranks. The first choice players for those positions are Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Heung-min Son and Erik Lamela.
'The Pochettino new contract pose' 15 show all 'The Pochettino new contract pose' 1/15 Hugo Lloris Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 2/15 Dele Alli Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 3/15 Eric Dier Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 4/15 Christian Eriksen Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 5/15 Danny Rose Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 6/15 Harry Winks Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 7/15 Harry Winks (again) Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 8/15 Harry Kane Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 9/15 Jan Vertonghen Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 10/15 Michel Vorm and goalkeeping coach Toni Jimenez Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 11/15 Tom Carroll Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 12/15 Kyle Walker Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 13/15 Cameron Carter-Vickers Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 14/15 Kyle Walker-Peters Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 15/15 Kyle Walker-Peters (again) Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 1/15 Hugo Lloris Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 2/15 Dele Alli Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 3/15 Eric Dier Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 4/15 Christian Eriksen Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 5/15 Danny Rose Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 6/15 Harry Winks Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 7/15 Harry Winks (again) Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 8/15 Harry Kane Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 9/15 Jan Vertonghen Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 10/15 Michel Vorm and goalkeeping coach Toni Jimenez Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 11/15 Tom Carroll Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 12/15 Kyle Walker Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images 13/15 Cameron Carter-Vickers Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 14/15 Kyle Walker-Peters Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I 15/15 Kyle Walker-Peters (again) Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Tottenham are actively searching for a new recruitment chief as Paul Mitchell continues to work his 16-month notice period at the club.
Mitchell decided to quit last summer and is believed to have only a peripheral role in future transfers. Ahead of tonight’s clash with Hull, Pochettino discussed Tottenham’s prospects in the market.
“It is a difficult question,” he said. “All the clubs are working — not only in England. In Europe, they have big networks to find the talent around the world. It is a very complex thing and it is not easy.
“Then, when the top clubs have more power and can pay more money than you, it is not easy. You need to be creative, you need to find players who work well together but in the end, sometimes money can make the difference.”
You can follow tonight's match between Tottenham and Hull City live on Standard Sport. Click here to find out how. | 2024-04-11T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5630 |
Q:
Python -- subprocess popen and call same error -- none type not iterable?
I was using os.system for shell commands until I discovered it's deprecated. So I am trying to switch to using subprocess. Here are my uses:
command = genConfig.MODETECT_SWITCH_COMMAND.append(state)
subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
MODETECT_SWITCH_COMMAND = ["zmpkg.pl"]
and some regular pings:
command = genConfig.PING_COMMAND.append(host)
response = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
if "unreachable" in response or "timed out" in response:
response = False
else:
response = True
break
PING_COMMAND = ["ping", "-c 1 -W 1"]
Everywhere I do these things, I get this error:
...tracebacks...
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1198, in _execute_child
args = list(args)
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not iterable
And I can't figure out why. I've rechecked my use of subprocess.popen multiple places and it seems to be correct. What might I be doing incorrectly? Thanks.
A:
You have this:
MODETECT_SWITCH_COMMAND = ["zmpkg.pl"]
And when you do this:
command = genConfig.MODETECT_SWITCH_COMMAND.append(state)
You are assigning to command the output of a list.append call, which operates in place and returns None.
That is, it looks like you are assigning command = None.
subprocess module is confused because it expects the first positional argument to be an iterable, not None.
| 2024-06-09T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8565 |
Q:
Why do i have characters "#_=_" appended in my URL after logging in from facebook into my App
Possible Duplicate:
Facebook Callback appends ‘#_=_’ to Return URL
Well its not an problem that i am facing since its not mixing up in any way with my code, but just an curiosity to know why the URL of my app gets appended by this extra characters as #= when user logs into my site using Facebook api ?
For eg my url should be
www.xyz.com/viewResume
but it actually is
www.xyz.com/viewResume#_=_
Any particular reason for this behaviour ?
Am using Codeigniter Framework
A:
I forget why it does it, I searched for a while too but it's just remnants of the return URL FB posts if I remember right. It's pretty easy to make go away with a little js on the page that you send users back to after login though.
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(e){
if (window.location.hash == '#_=_') {
window.location.hash = ''; // for older browsers, leaves a # behind
history.pushState('', document.title, window.location.pathname); // nice and clean
e.preventDefault(); // no page reload
}
});
</script>
| 2023-12-27T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4315 |
Bypass
A new plan by the U.S. Travel Assn. to speed the screening process at the nation's airports has come under fire from airlines and a private security firm. The nation's largest travel promotion group released the plan last week after a yearlong study by security experts, including former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Rep. Jim Turner (D-Texas). The plan includes a few new ideas and some that have been tried without success before. Still, Geoff Freeman, executive vice president of the travel association, called it a "win-win for everyone.
Alcohol can be a minefield for anyone trying to lose weight. But for bariatric surgery patients, drinking can become increasingly problematic, a new study has found. Changes in the way the body absorbs and metabolizes alcohol after gastric bypass mean these patients need less alcohol to register intoxication on a breathalyzer, says a study published recently in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons . After drinking a single 5-ounce glass of red wine before their surgery, the study's 19 subjects had an average breath alcohol content of .024% -- well below the level at which most states consider a driver intoxicated.
With record U.S. obesity rates and newly expanded Food and Drug Administration eligibility criteria for Lap-Band surgery, more and more Americans may be mulling the possibility of going beyond diet and exercise to tackle their weight and the medical problems that come with it. Those deciding on the surgical route face the often-baffling choice of which procedure is for them. Although there are some broad guidelines, experts say, the final choice comes down to what both patient and doctor are comfortable with.
Less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing of Lap-Band weight-loss surgery to 11 million new patients, a pair of studies has found that a different, older procedure is more effective and no riskier than either the Lap-Band or another less-drastic surgery, sleeve gastrectomy. In the first head-to-head comparison of weight-loss surgeries widely used in the United States, UC San Francisco researchers found that those who had their stomach capacity reduced by a Roux-en-Y bypass, which reduces the stomach's capacity and bypasses a part of the intestine, lost more weight, required less diabetes medication and were less likely to need further surgery than those who received the Lap-Band.
Political fanaticism fosters moral relativism. That's the lesson we should all learn from the gruesome case of Shawna Forde, the Arizona anti-immigrant vigilante who was convicted last week of two counts of first-degree murder. FOR THE RECORD: Morality: A Feb. 21 column about the way fanaticism breeds moral relativism referred to the murder of a landlady in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment. " The murder victim was a pawnbroker. Prosecutors argued that Forde and two accomplices killed 29-year-old Raul Junior Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, in a botched robbery attempt meant to raise money to fund a splinter group of the anti-immigrant Minuteman movement.
The Republican-led House passed a short-term extension of expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Monday, temporarily bypassing opposition from conservative and "tea party"-inspired lawmakers as it sought to keep the terrorist surveillance program from lapsing at month's end. The Obama administration prefers a longer extension through 2013, as a Senate measure would provide. But that legislation is likely to face resistance in the House, where GOP leaders were blindsided last week when conservatives joined Democrats to defeat it. Opponents see the provisions as an overreach of federal authority into private lives.
January 18, 2011 | By Peter Nicholas and Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
In his push to scrap onerous regulations on companies, President Obama is not only trying to patch a strained relationship with business leaders but also displaying a new strategy to bypass a hostile Congress and protect his political interests. Obama signed an executive order Tuesday that aims to weed out rules that administration officials admitted could be burdensome for companies struggling to recover from the deep recession. The executive order preempts House Republicans who had planned to make an extensive review of federal regulations their next major priority after an attempt to repeal Obama's healthcare law. By invoking his executive authority, Obama showed that he no longer sees Congress as the main arena for advancing his agenda, as he did when his own party controlled both the House and the Senate.
Crunching through fallen leaves in a sprawling walnut grove, John Tos frets about the high-speed railroad headed his way. He gets why many in this part of the Central Valley are excited about a construction project that could mean tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity. But a newly selected route cleaves through prime cropland his family has farmed for 94 years. Fields would be split, complex irrigation systems disrupted and operations complicated, says the grower with a graying Abe Lincoln beard.
Joe Konrath can't wait for his books to go out of print. When that happens, the 40-year-old crime novelist plans to reclaim the copyrights from his publisher, Hyperion Books, and self-publish them on Amazon.com, Apple Inc.'s iBooks and other online outlets. That way he'll be able to collect 70% of the sale price, compared with the 6% to 18% he receives from Hyperion. As for future novels, Konrath plans to self-publish all of them in digital form without having to leave his house in Schaumburg, Ill. "I doubt I'll ever have another traditional print deal," said the author of "Whiskey Sour," "Bloody Mary" and other titles. | 2024-06-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5594 |
Mayflower
Saturday, April 26, 2014
The Adjustment Bureau
Since writing my thesis, I take a huge interest in science fiction. Not the Star Wars kinda science fiction. But the postapocalyptic, people being robots kinda science fiction. Before my thesis, I hated this genre. But since my thesis had a postapocalyptic, dictatorial element, I plunged myself into the genre. And since that moment, I took a particular interest in litterature (and movies) who give us a look in how things would be if we let technology take over humanity.
The Adjustment Bureau criticizes the Big Brother mentality and shows us that the human bound is more powerful than any high tech invention. I love when movies are based on the concept of "faith". I'm a huge believer of it myself.
This movie made me fall in love with Emily Blunt. She's such a great actress and how amazing is the chemistry she shares with Matt Damon?! A must see, this one!
And don't forget to fight for your ideals, for love... even if everybody else is against it. Always follow your heart. | 2024-05-16T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6229 |
Senators vs. Hurricanes February 07, 2013
Photo 1 of 41 - Carolina Hurricanes vs. Ottawa Senators
OTTAWA, CANADA - FEBRUARY 7: Drayson Bowman #21 of the Carolina Hurricanes checks Jim O'Brien #18 of the Ottawa Senators against the boards as linesman Steve Miller #89 reacts, during an NHL game at Scotiabank Place on February 7, 2013 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images) | 2023-09-05T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8279 |
BENEVOLENT ASSISTANCE
Services provided for those in need are:
Food
Clothing
Utility Assistance
Hygiene Items
Rent Assistance
Spiritual Counseling
Clients are seen on a "first come, first served" basis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Doors open at 8:30 AM, but please be aware that there is usually a line at the door of the Ministry Center when we open. Due to the limited volunteers, funds, and time, only a certain number of clients will be seen each day.
Guidelines for assistance are:
Financial assistance (rent and utilities) - Once every 12 months.
Food assistance - Once every 3 months.
The clients will need to provide the following:
Legal and valid photo ID (Driver's License, Passport or Military ID)
Social Security Cards for each person in the home
Documentation of income dated within the last 6 months.
For utility assistance, the most recent statement and the account must be in the name of the person seeking assistance. Service MUST be currently in use.
For rent assistance, a legally binding lease agreement and contact information of the landlord. | 2024-07-30T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6066 |
/**
* Copyright Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
* SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0.
*/
#pragma once
#include <aws/elasticmapreduce/EMR_EXPORTS.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/memory/stl/AWSString.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/memory/stl/AWSVector.h>
#include <aws/core/utils/memory/stl/AWSMap.h>
#include <aws/elasticmapreduce/model/Configuration.h>
#include <utility>
namespace Aws
{
namespace Utils
{
namespace Json
{
class JsonValue;
class JsonView;
} // namespace Json
} // namespace Utils
namespace EMR
{
namespace Model
{
/**
* <p>Amazon EMR releases 4.x or later.</p> <p>An optional
* configuration specification to be used when provisioning cluster instances,
* which can include configurations for applications and software bundled with
* Amazon EMR. A configuration consists of a classification, properties, and
* optional nested configurations. A classification refers to an
* application-specific configuration file. Properties are the settings you want to
* change in that file. For more information, see <a
* href="https://docs.aws.amazon.com/emr/latest/ReleaseGuide/emr-configure-apps.html">Configuring
* Applications</a>.</p><p><h3>See Also:</h3> <a
* href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/goto/WebAPI/elasticmapreduce-2009-03-31/Configuration">AWS
* API Reference</a></p>
*/
class AWS_EMR_API Configuration
{
public:
Configuration();
Configuration(Aws::Utils::Json::JsonView jsonValue);
Configuration& operator=(Aws::Utils::Json::JsonView jsonValue);
Aws::Utils::Json::JsonValue Jsonize() const;
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline const Aws::String& GetClassification() const{ return m_classification; }
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline bool ClassificationHasBeenSet() const { return m_classificationHasBeenSet; }
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline void SetClassification(const Aws::String& value) { m_classificationHasBeenSet = true; m_classification = value; }
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline void SetClassification(Aws::String&& value) { m_classificationHasBeenSet = true; m_classification = std::move(value); }
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline void SetClassification(const char* value) { m_classificationHasBeenSet = true; m_classification.assign(value); }
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithClassification(const Aws::String& value) { SetClassification(value); return *this;}
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithClassification(Aws::String&& value) { SetClassification(std::move(value)); return *this;}
/**
* <p>The classification within a configuration.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithClassification(const char* value) { SetClassification(value); return *this;}
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline const Aws::Vector<Configuration>& GetConfigurations() const{ return m_configurations; }
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline bool ConfigurationsHasBeenSet() const { return m_configurationsHasBeenSet; }
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline void SetConfigurations(const Aws::Vector<Configuration>& value) { m_configurationsHasBeenSet = true; m_configurations = value; }
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline void SetConfigurations(Aws::Vector<Configuration>&& value) { m_configurationsHasBeenSet = true; m_configurations = std::move(value); }
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithConfigurations(const Aws::Vector<Configuration>& value) { SetConfigurations(value); return *this;}
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithConfigurations(Aws::Vector<Configuration>&& value) { SetConfigurations(std::move(value)); return *this;}
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddConfigurations(const Configuration& value) { m_configurationsHasBeenSet = true; m_configurations.push_back(value); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A list of additional configurations to apply within a configuration
* object.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddConfigurations(Configuration&& value) { m_configurationsHasBeenSet = true; m_configurations.push_back(std::move(value)); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline const Aws::Map<Aws::String, Aws::String>& GetProperties() const{ return m_properties; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline bool PropertiesHasBeenSet() const { return m_propertiesHasBeenSet; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline void SetProperties(const Aws::Map<Aws::String, Aws::String>& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties = value; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline void SetProperties(Aws::Map<Aws::String, Aws::String>&& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties = std::move(value); }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithProperties(const Aws::Map<Aws::String, Aws::String>& value) { SetProperties(value); return *this;}
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& WithProperties(Aws::Map<Aws::String, Aws::String>&& value) { SetProperties(std::move(value)); return *this;}
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(const Aws::String& key, const Aws::String& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(key, value); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(Aws::String&& key, const Aws::String& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(std::move(key), value); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(const Aws::String& key, Aws::String&& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(key, std::move(value)); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(Aws::String&& key, Aws::String&& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(std::move(key), std::move(value)); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(const char* key, Aws::String&& value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(key, std::move(value)); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(Aws::String&& key, const char* value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(std::move(key), value); return *this; }
/**
* <p>A set of properties specified within a configuration classification.</p>
*/
inline Configuration& AddProperties(const char* key, const char* value) { m_propertiesHasBeenSet = true; m_properties.emplace(key, value); return *this; }
private:
Aws::String m_classification;
bool m_classificationHasBeenSet;
Aws::Vector<Configuration> m_configurations;
bool m_configurationsHasBeenSet;
Aws::Map<Aws::String, Aws::String> m_properties;
bool m_propertiesHasBeenSet;
};
} // namespace Model
} // namespace EMR
} // namespace Aws
| 2023-10-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3578 |
I. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a multi-channel filter.
The invention further relates to an acoustic echo canceller, a noise canceller, a voice controlled audio and/or video system, a audio and/or video conferencing system and to a multi-channel filtering method.
II. Description of the Related Art
Multichannel hands-free operation is becoming an increasingly important feature in modern communication systems. In audio and/or video conferencing systems, multi-channel transmission leads to a better ‘localization’ of the people in the rooms. This enhances the intelligibility and naturalness of the speech. Another important recent development is the development of voice controlled stereo (or multi-channel) audio- and video-equipment. The recognition rate of a voice recognition engine drops dramatically due to the sound emitted by the equipment. Besides that, it may recognize words emitted by the equipment itself. There is, therefore, a need for a multi-channel filter which functions as an acoustic echo canceling preprocessor for the voice recognition engine.
Such a multi-channel filter may be created by simply combining a number of single channel adaptive filters. However, such a multi-channel filter, in general has a very poor performance.
When the number of input signals in a multi-channel filter is larger than the number of independent signal (and noise) sources, there is no longer a unique solution for the adaptive filters. This is the so-called ‘non-uniqueness’ problem. In practice, however, the number of independent sources is always larger than the number of microphones due to noise and other disturbances. When, however, the power is not equally distributed over the independent sources, the problem might get badly conditioned, which is the main reason for the relatively bad performance of multi-channel adaptive filters. Methods have been proposed to increase their performance by using Recursive Least Squares (RLS)-like algorithms (that have a huge computational complexity, even the most efficient implementations), or by adding noise to the input signals, or by processing them in a non-linear way (which may lead to audible artifacts in the speaker signal(s)).
Similar problems arise in multi-channel noise cancellation, where noise that is picked up by a microphone is reduced using extra microphone signals as noise reference signals. The reference signals are filtered and subtracted from the (delayed) primary microphone signal.
In European Patent Application No. 1 052 838, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,738,480, a stereo frequency domain adaptive filter is disclosed. This multi-channel filter comprises two adaptive filters (one for each channel) for filtering the two input signals. The filtered signals are combined by means of an adder, and the combined signal is supplied to an output of the multi-channel filter. In the update of the two adaptive filters, transformed inverse auto- and cross-correlation matrices are used to improve the performance. This improves the convergence behavior without having a huge influence on the computational complexity compared to using two single channel adaptive filters.
The known multi-channel filter is relatively complex in that a relatively large number of filter coefficients need to be stored in memory. | 2024-05-21T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5592 |
OpenBSD was right to disable hyperthreading [video] - rodrigo975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI3YE3Jlgw8
======
dleslie
History will show that Theo was right in a manner similar to how Stalman was
right: technically correct analysis and eerily accurate predictions, but
lacking in sufficient charisma to create more than a small following.
To some extent, you might say they are like Cassandra; speaking the truth but
not believed or listened to.
~~~
knocte
> but lacking in sufficient charisma to create more than a small following.
IMO it's not that Linus has more charisma than Theo, it's simply the network
effect of one project over the other.
~~~
dleslie
It wasn't Linus; it was RedHat, SuSE, and the rest of the early commercial
Linux endeavours.
~~~
knocte
Right, this is what I said.
------
robmusial
For those that can't watch the video GregKH says that OpenBSD was right to
disable hyper-threading earlier than Linux in response to Spectre and Meltdown
and now Linux disables it too.
He also caveats it by saying they were right for "a little bit of the wrong
reasons" but at least in this clip doesn't expand on what he meant by that or
what those wrong reasons were or why they were wrong.
~~~
dooglius
Why should the kernel be making this decision at all, rather than leaving it
up to the distro or a command-line boot argument?
EDIT: can't see the video so if it is just a default rather than a forced
disablement that's fine.
~~~
admax88q
Because sane defaults are important.
~~~
Crinus
Isn't this a "sane" default only in specific contexts though? (VMs). For a
desktop PC that almost always runs a single heavy task (games, rendering,
video encoding, etc) hyperthreading can be a day and night difference.
~~~
sharpneli
One must consider the potential damages that can happen when the default is
wrong, as it’s nigh certain that people are going to be careless and not
change it.
If the desktop PC has wrong default the performance is bad. Still functional
though.
If in case of VM the default is wrong we will read another headline about how
N million customers of $company got their personal data leaked.
~~~
Crinus
I think we'll read such headlines regardless of that setting :-P.
I'm actually wondering if there should be some sort of premade "profiles" when
it comes to default settings. Debian for example is used in a lot of contexts
so perhaps it'd make sense to have a way to ask you what sort of usage you'll
do when installing and provide different defaults based on that (not just at
the initial installation time but also when installing some package, the
default settings would be based on the profile you chose).
~~~
beatgammit
It's pretty easy to change a default, so it's completely reasonable for a
gaming distro (say, SteamOS) to have different defaults than a server distro
(say, CentOS). Most Linux distributions don't ship the kernel in it's default
configuration anyway, so this would really only affect those who use the
kernel directly from the source.
------
danarmak
Two of the three (current) top-level replies compare BSDs to Linux in general,
but that really has nothing to do with whether you disable HT. Using Linux
should not have stopped anyone from listening to Theo and disabling HT months
ago. Your security authorities don't have to be your kernel developers.
~~~
josteink
> Using Linux should not have stopped anyone from listening to Theo and
> disabling HT months ago.
Iirc OpenBSD actively disabled it for you, making it the default.
Nobody else did that.
~~~
baybal2
In fact, cache p3 timing attack was known as "theoretically possible" back in
nineties, but was booed out of the conversation by "big name security
analysts"
~~~
h2odragon
"I told you so" gets less satisfying each time you get to say it, yaknow? (*
commiseration, no criticism)
------
ajsnigrutin
A wee bit offtopic, but if we look at the VW/dieselgate, and the aftermath of
it all, and the class-actions, returns, refunds, etc, and hyundai/kia lies
about gas milage and people getting refunds for gas...
...when is something like this going to happen to intel?
We've bought CPUs with excpectations of promised performance (like people did
with emission expectations and gas milage expectations), they messed up, and
we get lower speed, and now no hyperthreading and still no refunds? If i
bought a 60" TV and the picture was only 50" with a black border around, i'd
return it immediately... why isn't there some action regarding CPUs?
~~~
umvi
If I sell you a lock, and then 10 years later someone finds a vulnerability
with the lock I sold you, should I refund you? That seems absurd. You are
basically saying the product has to be perfect and the architects have to be
able to see the future. Even if your hardware is formally verified, people can
do physical attacks like listening to high frequency chirps of your cpu and
using _that_ to break security. Do you still deserve a refund?
There is no such thing as perfect security. It is a cat and mouse game that
will continue until the end of time, requiring ever greater resources.
Therefore... all software and hardware should be free because all software and
hardware is defective?
~~~
3JPLW
Downvoted for the straw man — Intel is currently selling processors with,
e.g., 8 cores and 16 threads without any asterisks or caveats. That's in their
official marketing materials. Currently.
[https://a.sellpoint.net/a/Qo3wL1no.jpg](https://a.sellpoint.net/a/Qo3wL1no.jpg)
(via NewEgg)
[https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/...](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/i9-processors.html)
~~~
rrss
And it's true...
Has Intel ever said "we guarantee that hyperthreads are entirely isolated from
one another?"
~~~
3JPLW
One quick google later:
[https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-
tec...](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-
technology/hyper-threading/hyper-threading-technology.html)
> By combining one of these Intel® processors and chipsets with an operating
> system and BIOS supporting Intel® HT Technology, you can:
> * Run demanding applications simultaneously while maintaining system
> responsiveness
> * _Keep systems protected_ , efficient, and manageable while minimizing
> impact on productivity
~~~
rrss
I have no idea what "keep systems protected" means (and probably neither did
the person who wrote that).
That statement is a long way from an actual guarantee that there is no way for
one logical thread to extract information about another.
------
3xblah
Full interview:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrRvrh16ws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrRvrh16ws)
One of the things the Linux kernel developer says in the interview is that
researchers are going through Intel patents to find "security bugs".
He says this is "fun". Twice. He seems pretty nonchalant about these issues.
Like it is great to fix them, but not like it is too important or anything to
worry about. He says what is most important to him is that Linux "succeeds".
The attitude is reminiscient of Microsoft in their heyday. Drunk on success.
He even calls out a Microsoft employee he is working with. He says the
companies contribute "selfishly". This is no different from BSD. Users do not
determine how much security is prioritized, the contributors do. However, what
happens when the biggest kernel contributors are companies?
He also indicates he does not agree with Stallman philosophically on
technology issues. We do not get any details of the specifics of their
disagreement.
As a user, I think is it somewhat easier to keep track of Net/OpenBSD kernel
contributions than it is to keep track of Linux kernel contributions. I might
be wrong on that. As far as I can tell, the biggest contributors to
Net/OpenBSD kernels are still individuals and are not acting directly on
behalf of corporations.
~~~
asveikau
I haven't had a chance to watch but it seems like you are berating him for
figures of speech and/or speaking styles. As far as I know his contributions
to the kernel are pretty vast. We are all human and security isn't his only
focus so maybe give him a break.
------
Syzygies
I disable hyperthreading for better performance.
In my experience as a mathematician building parallel compute servers,
hyperthreading generates more heat than it is worth. I can overclock further
without hyperthreading, to more than overtake the faint advantage that
hyperthreading offers at a given clock speed. So I now buy binned, delidded
processors from Silicon Lottery, choosing the best reasonably priced speed of
the best cpu without hyperthreading. That would today be the i7-9700 @ 5.1GHz
for $400.
~~~
hinkley
The number of generations of processors where this has been true is really
astounding to me. It really makes me wonder why they persist with this line of
effort instead of doing something else, like cores that share logic units
only.
~~~
AaronFriel
Because for a large number of workloads, hyperthreading gives real performance
improvements.
The vast majority of consumers aren't running compute heavy workloads that are
more amenable to SIMD work (which it sounds like this might be) than the sort
of highly branching, often stalled work that general purpose programs do.
------
dnautics
Perhaps someone might know better than me: why is hyperthreading necessarily
bad? Can't you just keep it on and give your tenants cores with affinity? For
example, some tenant wants two cores, you give them two vcores on the same
core; some tenant wants four cores, you give them two vcores over two, etc.
~~~
dnautics
actually I just took a shower and answered my question (I think) - many of the
hyperthreading bugs don't breach the process divide, they use errors in
hyperthreading statefulness to use a side channel to breach _memory_ divide,
and the cores share memory, whether or not who's on what core, if any one core
gets compromised, you could potentially access any of the core's memory.
~~~
muricula
Close but not quite -- sibling hyperthreads (logical cores) share cache state.
Physical cores do not share cache state. Different processes, threads, or VMs
on sibling hyperthreads (by definition on the same physical core) can infer
the other's memory state based on the cache state.
If an attacker is pinned to one hyperthread, and the victim is pinned to
another which isn't a sibling hyperthread, none of the spectre attacks will
work since the cache state isn't shared.
As an attacker with code exec on a core, you can theoretically play games with
the OS scheduler until you're running on a sibling core with your victim
thread/process/vm.
~~~
dnautics
That's not true. Spectre works due to speculative execution leaking memory
data through a side channel exposed by hyperthreading. That memory can be in
use by any of the threads, not just the ones on sibling threads.
~~~
muricula
The side channel for most of the spectre variants is the latency of misses on
the cache lines. L1 and L2 cache lines are local to a physical core. As far as
I know, nobody has made any of the spectre variants work by measuring the
latency of L3 cache misses, which are local to NUMA nodes if I understand
correctly, but I'd love to hear otherwise.
The most recent round of spectre variants measured the latency of the line
fill buffers and other parts which are local to a physical core's memory
subsystem.
------
Woodi
"Disable HT when you don't trust your users"
Also:
Do not run not your own code, like eg. JavaScript.
There is way too much short living code.
Why we not build software libraries as we learn using computers and then use
it for the rest our life ?
Programmers should switch to programming human domain problems, not constantly
reimplementing Start Menu hierarchy.
Btw. anybody uses Tripwire ? Eg. with apt-get or pacman and saving hashes to
ro device ? ;)
------
mikece
Why aren’t the *BSD operating systems more popular in the server and
workstation spaces?
~~~
dwheeler
Linux came _after_ the BSDs, so you would think the BSDs would have won.
There are many reasons Linux-based systems are generally much more popular
than the BSDs in the server and workstation spaces. Here's why I think that
happened:
* GPL vs. BSD license. Repeatedly someone in the BSD community had the bright idea of creating a proprietary OS based on a BSD. All their work was then _not_ shared with the OSS BSD community, and the hires removed expertise from the OSS BSD community. In contrast, the GPL forced the Linux kernel and GNU tool improvements to stay in the community, so every company that participated _improved_ the Linux kernel and GNU tools instead of making their development stagnate. This enabled the Linux kernel in particular to rocket past the BSDs in terms of capabilities.
* Bazaar vs. Cathedral. The BSDs had a small group who tried to build things elegantly (cathedral), mostly in "one big tree". GNU + Linux were far more decentralized (bazaar), leading to faster development. That especially applies to the Linux kernel; many GNU tools are more cathedral-like in their development (though not to the extent of the BSDs), and they've paid a price in slower development because of it.
* Multi-boot Installation ease. For many years Linux was _much_ easier to install than the BSDs on standard x86 hardware. Linux used the standard MBR partitioning scheme, while the BSDs required their own scheme that made it extremely difficult to run a BSD multi-boot setup. For many people computers (including storage) were very expensive - it was much easier to try out Linux (where you could dual-boot) than BSDs. The BSDs required an "all-in" commitment that immediately caused many people to ignore them. I think this factor is underappreciated.
* GNU and Linux emphasis on functionality and ease-of-use instead of tiny-ness. GNU tools revel in all sorts of options (case in point: _cat_ has numerous options) and long-name options (which are much easier to read). The BSDs are often excited about how small their code is and how few flags their command lines have... but it turns out many users want functionality. If tiny-ness is truly your goal, then busybox was generally better once that became available circa 1996 (because it focused specifically on tiny-ness instead of trying to be a compromise between functionality and tiny-ness).
Some claim that the AT&T lawsuit hurt the BSDs, but there was lawsuit-rattling
for Linux and GNU as well, so while others will point to that I don't think
that was serious factor.
Here's one article discussing this:
[https://www.channelfutures.com/open-source/open-source-
histo...](https://www.channelfutures.com/open-source/open-source-history-why-
didnt-bsd-beat-out-gnu-and-linux)
~~~
spamizbad
An excellent summary. I think by the late 90s BSD could operate cleanly
alongside Windows but by then Linux had become the default "free" *nix choice.
For me, I ran FreeBSD for about a year around 1999. I lasted about a week
before breaking down and installing a GNU userspace. Excellent CLI ergonomics
for the day.
Linux had quite a few "easy to install" distros where, if your critical
hardware was fully supported, you had something that was easier to get up and
running than Windows 95/98\. X configurations and sound drivers were a
sticking points back then though. BSD had no such "easy mode" gateway drugs.
~~~
693471
No, by the late 90s BSD had dominated the hosting world because the TCP/IP
stack allowed better scaling on the same hardware. Tons of ISPs ran nothing
but FreeBSD.
~~~
cpeterso
Yahoo and Hotmail ran FreeBSD for a long time, too.
------
kiney
I'm not up to date with all the spectre mitigations. Is AMDs SMT
implementation still consideres secure?
~~~
derpherpsson
Yes.
------
tptacek
The title of this should be "OpenBSD Was Right About Hyperthreading", which is
all he says in the video. "They were right for a little bit of the wrong
reasons, but they were right".
------
big_chungus
There will be a large number of people who don't like this. However, consider
the following: most people, even those who use linux, don't want to bother
with too much configuration. For those people, it is probably "good policy" to
disable a potential security risk. Leave the option for those who understand
what they are doing and wish to go ahead, by all means, but make the default
secure. For instance, I have server machines at home which do not handle
critical or particularly sensitive data. They are securely firewalled, and
shouldn't be touched by anything not trusted by me. On those machines, I
sacrifice some potential security for performance. No patches for meltdown,
spectre, foreshadow, l1tf, etc. as they have significant impacts on
performance and these boxes don't really need it. For my firewall, however, I
turn on all patches and sacrifice quite a bit of performance (in other areas,
not just patches which cause slow-downs) for more security. It handles un-
trusted input; other boxes do not. I can plan accordingly.
The important thing to remember is that I am intentionally making those
choices and considering that trade-off. Most users are not. It is somewhat
better to leave things like ASLR enabled and hyperthreading disabled by
default, because that is what is best for the average user.
Lastly, it is of not that if something such as this is disabled and there is a
resulting security breach, every one will run around screaming, "Linux is
insecure; ahh!" This will happen, even if the user is informed he is supposed
to do this for things which need to be secure.
------
Causality1
Would it be that difficult to run chips in a secure mode with no
hyperthreading or branch prediction when handling sensitive information and
then takes the brakes off for normal operation? I mean, I wouldn't really care
if someone was watching everything I do for 95% of my computer use time.
------
lcall
There was a longish recent thread on a mailing list where people described
well (and linked to) why they like OpenBSD.
[https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
misc&m=156700281107546&w=2](https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
misc&m=156700281107546&w=2)
The most recent one I saw gave a reasonable sense of some tradeoffs:
[https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
misc&m=156750048426578&w=2](https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
misc&m=156750048426578&w=2)
I'm sure they welcome donations. :) Software they have written have benefited
many, directly or indirectly (like OpenSSH).
...but the whole thread was interesting I thought.
------
Animats
If you run BSD on AWS are you running a hypervisor underneath that's still
doing hyperthreading? On most AWS instances, a "virtual CPU" is really a
hyperthread.[1] _" Each vCPU is a thread of either an Intel Xeon core or an
AMD EPYC core, except for T2 and m3.medium."_
Is anybody actually attacking AWS this way? It seems a promising attack
vector; you get to run your own code on the same machines as others.
[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/#instance-
details](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/#instance-details)
~~~
kinghajj
I don't think that vector would work, as only a single tenant's VM is
scheduled on any particular core. That's why the minimum number of vCPUs for
instances on hyperthreaded hosts is 2.
------
imtringued
Hyperthreading is cool in theory, but most workloads that take full advantage
of it are usually filled with code that is doing nothing but following
pointers. It is generally unoptimized code or code written in an interpreted
language that doesn't focus on speed anyway. It also requires the program to
take advantage of multiple threads in the first place. This means languages
like python don't benefit at all but code written in C/C++ are so optimized
that hyperthreading does nothing but divide the cache into two halves.
------
mixmastamyk
I bought a core i5 a few years ago merely to save money as I edit text files
for a living. By chance it turns out to not offer hyper-threading. Not sure it
matters much but interesting none the less.
------
shmerl
Does it refer to Intel specifically (hyperthreading is Intel's term), or it
any processor (then the general term should be SMT).
------
fierarul
From the video: "two weeks ago: another one was released... publicly"
So... there's more to come.
------
vallismortis
I'm still not - um - disabling, ah, hyperthreading, because, I'm paying for,
ah, 4 cores on a 2 core ah, processor.
------
segfaultbuserr
The title has a clickbaity tendency, it should be changed from "OpenBSD was
Right" to "OpenBSD was Right (on disabling hyperthreading)".
------
baybal2
Greg is a very important man, many bet he will be the one to take over the
Linux development after Linus
| 2024-04-18T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3360 |
Q:
Apply Gradient Colors on CarbonTapSwipeNavigation
I am new to iOS.I want to apply gradient colors on CarbonTabSwipeNavigation.I tried to apply the gradient to the toolbar of CarbonTabSwipeNavigation, but it is not working. Here's the code.
let carbonTabSwipeNavigation = CarbonTabSwipeNavigation(items: items, delegate: self)
carbonTabSwipeNavigation.toolbar.setGradientToToolbar(default_pri_color: UIColor.DarkBlue(), default_sec_color: UIColor.LightBlue())
Here's the Function
extension UIToolbar {
func setGradientToToolbar(default_pri_color: UIColor, default_sec_color: UIColor) {
let gradient = CAGradientLayer()
gradient.frame = self.bounds
gradient.colors = [default_pri_color.cgColor, default_sec_color.cgColor]
self.layer.insertSublayer(gradient, at: 0)
}
}
A:
The issue is with the gradientLayer frame. Toolbar constraints are not yet laid out when you are calling setGradientToToolbar method on it. So, with everything zero in bounds you are not able to see the gradient layer.
There are two ways to fix this,
1) You provide frame for gradientLayer as below,
func setGradientToToolbar(default_pri_color: UIColor , default_sec_color:UIColor) {
let gradient = CAGradientLayer()
gradient.frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: UIScreen.main.bounds.width, height: 120)
gradient.colors = [UIColor.red.cgColor, UIColor.green.cgColor]
self.layer.insertSublayer(gradient, at: 0)
}
2) Call setGradientToToolbar method on toolbar after your viewController finishes layout for all views. Below is the complete example,
import UIKit
import CarbonKit
class ViewController: UIViewController, CarbonTabSwipeNavigationDelegate {
var carbonTabSwipeNavigation: CarbonTabSwipeNavigation!
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
let items = ["Features", "Products", "About"]
carbonTabSwipeNavigation = CarbonTabSwipeNavigation(items: items, delegate: self)
carbonTabSwipeNavigation.toolbarHeight.constant = 120
carbonTabSwipeNavigation.insert(intoRootViewController: self)
}
func carbonTabSwipeNavigation(_ carbonTabSwipeNavigation: CarbonTabSwipeNavigation, viewControllerAt index: UInt) -> UIViewController {
return UIViewController()
}
override func viewDidLayoutSubviews() {
carbonTabSwipeNavigation.toolbar.setGradientToToolbar(default_pri_color: .red, default_sec_color: .yellow)
}
}
extension UIToolbar {
func setGradientToToolbar(default_pri_color: UIColor , default_sec_color:UIColor) {
let gradient = CAGradientLayer()
gradient.frame = self.bounds
gradient.colors = [default_pri_color.cgColor, default_sec_color.cgColor]
self.layer.insertSublayer(gradient, at: 0)
}
}
Both will give you the below result,
| 2023-11-19T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1937 |
While a Patch Tuesday week tends to be quite eventful on its own, Mozilla, Intel, and Adobe are making sure you know what to do! Mozilla fixed multiple vulnerabilities in its 68 (Firefox) and 60.8 (Firefox ESR) releases, while Intel released two severe security updates. Last but not least, Adobe published 3 patches. There are no security patches for Adobe Flash or Adobe Reader making Microsoft, Intel & Firefox your biggest priority today.
Microsoft Patch Tuesday - July 2019
Microsoft released its Patch Tuesday, July 2019 software updates to address a total of 77 vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products. Including 15 rated as critical and two zero-day vulnerabilities are known to be under active exploit.
Similar to previous months , we've created an Audit Report which checks if the assets in your network are on the latest Microsoft patch update . It's color-coded to give you an easy and quick overview which assets are already on the latest Windows update, and which ones still need to be patched.
Sample Report - Microsoft Patch Tuesday Audit - Click to Enlarge
Multiple Vulnerabilities in Mozilla Firefox
Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in Mozilla Firefox and Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), the most severe of which could allow for arbitrary code execution. Successful exploitation of the most severe of these vulnerabilities could allow for arbitrary code execution. Depending on the privileges associated with the user, an attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Get an overview of all outdated Firefox installations via our custom Audit Report and install the security patches.
Affected Firefox Systems
Sample Report - Mozilla Firefox Version 68 - Click to Enlarge
Intel Releases Security Updates
Intel has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in Intel Solid State Drives (SSD) for Data Centers and Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to gain an escalation of privileges on a previously infected machine.
A potential security vulnerability ( CVE-2018-18095 ) in Intel® Solid State Drives (SSD) for Data Centers (DC) S4500/S4600 Series firmware may allow escalation of privilege. Intel is releasing firmware updates to mitigate this potential vulnerability. Intel recommends updating Intel® SSD DC S4500 Series and Intel® SSD DC S4600 Series firmware to SCV10150 or later.
You can use our SSD or HDD Audit Report to list all drives in your environment and to find upgrade candidates for SSDs.
A potential security vulnerability ( CVE-2019-11133 ) in the Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool may allow escalation of privilege, denial of service, or information disclosure. Intel is releasing software updates to mitigate this potential vulnerability. Intel recommends that users of Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool update to version 4.1.2.24 or later.
To check if Intel's Processor Diagnostic Tool is installed in your network and is up to date, you can run our Audit Report to get a color-coded overview of all Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool installations and their versions.
Sample Report - Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool - Click to Enlarge
Adobe issued only 3 security patches for Bridge CC , Experience Manager , and Dreamweaver . Experience Manager is patched for three vulnerabilities, while Bridge and Dreamweaver each have one.
None are labeled as critical, and the highest-rated vulnerability for each software package is labeled as important. There are no patches for Adobe Flash or Adobe Reader making Microsoft, Intel & Firefox your biggest priority today. Nevertheless, we've created an Audit Report which checks if the assets in your network are running the latest Adobe updates. | 2024-05-21T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6840 |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John McDonnell: I'm absolutely worried about social care
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell says the government's Budget has offered "nothing" to tackle the "social care crisis".
He told the BBC it would be difficult to "rebuild" social care services to cope with the coronavirus outbreak.
He said he was "worried" about the future, but he welcomed extra funding to help the NHS.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said social care will get "everything it needs" to respond to the outbreak.
Earlier, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced at least £5bn this year for the NHS in England to help it cope with the spread of the virus.
Mr Hancock told MPs the extra cash was for "social care too", telling MPs that adult social care "will be at the front line of our response".
It comes after Mr Hancock wrote to MPs last week to start cross-party talks to find a long-term solution on how social care should be funded.
The talks were a pledge in the Conservative election manifesto, which also promised an extra £1bn per year for social care in England over the next five years.
According to NHS Digital, 841,850 people were receiving long-term care in England in 2018. An ageing population is expected to increase demand.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Neil Show, Mr McDonnell said he would support any "effective" plan to emerge from the talks.
But he accused ministers of having failed to "seriously" acknowledge pressures faced by the sector, and failing to "learn the lessons" from budget cuts to public services over the last 10 years.
"There's nothing for social care today," he added, referring to the Budget.
"If you don't tackle the social care crisis, we're going to have real problems - not just immediately but for the long-term future".
Earlier, former Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted he failed to solve issues relating to social care whilst in office.
Writing on Twitter, he added that the sector "desperately" needed a long-term plan to go alongside the 10-year NHS England blueprint unveiled last year.
"Hospitals will continue to fill up, and the winter crisis will be annual until we fix this issue," he added.
'Astounding omission'
Speaking after the Budget was delivered, acting Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the spending plans did not do "anything" for social care.
"We have a care sector on its knees. Care homes are closing and there are shortages of care staff," he said.
"It is an astounding omission."
Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at the King's Fund think tank, said adult social care remained a "pressing and overlooked" issue.
He added that it was "hugely disappointing" the Budget "does not include an emergency cash injection to help local government to address social care needs beyond coronavirus."
Social care is a devolved issue. In Scotland, the SNP has said if it is re-elected in 2021 it would scrap all non-residential social care charges.
Plaid Cymru has said social care in Wales should be free at the point of need and funded from general taxation. | 2023-10-26T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9305 |
Nevertheless, the podium for voting history is occupied by Dunne, Brash and Peters, and on a candidate survey basis, Peters/Brash/Dunne, with the leaders of the Maori, Mana and Labour Parties rockin’ the low end of the scale.
I suppose one could get antsy about the obvious bias etc, but in all seriousness, chur, Family First; it is actually a democratic good for people to be able to discover candidates’ views on divisive issues like abortion, prostitution, gay marriage, and … whether all billboards should have to be rated G (even if one is immediately reminded of the Jonas Brothers using-purity-rings-to-sll-sex-to-children episode of South Park, and is forced to wonder how precisely sexgear.co.nz’s excellent “All our customers do is scream and moan” would fare, unles the word “sex” itself is deemed un-G).
The McCroskie himself says,
“We are pleased to offer this resource to assist families in making an informed choice at the polling booth this November.”
Taken out of the context of his usual preachy wank, I am compelled to say: that man deserves a DB.
Related
10 comments
I am currently reading this out to the flat, Dramatic Reading style. Conclusions we have come to thus far include:
-Someone needs to suggest to Bob McCroskie that he ban non-marital fornication within 50 feet of ~the children~ (whom we are so often thinking of).
-WE CAN’T TELL FAMILY FIRST’S POSITION ON EUTHANASIA OR SURROGACY. How do we know whether to follow the smiley faces or the frowny faces? D:
-Family first has a very strange opinion on where hyphens belong in some words. His-torical, natch.
-John Key, when Winston fucking Peters doesn’t support an abstinence-based program and you do, I am severely disappointed in you.
The fact that it’s Family First and all levels of bias aside, this is a bloody great resource in terms of looking at the issues that are important to me. So cheers, Bob McCroskie! (I feel slightly unclean just writing that.)
I do still like the whole idea of celebrating the midwinter solstice with snow and stuff in Australia where it basically doesn’t ever snow. Especially celebrating it in midsummer out of a perverse desire not to admit that that’s what it is. It makes the “Queen’s Birthday” thing seem positively rational.
Sorry, we were talking about rationality and Bib McCoskrie. As you were.
Not sure if they’ve cleaned it up now, but there were quite a lot of errors in terms of matching up names and faces and seats and stuff. E.g. picture of Jacinda Ardern, but Kate Sutton for the name, and then what must have been Jacinda’s voting record given Kate isn’t an MP yet. I think there may have been a similar mix-up for Paul Goldsmith/Rodney Hide, possibly others. | 2024-02-06T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8315 |
For all the big talk about union thuggery, the strongest evidence of thuggery usually comes from the right wing side of things. And now we have it straight from the horse's mouth...er...email.
WisconsinWatch reported this morning that Carlos Lam, an Indiana prosecutor, denied writing it, though he confirmed the Hotmail address as one belonging to him.
Here's the text of the email:
“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.
“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.”
And here's his oh-so-sincere denial:
“I am flabbergasted and would never advocate for something like this, and would like everyone to be sure that that’s just not me,” he said, after being read the email. Asked his views on Scott Walker, Lam said, “I think he’s trying to do what he has to do to get his budget balanced. But jeez, that’s taking it a little bit to the extreme,” he said of the email’s suggestion to fake violence. “Jeez!”
Hmmm. But now it's a few hours later, and he has resigned after admitting writing the email. Surely a good staunch Republican lawyer wouldn't lie to the press so easily, would he?
Well, yes. And he hemmed himself in, because the headers were included with the original email which contain an originating IP address. Despite his protestations that he was minivan shopping with the family and must have been hacked, it's likely he just couldn't get around that pesky email address.
Now here's a little bit about Mr. Lam:
His blog posts, video appearances and comments on the Internet paint the picture of an outspoken, politically active, longtime Republican who has publicly lambasted collective bargaining for state employee unions and alluded to government taxation as "essentially taking money at gunpoint." In one of his 1,306 comments on a stock investors' site, Lam called Indiana "an unsustainable public worker gravy train bubble." In another, he said "unions & companies that feed at the gov't trough will fight tooth & nail against anything that un-feathers their nests." Lam wrote in his account profile there that he "believes that to truly prosper as the republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers, we must return to principles of sound money and limited government. He has his own '3G network' that is quite apart from Apple: guns, gold and gasoline.' "
That's two Indiana prosecutors who have lost their jobs over online misconduct related to the Wisconsin protests. I'm shocked -- SHOCKED -- that an officer of the court would do such a thing. Aren't you? | 2024-06-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1740 |
Overview (5)
Mini Bio (1)
Tony Award-winning English actor Michael Gough, best known for playing the butler Alfred Pennyworth in the first four Batman (1989, 1992, 1995 & 1997) movies and for playing the arch-criminal Dr. Clement Armstrong in Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone (1961) episode "The Cybernauts", was an accomplished performer on both stage and screen. He was nominated twice for Tony Awards, in 1979 for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Alan Ayckbourn's "Bedroom Farce" and in 1988 in the same category for Hugh Whitemore's "Breaking the Code", winning in 1979. Though he never achieved on the small screen and silver screen what he did in the theater, Gough's career in television and movies spanned sixty-plus years over eight decades. Michael Gough died at age 94 on March 17, 2011 at his home near Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
Spouse (4)
Trade Mark (5)
Deep resonant voice
Regal smooth voice
Craggy features
Aristocratic bearing
Roles in Hammer Horror films
Trivia (23)
Won Broadway's 1979 Tony Award as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) for "Bedroom Farce." He was also nominated in the same category in 1988 for "Breaking the Code."
He came out of retirement to play Notary James Hardenbrook in Sleepy Hollow (1999).
Children: Has a daughter Emma Frances Gough (born August 13, 1953) with his second wife Anne Leon . Had two children with Anneke Wills , Polly (born 1963) and Jasper (born 1965). Polly died tragically in a car accident in 1982, shortly before she was to be married. Her biological father was Anthony Newley , but Gough had adopted her and been her father since her birth. She never knew that Newley was her biological father. His son Jasper is a photographer for Southeby's.
Surname is pronounced in the same way as "cough".
He was the first TV Best Actor BAFTA winner to guest star on Doctor Who (1963).
Close friends with Alan Napier , who played Alfred Pennyworth on the television series Batman (1966).
He was considered for the roles of Dr. Hans Fallanda, Dr. Armstrong and Sir Percy Heseltine in Lifeforce - Die tödliche Bedrohung (1985).
Although born in Malaysia, he always considered himself English.
In 1970 he started making the film Capri for Ken Annakin with Zena Walker, Karen Dotrice and Jack Watling but finance for it ran out.
He was only one of two actors that were in all 4 batman movies the other one one was pat hingle.
After his death, Michael Keaton said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, "To Mick-my butler, my confidant, my friend, my Alfred, I love you. God bless.".
Personal Quotes (4)
[on dispute surrounding his birth year] There is some indecision to when I was born. My sister said it was 1916. I'd lost my birth certificate.
I'm essentially a jobbing actor. If I'm out of work, I'll be the back end of a donkey.
I'm a featured support player, and that's what I'm happy being. You don't have the responsibility of a star, you're not as expensive as a star, and you get lovely parts.
I love the Hollywood experience. They give you your per diem and that pays for a house.
| 2023-10-11T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1495 |
Discussion
2 Great Meals 1 Miss
This weekend I had a couple great meals and wanted to share, and had one inexplicable miss.
Friday night I went to Ta Ta's Asian Bistro in Henderson. Amazing. We sat at the sushi bar (I guess they do a hibachi meal or standard chinese type food as well). We started off on a so/so note with miso soup that was just like you would find this anyplace. What was to come was so amazing, I think they should come up with a different soup, or even skip it all together (heresy I know!). We got an order of spicy scallops (sweet, cooked to perfection!), and an Aloha Tuna salad. The salad was huge and over the top yummy. The flavors were rich and well developed and the fish was perfect (coming from RI I had reservations!). As the chef got a sense of what we liked he started making us other things. Not even sure what they are but he had no misses in there. At one point he served us Salmon collars (not even on the menu) and they were wonderful. The final touch was his dessert suggestion.. Roe with a quails egg (raw). My SO is slightly more adventurous than I am, and reported that this was sublime. The staff there was super friendly and the food was well above average. Total dinner bill for 2 was about 65 and we were rolling out of the place. I will definitely visit again!
Breakfast the next morning was at DuPar's (in the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino). Esquire Magazine has said that they make the best pancakes in the US. I think they need to get out more. Not to say that there was anything wrong with them. But best? Nah. The same as could be found at lots of good places across the country, but for a lot less money. SO and I got the special, and had orange juice (fresh squeezed was a nice touch) and hot chocolate and somehow this perfectly average breakfast cost us around 35 dollars without a tip. I went to their website just now because I was having a brain block on which casino it was in and the site has the August pie of the month up. I guess this is a fitting metaphor. It just seemed like the details were missing. The syrup was warm (thank heavens) but apart from that, there was just nothing special about the experience. I would go back if friends wanted to try it or something but I cannot imagine doing it on my own. On a weird side note, we ended up waiting for a valet who was no where to be found for 5 minutes and when he reappeared he was running from somewhere down the street (and the lot and my car were all right there). I wanted to be wowed at this place and maybe my expectations were too high but in the end, they were just "Meh".
Now with expectations, my late lunch was the exact opposite experience. I was at the Galleria in Henderson and lunchtime found me at the food court (I know I know I am loosing all my street cred!) and thought I would give Kyklos Greek Cafe a try. I am so happy I did. The guy at the register could tell I was an out of towner (I don't have an accent they do!) and promptly got me a sample of the marinated chicken. It was so good I changed my order! I ended up with a combo plate. It was essentially a gyro deconstructed (both lamb and chicken for me!) and rice pilaf. The pilaf was completely average and I do not think I would get it again, but the deconstructed gyro was likely the best I ever had (and I am counting fully constructed gyro's in that statement as well! :D ). What made it so great was the tzatziki sauce. I complimented the guy in charge and he told me it is an old family recipe. Seriously wonderful stuff. I got it with a greek salad (ask for the extra olives) and a bottle of water and paid 16 which is a little high for lunch in my book, but seriously, it was so good I left with a huge smile on my face. I anticipate leaving lots of money here in the future.
Thanks for those local reviews. We tried Kylkos for the first time on our May trip and really enjoyed our gyro, but the baklava was bone dry. In response to my post on yelp, one of the co-owners indicated they were going to change the recipe (his mother's) and invited us back. | 2024-01-05T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8706 |
The present invention is directed to sterilization wrap materials. More particularly, the present invention is directed to multi-plied materials made from individual sheets which are fused together so as to be suitable for use as a sterilization wrap for wrapping surgical instruments and supplies for sterilization and storage in conjunction with surgical procedures and for other applications such as packaging items for bone marrow units.
Personnel in the Central Service Room (CSR) or the Sterile Processing Department (SPD) of hospitals are commonly charged with the responsibility of packaging surgical supplies to ensure that the sterility of the packaged contents are maintained all the way from sterilization to the point of reuse. Several activities are involved in the task of sterile supply delivery to the operating room and other units.
Much of the surgical instruments and supplies used in the operating room are reusable. These supplies typically include such things as clamps, scalpel blade handles, retractors, forceps, scissors, surgeons towels, basins and the like. All of these supplies must be collected after each procedure and sterilized before they can be used again in another procedure. To this end, the supplies are placed in stainless steel instrument trays, and soft goods such as surgeons towels, drapes, and gowns are prepared for packaging. Then, the trays and package contents are each generally wrapped with two sheets of material commonly referred to as sterilization wrap.
The sterilization wrap is usually a woven or nonwoven material which when wrapped around the tray or package contents in a certain prescribed manner will permit the entry of sterilizing vapor/gas or other medium to sterilize the contents of the tray while denying the ingress of contaminants such as bacteria and other infectious causing materials or their vehicles after sterilization. Generally, the two primary means for sterilizing instruments are autoclaving with steam and ethylene oxide sterilization.
Using a wrapped tray as an example, once the wrapped tray and its contents have been sterilized, the wrapped tray is transported to the point of use, typically an operating room, or is stored until it is ready to be used. During storage and transfer to the operating room, the wrapped tray may be handled several different times. Each time the wrapped package is handled, there is a potential that the sterile nature of the package contents can be compromised. The two most common ways the wrapped package can be compromised are a tear or other breach of the wrapping material, and wetness or foreign materials identified on the outer wrapper, which would warrant a premature unwrapping.
In order to promote and maintain the sterility of the packaged contents, the Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) has developed certain recommended practices for the wrapping and handling of in-hospital processed packages. It is common practice among many hospitals as recommended by the AORN to “double wrap” in-hospital processed packages. A primary method of double wrapping is “sequential” in nature in that the package contents are first wrapped by one sheet of sterilization wrap and then wrapped again by another sheet of sterilization wrap. Another method of double wrapping is “simultaneous” in nature in that the package contents are wrapped by two sheets of sterilization wrap at the same time. That is, two sheets of sterilization wrap are aligned one on top of the other, and the item to be wrapped is placed on top of the two sheets, then the item is wrapped by both sheets of material at the same time.
Studies have been used to track packages from initial wrapping, all the way through sterilization, storage, handling, transfer, unwrapping and ultimate reuse. These studies indicate that the frequency of compromising wrapped items due to tears or holes has been reduced because of improved handling and storage techniques and because of improved sterilization packaging products. One of the main thrusts behind such efforts has been economics. Every time a sterile package is compromised, it must be taken out of circulation, unwrapped, rewrapped, and resterilized before it can properly be reused. This wastes time and money.
While the frequency of compromising wrappers has been reduced thus resulting in the saving of time and money, the use of simultaneous wrapping techniques would further increase the time savings in wrapping and opening packages and thus result in a still greater cost savings. Simultaneous wrapping takes less time than sequential wrapping and recent research in hospitals has shown simultaneous wrapping to be just as effective as sequential wrapping in maintaining sterility absent a breach in the wrap which is generally independent of the manner of wrapping.
Even though the hospital staff may desire to simultaneously wrap instead of sequentially wrap, the time it takes to set up the outer and inner sheet wrappers and the awkwardness of manipulating loose wrappers during simultaneous wrapping can offset the time savings hoped to be achieved when attempting to move away from sequential wrapping. Consequently, if a product existed which provided the appropriate inner and outer sheet combinations and eliminated the awkwardness of keeping the two sheets together during the package wrapping and opening processes, then a simultaneous packaging system would deliver the benefits desired including time savings and targeted engineered inner and outer sheet performance.
In conjunction with the manner in which the packages are wrapped, the material used for wrapping is also important. As mentioned above, the two most common wrapping materials are woven materials such as cloth (cotton/polyester), nonwoven materials such as KIMGUARD® Sterile-Wrap (polypropylene) from Kimberly-Clark Corporation of Neenah Wisconsin and Bio-shield CSR Wrap (wood pulp/polyester) from Baxter Healthcare Corporation of Deerfield, Ill. One version of the Baxter sterilization wrap is a product called DualWrap® Sterilization Wrap, which includes an inner sheet of wet laid paper (cellulose) and a separate outer sheet of spunlaced or hydroentangled pulp/polyester. The inner and outer layers are provided in a stack of loose, unattached sheets in which the inner and outer sheets are alternated.
Whatever the material is that is being used as sterile wrap, it should be noted that when wrapping two sheets at the same time, it is important that the wrapping materials provide good barrier properties to maintain package sterility and good strength properties so that tearing or other forms of breaching are held to a minimum. If the outer and inner sheets of the double wrap are to have different properties, then it is important that the system be visually identifiable so that the user can determine which wrapper is the outer sheet and which wrapper is the inner sheet. Consequently, there is a need for a new sterilization wrap system that actually reduces the time for packaging and opening and delivers outer and inner sheet engineered performance in a simple identifiable and easy to use fashion. Such attributes are provided by the present invention as will become more apparent upon a further review of the following specification, claims and drawings. | 2023-12-16T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3126 |
Impact of pandemic A/H1N1/2009 influenza on children and their families: comparison with seasonal A/H1N1 and A/H3N2 influenza viruses.
To make a direct comparison between the total burden of pandemic influenza and that of other seasonal influenza A viral subtypes in otherwise healthy children. The total clinical and socioeconomic burden of pandemic A/H1N1/2009 influenza was compared with that of seasonal influenza A viral subtypes in 389 otherwise healthy children with A/H1N1/2009, 126 with seasonal A/H1N1 and 486 with seasonal A/H3N2 infection referred to the Emergency Room and hospitalised in the in-patient units of a large, university-based paediatric hospital. Influenza diagnosis was confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Regardless of age or gender, the variables significantly associated with pandemic A/H1N1/2009 and seasonal A/H3N2 infection were a diagnosis of lower respiratory tract infection upon clinical presentation, the need for hospitalisation, hospitalisation for ≥7 days, school absences of ≥7 days, the need for aerosol therapy, the household development of a disease similar to that of the infected child, and the need for additional household medical visits and antibiotic prescriptions (p < 0.001). A longer period of hospitalisation and lost school days seemed to be associated with pandemic A/H1N1/2009 infection (p < 0.01). Perceived symptom severity and the risk of serious outcomes are similar in children with influenza due to pandemic A/H1N1/2009 or seasonal A/H3N2 influenza, but both of these viruses seem to have a greater clinical and socioeconomic impact than seasonal A/H1N1 virus, regardless of the patients' age or gender. | 2024-04-09T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9763 |
Scoliosis correction surgery for patients with McCune-Albright syndrome using pedicle screws: a report of two cases with different characteristics and a review of the literature.
Scoliosis can occur secondary to McCune-Albright syndrome (MAS); it can be progressive and sometimes requires surgical treatment. It is still unclear if pedicle screw (PS) fixation in these patients with poor bone quality can be considered an effective treatment for scoliosis. The purpose of this study is to report two MAS patients with spinal fibrous dysplasia (FD) who underwent scoliosis surgeries with the PS system. Case 1: a 12-year-old girl. Standing posteroanterior radiographs revealed a 58° right curve from T7 to L2. Computed tomography (CT) showed small areas of FD throughout the spine. A posterior spinal arthrodesis from T4 to L3 using PS fixation was performed with a CT-based navigation system. Case 2: a 26-year-old woman. Radiographs in the standing position revealed a right 87° curve from T8 to L2 and a 55° kyphosis from T8 to T12. CT images showed multiple areas of severe spinal FD causing angular deformity and collapse of vertebral bodies. The patient underwent posterior spinal arthrodesis from T8 to her pelvis using a CT-based navigation system for PS fixation. Superior scoliosis corrections were obtained using PS instrumentation, attaining complete bony union in both cases without major complications. However, Case 2 had some technical difficulties in treating due to the multiple large FD lesions. PS fixation can be considered an effective treatment for correcting scoliosis and maintaining the correction at follow-up in MAS patients with poor bone quality. However, great care must be taken when performing correction and follow-up. | 2024-04-02T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6739 |
# Copyright (c) 2020, Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.
# Licensed under the Universal Permissive License v 1.0 as shown at https://oss.oracle.com/licenses/upl.
AdminUserName=weblogic
AdminPassword=welcome1 | 2024-03-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/2004 |
Chemical compositions of the volatile extracts from seeds of Dendranthema nankingense and Borago officinalis.
Volatile extracts from the seeds of Dendranthema nankingense Hand.-Mazz. and Borago officinalis L. were prepared using simultaneous distillation and extraction, and analyzed with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry on two capillary gas chromatography columns of different polarity. Ninety-five volatile compounds were identified in D. nankingense seeds, with hexanal, benzeneacetaldehyde, borneol, (-)-camphor, and 3-methyl-1-butanol being the predominant species. Sixty-five volatile compounds were identified in B. officinalis seeds, with 2-pentanone, 2,3-dihydro-benzofuran, 3-methyl butanal, and hexanal being the most abundant species. Thirty-three compounds, including short-chain aliphatic aldehydes, alcohols, and ketones, were common to both seeds. The volatile composition of both seeds varied significantly depending on their respective origins. The volatile terpenoids borneol and (-)-camphor could be key bioactive contributors to the characteristic flavor and cooling effects of D. nankingense. For the first time, coumaran was identified as an abundant species in plant seeds. | 2024-04-07T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3021 |
The decline of Germany's solar power industry has long been common wisdom among energy market observers. A boom in the early 2000s was followed by a rapid decline around 2010 that saw many of the technology's pioneers go out of business due to much cheaper Chinese competitors that benefited from Germany's renewable support. However, business confidence in the sector has bounced back considerably in recent years and the German solar industry today looks ahead at 2020 with much more optimism than many had thought possible just a few years back. Figures released by solar power industry lobby group BSW Solar published in late 2019 confirmed that solar companies have regained confidence, partly driven by the government's climate package, which promised a removal of the current cap on support at 52 gigawatts (GW) – a capacity level expected to be reached soon.
Making good on its promise to remove the cap is among the first things the government coalition needs to do in 2020, BSW Solar head Carsten Körnig told Clean Energy Wire. "If that doesn't happen we will effectively see solar installation of new panels on rooftops grinding to a halt already by spring next year," he said. Moreover, current expansion planning should be increased threefold and auction volumes also lifted substantially in order to stay on track towards reaching Germany's emissions reduction targets. "We need 10 GW of new installations per year to compensate for the phaseout of nuclear and coal power," Körnig said. The BSW Solar currently expects that only 4 GW will be added in 2020.
Solar PV proved to be a reliable power source in Germany in 2019, especially and perhaps unsurprisingly during the summer months. In June, it was the northern European country's single largest source of electricity, generating 19 percent of the net public electricity supply over a whole month. The total share in gross output in 2019 reached nearly 7.5 percent. Moreover, solar power continues to be the favoured renewable energy source for most Germans. A poll conducted in late 2019 showed that nearly 80 percent of respondents that live close to an installation approve of it, far ahead of second-placed wind power, of which 63 percent of those living next to it approve.
The technology's popularity could rise further as home storage systems become more widespread, making it possible to use energy from the sun well into the night and substantially increase a panel's utilisation throughout a 24-hour cycle. The spread of home batteries in Germany already helped Europe make the largest residential storage market globally, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Residential storage will reach the tipping point in Germany by 2022, boosting mass adoption of the technology in hundreds of thousands of households across the country, the analysis forecasts.
BSW Solar expects that solar power will also become increasingly important for the country's heating supply, aided by the fact that the government will allow tax rebates for heating modernisations that use solar energy and higher grants to stimulate the market in 2020. "Also the foreseeable increase in heating costs due to CO2 pricing is set to encourage demand," Körnig said. However, it is unlikely that this will be sufficient to reach the building sector's climate targets, which can only be achieved through increased expansion and stricter minimum standards for modernisation, he added. "There is a vast and so far unused cheap solar power potential for supplying rural areas and cities," Körnig stressed.
Kerstin Andreae, head of energy industry lobby group BDEW, said the importance and potential of solar power has been slightly overlooked in the past months, in which the stalled expansion of onshore wind power dominated debates in the energy sector. "We need to refocus on solar power," Andreae added.
The BDEW is calling for solar power to be made a priority in 2020 and is advocating for an amendment to Germany's Renewable Energy Act (EEG) that would spur a faster rollout of the technology. Key measures would include a removal of the cap on support and the promotion of tenant electricity concepts that facilitate installations on many residential buildings. The scheme promoted by Germany's economy ministry has not lived up to the government's expectations so far, with only about 700 facilities supplying tenants with electricity from their own rooftops by mid-2019. "We need to bring the energy transition to the inner cities," Andreae said. | 2023-11-02T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1076 |
Vegan Lasagna Bechamel with Sweet Potato and Cauliflower. Easy Bechamel sauce. Dairy-free Recipe. Can be easily made glutenfree( See Kris’s gf bechamel here .)
A quick and skinny Lasagna today. It was one of those Fridays a few weeks back, when the pantry and refrigerator were almost empty. No tomatoes, veggies or greens. I was tired if eating lentils/beans. I found a boiled sweet potato and some cauliflower and decided to try some bechamel with it. Simple flavors and delicious food.
Add more layers, add some marinara layers, cheese, greens and more to make it hearty.
For more Lasagna, Pasta options see the Collection here.
I am so bored of listening to audiobooks.. and now I will get a headache after pushing myself to write the post.. oh well. Here’s to better days!
Did you know that more Cows are harmed for Cheese than for Milk.
Americans consume almost twice as much cow’s milk as cheese than as fluid milk. It takes more than 10 pounds of fluid milk to get a pound of cheese. Fluid milk consumption is on a steady 40-year decline while cheese consumption continues to rise. Cheese consumption has continued to increase since 2010 and was at its highest level in 2012. As exposed in the New York Times, the USDA has worked behind the scenes with companies to increase the cheese content of products and market new cheese-laden products. In 2010, 326 pounds of cow’s milk was consumed as cheese per capita while only 196 pounds was consumed as fluid milk. To get a better idea about the numbers, see the article at Counting Animals with charts and graphs.
Steps:
Whisk the flour into melted oil.
Whisk in the almond milk, then add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Keep ready
Assemble the Lasagna. Layer Bechamel, lasagna sheets, sliced cauliflower. Sprinkle garlic powder and chili or black pepper.
Add a layer of Sweet potato slices(raw or roasted), sprinkle dried herbs of choice, salt, bechamel and lasagna sheets.
Top with bechamel, bread crumbs or cheese.
Bake for about an hour.
Serve.
| 2024-07-19T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6852 |
# RTBKIT core makefile
$(eval $(call include_sub_make,monitor))
$(eval $(call include_sub_make,banker))
$(eval $(call include_sub_make,agent_configuration))
$(eval $(call include_sub_make,post_auction))
$(eval $(call include_sub_make,rtb_router,router,rtb_router.mk))
| 2023-12-24T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3518 |
Q:
apache spark - failed to connect to remote spark stand-alone system
My standalone spark is running on ec2 instance. But when I tried connecting to that through Java code, I got an error. Java code is:
SparkConf conf = new SparkConf().setAppName("App_Name")
.setMaster("spark://172.31.2.165:4040");
//.set("spark.ui.port","4040");
JavaSparkContext context = new JavaSparkContext(conf);
And the error is:
java.io.IOException: Failed to connect to /172.31.2.165:4040
at org.apache.spark.network.client.TransportClientFactory.createClient(TransportClientFactory.java:216)
at org.apache.spark.network.client.TransportClientFactory.createClient(TransportClientFactory.java:167)
at org.apache.spark.rpc.netty.NettyRpcEnv.createClient(NettyRpcEnv.scala:200)
at org.apache.spark.rpc.netty.Outbox$$anon$1.call(Outbox.scala:187)
at org.apache.spark.rpc.netty.Outbox$$anon$1.call(Outbox.scala:183)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: no further information: /172.31.2.165:4040
at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.checkConnect(Native Method)
at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.finishConnect(Unknown Source)
at io.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioSocketChannel.doFinishConnect(NioSocketChannel.java:224)
at io.netty.channel.nio.AbstractNioChannel$AbstractNioUnsafe.finishConnect(AbstractNioChannel.java:289)
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.processSelectedKey(NioEventLoop.java:528)
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.processSelectedKeysOptimized(NioEventLoop.java:468)
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.processSelectedKeys(NioEventLoop.java:382)
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.run(NioEventLoop.java:354)
at io.netty.util.concurrent.SingleThreadEventExecutor$2.run(SingleThreadEventExecutor.java:111)
... 1 more
A:
By default you should use port 7077 to connect to the master, port 4040 is for the web UI
Make sure port 7077 is reachable from wherever you run you Spark job, for instance open it in the security group that the master is in when you run it from outside EC2
| 2024-05-24T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8563 |
Gluten Free Sauces
Hot Sauce Depot has reviewed our entire selection of hot sauce, BBQ sauce, salsa, and snacks to indicate which products are gluten free. With Celiac Disease, gluten sensitivities, and food allergies on the rise, it is becoming more important that ever to know what you are putting into your body. Unfortunately, many individuals who cannot tolerate gluten have difficulty finding flavorful and delicious foods to enjoy. The good news is that most hot sauces are naturally gluten-free, but not all are certified gluten free. We personally reached out to the producers of the hot sauces in our gluten-free category and only included those that were confirmed gluten-free by the manufacturer. | 2024-02-09T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7892 |
Mr Blair wrote: ''By the standards of days gone by I was not even remotely a toper, and I couldn't do lunchtime drinking except on Christmas Day, but if you took the thing everyone always lies about - units per week - I was definitely at the outer limit.
''Stiff whisky or G&T before dinner, couple of glasses of wine or even half a bottle with it. So not excessively excessive. I had a limit. But I was aware that it had become a prop.''
Mr Blair said he could ''never work out'' whether alcohol was good for him because it helped him relax, or bad because he could have been working instead of relaxing.
He came to the conclusion that the benefits of relaxation outweighed the cost to his work.
''I thought that escaping the pressure and relaxing was a vital part of keeping the job in proportion, a function rather like my holidays,'' he wrote. | 2024-07-13T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4144 |
Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Zidong An (American University) and Prakash Loungani (IMF).
In August 2010, an article in Slate noted there were “two gangs of economists warring over the cause of high unemployment” in the United States. Paul Krugman, the ringleader of the “cycs” said the cause was cyclical—specifically, inadequate aggregate demand; the “strucs” blamed a host of structural factors for the increase and predicted that unemployment would not decline unless these were addressed. Six years later, which side won the battle?
The evidence shows the “cycs” have been proved largely right. U.S. unemployment has fallen pretty much in line with the recovery in output. U.S. states where growth was stronger than the national average had declines in unemployment greater than the national average. And looking across the globe, countries which experienced more rapid growth than the global average — a group which includes the United States and the United Kingdom — had declines in unemployment greater than the global average.
Round up the only suspect
Paul Krugman wrote in 2011 that unemployment was high “because growth is weak — period, full stop, end of story.” The “strucs” had a longer list of solutions: “changes in education, immigration, occupational regulation, foreign direct investment, unemployment insurance and patent law,” according to a 2012 op-ed by Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute.
The evidence is in: growth has trumped the longer list of suspects. Figure 1 shows the relationship between the cyclical components of unemployment and real GDP using U.S. annual data. There is a very tight relationship with a R-square of 0.80 and a slope coefficient of -0.45. The recent years, shown in red in the chart, do not stand out.
In deference to the views of Jim Hamilton, these cyclical components were constructed using not the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter but the one that he recommends instead. In practice, using the HP filter gives similar results: a R-square of 0.78 and a slope coefficient of -0.54. The relationship between the change in the unemployment rate and the growth rate of real GDP, which does not rely on any explicit filtering, is also very strong. With quarterly data, the relationship between unemployment and output gets somewhat noisier but remains very robust (Ball, Leigh and Loungani, 2016).
Figure 1: Cyclical Components of U.S. Unemployment and Output
What Lies Beneath?
The Great Recession did not affect all U.S. states equally and the pace of the subsequent recovery also varied across states. At various times, state politicians — such as former Texas governor Rick Perry — have touted particular labor market policies they have pursued as the reason for their state’s superior employment performance. However, a sub-national look at U.S. states casts doubts on such claims and instead further bolsters the evidence that the “cycs” are right.
Figure 2: Actual and Predicted Unemployment Rates, U.S. States
This is illustrated in Figure 2. The vertical axis shows the decline in unemployment between 2010 and 2015 in each of the 51 U.S. states (granting DC temporary statehood). The horizontal axis shows the decline in unemployment that could have been predicted based on the growth in the state’s domestic product and the historical relationship between unemployment and output in the state. The evidence clearly shows that unemployment fell more in states where there was a stronger recovery in state output (Gonzalez-Prieto, Loungani and Mishra, 2016).
U.S. vs. Others
Figure 3 shows the results of a similar exercise using data on several advanced economies. This time the vertical axis shows the change in unemployment in each economy between 2010 and 2015. The horizontal axis shows what could have been predicted on the basis of the country’s real GDP growth over this period and the historical relationship between unemployment and output in the country. Once again, there is a very strong relationship between the two. In countries, such as the US and UK (highlighted in the chart), where real GDP growth has been stronger than elsewhere, the decline in unemployment rates has been sharper (Ball, Furceri, Leigh and Loungani, 2016).
Figure 3: Actual and Predicted Unemployment Rates, Advanced Economies
Battle won but war continues
The sub-national, national and international evidence thus all point to a clear victory for those who were arguing for a cyclical explanation for the cause of high unemployment in the United States and other advanced economies. By extension, the evidence vindicates the policy prescription of aggregate demand stimulus through monetary and fiscal policies that was recommended by the “cycs”. It is unlikely that the growth differences in U.S. states and advanced countries observed over this period reflected the differential effects of structural policies. Instead, they likely reflect the timing of central bank actions (e.g. Fed vs. the ECB) and differences in the fiscal stance (Kose, Loungani and Terrones, 2013).
Of course, labor market problems remain even in countries such as the United States where conditions have improved significantly over the past few years. As Kocherlakota (who went from the camp of the “strucs” over to the “cycs”) noted recently, U.S. labor force participation has declined—the reasons for this decline and how persistent it will prove remain a matter of debate. Kocherlakota argues that cyclical conditions are still weak and uncertain enough that “raising rates or signaling a December increase would be a mistake” by the Fed. Others say the U.S. economy is now at full employment and further improvements in labor market conditions should come about through structural policies rather than monetary or fiscal stimulus. So the war between the “cycs” and the “strucs” will continue; but in a field where outcomes are never clear cut, it is good to pause and declare that the “cycs” won the battle of 2010-16.
This post written by Zidong An and Prakash Loungani. | 2023-11-02T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5224 |
//pragma solidity ^0.4.24;
contract transferTokenContract {
constructor() payable public{}
function() payable public{}
function transferTokenTest(address toAddress, uint256 tokenValue, trcToken id) payable public {
toAddress.transferToken(tokenValue, id);
}
function transferTokenTestIDOverBigInteger(address toAddress) payable public {
toAddress.transferToken(1, 9223372036854775809);
}
function transferTokenTestValueRandomIdBigInteger(address toAddress) payable public {
toAddress.transferToken(1, 36893488147420103233);
}
function msgTokenValueAndTokenIdTest() public payable returns(trcToken, uint256){
trcToken id = msg.tokenid;
uint256 value = msg.tokenvalue;
return (id, value);
}
function getTokenBalanceTest(address accountAddress) payable public returns (uint256){
trcToken id = 1000001;
return accountAddress.tokenBalance(id);
}
function getTokenBalnce(address toAddress, trcToken tokenId) public payable returns(uint256){
return toAddress.tokenBalance(tokenId);
}
} | 2023-10-04T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7300 |
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Two days ago, the Boy Scouts of America approved a policy change that will allow gay young men to participate in Scouting. In its official response to this vote, the Church said:
"As the Church moves forward in its association with the Boy Scouts of America, Church leaders will continue to seek the most effective ways to address the diverse needs of young people in the United States and throughout the world.... As in the past, the Church will work with BSA to harmonize what Scouting has to offer with the varying needs of our young men."
Who are these gay young men the Boy Scouts are now welcoming? They are young men who maintain high moral standards while experiencing feelings of same sex attraction.
1.
BSA Resolution: "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone."
LDS Church repy: "Sexual orientation has not previously been—and is not now—a disqualifying factor for boys who want to join Latter-day Saint Scout troops."
2.
BSA Resolution: "Any sexual conduct, whether homosexual or heterosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting."
LDS Church repy: "Willingness to abide by standards of behavior continues to be our compelling interest. These standards ... include abstinence from sexual relationships. We remain firmly committed to upholding these standards."
3.
The Church recognizes that there are young men in the Church who frankly acknowledge having feelings of same sex attraction but who nevertheless maintain priesthood standards of behavior. Church leaders are saying these gay young men should be made to feel welcome at all youth activities, including Scouting:
LDS Church statement: "The Church’s long-established policy for participation in activities is stated in the basic instructional handbook used by lay leaders of the Church: ‘young men … who agree to abide by Church standards' are 'welcomed warmly and encouraged to participate.'"
Conclusion
The Church's web site at MormonsAndGays.org is titled, “Love One Another: A Discussion on Same-Sex Attraction.” The second paragraph of that web page contains this thought:
"The experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them."
It is time for all members of the Church to recognize that same sex attraction exists and that the attraction itself is not a sin. In addition, all members of the Church must choose how to respond to fellow members who experience these attractions. | 2024-03-09T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7704 |
President Donald Trump is on the verge of what may be the greatest escalation in his trade war with China yet.
According to Bloomberg News, Trump instructed his aides to impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products, adding to the already $50 billion in place. And the announcement follows his threat last week to impose another $267 billion on China’s exports to the US.
“I hate to say this, but behind that there is another $267 billion ready to go on short notice if I want,” Trump said on September 7.
It’s now clear that what once started as a modest effort to change America’s trading relationship with China has turned into a full-fledged assault on Beijing’s economy.
Trump’s move also comes at an inopportune time. Washington and Beijing were planning another round of talks on ways to end the trade spat. It’s possible, though, that the new tariffs will derail any chance of striking a deal in the near future.
Many of the tariffs Trump imposed so far have mostly targeted high-tech Chinese products to put economic pressure on Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program — a Chinese government initiative to transform the country into an advanced manufacturing powerhouse, in areas like biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles.
But if he follows through on all his tariff threats, Trump will have placed levies on nearly every product China sends to America.
That would almost certainly hurt the US economy in the future, too. Beijing usually retaliates with tariffs of their own on the same kind and amount of products American exporters send to China. That makes it even harder for US businesses to gain access to the Chinese market.
In other words, Trump’s stated effort to bring back American jobs and strengthen America’s private sector — all while trying to reduce the $31 billion trade deficit with China — may soon take a major hit. | 2024-06-25T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9718 |
Let's talk about the upcoming basketball seasons at Strong Vincent, Gannon University, and what players are sticking out from each team.
WITH FOOTBALL season just around the corner, I thought everyone would be talking about the upcoming grid season, but this is not the case, as a few interesting stories making the rounds concern basketball, especially Strong Vincent hoops.
Rumor number-one, which I consider top-shelf after investigating is in regards to SV garnering the services of a 6-9 senior transfer from Rochester, N.Y. After talking to several reliable sources, I couldn't confirm he's from Rochester, but the player in question has been working out with the Colonels this summer, and it appears he will be a great help.
To make it even more interesting is the fact that he is the son of former Academy High School great Walter Stone, a four-year starter for the Lions, who I believe is one of the most underrated players ever to come out of Erie. Stone, a 6-9 standout, was an outstanding inside player who also owned a very soft touch from the outside.
He went on to play in junior college and then started for the Sun Devils of Arizona State University.
While at ASU, the Erie native was a member of the 1980-81 squad that posted an overall record of 24-4 while showing a 16-2 card in the PAC10. The Sun Devils were awarded a second seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament, State being eliminated by Kansas.
This unit is considered one of the best – if not the best – teams in school history.
The former Lions' great played with some of the best players in the country during his high school and college days. Following his Academy senior season, he was named to the Pennsylvania squad for the prestigious Dapper Dan Classic in Pittsburgh and some his teammates included Sam Bowie (Kentucky), Ricky Tunstall (Duquesne), Billy Varner (Notre Dame), and Larry "Bread" Anderson (UNLV).
Meanwhile, it was a Who's Who of College Basketball on the ASU roster, as he played with Byron Scott, Lafayette Lever, Alton Lister, Sam Williams, and Johnny Nash – all high school All-Americans and future NBA performers.
While things are looking up for SV coach Shannon Pullium's team, it was not quite as bright a couple of weeks ago, as there were strong rumors that junior-to-be superstar David Morris was considering a transfer to LeBron James' old high school, Akron's St. Vincent-St. Mary's. Morris and fellow junior Simeal Wofford are expected to be one of the best backcourt duos in the state, and Morris, who will probably be the top scorer in Erie County history before he's finished, caught the attention of the Akron school.
According to my sources, the SV standout was seriously considering making the move but decided to stay with the Colonels and "take care of some unfinished business" in Erie. That was a huge sigh of relief you heard from local hoops fans and an even bigger sigh from Coach Pullium.
Meanwhile, on the college scene Gannon University men's basketball faithful could have an interesting pre-season, as it appears the Golden Knights, according to some of their more knowledgeable followers, may be playing at Pitt and at George Washington before the regular season gets underway. GU coach John Reilly will be breaking in a lot of new faces, and he could learn a lot if they have to match up with the Panthers and the Colonials.
And there are even more stories floating around as rumors persist that Coach Reilly is still looking into the possibility of adding one or two Division-I transfers, paper work being done and the outcome to be known in the near future. GU has a lot of firepower to replace, so the Knights' boss has not left any stones unturned in a hectic recruiting season.
For the people that really like to look ahead, Gannon opens its season with a PSAC West contest Nov. 11 at Clarion University.
---
I WOULD BE remiss if I didn't mention high school football, the local schools officially underway with pre-season workouts in full gear and scrimmages set to begin Saturday, Aug. 22.
There are two of those scrimmages I am planning on making that opening Saturday, Hickory at McDowell (10 a.m.) and Cleveland Benedictine slated to test Cathedral Prep at Dollinger Field at 4 p.m. Both of the visiting teams have players drawing attention from some of the top schools in the country.
The player in question has been working out with the Colonels this summer, and it appears he definitely will be a great help.
Hickory showcases safety Andrew Pryts (6-2, 195) who already has offers from the likes of Alabama, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Pitt, Notre Dame, and Stanford. His father Ed played linebacker at Penn State and many people consider the Nittany Lions the favorite to sign the Hornets' star.
Meanwhile, the Bengals from Cleveland will be bringing a squad looking to defend its state crown with players such as wide receiver Justin Layne (6-2, 180) and running back Dontez Rash (5-8, 175). Layne, rated nationally as a four-star recruit, picked the Spartans over such schools as Alabama, Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida, and Miami (FL). Rash has already committed to Ohio University.
This should get the fires burning for high school gridiron fans.
James R. LeCorchick can be contacted at JRLSportsReport@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @JRLSports. | 2024-06-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7013 |
/**
* @copyright
* ====================================================================
* Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
* or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
* distributed with this work for additional information
* regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
* to you 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.
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*/
package org.tigris.subversion.javahl;
/**
* Encapsulates version information about the underlying native
* libraries. Basically a wrapper for <a
* href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/subversion/trunk/subversion/include/svn_version.h"><code>svn_version.h</code></a>.
*/
public class Version
{
private org.apache.subversion.javahl.types.Version aVersion;
public Version()
{
aVersion = new org.apache.subversion.javahl.types.Version();
}
public Version(org.apache.subversion.javahl.types.Version aVersion)
{
this.aVersion = aVersion;
}
/**
* @return The full version string for the loaded JavaHL library,
* as defined by <code>MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH INFO</code>.
* @since 1.4.0
*/
public String toString()
{
return aVersion.toString();
}
/**
* @return The major version number for the loaded JavaHL library.
* @since 1.4.0
*/
public int getMajor()
{
return aVersion.getMajor();
}
/**
* @return The minor version number for the loaded JavaHL library.
* @since 1.4.0
*/
public int getMinor()
{
return aVersion.getMinor();
}
/**
* @return The patch-level version number for the loaded JavaHL
* library.
* @since 1.4.0
*/
public int getPatch()
{
return aVersion.getPatch();
}
/**
* @return Whether the JavaHL native library version is at least
* of <code>major.minor.patch</code> level.
* @since 1.5.0
*/
public boolean isAtLeast(int major, int minor, int patch)
{
return aVersion.isAtLeast(major, minor, patch);
}
}
| 2024-05-04T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9807 |
Noninvasive genotyping of dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) using nanograms of DNA from substance-dependent patients.
A noninvasive DNA sampling method has been implemented collecting buccal mucosa cells by cotton wool swabs. An amount of 0.2 2 microg DNA per patient was obtained after the phenol-extraction procedure and 0.2 2 ng DNA template was sufficient for PCR amplification of the polymorphic 48 basepair repeat region of dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene. PCR products were visualized during microfabricated electrophoretic separation by laser-induced fluorescent detection and automatic data registration. Initial data of genotyping drug-dependent subjects shows a relatively high ratio of heterozygotes, possessing either longer or shorter variants beside the common 4-repeat DRD4 allele. | 2023-11-22T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7178 |
Financial Times sources claim that Google's first true VR headset is effectively a more open rival to Samsung's Gear VR -- you slot in a phone from your brand of choice into a plastic housing that has its own movement sensors. It's miles above Cardboard, according to the tip. If the leak is accurate, you'd see it arrive sometime this year... alongside software that could be just as (if not more) important to the experience.
The same insiders claim that Google is baking VR into Android itself, rather than relying on third-party apps like Cardboard does today. This wouldn't just make support easier, but would fight common VR problems like lag -- the smaller the delay, the less likely you are to be nauseous after a prolonged session.
Google hasn't confirmed either the Android VR support or the hardware, but it wouldn't be shocking to get at least a sneak peek at this technology at Google I/O in May.
More from Entrepreneur
Kim's expertise can help you become a strong leader, pitch VCs for capital, and develop a growth strategy. | 2023-08-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3824 |
Anomalous Dynamics of in Vivo Cargo Delivery by Motor Protein Multiplexes.
Vesicle transport conducted by motor protein multiplexes (MPMs), which is ubiquitous among eukaryotes, shows anomalous and stochastic dynamics qualitatively different from the dynamics of thermal motion and artificial active matter; the relationship between in vivo vesicle-delivery dynamics and the underlying physicochemical processes is not yet quantitatively understood. Addressing this issue, we perform accurate tracking of individual vesicles, containing upconverting nanoparticles, transported by kinesin-dynein-multiplexes along axonal microtubules. The mean-square-displacement of vesicles along the microtubule exhibits unusual dynamic phase transitions that are seemingly inconsistent with the scaling behavior of the mean-first-passage time over the travel length. These paradoxical results and the vesicle displacement distribution are quantitatively explained and predicted by a multimode MPM model, developed in the current work, where ATP-hydrolysis-coupled motion of MPM has both unidirectional and bidirectional modes. | 2023-08-13T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1388 |
Microsatellite markers for the relict tree Aextoxicon punctatum: the only species in the Chilean endemic family Aextoxicaceae.
We screened 10 microsatellite loci for the dioecious, rainforest tree Aextoxicon punctatum, a species belonging to a monotypic family and genus, endemic to southwestern South America (30-43°S). Polymorphisms were evaluated in 108 adult trees from four populations, including the northern and southern extremes of the geographic range of Aextoxicon in Chile. All 10 microsatellites revealed polymorphic variation. A total of 69, 57, 59, and 69 alleles were found in 40 (Fray Jorge), 19 (Santa Ines), 21 (Quebrada del Tigre), and 28 (Guabun) individual trees, respectively. The mean expected heterozygosity per population ranged from 0.70 to 0.72. These polymorphic microsatellites will be useful in assessing the genetic structure and conservation status of Aextoxicon throughout its historically fragmented geographic range. Parentage analysis will provide additional insights into the key historical and contemporary processes that have mediated population differentiation in this species. | 2023-08-30T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3661 |
The invention relates to a submersible motor for the drive of a submersible pump.
Such submersible motors are designed as electric motors and comprise a rotor with a rotor shaft, which must be mounted in the motor housing in the radial as well as axial direction. With the drive of a pump, in particular of a centrifugal pump assembly, mainly axial forces occur in a defined axial direction in operation. The main thrust bearing is arranged in this direction, in order to accommodate axial forces which act on the rotor shaft or the rotor.
In order to permit an automatic, exact alignment of the thrust bearing surfaces in a plane normal to the rotation axis, it is known to centrally support the stationary part of the thrust bearing on a ball. A pivoting in all directions is possible on the ball. Moreover, the central ball may be adjusted in the axial direction, in order to be able to exactly set the position of the thrust bearing and thus the position of the rotor shaft. The stationary part of the thrust bearing must be adequately stiff and thus also dimensioned in a large manner, for the force transmission from the thrust bearing surfaces to the mentioned ball. | 2024-02-24T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4306 |
INTRODUCTION
============
Intestinal ischemia is a rare complication following laparoscopic procedures. It has been described after laparoscopic cholecystectomy,^[@B1]--[@B9]^ inguinal hernia repair,^[@B10]^ gynecologic myolysis,^[@B11]^ and fundoplication.^[@B12],[@B13]^ Laparoscopic repair of ventral and incisional hernia (LRVIH) is gaining popularity due to its low recurrence rate, short hospital stay, and low complication rate. In this report, we describe a case of fatal intestinal ischemia following LRVIH.
CASE REPORT
===========
A 47-year-old obese woman (BMI of 42) with a large incisional hernia at midline laparotomy was referred for laparoscopic correction. Her medical history was significant for hypertension, transabdominal gynecologic surgery, peripheral vascular disease, and included multiple angioplasties of the iliac arteries.
Carbon dioxide was used to create pneumoperitoneum. Intraabdominal pressure was maintained at 12mm Hg throughout the laparoscopy. Laparoscopic correction was uneventful but lengthy (240 min) due to extensive adhesiolysis. A 15-minute break that included decompression of the abdomen was made halfway through the operation. This is locally a common practice during long operations and was not triggered by any specific adverse event. The total duration of the pneumoperitoneum was 215 minutes. Blood pressure remained stable throughout the procedure. The hernia defect measured 20 cm × 16 cm and correction required application of two 30cm×20cm expanded polytetrafluoroethylene meshes (DualMesh, WL Gore, Flagstaff, AZ, USA). The meshes were fixed both with tackers (ProTack, TycoUSS, Norwalk, CT, USA) and transabdominal sutures.
Initially, recovery was uneventful. On postoperative day 3, the patient developed a paralytic ileus without localized tenderness. A plain abdominal x-ray and ultrasound showed a distended bowel. C-reactive protein was significantly raised. To evaluate the possibility of a missed bowel lesion, we decided on a relaparoscopy. Intraabdominal pressure was maintained at 12 mm Hg throughout this short procedure that took not more than 12 minutes. Upon exploration, only bowel distension was found with no signs of contamination, perforation, or ischemia. Given these findings, no action was undertaken.
Postoperatively, the patient developed systemic inflammatory response syndrome, respiratory insufficiency, and required transfer to the intensive care unit. Within the next few days, the patient slowly stabilized, required less and less support, and experienced no apparent infection. On postoperative day 9, she produced bloody diarrhea that prompted us to perform a colonoscopy. Examination revealed severe ischemic colitis in the transverse colon.
Mesenteric angiography was performed showing an occluded superior mesenteric artery and a compensatory distended inferior mesenteric artery with a pinpoint stenosis at its origin. Balloon angioplasty **([Figure 1](#F1){ref-type="fig"})** successfully dilated this stenosis, the patient was placed on anticoagulants and, afterward, the patient steadily improved. However, 5 days later, her situation suddenly deteriorated. Another colonoscopy was performed that showed multiple perforations of the ischemic transverse colon. At subsequent laparotomy, a fecal peritonitis due to multiple perforations of the ischemic ascending and transverse colon was found. Resection of the ischemic colon was performed and both contaminated meshes were removed. Postoperatively, the patient deteriorated further and died the next day, 16 days after the first operation. Histological examination of resected bowel showed extensive ischemia with multiple transmural ulcerations and perforations. The family of the patient did not agree to an autopsy.
{#F1}
DISCUSSION
==========
Acute mesenteric ischemia is the result of a sudden reduction in intestinal blood flow that is insufficient to meet the metabolic demands of the bowel. Specific risk factors include advanced age, atherosclerosis, low cardiac output states, cardiac arrhythmias, severe cardiac valvular disease, administration of medications known to reduce intestinal perfusion (such as diuretics, digoxin, alpha-adren-ergic agonists), various forms of shock, septicemia, dehydration, hypotension, and others.^[@B14]^
Surgical intervention by itself also carries a potential for compromising bowel perfusion. Although a few cases of fatal bowel ischemia are described after open cholecystectomy,^[@B15]^ various cardiac^[@B16]^ and peripheral vascular procedures,^[@B17]^ cystectomy,^[@B18]^ esophagectomy,^[@B19]^ and others, the incidence of postoperative bowel ischemia is extremely low. This indicates that the effects of surgery on bowel perfusion are usually well tolerated and have no clinical consequences.
A number of physiologic changes during laparoscopy create an additional risk of compromised mesenteric circulation. The intraabdominal hypertension created by the pneumoperitoneum reduces mesenteric perfusion, cardiac output, and mesenteric outflow.^[@B20],[@B21]^ The reverse Trendelenburg position, frequently used in laparoscopy, exaggerates the above effects.^[@B22]^ Direct absorption of insufflated carbon dioxide into the circulation may also lead to mesenteric vasoconstriction.^[@B23]^ However, all these adverse physiological effects of pneumoperitoneum are obviously well tolerated in the vast majority of patients, because a clinically manifested bowel ischemia after laparoscopic procedures is an extremely rare complication. A literature search using PubMed revealed only 13 case reports before the present one^[@B1]--[@B13]^ **([Table 1](#T1){ref-type="table"})**. Once it occurs though, intestinal ischemia following a laparoscopic procedure is a devastating complication. Eleven of 14 patients including this one died as a consequence, creating an overall mortality of 79%.
######
Reported Cases of Intestinal Ischemia After Laparoscopic Procedures
Author Age (years) Risk factors Operation OR Time (m)[\*](#TF1-1){ref-type="table-fn"} IAP [\*](#TF1-1){ref-type="table-fn"} (mmP) Symptoms [†](#TF1-2){ref-type="table-fn"} (day) Diagnosis[\*](#TF1-1){ref-type="table-fn"} Outcome
----------------------- ------------- -------------- ------------------- ---------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- ----------
Paul^[@B1]^ 68 \+ Cholecystectomy 85 15 4 At laparotomy Death
Jaffe^[@B2]^ 76 \+ Cholecystectomy 70 NS 3 At laparotomy Death
Dwerryhouse^[@B3]^ 36 − Cholecystectomy 50 15 2 At laparotomy Recovery
Schorr^[@B4]^ 62 \+ Cholecystectomy 40 NS 3 At autopsy Death
Andrei^[@B5]^ 72 \+ Cholecystectomy 50 15 8 At laparotomy Death
Leduc^[@B6]^ 57 − Cholecystectomy 120 15 3 At autopsy Death
Sternberg^[@B7]^ 60 \+ Cholecystectomy NS 14 8 At laparotomy Death
Thiele^[@B8]^ 87 \+ Cholecystectomy NS NS 4 NS Death
Klugewitz^[@B9]^ 41 − Cholecystectomy NS NS 1 Endoscopy Recovery
Bandyopadhyay^[@B10]^ 78 \+ Inguinal hernia 22 10 1 At autopsy Death
Hasson^[@B11]^ 34 − Gynecological 75 15 4 At laparotomy Recovery
Mitchell^[@B12]^ 55 − Nissen 55 NS 1--4 At laparotomy Death
Garcia Diaz^[@B13]^ 20 \+ Nissen 105 14 7 At laparotomy Death
Wassenaar 47 \+ Incisional hernia 215 12 3 Endoscopy Death
NS = not specified; IAP = intraabdominal pressure.
Symptoms = post-operative day of onset of symptoms.
Rapid diagnosis is essential to prevent the catastrophic events associated with mesenteric ischemia. Because early signs and symptoms are nonspecific, the diagnosis depends mostly on a high clinical suspicion. However, given the negligible incidence of intestinal ischemia amid the large number of laparoscopic procedures performed, the diagnosis is as a rule missed or delayed. In only one reported case was the diagnosis established clinically and relatively early.^[@B9]^ This patient was treated with high-dose anticoagulants and recovered. In all other reported cases, the diagnosis was established either at laparotomy for acute abdomen or at autopsy.
The risk seems to be particularly high in patients with impaired hepatic or renal function or atherosclerosis. Including this one, 10 of 14 patients (71%) reported on so far had at least one of the previously mentioned risk factors present.^[@B1],[@B2],[@B4],[@B5],[@B7],[@B8],[@B10],[@B12],[@B13]^ None of these patients-at-risk survived. Two of 3 patients who survived were very young.
It has been previously stated that the risk is higher when the laparoscopic procedure is lengthy.^[@B10]^ Although in this case intestinal ischemia developed after an indeed very lengthy procedure, data from the literature do not provide strong support of that view. Of 13 previously published reports, duration of surgery was specified in 10 of them^[@B1]--[@B6],[@B10]--[@B13]^ on average equaling 67.5 minutes (median, 62.5, range 22 to 120), which is quite usual for procedures that were performed.
Intermittent decompression of gas during pneumoperitoneum has been suggested as a wise preventive measure.^[@B1]^ We used decompression once halfway through this long procedure, but it did not prevent development of fatal intestinal ischemia.
It is probably a futile endeavor to precisely determine the specific role of laparoscopy in the cascade of events that led to mortality in the patient we describe. Long laparoscopy in the patient at risk with unknown preexisting compromised mesenteric circulation definitely carried a potential to further compromise bowel perfusion. It is also possible that development of postoperative ileus in combination with systemic inflammatory response syndrome played a triggering role in the development of this complication. No signs of intestinal ischemia at relaparoscopy and a relatively long clinical course in our patient might offer certain support to this second possibility.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of intestinal ischemia following LVIHR and the only one we have experienced in a series of 401 LRVIH performed so far (incidence of 0.25%). Carbajo et al,^[@B24]^ reporting earlier on their experience with LVIHR, mentioned in brief among postoperative complications "a case of a small bowel leakage due to ischemia" but did not provide any further details on this issue.
Patient selection, an optimal hydration status, an optimized technique using the lowest insufflation pressure possible, and intermittent decompressions of the abdomen when the procedure is lengthy are the measures that have a potential to prevent this rare complication. Whatever a laparoscopic procedure has been performed, intestinal ischemia should be considered in any patient with nonspecific abdominal symptoms.
| 2024-03-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6048 |
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), in conjunction with the Women’s CannaBusiness Network, a project it launched earlier this year, today called on President Obama to cease enforcement actions against state-legal medical cannabis providers while the administration reviews its policies to determine whether they are in the public interest. Respected industry businesswomen defended their work and powerfully expressed their frustration with the administration’s crackdown.
“The women here today are compassionate and courageous leaders,” said Jill Lamoureaux, owner of Colorado Dispensary Services. “They are pioneers in alternative medicine. They are job creators and tax revenue generators. They are hear to bring awareness to the Obama administration's reversal on medical marijuana policy and to ask that the Justice Department immediately stop shutting down state-legal businesses that are serving patients, creating jobs and generating tax revenues.”
Jen Reynolds, a mother of four who will lose her job on Monday because of the actions of the U.S. attorney in Colorado, urged the President to think about the people whom are being affected.
“This is not about ‘marijuana dealers,’ Reynolds said. “This is about medical cannabis patients having a safe and regulated environment in which to purchase their medicine. It is about employees like me, who had the amazing opportunity to help patients alleviate their suffering, while earning a living wage. My center should have been a model for others to follow, not a target for federal action.”
NCIA also released a report entitled, “The Colorado Cannabis Industry: A Tale of Ten Cities,” which details the sales and tax revenues generated by medical marijuana centers in ten Colorado cities.
“The ten cities included in the report alone generated close to $10 million in state and local sales taxes in 2011,” explained Aaron Smith, NCIA executive director. “This money is being used to improve government services in these areas, which is one more benefit of a regulated medical cannabis industry.”
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Founded in 2007, OpposingViews.com is an independent media site that publishes original journalism on politics, social issues, religion, sports and entertainment. Our editorial staff presents breaking news, in-depth analysis and cutting-edge content around the clock. Based in Los Angeles, we currently reach 25 million unique visitors every month. | 2023-11-30T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1116 |
This will only add fuel to Kyrie-to-LA rumors | 2024-01-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1660 |
Given who had delivered the killing blow, however, all she could really do was muster a little smile.
For reasons unknown even to her, Annette had left the TV on for hours, so as to watch the going-ons in the mansion. If nothing else, it intrigued her.
She was also amused at just how many times Marigold almost came across the Omnipotent interloper in her home.
The Builder turned away from the current camera, kneeling forward on to the floor. Annette tried to see what they could possibly be doing.
On screen, The Builder took hold of the now unseen head with both hands. About the same moment she sat onto the bed, their head snapped forward, then jerked back.
Annette looked on as they spat a chunk of flesh and bone out onto the floor. Then they looked back and began to messily devour what she presumed to be Max’s brain matter.
Another camera screen displayed Marigold on her way to the same room. The Builder then snapped their head in the direction of the hallways.
Even without sound, Annette could’ve sworn she heard them cursing as they ran into the bathroom.
…
Standing at the entrance to the hospital now, Shark and Sinbad waited in silence. Neither of them knew what they would say when he inevitably confronted them with questions.
“He’s taking a long time. Is he making sure he and Uncle Dudley really were blood-related to that baby?”
Sinbad put his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “DNA don’t lie, man. Personally, I’m surprised you ain’t freaked out more by knowing you’d have the same half-sibling as them.”
“I know I should be, but…” Shark huddled closer to Sinbad, so as to try and warm up. “I guess I just feel bad for that child. Imagine if it were born in prison. That’s no place for a baby.”
“Yeah, I highly doubt your uncle would have left that kid in there. Maybe he’d have put it in foster care or something.” He wrapped an arm around his fiance. “Guess it doesn’t matter now, though. That kid was born dead, apparently.”
They they said nothing. In an effort to lighten the situation, Shark tried changing the subject.
“Did you leave the TV on for Sagebear when we left? I don’t like having to leave her alone, and we don’t have a working radio, so…”
Knowing what the dog was watching when they left the house got Sinbad to let out a snort. “She’ll be fine. As long as she doesn’t try selling crystal meth with a guy named Jesse after today.”
…
The Builder slid down into the bathtub, attempting to remain undetected in case Marigold wandered into the bathroom. Trying to maneuver around, they stuck their hand back into the head, and pulled out a handful of grey matter.
“Max! What were you doing on the floor? Wake up! Now don’t you pretend to be asleep! I know all your tricks!” Her ranting and raving made The Builder wish they still had eyes to roll.
“Addled old bat,” they muttered to themself before shoving Max’s brains into their mouth, and swallowing. Marigold continued going on, seemingly oblivious to the fact her husband no longer had a head.
“Come on now! Put on your fancy clothes! We’re going to dinner! That reminds me, I should wash up lest The Terminator can detect me through scent!”
The bathroom door opened, causing The Builder to drop Max’s head onto themself. The remainder of his head innards now splashed onto their clothing.
“Ah, shit! That ain’t gonna come out, is it?” Grabbing his now empty head, they jumped out of the tub and flung it across the room. Their actions were most definitely noticed.
…
Marigold fell to the ground, and pointed at her uninvited guest while shrieking like a demented banshee. They tried playing it cool, it looked to her.
“Uh…hey,” they said over her screaming. “Nice house you got here. Um…You’re probably curious as to why I just threw your husband’s head at the wall.”
Her response was as disjointed as could be expected. “Are you the Angel of Death?!” This accusation made them tilt their head, as if they were trying to find the right countering words.
“No,” they said while drawing the word out almost sarcastically, “I’m…Charles Lee Ray. Yeah, that’s me. Just don’t ask why I’m not in that creepy-ass doll.”
Their face lit up. “Hey! You know what could be fun?” They went off to think again. “You got access to a shotgun somewhere in this place, right?”
…
When Shark and Sinbad came home, Sagebear jumped up on them in a most jubilant welcome back.
“Hi, puppy! Did you enjoy your show while we were gone?” Shark made sure that the itch behind her ears was properly scratched.
“Gotta go out? Gotta go to the bathroom?” Sagebear barked to answer him, and began doing what he assumed was a potty dance.
Sinbad grabbed her leash for Shark, and handed it to him. He then checked the couch to make sure she didn’t have an accident.
Keeping Sagebear happy proved to be good for keeping the two men from worrying. Taking his seat on the couch, Sinbad watched the rest of the current episode. Outside, Shark could be heard laughing and calling Sagebear’s name.
By the time he managed to be properly engrossed in the show, Sinbad felt himself tackled onto his back. He then felt Sagebear snuffling and licking his face excitedly.
“Turns out she didn’t have to go to the bathroom. She just wanted to play.” Seeing that she was already covered with dirt, Sinbad believed him.
“I can see that,” he managed to sputter out in between dog kisses.
…
Horse-Face located the hidden passageway in the back of the cellar. He hoped his companion wouldn’t somehow notice that he’d been crying over him a lot as of recently.
It hadn’t taken long to find him, sitting against a wall. The young man appeared to be spacing out, quietly singing to himself.
“Hey,” Horse-Face said to get his attention. This resulted in the singing abruptly being ended. Apparently, his sobs were evident when he said the word.
“Are you thinking about what happened?”
Horse-Face shrugged. “In a way. I don’t blame her for wanting to shank me.” He sat down next to him, pulling his knees into his chest. “Maybe it would have been better if I did get my head blown off that day…”
The young man rested his head onto Horse-Face’s arm. “If you did, there might have been someone else more willing to have done it.” He sighed. “And they might not have tried to help me.”
“Yeah.” Without really thinking, he took hold of his hand, and weaved their fingers together.
“And I don’t hate you for following orders. I hate the person who gave them to you.”
A floor or two above them, Horse-Face then heard Moony indistinctly shouting at Ox-Head. Then followed Ox-Head’s hysterical jabbering.
“…You want to spend some time out of the passageways? The Builder isn’t here, and it sounds like shit’s going down, so…”
…
Annette was startled by the sound of the bedroom being thrown open.
“Is it that bad to talk about the time I exposed myself in a Denny’s?!” Ox-Head dove under the bed she was sitting on. Annette couldn’t help but notice he was holding a severed arm.
Mere seconds later, she could hear Moony shouting and spewing insults. His accent seemed to be coming out as he did so. | 2024-06-13T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6045 |
Flawless Bespoke Furniture Project in Chelsea
Project Details
Time: 8 hours
Number of handymen: 2
Location: Chelsea, SW3
Material Cost: £250
Total Cost: £650
Short Summary of the Service
A Chelsea-based client needed a bespoke wardrobe. He wanted to utilise the space in the recess between the slanted ceiling and floor in an attic bedroom. In this specific case, the customised wardrobe was supposed to offer options to store shoes and clothes in a limited space. The Fantastic Handyman team was challenged to build a practical custom wardrobe, which offered extra space for organising while still adding a style to the room.
Sketches and Design
Initially, the carpentry team in Chelsea created preliminary sketches & designs for the customer. They consisted of:
A model of the finished wardrobe.
The position of the new furniture in the room.
The internal division of the sections and an example of how the wardrobe compartments would be best utilised.
The team of professional carpenters managed to complete the project in a remarkable way. The goal was to create a practical design that remained as truthful as possible to the customer’s vision without sacrificing on the overall quality. Fortunately, the client simply fell in love with the proposed ideas and designs!
Materials and Measures
As part of the our bespoke furniture service, the materials for the wardrobe were sourced by the operatives from a local ironmongery in Chelsea. The recommendation of the Fantastic carpenters was to use MDF (medium-density fibreboard) - affordable, durable, and easy to shape, customise and paint. Just perfect for the case. Once on site, the handymen thoroughly took measurements and evaluated the dimensions of the space where the wardrobe was supposed to be fitted. The essential part of the work was ready to begin.
Installation Process
The handy installers marked the areas where the holes had to be drilled in the wall and in the wood. The Fantastic technicians laid down hardwood joists, which served as the foundation for the wardrobe. Then, similar joists were fitted on the wall and on the ceiling in the room. Finally, vertical stud posts were erected from the floor to the ceiling joist to create the structural frame of the wardrobe.
The handymen nailed and glued the MDF boards to the studs. Several sheets of MDF were used to create the walls and the floor of the wardrobe, as well as the partitions of the different sections inside the wardrobe.
Treating and Sanding the Wood
The carpenters took care of the wood’s imperfections of the surface by applying putty to cover any holes and flaws in the MDF. The putty also helps even out rough and dented surfaces. The skilled craftsmen waited until the putty dried out and sanded down the wood afterwards. Time for some primer! They applied one coat of primer to the surface of the wardrobe.
Crafting the Wardrobe Doors
While the primer was drying out, the carpentry team didn’t rest! They started working on the doors. Measures were taken for the wardrobe doors. Then, the doors were cut out from the MDF material. Since the quality of our work is crucial for the whole presentation of the wardrobe, the team dedicated time to hide the imperfections of the wood treating it with putty and sanding it down. Eventually, a coat of primer was applied on the doors.
Painting, Glossing & Assembly
After the primer dried out, additional 2 coats of paint were applied on the wooden surface, both on the walls and the doors of the furniture. The final step was to treat the wood on the visible parts of the wardrobe with gloss.
Moving on to the assembly process. Hinges were installed and doors were mounted on them. Internal shelving and steel tube rails were also inserted. Eventually, the door knobs were fitted precisely to create the fully finished end product. The client now has a beautiful custom-made wardrobe, which matches his tastes and needs, and has been done entirely according to the Fantastic Quality Standards of our handyman services!
Kyle O.
From start to finish, the Fantastic Handyman team was very timely & professional! The bespoke wardrobe you’ve made for me is awesome! Thank you so much! | 2024-04-18T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8069 |
Reductionism and explanation in cell biology.
It is likely to be impossible or very difficult to provide a detailed description of the molecular interactions underlying all cellular phenomena. However, methods and ways of thinking are now available or being developed that can deal better with the complexity and greater extension in space and time found at the level of the cell. This will lead to the identification of some components or groups of components as being of particular importance for a cellular phenomenon which can then be studied in detailed molecular terms. In other cases detailed molecular characterization may be replaced by a logical description of the process which emphasizes the information flow and processing rather than the nature of the individual components and their interactions. This may provide an adequate explanation for an appropriate understanding of the cellular phenomena involved. | 2024-05-29T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9020 |
The power sector is widely viewed as one of the biggest constraints on India’s economic growth. Almost half of power drawn from the grid is not paid for and in unmetered, unbilled or pilfered. In the state of Bihar, 45% of power consumed falls in this category. The Government of Bihar is trying to address this problem and expand access to electricity by implementing reforms to improve the Bihar State Electricity Board’s finances and the availability of power.
In partnership with the government of Bihar, this study is using randomised experiments to test if an innovative group collective incentive can be used to increase payment rates, thus reducing distribution losses and enabling the utility to expand electricity supply. The pilot scheme links amount of electricity supplied to groups of industrial and residential consumers is tied to the groups’ overall performance in paying for the electricity they consume. As the proportion of electricity bills paid increases, the hours of electricity supplied to that community also increases. Ultimately where the community ends up on this schedule depends on how much they value a higher quality of electricity supply. | 2024-05-26T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8618 |
Q:
Windows 7 + Chrome Version 24.0.1312.52 Horrible font rendering
popular sites such as CNN.com render text like crap in Chrome. Text looks great in IE9.. Here is a screenshot from an article off of CNN.com.
This seems to be a google web font called Lato.. This is a snippet of the css file from cnn.com.
@font-face {
font-family: 'Lato';
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;
src: local('Lato Regular'), local('Lato-Regular'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/lato/v6/9k-RPmcnxYEPm8CNFsH2gg.woff) format('woff');
}
@font-face {
font-family: 'Lato';
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 700;
src: local('Lato Bold'), local('Lato-Bold'), url(http://themes.googleusercontent.com/static/fonts/lato/v6/wkfQbvfT_02e2IWO3yYueQ.woff) format('woff');
}
A:
Known issue. You can try gdipp or MacType.
| 2024-01-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1667 |
changelog:
- type: NEW_FEATURE
description: Rename MeshGroup to VirtualMesh.
issueLink: https://github.com/solo-io/service-mesh-hub/issues/280 | 2023-09-16T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7995 |
Q:
How to get the parent url of an app?
The requirement is quite simple.
I developed an app, which shows the population, cpi, gdp of the specified country.
This app in sharepoint-hosted, and I'm using sharepoint online.
There are several country pages, such as spain.aspx, france.aspx, etc. The app is inserted to each page. When an user clicks on the link, the app is supposed to display the corresponding country's population, cpi, gdp data. But now I have no idea in the app how to get the country name(spain, france).
I tried window.location.pathname and document.referrer, but they all didn't work for me.
A:
One possible workaround would be to use app part parameters. The downside is that you have to set such a parameter every time you add an app part to a new country page.
So e.g. you added the app part to france.aspx -> and now you have to configure this app part and set "Country" parameter to France.
If this is OK for you, the following MSDN article contains very good description of how to create app part and it's parameters:
How to: Create app parts to install with your app for SharePoint
In brief, you should do the following:
Select your ClientWebPart element in project, right click, Properties
Add element Country to CustomProperties collection and configure it to be either enum or string or whatever you prefer
Use this parameter on your app part page
Visual Studio will generate Elements.xml based on the configuration you provided when defining custom property. This Elements.xml could look something like this:
<Content Type="html" Src="~appWebUrl/Pages/ClientWebPart1.aspx?{StandardTokens}&Country=_Country_" />
<!-- Define properties in the Properties element.
Remember to put Property Name on the Src attribute of the Content element above. -->
<Properties>
<Property Name="Country" Type="enum" RequiresDesignerPermission="true" DefaultValue="none" WebDisplayName="Country">
<EnumItems>
<EnumItem Value="none" WebDisplayName="(not selected)" />
<EnumItem Value="France" WebDisplayName="France" />
<EnumItem Value="Spain" WebDisplayName="Spain" />
<!-- ... other countries ... -->
</EnumItems>
</Property>
</Properties>
Then, you can use this parameter to display appropriate country information (or warning if it is not defined):
var country = '';
if (document.URL.indexOf('?') != -1) {
var params = document.URL.split('?')[1].split('&');
for (var i = 0; i < params.length; i++) {
var p = decodeURIComponent(params[i]);
if (/^Country=/i.test(p)) {
country = p.split('=')[1];
break;
}
}
}
if (country == null || country == "none") {
document.write("COUNTRY PARAMETER IS NOT CONFIGURED! Please contact administrator.");
return;
}
// retrieve country information based on country variable and display it
Finally, in the user interface it will look like this:
and if it is not configured:
| 2024-05-27T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1451 |
Sleek MakeUP Into The Night Collection
This time of year is always the best for beauty obsessives as brands are launching their festive collections and their Christmas gift sets. The Sleek MakeUP festive collection for 2017 is the Sleek MakeUP Into The Night Collection which is limited edition and designed to help you ‘slay party season’ and is available from the Sleek MakeUP website and Superdrug. I’ve got a few pieces from the new collection as well as a few shades of their new eyeshadow launch, and I couldn’t wait to blog about everything as it’s such an amazing collection.
Sleek say;
“Slay this party season with the new glowing limited edition Into the Night collection. Sleek MakeUP is spoiling makeup lovers everywhere with a banging limited edition collection including two metallic i-Lust Eyeshadow Palettes, five Matte Me Metallic Lip Creams and two Strobe Domes. The festive season is the perfect time to wear your boldest look and this collection has all the festive vibes you’ll need.“
The Sleek MakeUP Into The Night Collection contains two different i-Lust Eyeshadow Palettes, one in bronze and one in silver which is the one that I own. Sleek already have a couple of the i-Lust palettes within their main range, but I’ve never tried one before. The palette is a slim rectangular shape in black, matte plastic with a mirror within the lid and a dual ended sponge tip applicator and brush. The shadows within the palette are laid out in six square pans in a mix of cream and powders. When I was in my teens I used to wear a lot of black and silver eyeshadow so it’s been fun experimenting with similar shades again, especially as I now own makeup brushes and back then I relied on the trusty sponge tip applicators to do my awful eyeshadow application.
The Sleek palettes tend to contain shade names but there aren’t any for this palette so I’ll number them to describe them. The first shade is a black cream shadow containing silver shimmer, the second is a silver shimmer shadow and the third is a clear gel-like consistency containing lots of iridescent sparkle. The fourth shade is a grey cream shadow with silver shimmer, the fifth is almost a powder version of shade 1; a black matte shadow with silver sparkle and sixth shade is a metallic silver powder shadow.
The collection contains two different shades of Strobe Dome which is a brand new product to the Sleek MakeUP range. They are a cream highlighter in a domed shape which you can apply directly to the skin on the face and body, and is so easy to apply. Even though it’s a cream highlighter, it blends into a powder for a beautiful luminous glow. ‘Pink’ isn’t all that pink which I’m really pleased about as I’m not sure I’d be able to pull off a metallic pink highlighter. Instead the pink shade is more of a light rose gold which is ever so pretty and can be applied sparingly or be built up for a more intense glow. The Bronze Strobe Dome looks really quite dark so I think it’d work nicely for deeper skintones.
There are five shades of the Matte Me Metallic Lip Creams within the collection and I have Anodized Ruby which couldn’t be more perfect for Christmas. It’s a beautiful metallic red which looks like velvet on the lips once it’s dried down after around five minutes. The lip cream is a little bit streaky and does need building up for full opacity, but that’s the norm for metallic shades so I’d recommend using a complimenting lipliner as a base for the metallic lip cream to adhere to like a primer. It doesn’t have any obvious scent and it feels comfortable on the lips, and I’d love the Electroplated Nude shade next as it looks like a very pretty wearable metallic peachy nude.
The star of the show without a doubt has to be the new i-Art Eye Colours – they are amazing. I initially had no idea what they were as the inclusion of the ‘precision’ within the name made me think it was an eyeliner but it’s actually a cream eyeshadow which can be blended into the lashlines as an eyeliner too. They are intensely pigmented, long wearing and water resistant cream eyeshadows which have a small paint brush like applicator. There are 12 shades to choose from and I have three of the shades to show you today, although I have since ordered some more shades as I love them that much.
The brush in all honesty isn’t the best for applying the shadows as it’s very streaky and uneven but I wanted to show you swatches of using the brush to apply them, and then the shades blended with a fingertip. Hopefully you can see that the shades are significantly lighter once they’re dry and blended in, compared to the shade of the brush swatch. The three shades I own are Fauvism which is a stunning taupe, Romanticism which is a taupey mauve and Purism which is the most amazing, multidimensional khaki green with golden shimmer particles. They dry completely without any tackiness and they don’t budge, crease, flake or smudge and they’re one of the best cream eyeshadow formulas I’ve tried – I want all 12!!
I’d love to know if you’ve got anything from the collection? Which is your favourite product?
Follow:
*Products featured on Gemma Etc. are press samples or gifted items unless otherwise indicated - please see my Disclaimer page for further information. This post may contain affiliated links. | 2024-02-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1384 |
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Now I've been able to get three of these things within a few weeks, so I'm off to a good start getting back into collecting for now. This is another one I found on eBay and placed a bid early on in the auction. As it was winding down to the end, I was worried about being sniped, but luckily that didn't happen and I was able to land this one for $6 delivered.
This one is card #112 in the set and features Roberto Luongo of the New York Islanders.
This one will bring the Super Script total to 57 out of 220. I almost forgot that Luongo started out on the island until I came across this one. That is definitely not one of teams I associate him with. All that matters though is that I can cross this one off the want list and it brings me closer to completing this massive set.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Looks like I'm definitely back into the whole card thing for right now. After picking up the Lapointe Super Script I posted recently, I've been a bit more into searching for these things on the internet. One place I hadn't been to in a very long time was COMC, so I decided to do a quick search there a little while back and they happened to have another Super Script listed that wasn't too far out of my price range.
I made an offer that was a little under the asking price and it was accepted fairly quickly. Must be one of those cases where as long as they get close to what they're asking for it doesn't matter since something is better than a card sitting and not making any money.
This one is card #11 in the set and features Dean Sylvester of the Atlanta Thrashers.
This brings me to 56 Super Scripts for my set. It is actually the fourth Thrasher I've got so I'm getting close to being able to complete a team set of these things. I also have four Canucks, so I guess they're tied for the lead now. I would need just three more to complete the Thrashers set at this point. I wonder how long that will take to do.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Here's another part of my collection that has not seen the light of day in quite a while now. The last time I acquired any Silver Scripts for my set was back in January of last year. I've always been hesitant to pick these up online because I can never really find a significant number of them to grab at the same time. In this case I made a bit of an exception and threw two of them in to round out my latest COMC purchase. I'll have the other card I got as part of the lot posted here soon as well.
The first one is card #97 in the set and features David Legwand of the Nashville Predators.
The second one is card #90 in the set and features Garry Galley of the Los Angeles Kings.
These two bring my Silver Script total to 136 out of 220. That puts me at 62% for this portion of my master set project. Overall between the base, silver, gold and super scripts I am at 254 out of 660. Still have a ways to go, but like I've said in previous posts this is not a race and I'm just glad to knock two more off the long want list.
Edit: When I went to put these in my binder, I found out that I already had the Legwand, so I kind of messed up on this one, lol. I did update the totals above to reflect this. I guess I have some rust to shake off when it comes to making sound purchases.
Card Boarded (est. 2009)
With this hockey card blog I want to share my personal collection as well as track any new additions. I would also like to share my TTM successes, custom card designs, and my thoughts about this great hobby. | 2023-08-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9702 |
4 Key Principles of Web Design
Wed10Dec2014
design · 2014 · 2014-12 · tips
If you’ve ever researched web design principles, you’re probably more than familiar with the following attitude: “Web design is just so easy these days. With lightning-fast internet speed and
sophisticated browsers, designers hardly have to deal with any of the restrictions that shaped the early days of the web. A website is, more than ever, a designer’s canvas.”
This may be true enough from the perspective of someone already comfortable with the basics, but if phrases like “CSS responsive grid system” and “Google Web Fonts” are alien to you, then jumping
into the supposedly “oh-so-easy” world of web design may still seem a daunting proposition.
In recognition of this, we put together a truly basic set of web design basics with the beginner in mind. Of course, it’s never a bad idea to review the fundamentals, even if you consider yourself a
wiz.
1. Grid systems
Since the invention of the codex in the 1st century, the grid has determined how we read.
Thousands of variations, involving different arrangements of rows and columns, have emerged over time.
Think of the way text and images are arranged in books, newspapers and magazines. These are the systems that were more or less directly carried over onto the web, and they work. Word to the wise:
many a designer has attempted to avoid the grid in the name of “creativity”; many such websites go unread.
In a world where people are as, if not more, likely to browse the web on phones and tablets than on traditional computers, the issue of “responsive design”—designs that translate to smaller screen
sizes in a smooth and intentional manner—is also paramount.
2. Visual hierarchy
We recently wrote a full article on this subject, so we’ll be brief here. Basically, it’s
a known fact that in most cultures, people read left-to-right and top-down. However, it is also a known fact that, within these parameters, reading behavior follows a much more complex set of rules.
This is especially true on the internet where people actually “scan” pages much more than they “read” them.
Good web pages are built in response to these measured reading patterns by placing important elements, like the logo, call to action or a key image, along the axes that the reader is expected to
scan. These conventionally take either an “F” or a “Z” shape.
3. Web-safe fonts
In 2014, the term “web-safe fonts” already feels like something of an anachronism. Back in the early days of the internet, browsers supported a very limited number of fonts—typically just ones that
were already installed in users’ word processing software—and if you deviated from these, some visitors would just wind up seeing random symbols.
Today, it is still true that certain fonts are supported by most browsers while others fonts are not, but the number of web-safe options has exploded thanks to the adoption of what is known as
@font-face embedding in most modern browsers. Indeed, many designers complain of having too much to choose from.
Fee-based font services include Typekit, WebINK, Fontdeck and Fontspring. You can find nice free fonts, too, if you do a little searching through free services like Google Web Fonts. Here is a
recent roundup of nice free web fonts.
4. Images and colors
s[ace'] The principles of image and color
placement are not especially unique to web design, so we won’t go into too much depth here. The main maxim to keep is: don’t overdo it.
For colors:
Like fonts, just stick to 2 or 3. They should of course echo the host’s branding, while serving to highlight important areas, as noted in the “visual hierarchy” section.
One other consideration worth keeping in the back of your mind is the fact that something like 5% of the (male) population is colorblind, so watch out with your color pairings. We wrote a
more in-depth article on the subject here.
Avoid images that move. Resist the urge for flash. Even .gifs
are highly questionable, unless executed with the utmost skill. In general, studies show that viewers much prefer websites that keep still.
Don’t use images simply as a way to fill space; visitors will pick up on this immediately and may lose interest in your page. Instead, only use images which communicate useful
information—illustrating accompanying text or explaining something about a product being described.
Be aware of the licensing restrictions associated with your images. Most images are copyrighted, meaning that you or your client will have to pay to use them, according to your needs. | 2024-07-03T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/2355 |
A Multifunctional Biomaterial with NIR Long Persistent Phosphorescence, Photothermal Response and Magnetism.
There are many reports on long persistent phosphors (LPPs) applied in bioimaging. However, there are few reports on LPPs applied in photothermal therapy (PTT), and an integrated system with multiple functions of diagnosis and therapy. In this work, we fabricate effective multifunctional phosphors Zn3 Ga2 SnO8 : Cr(3+) , Nd(3+) , Gd(3+) with NIR persistent phosphorescence, photothermal response and magnetism. Such featured materials can act as NIR optical biolabels and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents for tracking the early cancer cells, but also as photothermal therapeutic agent for killing the cancer cells. This new multifunctional biomaterial is expected to open a new possibility of setting up an advanced imaging-guided therapy system featuring a high resolution for bioimaging and low side effects for the photothermal ablation of tumors. | 2024-05-22T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4783 |
Q:
How to write a php search script in which words with diacritics match search terms without diacritics, and the results are underlined?
I've got this site where there are lots of texts with diacritics in them (ancillary glyphs added to letters, according to wikipedia) and most people search these texts using words without the glyphs. Now it shouldn't be challenging to do this by having a copy of the texts without diacritics. However, I want to highlight the matches in the original text.
What's the best way to do it?
A:
You should try changing the collation setting in your MySQL DB.
There are three that seem to come up often in discussions of this topic:
utf8_general_ci
utf8_unicode_ci
utf8_bin ← You probably want this one.
I have found that #3 will match accents in search. This answer gives a bit of background on the differences, but it doesn't mention the fact that utf8_bin is also sensitive to accents. You might want to try all three so you can test for yourself if it's working with the language/script you're dealing with.
To be really sure that things are going to match correctly, you will have to look into Unicode Normalization as well, which is really a whole different ball of wax. It is possible that your user could type in a query with an accent in a different normalization from the one your data is stored in, and thus it might fail to match. I've had that problem with Sqlite, not sure if it applies to MySQL or not.
FWIW, here's a CREATE TABLE I'm currently using, where I needed to match accents, that is setting the COLLATION:
CREATE TABLE `glosses` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`morphemes` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
`labels` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
`phrase_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`nth_word` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=8 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_bin;
You can see the COLLATE=utf8_bin tacked on at the end.
| 2024-07-18T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1327 |
The long term goal of the proposed studies is to understand the signal transduction mechanisms in the development and functions of the cardiovascular system. The previous funding period focused on the role of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) in endothelial cells (ECs) in vasculogenesis and angiogenesis as well as in cardiac myocytes in heart development and function by using Cre-loxP mediated conditional knockout (KO) of FAK in ECs and cardiomyocytes. Analysis of the EC-specific FAK conditional KO mice established a critical role for FAK in angiogenesis and vascular development during embryogenesis in vivo. Furthermore, we showed that deletion of FAK in the isolated primary ECs led to multiple defects including reduced cell survival and migration which may be responsible for the defective angiogenesis and vascular development in vivo. Analysis of the cardiomyocyte-specific FAK conditional KO mice suggested a role of FAK in the regulation of cardiac hypertrophy. In addition, we generated a mouse KO for FIP200 (FAK-family interacting protein of 200 kDa) to understand its functions in vivo. We found that inactivation of FIP200 gene resulted in mid/late-gestational embryonic lethality caused by heart failure and liver lesions. Analysis of the FIP200 KO mice suggested that alterations in TSC-mTOR and TNFa signaling pathways leading to changes in cell size and apoptosis in the heart and liver may be responsible for the developmental abnormality and embryonic lethality in FIP200 KO mice. Despite the progress suggesting important functions of FAK and FIP200 in the cardiovascular development and functions, the role of specific signaling pathways regulated by FAK and FIP200 has not been examined in the context of cardiovascular development in vivo. Based on our previous and preliminary studies, we propose to 1.) analyze the FAK signaling pathways in the regulation of EC migration, invasion and angiogenesis using isolated primary ECs, 2.) determine the role of FAK signaling pathways in angiogenesis and vascular development in vivo by using mouse knock-in approaches, and 3.) investigate the mechanisms of FIP200 regulation of TSC-mTOR and TNFa signaling pathways in cardiac development using a combination of cell and molecular biology approaches in isolated cardiomyocytes and genetic interaction studies of various relevant KO mice. Relevance: These studies will generate significant insights into the mechanisms of signal transduction by FAK and FIP200 in the cardiovascular system in vivo and may also provide critical information for potential development of novel therapies for cardiovascular diseases. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable] | 2023-10-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4087 |
Plumbing
August 26, 2009 | Timothy F. Brick, Timothy F. Brick is chairman of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, representing the city of Pasadena.
Ageneration ago, Southern California water managers thought they had the solution for dealing with the hub of the state's water system -- the magnificent Northern California estuary known as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. They wanted to build a canal from the delta to the existing aqueduct system that sustains San Joaquin Valley agriculture and Southern California. They were wrong. And now we finally have the chance to do it right. Five draft bills as part of an overall plan have been introduced in the Legislature that could lead to better governance in the delta and wise water management statewide.
Like Goldilocks searching for the perfect perch, Dong Yu tested one seat after another in the glitzy showroom. Some were too pricey, others too fussy. Then he found one that was just right. "You've got to try this," he shouted to his wife, to the delight of a fawning saleswoman. "This one's really comfortable. " The seat in question was a $400 toilet made by Japan-based Toto Ltd. Dong and his wife had just bought a 2,200-square-foot apartment in a tony section of China's capital and were prepared to splurge on a pair of eye-catching commodes.
A lawsuit seeking to prohibit faucet manufacturers from selling products that leach too much lead into water, filed by the state in December, is likely to be painful and costly for Pacoima-based Price Pfister Inc. The California attorney general's suit against Price, a major plumbing-supplies maker, and more than 20 other leading faucet manufacturers is intended to force the companies to stop selling the faucets or substantially reduce their lead content.
Regarding "LAUSD sees a future in career ed," Rick Wartzman, California & Co., April 27: I think John W. Gardner, former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, said it best: "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." Our society should reward excellence, not labels.
The Mesa Consolidated Water District is warning customers that information mailed to them recently by a plumbing equipment company might be misleading. Postcards sent to water district customers from Amtrol Inc. stated: "The water company has modified your plumbing. It might cause you some easily prevented problems." Mary Urashima, spokeswoman for the agency, said the water district was alerted to the situation when several customers called to find out what had been done to the system.
A panel that is helping revise the Uniform Plumbing Code announced Wednesday that it would continue banning the use of water-saving, flush-free urinals in public restrooms. The decision by the International Assn. of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials follows a hearing last week in Ontario at which plumbers' unions condemned the fixtures as unsanitary. Conservationists had sought the urinals as a way of saving up to 24,000 gallons of water per urinal each year.
City workers doing routine maintenance on fire hydrants on Balboa Peninsula earlier this week flushed out an old water pipe, inadvertently sending rust-tainted water into the plumbing of some homes. Pete Antista, public utilities superintendent, said he became aware of the problem workers were creating Tuesday afternoon when a handful of residents called to complain of orange and red water emanating from their taps. "It is not pleasing at all," Antista said.
Shell Oil Co. and Hoechst Celanese Corp. have agreed to commit $850 million to pay for the replacement of plastic plumbing systems that have leaked, according to a settlement announced Tuesday, representing the biggest property damage settlement in U.S. history. The plumbing involved in the settlement is polybutylene pipe with metal or acetal insert fittings. The pipe is a flexible, plastic pipe that is usually gray, black or silver when used indoors and blue when used in a yard service line.
Boeing Makes Design Changes: Boeing Commercial Airplanes has made design changes to prevent wiring and plumbing mistakes such as those found on 94 Boeing jets in a recent government-ordered inspection, company officials said. Boeing said it was using different-sized fittings, putting the connections in different locations and using labels and color-coding to prevent the problems found in jetliner engine and cargo hold fire detection and extinguishing systems. | 2023-12-26T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4032 |
/*
* Copyright © 1998-2004 David Turner and Werner Lemberg
* Copyright © 2004,2007,2009,2010 Red Hat, Inc.
* Copyright © 2011,2012 Google, Inc.
*
* This is part of HarfBuzz, a text shaping library.
*
* Permission is hereby granted, without written agreement and without
* license or royalty fees, to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
* software and its documentation for any purpose, provided that the
* above copyright notice and the following two paragraphs appear in
* all copies of this software.
*
* IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR
* DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
* ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN
* IF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
* DAMAGE.
*
* THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
* BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS
* ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER HAS NO OBLIGATION TO
* PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.
*
* Red Hat Author(s): Owen Taylor, Behdad Esfahbod
* Google Author(s): Behdad Esfahbod
*/
#include "hb-buffer.hh"
#include "hb-utf.hh"
/**
* SECTION: hb-buffer
* @title: hb-buffer
* @short_description: Input and output buffers
* @include: hb.h
*
* Buffers serve dual role in HarfBuzz; they hold the input characters that are
* passed to hb_shape(), and after shaping they hold the output glyphs.
**/
/**
* hb_segment_properties_equal:
* @a: first #hb_segment_properties_t to compare.
* @b: second #hb_segment_properties_t to compare.
*
* Checks the equality of two #hb_segment_properties_t's.
*
* Return value:
* %true if all properties of @a equal those of @b, false otherwise.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
hb_bool_t
hb_segment_properties_equal (const hb_segment_properties_t *a,
const hb_segment_properties_t *b)
{
return a->direction == b->direction &&
a->script == b->script &&
a->language == b->language &&
a->reserved1 == b->reserved1 &&
a->reserved2 == b->reserved2;
}
/**
* hb_segment_properties_hash:
* @p: #hb_segment_properties_t to hash.
*
* Creates a hash representing @p.
*
* Return value:
* A hash of @p.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
unsigned int
hb_segment_properties_hash (const hb_segment_properties_t *p)
{
return (unsigned int) p->direction ^
(unsigned int) p->script ^
(intptr_t) (p->language);
}
/* Here is how the buffer works internally:
*
* There are two info pointers: info and out_info. They always have
* the same allocated size, but different lengths.
*
* As an optimization, both info and out_info may point to the
* same piece of memory, which is owned by info. This remains the
* case as long as out_len doesn't exceed i at any time.
* In that case, swap_buffers() is no-op and the glyph operations operate
* mostly in-place.
*
* As soon as out_info gets longer than info, out_info is moved over
* to an alternate buffer (which we reuse the pos buffer for!), and its
* current contents (out_len entries) are copied to the new place.
* This should all remain transparent to the user. swap_buffers() then
* switches info and out_info.
*/
/* Internal API */
bool
hb_buffer_t::enlarge (unsigned int size)
{
if (unlikely (!successful))
return false;
if (unlikely (size > max_len))
{
successful = false;
return false;
}
unsigned int new_allocated = allocated;
hb_glyph_position_t *new_pos = nullptr;
hb_glyph_info_t *new_info = nullptr;
bool separate_out = out_info != info;
if (unlikely (hb_unsigned_mul_overflows (size, sizeof (info[0]))))
goto done;
while (size >= new_allocated)
new_allocated += (new_allocated >> 1) + 32;
static_assert ((sizeof (info[0]) == sizeof (pos[0])), "");
if (unlikely (hb_unsigned_mul_overflows (new_allocated, sizeof (info[0]))))
goto done;
new_pos = (hb_glyph_position_t *) realloc (pos, new_allocated * sizeof (pos[0]));
new_info = (hb_glyph_info_t *) realloc (info, new_allocated * sizeof (info[0]));
done:
if (unlikely (!new_pos || !new_info))
successful = false;
if (likely (new_pos))
pos = new_pos;
if (likely (new_info))
info = new_info;
out_info = separate_out ? (hb_glyph_info_t *) pos : info;
if (likely (successful))
allocated = new_allocated;
return likely (successful);
}
bool
hb_buffer_t::make_room_for (unsigned int num_in,
unsigned int num_out)
{
if (unlikely (!ensure (out_len + num_out))) return false;
if (out_info == info &&
out_len + num_out > idx + num_in)
{
assert (have_output);
out_info = (hb_glyph_info_t *) pos;
memcpy (out_info, info, out_len * sizeof (out_info[0]));
}
return true;
}
bool
hb_buffer_t::shift_forward (unsigned int count)
{
assert (have_output);
if (unlikely (!ensure (len + count))) return false;
memmove (info + idx + count, info + idx, (len - idx) * sizeof (info[0]));
if (idx + count > len)
{
/* Under memory failure we might expose this area. At least
* clean it up. Oh well...
*
* Ideally, we should at least set Default_Ignorable bits on
* these, as well as consistent cluster values. But the former
* is layering violation... */
memset (info + len, 0, (idx + count - len) * sizeof (info[0]));
}
len += count;
idx += count;
return true;
}
hb_buffer_t::scratch_buffer_t *
hb_buffer_t::get_scratch_buffer (unsigned int *size)
{
have_output = false;
have_positions = false;
out_len = 0;
out_info = info;
assert ((uintptr_t) pos % sizeof (scratch_buffer_t) == 0);
*size = allocated * sizeof (pos[0]) / sizeof (scratch_buffer_t);
return (scratch_buffer_t *) (void *) pos;
}
/* HarfBuzz-Internal API */
void
hb_buffer_t::reset ()
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (this)))
return;
hb_unicode_funcs_destroy (unicode);
unicode = hb_unicode_funcs_reference (hb_unicode_funcs_get_default ());
flags = HB_BUFFER_FLAG_DEFAULT;
replacement = HB_BUFFER_REPLACEMENT_CODEPOINT_DEFAULT;
invisible = 0;
clear ();
}
void
hb_buffer_t::clear ()
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (this)))
return;
hb_segment_properties_t default_props = HB_SEGMENT_PROPERTIES_DEFAULT;
props = default_props;
scratch_flags = HB_BUFFER_SCRATCH_FLAG_DEFAULT;
content_type = HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_INVALID;
successful = true;
have_output = false;
have_positions = false;
idx = 0;
len = 0;
out_len = 0;
out_info = info;
serial = 0;
memset (context, 0, sizeof context);
memset (context_len, 0, sizeof context_len);
deallocate_var_all ();
}
void
hb_buffer_t::add (hb_codepoint_t codepoint,
unsigned int cluster)
{
hb_glyph_info_t *glyph;
if (unlikely (!ensure (len + 1))) return;
glyph = &info[len];
memset (glyph, 0, sizeof (*glyph));
glyph->codepoint = codepoint;
glyph->mask = 0;
glyph->cluster = cluster;
len++;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::add_info (const hb_glyph_info_t &glyph_info)
{
if (unlikely (!ensure (len + 1))) return;
info[len] = glyph_info;
len++;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::remove_output ()
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (this)))
return;
have_output = false;
have_positions = false;
out_len = 0;
out_info = info;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::clear_output ()
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (this)))
return;
have_output = true;
have_positions = false;
out_len = 0;
out_info = info;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::clear_positions ()
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (this)))
return;
have_output = false;
have_positions = true;
out_len = 0;
out_info = info;
memset (pos, 0, sizeof (pos[0]) * len);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::swap_buffers ()
{
if (unlikely (!successful)) return;
assert (have_output);
have_output = false;
if (out_info != info)
{
hb_glyph_info_t *tmp_string;
tmp_string = info;
info = out_info;
out_info = tmp_string;
pos = (hb_glyph_position_t *) out_info;
}
unsigned int tmp;
tmp = len;
len = out_len;
out_len = tmp;
idx = 0;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::replace_glyphs (unsigned int num_in,
unsigned int num_out,
const uint32_t *glyph_data)
{
if (unlikely (!make_room_for (num_in, num_out))) return;
assert (idx + num_in <= len);
merge_clusters (idx, idx + num_in);
hb_glyph_info_t orig_info = info[idx];
hb_glyph_info_t *pinfo = &out_info[out_len];
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < num_out; i++)
{
*pinfo = orig_info;
pinfo->codepoint = glyph_data[i];
pinfo++;
}
idx += num_in;
out_len += num_out;
}
bool
hb_buffer_t::move_to (unsigned int i)
{
if (!have_output)
{
assert (i <= len);
idx = i;
return true;
}
if (unlikely (!successful))
return false;
assert (i <= out_len + (len - idx));
if (out_len < i)
{
unsigned int count = i - out_len;
if (unlikely (!make_room_for (count, count))) return false;
memmove (out_info + out_len, info + idx, count * sizeof (out_info[0]));
idx += count;
out_len += count;
}
else if (out_len > i)
{
/* Tricky part: rewinding... */
unsigned int count = out_len - i;
/* This will blow in our face if memory allocation fails later
* in this same lookup...
*
* We used to shift with extra 32 items, instead of the 0 below.
* But that would leave empty slots in the buffer in case of allocation
* failures. Setting to zero for now to avoid other problems (see
* comments in shift_forward(). This can cause O(N^2) behavior more
* severely than adding 32 empty slots can... */
if (unlikely (idx < count && !shift_forward (count + 0))) return false;
assert (idx >= count);
idx -= count;
out_len -= count;
memmove (info + idx, out_info + out_len, count * sizeof (out_info[0]));
}
return true;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::set_masks (hb_mask_t value,
hb_mask_t mask,
unsigned int cluster_start,
unsigned int cluster_end)
{
hb_mask_t not_mask = ~mask;
value &= mask;
if (!mask)
return;
if (cluster_start == 0 && cluster_end == (unsigned int)-1) {
unsigned int count = len;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < count; i++)
info[i].mask = (info[i].mask & not_mask) | value;
return;
}
unsigned int count = len;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < count; i++)
if (cluster_start <= info[i].cluster && info[i].cluster < cluster_end)
info[i].mask = (info[i].mask & not_mask) | value;
}
void
hb_buffer_t::reverse_range (unsigned int start,
unsigned int end)
{
unsigned int i, j;
if (end - start < 2)
return;
for (i = start, j = end - 1; i < j; i++, j--) {
hb_glyph_info_t t;
t = info[i];
info[i] = info[j];
info[j] = t;
}
if (have_positions) {
for (i = start, j = end - 1; i < j; i++, j--) {
hb_glyph_position_t t;
t = pos[i];
pos[i] = pos[j];
pos[j] = t;
}
}
}
void
hb_buffer_t::reverse ()
{
if (unlikely (!len))
return;
reverse_range (0, len);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::reverse_clusters ()
{
unsigned int i, start, count, last_cluster;
if (unlikely (!len))
return;
reverse ();
count = len;
start = 0;
last_cluster = info[0].cluster;
for (i = 1; i < count; i++) {
if (last_cluster != info[i].cluster) {
reverse_range (start, i);
start = i;
last_cluster = info[i].cluster;
}
}
reverse_range (start, i);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::merge_clusters_impl (unsigned int start,
unsigned int end)
{
if (cluster_level == HB_BUFFER_CLUSTER_LEVEL_CHARACTERS)
{
unsafe_to_break (start, end);
return;
}
unsigned int cluster = info[start].cluster;
for (unsigned int i = start + 1; i < end; i++)
cluster = MIN<unsigned int> (cluster, info[i].cluster);
/* Extend end */
while (end < len && info[end - 1].cluster == info[end].cluster)
end++;
/* Extend start */
while (idx < start && info[start - 1].cluster == info[start].cluster)
start--;
/* If we hit the start of buffer, continue in out-buffer. */
if (idx == start)
for (unsigned int i = out_len; i && out_info[i - 1].cluster == info[start].cluster; i--)
set_cluster (out_info[i - 1], cluster);
for (unsigned int i = start; i < end; i++)
set_cluster (info[i], cluster);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::merge_out_clusters (unsigned int start,
unsigned int end)
{
if (cluster_level == HB_BUFFER_CLUSTER_LEVEL_CHARACTERS)
return;
if (unlikely (end - start < 2))
return;
unsigned int cluster = out_info[start].cluster;
for (unsigned int i = start + 1; i < end; i++)
cluster = MIN<unsigned int> (cluster, out_info[i].cluster);
/* Extend start */
while (start && out_info[start - 1].cluster == out_info[start].cluster)
start--;
/* Extend end */
while (end < out_len && out_info[end - 1].cluster == out_info[end].cluster)
end++;
/* If we hit the end of out-buffer, continue in buffer. */
if (end == out_len)
for (unsigned int i = idx; i < len && info[i].cluster == out_info[end - 1].cluster; i++)
set_cluster (info[i], cluster);
for (unsigned int i = start; i < end; i++)
set_cluster (out_info[i], cluster);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::delete_glyph ()
{
/* The logic here is duplicated in hb_ot_hide_default_ignorables(). */
unsigned int cluster = info[idx].cluster;
if (idx + 1 < len && cluster == info[idx + 1].cluster)
{
/* Cluster survives; do nothing. */
goto done;
}
if (out_len)
{
/* Merge cluster backward. */
if (cluster < out_info[out_len - 1].cluster)
{
unsigned int mask = info[idx].mask;
unsigned int old_cluster = out_info[out_len - 1].cluster;
for (unsigned i = out_len; i && out_info[i - 1].cluster == old_cluster; i--)
set_cluster (out_info[i - 1], cluster, mask);
}
goto done;
}
if (idx + 1 < len)
{
/* Merge cluster forward. */
merge_clusters (idx, idx + 2);
goto done;
}
done:
skip_glyph ();
}
void
hb_buffer_t::unsafe_to_break_impl (unsigned int start, unsigned int end)
{
unsigned int cluster = (unsigned int) -1;
cluster = _unsafe_to_break_find_min_cluster (info, start, end, cluster);
_unsafe_to_break_set_mask (info, start, end, cluster);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::unsafe_to_break_from_outbuffer (unsigned int start, unsigned int end)
{
if (!have_output)
{
unsafe_to_break_impl (start, end);
return;
}
assert (start <= out_len);
assert (idx <= end);
unsigned int cluster = (unsigned int) -1;
cluster = _unsafe_to_break_find_min_cluster (out_info, start, out_len, cluster);
cluster = _unsafe_to_break_find_min_cluster (info, idx, end, cluster);
_unsafe_to_break_set_mask (out_info, start, out_len, cluster);
_unsafe_to_break_set_mask (info, idx, end, cluster);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::guess_segment_properties ()
{
assert (content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_UNICODE ||
(!len && content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_INVALID));
/* If script is set to INVALID, guess from buffer contents */
if (props.script == HB_SCRIPT_INVALID) {
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
hb_script_t script = unicode->script (info[i].codepoint);
if (likely (script != HB_SCRIPT_COMMON &&
script != HB_SCRIPT_INHERITED &&
script != HB_SCRIPT_UNKNOWN)) {
props.script = script;
break;
}
}
}
/* If direction is set to INVALID, guess from script */
if (props.direction == HB_DIRECTION_INVALID) {
props.direction = hb_script_get_horizontal_direction (props.script);
if (props.direction == HB_DIRECTION_INVALID)
props.direction = HB_DIRECTION_LTR;
}
/* If language is not set, use default language from locale */
if (props.language == HB_LANGUAGE_INVALID) {
/* TODO get_default_for_script? using $LANGUAGE */
props.language = hb_language_get_default ();
}
}
/* Public API */
DEFINE_NULL_INSTANCE (hb_buffer_t) =
{
HB_OBJECT_HEADER_STATIC,
const_cast<hb_unicode_funcs_t *> (&_hb_Null_hb_unicode_funcs_t),
HB_BUFFER_FLAG_DEFAULT,
HB_BUFFER_CLUSTER_LEVEL_DEFAULT,
HB_BUFFER_REPLACEMENT_CODEPOINT_DEFAULT,
0, /* invisible */
HB_BUFFER_SCRATCH_FLAG_DEFAULT,
HB_BUFFER_MAX_LEN_DEFAULT,
HB_BUFFER_MAX_OPS_DEFAULT,
HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_INVALID,
HB_SEGMENT_PROPERTIES_DEFAULT,
false, /* successful */
true, /* have_output */
true /* have_positions */
/* Zero is good enough for everything else. */
};
/**
* hb_buffer_create: (Xconstructor)
*
* Creates a new #hb_buffer_t with all properties to defaults.
*
* Return value: (transfer full):
* A newly allocated #hb_buffer_t with a reference count of 1. The initial
* reference count should be released with hb_buffer_destroy() when you are done
* using the #hb_buffer_t. This function never returns %NULL. If memory cannot
* be allocated, a special #hb_buffer_t object will be returned on which
* hb_buffer_allocation_successful() returns %false.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_buffer_t *
hb_buffer_create ()
{
hb_buffer_t *buffer;
if (!(buffer = hb_object_create<hb_buffer_t> ()))
return hb_buffer_get_empty ();
buffer->max_len = HB_BUFFER_MAX_LEN_DEFAULT;
buffer->max_ops = HB_BUFFER_MAX_OPS_DEFAULT;
buffer->reset ();
return buffer;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_empty:
*
*
*
* Return value: (transfer full):
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_buffer_t *
hb_buffer_get_empty ()
{
return const_cast<hb_buffer_t *> (&Null(hb_buffer_t));
}
/**
* hb_buffer_reference: (skip)
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Increases the reference count on @buffer by one. This prevents @buffer from
* being destroyed until a matching call to hb_buffer_destroy() is made.
*
* Return value: (transfer full):
* The referenced #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_buffer_t *
hb_buffer_reference (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return hb_object_reference (buffer);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_destroy: (skip)
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Deallocate the @buffer.
* Decreases the reference count on @buffer by one. If the result is zero, then
* @buffer and all associated resources are freed. See hb_buffer_reference().
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_destroy (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
if (!hb_object_destroy (buffer)) return;
hb_unicode_funcs_destroy (buffer->unicode);
free (buffer->info);
free (buffer->pos);
if (buffer->message_destroy)
buffer->message_destroy (buffer->message_data);
free (buffer);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_user_data: (skip)
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @key:
* @data:
* @destroy:
* @replace:
*
*
*
* Return value:
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_bool_t
hb_buffer_set_user_data (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_user_data_key_t *key,
void * data,
hb_destroy_func_t destroy,
hb_bool_t replace)
{
return hb_object_set_user_data (buffer, key, data, destroy, replace);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_user_data: (skip)
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @key:
*
*
*
* Return value:
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void *
hb_buffer_get_user_data (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_user_data_key_t *key)
{
return hb_object_get_user_data (buffer, key);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_content_type:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @content_type: the type of buffer contents to set
*
* Sets the type of @buffer contents, buffers are either empty, contain
* characters (before shaping) or glyphs (the result of shaping).
*
* Since: 0.9.5
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_content_type (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_buffer_content_type_t content_type)
{
buffer->content_type = content_type;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_content_type:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* see hb_buffer_set_content_type().
*
* Return value:
* The type of @buffer contents.
*
* Since: 0.9.5
**/
hb_buffer_content_type_t
hb_buffer_get_content_type (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->content_type;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_unicode_funcs:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @unicode_funcs:
*
*
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_unicode_funcs (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_unicode_funcs_t *unicode_funcs)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
if (!unicode_funcs)
unicode_funcs = hb_unicode_funcs_get_default ();
hb_unicode_funcs_reference (unicode_funcs);
hb_unicode_funcs_destroy (buffer->unicode);
buffer->unicode = unicode_funcs;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_unicode_funcs:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
*
*
* Return value:
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_unicode_funcs_t *
hb_buffer_get_unicode_funcs (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->unicode;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_direction:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @direction: the #hb_direction_t of the @buffer
*
* Set the text flow direction of the buffer. No shaping can happen without
* setting @buffer direction, and it controls the visual direction for the
* output glyphs; for RTL direction the glyphs will be reversed. Many layout
* features depend on the proper setting of the direction, for example,
* reversing RTL text before shaping, then shaping with LTR direction is not
* the same as keeping the text in logical order and shaping with RTL
* direction.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_direction (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_direction_t direction)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->props.direction = direction;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_direction:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* See hb_buffer_set_direction()
*
* Return value:
* The direction of the @buffer.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_direction_t
hb_buffer_get_direction (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->props.direction;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_script:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @script: an #hb_script_t to set.
*
* Sets the script of @buffer to @script.
*
* Script is crucial for choosing the proper shaping behaviour for scripts that
* require it (e.g. Arabic) and the which OpenType features defined in the font
* to be applied.
*
* You can pass one of the predefined #hb_script_t values, or use
* hb_script_from_string() or hb_script_from_iso15924_tag() to get the
* corresponding script from an ISO 15924 script tag.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_script (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_script_t script)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->props.script = script;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_script:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* See hb_buffer_set_script().
*
* Return value:
* The #hb_script_t of the @buffer.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_script_t
hb_buffer_get_script (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->props.script;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_language:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @language: an hb_language_t to set.
*
* Sets the language of @buffer to @language.
*
* Languages are crucial for selecting which OpenType feature to apply to the
* buffer which can result in applying language-specific behaviour. Languages
* are orthogonal to the scripts, and though they are related, they are
* different concepts and should not be confused with each other.
*
* Use hb_language_from_string() to convert from BCP 47 language tags to
* #hb_language_t.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_language (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_language_t language)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->props.language = language;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_language:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* See hb_buffer_set_language().
*
* Return value: (transfer none):
* The #hb_language_t of the buffer. Must not be freed by the caller.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_language_t
hb_buffer_get_language (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->props.language;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_segment_properties:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @props: an #hb_segment_properties_t to use.
*
* Sets the segment properties of the buffer, a shortcut for calling
* hb_buffer_set_direction(), hb_buffer_set_script() and
* hb_buffer_set_language() individually.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_segment_properties (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const hb_segment_properties_t *props)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->props = *props;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_segment_properties:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @props: (out): the output #hb_segment_properties_t.
*
* Sets @props to the #hb_segment_properties_t of @buffer.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
void
hb_buffer_get_segment_properties (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_segment_properties_t *props)
{
*props = buffer->props;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_flags:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @flags: the buffer flags to set.
*
* Sets @buffer flags to @flags. See #hb_buffer_flags_t.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_flags (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_buffer_flags_t flags)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->flags = flags;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_flags:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* See hb_buffer_set_flags().
*
* Return value:
* The @buffer flags.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
hb_buffer_flags_t
hb_buffer_get_flags (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->flags;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_cluster_level:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @cluster_level:
*
*
*
* Since: 0.9.42
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_cluster_level (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_buffer_cluster_level_t cluster_level)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->cluster_level = cluster_level;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_cluster_level:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
*
*
* Return value:
*
* Since: 0.9.42
**/
hb_buffer_cluster_level_t
hb_buffer_get_cluster_level (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->cluster_level;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_replacement_codepoint:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @replacement: the replacement #hb_codepoint_t
*
* Sets the #hb_codepoint_t that replaces invalid entries for a given encoding
* when adding text to @buffer.
*
* Default is %HB_BUFFER_REPLACEMENT_CODEPOINT_DEFAULT.
*
* Since: 0.9.31
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_replacement_codepoint (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_codepoint_t replacement)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->replacement = replacement;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_replacement_codepoint:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* See hb_buffer_set_replacement_codepoint().
*
* Return value:
* The @buffer replacement #hb_codepoint_t.
*
* Since: 0.9.31
**/
hb_codepoint_t
hb_buffer_get_replacement_codepoint (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->replacement;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_invisible_glyph:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @invisible: the invisible #hb_codepoint_t
*
* Sets the #hb_codepoint_t that replaces invisible characters in
* the shaping result. If set to zero (default), the glyph for the
* U+0020 SPACE character is used. Otherwise, this value is used
* verbatim.
*
* Since: 2.0.0
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_invisible_glyph (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_codepoint_t invisible)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
buffer->invisible = invisible;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_invisible_glyph:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* See hb_buffer_set_invisible_glyph().
*
* Return value:
* The @buffer invisible #hb_codepoint_t.
*
* Since: 2.0.0
**/
hb_codepoint_t
hb_buffer_get_invisible_glyph (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->invisible;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_reset:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Resets the buffer to its initial status, as if it was just newly created
* with hb_buffer_create().
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_reset (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
buffer->reset ();
}
/**
* hb_buffer_clear_contents:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Similar to hb_buffer_reset(), but does not clear the Unicode functions and
* the replacement code point.
*
* Since: 0.9.11
**/
void
hb_buffer_clear_contents (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
buffer->clear ();
}
/**
* hb_buffer_pre_allocate:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @size: number of items to pre allocate.
*
* Pre allocates memory for @buffer to fit at least @size number of items.
*
* Return value:
* %true if @buffer memory allocation succeeded, %false otherwise.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_bool_t
hb_buffer_pre_allocate (hb_buffer_t *buffer, unsigned int size)
{
return buffer->ensure (size);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_allocation_successful:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Check if allocating memory for the buffer succeeded.
*
* Return value:
* %true if @buffer memory allocation succeeded, %false otherwise.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_bool_t
hb_buffer_allocation_successful (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->successful;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_add:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @codepoint: a Unicode code point.
* @cluster: the cluster value of @codepoint.
*
* Appends a character with the Unicode value of @codepoint to @buffer, and
* gives it the initial cluster value of @cluster. Clusters can be any thing
* the client wants, they are usually used to refer to the index of the
* character in the input text stream and are output in
* #hb_glyph_info_t.cluster field.
*
* This function does not check the validity of @codepoint, it is up to the
* caller to ensure it is a valid Unicode code point.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
void
hb_buffer_add (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_codepoint_t codepoint,
unsigned int cluster)
{
buffer->add (codepoint, cluster);
buffer->clear_context (1);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_set_length:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @length: the new length of @buffer.
*
* Similar to hb_buffer_pre_allocate(), but clears any new items added at the
* end.
*
* Return value:
* %true if @buffer memory allocation succeeded, %false otherwise.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_bool_t
hb_buffer_set_length (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
unsigned int length)
{
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return length == 0;
if (!buffer->ensure (length))
return false;
/* Wipe the new space */
if (length > buffer->len) {
memset (buffer->info + buffer->len, 0, sizeof (buffer->info[0]) * (length - buffer->len));
if (buffer->have_positions)
memset (buffer->pos + buffer->len, 0, sizeof (buffer->pos[0]) * (length - buffer->len));
}
buffer->len = length;
if (!length)
{
buffer->content_type = HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_INVALID;
buffer->clear_context (0);
}
buffer->clear_context (1);
return true;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_length:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Returns the number of items in the buffer.
*
* Return value:
* The @buffer length.
* The value valid as long as buffer has not been modified.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
unsigned int
hb_buffer_get_length (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
return buffer->len;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_glyph_infos:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @length: (out): output array length.
*
* Returns @buffer glyph information array. Returned pointer
* is valid as long as @buffer contents are not modified.
*
* Return value: (transfer none) (array length=length):
* The @buffer glyph information array.
* The value valid as long as buffer has not been modified.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_glyph_info_t *
hb_buffer_get_glyph_infos (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
unsigned int *length)
{
if (length)
*length = buffer->len;
return (hb_glyph_info_t *) buffer->info;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_get_glyph_positions:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @length: (out): output length.
*
* Returns @buffer glyph position array. Returned pointer
* is valid as long as @buffer contents are not modified.
*
* Return value: (transfer none) (array length=length):
* The @buffer glyph position array.
* The value valid as long as buffer has not been modified.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
hb_glyph_position_t *
hb_buffer_get_glyph_positions (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
unsigned int *length)
{
if (!buffer->have_positions)
buffer->clear_positions ();
if (length)
*length = buffer->len;
return (hb_glyph_position_t *) buffer->pos;
}
/**
* hb_glyph_info_get_glyph_flags:
* @info: a #hb_glyph_info_t.
*
* Returns glyph flags encoded within a #hb_glyph_info_t.
*
* Return value:
* The #hb_glyph_flags_t encoded within @info.
*
* Since: 1.5.0
**/
hb_glyph_flags_t
(hb_glyph_info_get_glyph_flags) (const hb_glyph_info_t *info)
{
return hb_glyph_info_get_glyph_flags (info);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_reverse:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Reverses buffer contents.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_reverse (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
buffer->reverse ();
}
/**
* hb_buffer_reverse_range:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @start: start index.
* @end: end index.
*
* Reverses buffer contents between start to end.
*
* Since: 0.9.41
**/
void
hb_buffer_reverse_range (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
unsigned int start, unsigned int end)
{
buffer->reverse_range (start, end);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_reverse_clusters:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Reverses buffer clusters. That is, the buffer contents are
* reversed, then each cluster (consecutive items having the
* same cluster number) are reversed again.
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_reverse_clusters (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
buffer->reverse_clusters ();
}
/**
* hb_buffer_guess_segment_properties:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Sets unset buffer segment properties based on buffer Unicode
* contents. If buffer is not empty, it must have content type
* %HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_UNICODE.
*
* If buffer script is not set (ie. is %HB_SCRIPT_INVALID), it
* will be set to the Unicode script of the first character in
* the buffer that has a script other than %HB_SCRIPT_COMMON,
* %HB_SCRIPT_INHERITED, and %HB_SCRIPT_UNKNOWN.
*
* Next, if buffer direction is not set (ie. is %HB_DIRECTION_INVALID),
* it will be set to the natural horizontal direction of the
* buffer script as returned by hb_script_get_horizontal_direction().
* If hb_script_get_horizontal_direction() returns %HB_DIRECTION_INVALID,
* then %HB_DIRECTION_LTR is used.
*
* Finally, if buffer language is not set (ie. is %HB_LANGUAGE_INVALID),
* it will be set to the process's default language as returned by
* hb_language_get_default(). This may change in the future by
* taking buffer script into consideration when choosing a language.
* Note that hb_language_get_default() is NOT threadsafe the first time
* it is called. See documentation for that function for details.
*
* Since: 0.9.7
**/
void
hb_buffer_guess_segment_properties (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
buffer->guess_segment_properties ();
}
template <typename utf_t>
static inline void
hb_buffer_add_utf (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const typename utf_t::codepoint_t *text,
int text_length,
unsigned int item_offset,
int item_length)
{
typedef typename utf_t::codepoint_t T;
const hb_codepoint_t replacement = buffer->replacement;
assert (buffer->content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_UNICODE ||
(!buffer->len && buffer->content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_INVALID));
if (unlikely (hb_object_is_immutable (buffer)))
return;
if (text_length == -1)
text_length = utf_t::strlen (text);
if (item_length == -1)
item_length = text_length - item_offset;
buffer->ensure (buffer->len + item_length * sizeof (T) / 4);
/* If buffer is empty and pre-context provided, install it.
* This check is written this way, to make sure people can
* provide pre-context in one add_utf() call, then provide
* text in a follow-up call. See:
*
* https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=801410#c13
*/
if (!buffer->len && item_offset > 0)
{
/* Add pre-context */
buffer->clear_context (0);
const T *prev = text + item_offset;
const T *start = text;
while (start < prev && buffer->context_len[0] < buffer->CONTEXT_LENGTH)
{
hb_codepoint_t u;
prev = utf_t::prev (prev, start, &u, replacement);
buffer->context[0][buffer->context_len[0]++] = u;
}
}
const T *next = text + item_offset;
const T *end = next + item_length;
while (next < end)
{
hb_codepoint_t u;
const T *old_next = next;
next = utf_t::next (next, end, &u, replacement);
buffer->add (u, old_next - (const T *) text);
}
/* Add post-context */
buffer->clear_context (1);
end = text + text_length;
while (next < end && buffer->context_len[1] < buffer->CONTEXT_LENGTH)
{
hb_codepoint_t u;
next = utf_t::next (next, end, &u, replacement);
buffer->context[1][buffer->context_len[1]++] = u;
}
buffer->content_type = HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_UNICODE;
}
/**
* hb_buffer_add_utf8:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @text: (array length=text_length) (element-type uint8_t): an array of UTF-8
* characters to append.
* @text_length: the length of the @text, or -1 if it is %NULL terminated.
* @item_offset: the offset of the first character to add to the @buffer.
* @item_length: the number of characters to add to the @buffer, or -1 for the
* end of @text (assuming it is %NULL terminated).
*
* See hb_buffer_add_codepoints().
*
* Replaces invalid UTF-8 characters with the @buffer replacement code point,
* see hb_buffer_set_replacement_codepoint().
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_add_utf8 (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const char *text,
int text_length,
unsigned int item_offset,
int item_length)
{
hb_buffer_add_utf<hb_utf8_t> (buffer, (const uint8_t *) text, text_length, item_offset, item_length);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_add_utf16:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @text: (array length=text_length): an array of UTF-16 characters to append.
* @text_length: the length of the @text, or -1 if it is %NULL terminated.
* @item_offset: the offset of the first character to add to the @buffer.
* @item_length: the number of characters to add to the @buffer, or -1 for the
* end of @text (assuming it is %NULL terminated).
*
* See hb_buffer_add_codepoints().
*
* Replaces invalid UTF-16 characters with the @buffer replacement code point,
* see hb_buffer_set_replacement_codepoint().
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_add_utf16 (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const uint16_t *text,
int text_length,
unsigned int item_offset,
int item_length)
{
hb_buffer_add_utf<hb_utf16_t> (buffer, text, text_length, item_offset, item_length);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_add_utf32:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @text: (array length=text_length): an array of UTF-32 characters to append.
* @text_length: the length of the @text, or -1 if it is %NULL terminated.
* @item_offset: the offset of the first character to add to the @buffer.
* @item_length: the number of characters to add to the @buffer, or -1 for the
* end of @text (assuming it is %NULL terminated).
*
* See hb_buffer_add_codepoints().
*
* Replaces invalid UTF-32 characters with the @buffer replacement code point,
* see hb_buffer_set_replacement_codepoint().
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_add_utf32 (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const uint32_t *text,
int text_length,
unsigned int item_offset,
int item_length)
{
hb_buffer_add_utf<hb_utf32_t> (buffer, text, text_length, item_offset, item_length);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_add_latin1:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @text: (array length=text_length) (element-type uint8_t): an array of UTF-8
* characters to append.
* @text_length: the length of the @text, or -1 if it is %NULL terminated.
* @item_offset: the offset of the first character to add to the @buffer.
* @item_length: the number of characters to add to the @buffer, or -1 for the
* end of @text (assuming it is %NULL terminated).
*
* Similar to hb_buffer_add_codepoints(), but allows only access to first 256
* Unicode code points that can fit in 8-bit strings.
*
* <note>Has nothing to do with non-Unicode Latin-1 encoding.</note>
*
* Since: 0.9.39
**/
void
hb_buffer_add_latin1 (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const uint8_t *text,
int text_length,
unsigned int item_offset,
int item_length)
{
hb_buffer_add_utf<hb_latin1_t> (buffer, text, text_length, item_offset, item_length);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_add_codepoints:
* @buffer: a #hb_buffer_t to append characters to.
* @text: (array length=text_length): an array of Unicode code points to append.
* @text_length: the length of the @text, or -1 if it is %NULL terminated.
* @item_offset: the offset of the first code point to add to the @buffer.
* @item_length: the number of code points to add to the @buffer, or -1 for the
* end of @text (assuming it is %NULL terminated).
*
* Appends characters from @text array to @buffer. The @item_offset is the
* position of the first character from @text that will be appended, and
* @item_length is the number of character. When shaping part of a larger text
* (e.g. a run of text from a paragraph), instead of passing just the substring
* corresponding to the run, it is preferable to pass the whole
* paragraph and specify the run start and length as @item_offset and
* @item_length, respectively, to give HarfBuzz the full context to be able,
* for example, to do cross-run Arabic shaping or properly handle combining
* marks at stat of run.
*
* This function does not check the validity of @text, it is up to the caller
* to ensure it contains a valid Unicode code points.
*
* Since: 0.9.31
**/
void
hb_buffer_add_codepoints (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
const hb_codepoint_t *text,
int text_length,
unsigned int item_offset,
int item_length)
{
hb_buffer_add_utf<hb_utf32_novalidate_t> (buffer, text, text_length, item_offset, item_length);
}
/**
* hb_buffer_append:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @source: source #hb_buffer_t.
* @start: start index into source buffer to copy. Use 0 to copy from start of buffer.
* @end: end index into source buffer to copy. Use (unsigned int) -1 to copy to end of buffer.
*
* Append (part of) contents of another buffer to this buffer.
*
* Since: 1.5.0
**/
HB_EXTERN void
hb_buffer_append (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_buffer_t *source,
unsigned int start,
unsigned int end)
{
assert (!buffer->have_output && !source->have_output);
assert (buffer->have_positions == source->have_positions ||
!buffer->len || !source->len);
assert (buffer->content_type == source->content_type ||
!buffer->len || !source->len);
if (end > source->len)
end = source->len;
if (start > end)
start = end;
if (start == end)
return;
if (!buffer->len)
buffer->content_type = source->content_type;
if (!buffer->have_positions && source->have_positions)
buffer->clear_positions ();
if (buffer->len + (end - start) < buffer->len) /* Overflows. */
{
buffer->successful = false;
return;
}
unsigned int orig_len = buffer->len;
hb_buffer_set_length (buffer, buffer->len + (end - start));
if (unlikely (!buffer->successful))
return;
memcpy (buffer->info + orig_len, source->info + start, (end - start) * sizeof (buffer->info[0]));
if (buffer->have_positions)
memcpy (buffer->pos + orig_len, source->pos + start, (end - start) * sizeof (buffer->pos[0]));
}
static int
compare_info_codepoint (const hb_glyph_info_t *pa,
const hb_glyph_info_t *pb)
{
return (int) pb->codepoint - (int) pa->codepoint;
}
static inline void
normalize_glyphs_cluster (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
unsigned int start,
unsigned int end,
bool backward)
{
hb_glyph_position_t *pos = buffer->pos;
/* Total cluster advance */
hb_position_t total_x_advance = 0, total_y_advance = 0;
for (unsigned int i = start; i < end; i++)
{
total_x_advance += pos[i].x_advance;
total_y_advance += pos[i].y_advance;
}
hb_position_t x_advance = 0, y_advance = 0;
for (unsigned int i = start; i < end; i++)
{
pos[i].x_offset += x_advance;
pos[i].y_offset += y_advance;
x_advance += pos[i].x_advance;
y_advance += pos[i].y_advance;
pos[i].x_advance = 0;
pos[i].y_advance = 0;
}
if (backward)
{
/* Transfer all cluster advance to the last glyph. */
pos[end - 1].x_advance = total_x_advance;
pos[end - 1].y_advance = total_y_advance;
hb_stable_sort (buffer->info + start, end - start - 1, compare_info_codepoint, buffer->pos + start);
} else {
/* Transfer all cluster advance to the first glyph. */
pos[start].x_advance += total_x_advance;
pos[start].y_advance += total_y_advance;
for (unsigned int i = start + 1; i < end; i++) {
pos[i].x_offset -= total_x_advance;
pos[i].y_offset -= total_y_advance;
}
hb_stable_sort (buffer->info + start + 1, end - start - 1, compare_info_codepoint, buffer->pos + start + 1);
}
}
/**
* hb_buffer_normalize_glyphs:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
*
* Reorders a glyph buffer to have canonical in-cluster glyph order / position.
* The resulting clusters should behave identical to pre-reordering clusters.
*
* <note>This has nothing to do with Unicode normalization.</note>
*
* Since: 0.9.2
**/
void
hb_buffer_normalize_glyphs (hb_buffer_t *buffer)
{
assert (buffer->have_positions);
assert (buffer->content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_GLYPHS ||
(!buffer->len && buffer->content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_INVALID));
bool backward = HB_DIRECTION_IS_BACKWARD (buffer->props.direction);
unsigned int count = buffer->len;
if (unlikely (!count)) return;
hb_glyph_info_t *info = buffer->info;
unsigned int start = 0;
unsigned int end;
for (end = start + 1; end < count; end++)
if (info[start].cluster != info[end].cluster) {
normalize_glyphs_cluster (buffer, start, end, backward);
start = end;
}
normalize_glyphs_cluster (buffer, start, end, backward);
}
void
hb_buffer_t::sort (unsigned int start, unsigned int end, int(*compar)(const hb_glyph_info_t *, const hb_glyph_info_t *))
{
assert (!have_positions);
for (unsigned int i = start + 1; i < end; i++)
{
unsigned int j = i;
while (j > start && compar (&info[j - 1], &info[i]) > 0)
j--;
if (i == j)
continue;
/* Move item i to occupy place for item j, shift what's in between. */
merge_clusters (j, i + 1);
{
hb_glyph_info_t t = info[i];
memmove (&info[j + 1], &info[j], (i - j) * sizeof (hb_glyph_info_t));
info[j] = t;
}
}
}
/*
* Comparing buffers.
*/
/**
* hb_buffer_diff:
* @buffer: a buffer.
* @reference: other buffer to compare to.
* @dottedcircle_glyph: glyph id of U+25CC DOTTED CIRCLE, or (hb_codepont_t) -1.
* @position_fuzz: allowed absolute difference in position values.
*
* If dottedcircle_glyph is (hb_codepoint_t) -1 then %HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_DOTTED_CIRCLE_PRESENT
* and %HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_NOTDEF_PRESENT are never returned. This should be used by most
* callers if just comparing two buffers is needed.
*
* Since: 1.5.0
**/
hb_buffer_diff_flags_t
hb_buffer_diff (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_buffer_t *reference,
hb_codepoint_t dottedcircle_glyph,
unsigned int position_fuzz)
{
if (buffer->content_type != reference->content_type && buffer->len && reference->len)
return HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_CONTENT_TYPE_MISMATCH;
hb_buffer_diff_flags_t result = HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_EQUAL;
bool contains = dottedcircle_glyph != (hb_codepoint_t) -1;
unsigned int count = reference->len;
if (buffer->len != count)
{
/*
* we can't compare glyph-by-glyph, but we do want to know if there
* are .notdef or dottedcircle glyphs present in the reference buffer
*/
const hb_glyph_info_t *info = reference->info;
unsigned int i;
for (i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
if (contains && info[i].codepoint == dottedcircle_glyph)
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_DOTTED_CIRCLE_PRESENT;
if (contains && info[i].codepoint == 0)
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_NOTDEF_PRESENT;
}
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_LENGTH_MISMATCH;
return hb_buffer_diff_flags_t (result);
}
if (!count)
return hb_buffer_diff_flags_t (result);
const hb_glyph_info_t *buf_info = buffer->info;
const hb_glyph_info_t *ref_info = reference->info;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
if (buf_info->codepoint != ref_info->codepoint)
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_CODEPOINT_MISMATCH;
if (buf_info->cluster != ref_info->cluster)
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_CLUSTER_MISMATCH;
if ((buf_info->mask & ~ref_info->mask & HB_GLYPH_FLAG_DEFINED))
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_GLYPH_FLAGS_MISMATCH;
if (contains && ref_info->codepoint == dottedcircle_glyph)
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_DOTTED_CIRCLE_PRESENT;
if (contains && ref_info->codepoint == 0)
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_NOTDEF_PRESENT;
buf_info++;
ref_info++;
}
if (buffer->content_type == HB_BUFFER_CONTENT_TYPE_GLYPHS)
{
assert (buffer->have_positions);
const hb_glyph_position_t *buf_pos = buffer->pos;
const hb_glyph_position_t *ref_pos = reference->pos;
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
if ((unsigned int) abs (buf_pos->x_advance - ref_pos->x_advance) > position_fuzz ||
(unsigned int) abs (buf_pos->y_advance - ref_pos->y_advance) > position_fuzz ||
(unsigned int) abs (buf_pos->x_offset - ref_pos->x_offset) > position_fuzz ||
(unsigned int) abs (buf_pos->y_offset - ref_pos->y_offset) > position_fuzz)
{
result |= HB_BUFFER_DIFF_FLAG_POSITION_MISMATCH;
break;
}
buf_pos++;
ref_pos++;
}
}
return result;
}
/*
* Debugging.
*/
/**
* hb_buffer_set_message_func:
* @buffer: an #hb_buffer_t.
* @func: (closure user_data) (destroy destroy) (scope notified):
* @user_data:
* @destroy:
*
*
*
* Since: 1.1.3
**/
void
hb_buffer_set_message_func (hb_buffer_t *buffer,
hb_buffer_message_func_t func,
void *user_data, hb_destroy_func_t destroy)
{
if (buffer->message_destroy)
buffer->message_destroy (buffer->message_data);
if (func) {
buffer->message_func = func;
buffer->message_data = user_data;
buffer->message_destroy = destroy;
} else {
buffer->message_func = nullptr;
buffer->message_data = nullptr;
buffer->message_destroy = nullptr;
}
}
bool
hb_buffer_t::message_impl (hb_font_t *font, const char *fmt, va_list ap)
{
char buf[100];
vsnprintf (buf, sizeof (buf), fmt, ap);
return (bool) this->message_func (this, font, buf, this->message_data);
}
| 2023-11-08T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9914 |
912 F.2d 907
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.John SHERMAN, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 89-3438.
United States Court of Appeals,Seventh Circuit.
Argued June 12, 1990.Decided Aug. 30, 1990.
Ronald S. Safer, Barry R. Elden, Asst. U.S. Atty., Office of the U.S. Atty., Criminal Receiving, Appellate Div., Chicago, Ill., for U.S.
Jeffrey B. Steinback, Geena D. Cohen, Genson, Steinback & Gillespie, Chicago, Ill., Neal Walter, Morton Grove, Ill., for John Sherman.
Before POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges.
MANION, Circuit Judge.
1
John Sherman appeals his commitment to the custody of the Attorney General pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241(d), after being held incompetent to stand trial on criminal charges. 722 F.Supp. 504. We affirm.
I. Background
2
Sherman was indicted January 13, 1988 for attempted bank fraud and conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 371 and 1344. One week later a magistrate ordered Sherman to undergo a mental competency exam. Following the examination, on June 3, 1988, the district court found Sherman incompetent to stand trial. The government asked that Sherman be committed to the custody of the Attorney General for hospitalization and treatment pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241(d), but instead the court at the suggestion of Sherman's counsel ordered Sherman to continue his outpatient therapy for 120 days. The court heard no testimony because the government agreed Sherman was incompetent to stand trial. At the close of 120 days the parties were to return for a status conference so the court could reevaluate Sherman's condition. That 120-day period was extended on two occasions so experts could complete reports on Sherman's mental condition. In the interim this court decided United States v. Shawar, 865 F.2d 856 (7th Cir.1989), which held that courts by statute must commit incompetent defendants to the custody of the Attorney General for up to four months. In response to Shawar the government asked for a second hearing, and Sherman again was found incompetent. The district court committed Sherman to the custody of the Attorney General for 120 days. The district court granted Sherman's motion for a stay of execution pending the outcome of this appeal, and Sherman continues to receive outpatient psychiatric treatment.
II. Analysis
3
Sherman presents three arguments on appeal. He first contends the government was collaterally estopped from moving for a second custody hearing because the issue of competency was settled by the first hearing, and Sherman already had complied with the court's order to receive outpatient treatment. Second, Sherman argues the second hearing was not required by 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241 or by Shawar and violated his due process rights. Third, he contends that requiring him to be treated and examined for 120 days in a government hospital violates his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. We will examine each issue in turn, beginning with Sherman's collateral estoppel argument.
4
Sherman does not challenge our conclusion in Shawar that 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241(d)1 compels the district court to commit incompetent defendants to the custody of the Attorney General. In Shawar we held that "[t]he plain meaning of [18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241(d) ] is ... that once a defendant is found incompetent to stand trial, a district judge has no discretion in whether or not to commit him." 865 F.2d at 860. Sherman's contention seems to be that the government was precluded from raising and the district court from revisiting the issue after he completed the district court's order requiring continued outpatient treatment.
5
Collateral estoppel, commonly known as issue preclusion, is "a judicially-created doctrine that is properly applied when an issue raised by a party to a suit has been actually and necessarily litigated in a prior suit and when the party against whom estoppel is asserted has had a 'full and fair opportunity' to litigate the issue." Teamsters Local 282 Pension Trust Fund v. Angelos, 815 F.2d 452, 456 n. 3 (7th Cir.1987) (citations omitted) (emphasis added). The four requirements of collateral estoppel are that: (1) the issue sought to be precluded is the same as that involved in the prior action; (2) the issue was actually litigated; (3) the determination of the issue was essential to the final judgment; and (4) the party against whom estoppel is invoked was fully represented in the prior action. Klingman v. Levinson, 831 F.2d 1292, 1295 (7th Cir.1987). Sherman points out that collateral estoppel can apply in criminal cases. See Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970).
6
Sherman's reliance on collateral estoppel fails for many reasons. In the first place, none of the issue preclusion cases cited by Sherman involve separate rulings in the same proceeding, as this case does. Sherman misapprehends the circumstances under which this doctrine can apply; collateral estoppel requires separate actions. Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153, 99 S.Ct. 970, 973, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979) (emphasis added) ("Under collateral estoppel, once an issue is actually and necessarily determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, that determination is conclusive in subsequent suits based on a different cause of action involving a party to the prior litigation.") Or as the Supreme Court put it in Ashe v. Swenson, "when a[n] issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit." 397 U.S. at 443, 90 S.Ct. at 1194 (emphasis added). A case in point is Ashe: the defendant was tried and acquitted for the robbery of a participant in a poker game. Six weeks later he was tried, and this time convicted, for the robbery of another of the game's participants. The court held that the issue of whether the defendant robbed the poker game's participants had been settled by the first judgment of acquittal.
7
Similarly, Sherman cites other estoppel cases that involve issues previously litigated in different actions, and frequently in different courts. See e.g. Miller Brewing Co. v. Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co., 605 F.2d 990 (7th Cir.1979); Interconnect Planning Corp. v. Feil, 774 F.2d 1132 (Fed.Cir.1985). By contrast, this case involves a temporary ruling by the district court following a criminal indictment. The ruling contemplated further proceedings related to the issue of Sherman's competency. Indeed, the issue of Sherman's competency can hardly be considered final when the very objective of competency determinations is to discover whether or when a defendant will be competent to stand trial. Although a judgment need not be final for purposes of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 to be given preclusive effect, it must be "immune, as a practical matter, to reversal or amendment." Miller Brewing Co., 605 F.2d at 996.
8
Whether a judgment, not "final" in the sense of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291, ought nevertheless be considered "final" in the sense of precluding further litigation of the same issue, turns upon such factors as the nature of the decision (i.e., that it was not avowedly tentative ), the adequacy of the hearing, and the opportunity for review.
9
Zdanok v. Glidden Co., 327 F.2d 944, 955 (2d Cir.1964) (emphasis added). By requiring Sherman to return for further consideration of the issue of competency, the district court made clear that its decision was "tentative," and susceptible to "reversal or amendment." Thus the decision was not barred by collateral estoppel.
10
Although the district court erred by not committing Sherman to the custody of the Attorney General after the first competency hearing as required by 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241, its mistake came at the urging of Sherman's counsel. After inducing the district court to commit a legal mistake, Sherman invoked estoppel to avoid proper application of the statute. Not only is this tactic highly questionable, even if unintentional, but the Supreme Court recently noted that it has never sanctioned invocation of equitable estoppel against the government to prevent application of a statute. See Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 2465, 2469-70, 110 L.Ed.2d 387 (1990). We decline to apply it here as well.
11
Sherman's due process and cruel and unusual punishment arguments are similarly unpersuasive. Sherman contends that retroactive application of the Shawar decision violated his constitutional right to due process of law, in the same way retroactive application of new laws violates the ex post facto clause of the Constitution. This may be available if the commitment "adversely affect[ed] [Sherman's] reasonable expectations," Cheshire Hospital v. New Hampshire-Vermont Hospitalization Service, Inc., 689 F.2d 1112, 1121 (1st Cir.1982), in a "particularly harsh and oppressive" manner. U.S. Trust Co. of New York v. New Jersey, 431 U.S. 1, 17 n. 13, 97 S.Ct. 1505, 1515 n. 13, 52 L.Ed.2d 92 (1977). He argues that tacking on the commitment period of 120 days after the court-ordered psychiatric treatment of 120 days amounts to double punishment.2 But Sherman sought to continue the much less confining outpatient psychiatric treatment; he admits that he continues that treatment to this day. Further, Sherman knew by the tentative nature of the court's order that the issue was not closed. His reasonable expectations could not have been upset by the court's order to correctly apply the statute.
12
To support his Eighth Amendment claim, Sherman points to testimony of a treating psychiatrist that confinement to a federal hospital for treatment might "possibly" do him substantial harm. However, on cross-examination this same doctor admitted that he was not familiar with federal medical facilities, and that it was "hard to predict" what would happen to Sherman. Even if it were likely that Sherman would regress if temporarily committed to a federal institution, there is no precedent for holding that such confinement constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." The confinement is for the purpose of treatment and medical evaluation, not punishment. Every Eighth Amendment case cited by Sherman involves punishment for a defendant convicted of a crime; we are not inclined to break new constitutional ground here.
13
The district court's order committing Sherman to the custody of the Attorney General for hospitalization "in a suitable facility" for a period of 120 days pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241 is
14
AFFIRMED.
1
"(d) Determination and disposition.--If, after [a mental competency hearing], the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense, the court shall commit the defendant to the custody of the Attorney General. The Attorney General shall hospitalize the defendant for treatment in a suitable facility--
(1) for such a reasonable period of time, not to exceed four months, as is necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability that in the foreseeable future he will attain the capacity to permit the trial to proceed; and
(2) for an additional reasonable period of time until--
(A) his mental condition is so improved that trial may proceed, if the court finds that there is a substantial probability that within such additional period of time he will attain the capacity to permit the trial to proceed; or
(B) the pending charges against him are disposed of according to law; whichever is earlier.
If, at the end of the time period specified, it is determined that the defendant's mental condition has not so improved as to permit the trial to proceed, the defendant is subject to the provisions of section 4246."
2
We should point out that 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241 does not require commitment for a period of 120 days; once a patient is in custody of the Attorney General the statute requires hospitalization for treatment in a suitable facility only "for such a reasonable period of time, not to exceed four months, as is necessary ..." to determine competency. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 4241(d)(1) (emphasis added). Aside from the fact that Sherman was never committed to the custody of the Attorney General, Sherman's counsel admitted at oral argument that she did not argue to the district court that "a reasonable period of time" under the facts of this case might be substantially fewer than four months of hospitalization
| 2023-08-06T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6037 |
Q:
Replace value in dataframe column, if other 'better' value exists elsewhere
I have a dataframe structured roughly as follows (it's a list of event participants; the pool is small enough that we can assume that a repeating value refers to the same person):
id_1 id_2 id_3 ... year name country
1_c 2_a 3_a 2011 John France
1_b 2_a 3_c 2010 Jill UK
1_c 2_b 3_c 2018 John Germany
1_c 2_b 3_c 2014 Jason Italy
1_c 2_b 3_b 2017 John Unknown
The aim is to replace the 'Unknown' values with the a country name, if that person has a known country from their participation in another year.
In the extremely unlikely event that they're listed under different countries in different years, I'm happy to just tag them under whichever country they were listed under in the year closest to the 'Unknown' year (so above, we would change 'Unknown' to 'Germany' for John).
I'm a complete pandas (and python!) novice. I've created a list of unique name/country pairs using drop_duplicates, but I'm assuming there must be a much more elegant way to do the rest than the mess of list, tuple and dict conversions I'm currently knee deep in.
A:
One non-vectorised solution is possible via pd.DataFrame.apply. This is just a thinly veiled loop. We cycle through each row. If the country is unknown we:
Filter for country not equal to "Unknown" and name equal to row name.
Calculate absolute difference between each year with row year for this subset.
Retrieve country for the minimum absolute year difference.
Here's a complete example:
def get_country(row):
if row['country'] != 'Unknown':
return row['country']
else:
res = df.loc[(df['country'] != 'Unknown') & (df['name'] == row['name'])]\
.assign(year_diff=(df['year']-row['year']).abs())
return res.loc[res['year_diff'].idxmin(), 'country'] if not res.empty else 'Unknown'
df['country'] = df.apply(get_country, axis=1)
print(df)
id_1 id_2 id_3 year name country
0 1_c 2_a 3_a 2011 John France
1 1_b 2_a 3_c 2010 Jill UK
2 1_c 2_b 3_c 2018 John Germany
3 1_c 2_b 3_c 2014 Jason Italy
4 1_c 2_b 3_b 2017 John Germany
There will certainly be clever ways to optimise using Pandas / NumPy, for example via sorting. If performance is a concern, you should consider an alternative algorithm.
| 2023-10-14T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5740 |
Introduction
============
Since animals under metabolic stress must invest their energy in survival rather than reproduction, the reproductive axis has the capacity to respond to changes in caloric status. The hypothalamic signals driving the reproductive axis are suppressed when a mammal is in negative energy balance, whether that state is caused by inadequate food intake, excessive locomotor activity, or heavy thermoregulatory costs. Likewise, the energy demands of maintaining fertility and successful reproduction require increased food consumption and appropriate regulation of energy expenditure. Therefore, hypothalamic control of metabolism must be responsive to the reproductive state of the animal. However, despite the passage of 40 years since the discovery of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH; Schally et al., [@B166]), the afferent neuronal groups and pathways through which gonadal steroids and nutrient signals regulate GnRH release remain unresolved.
Much attention has focused on the role of hypothalamic neurons expressing kisspeptin in coordinating GnRH neuronal function and the physiological state of the animal. However, while the central role of kisspeptin in steroid feedback to the hypothalamus is clear, evidence of it conveying metabolic signals to the reproductive axis is equivocal. In addition, data suggest that other hypothalamic neurons also convey gonadal steroid input to GnRH circuitry, either directly or via the kisspeptin network.
Here we will discuss new findings resulting from genetically modifying pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) and steroidogenic factor-1 (SF1) neurons of the hypothalamus. While primarily understood to function as metabolic regulators, these neurons are emerging as critical nodes of communication that respond to both metabolic and reproductive cues and directly interact with reproductive circuitry. In particular, we will focus on their ability to transmit information gleaned from circulating factors, specifically leptin, insulin, and estradiol (E~2~).
Canonical Reproductive Circuits
===============================
Hypothalamic GnRH neurons produce the final output of a complex neuronal system regulating fertility. Adult mammals possess a loose field of GnRH neurons stretching from the olfactory bulbs to the medial basal hypothalamus with a highly dense population of GnRH neurons within the preoptic area (POA) and adjacent to the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT). The axons of GnRH neurons project to the median eminence (ME) where GnRH is secreted in pulses into the pituitary portal bloodstream. GnRH neurons can possess dendrites extending millimeters away from their cell bodies (Campbell et al., [@B20]; Cottrell et al., [@B41]), with the average extending over 550 μm (Roberts et al., [@B157]). Interestingly, many GnRH dendrites follow routes similar to those of their axons toward the ME. Dendrites of GnRH neurons frequently initiate action potentials due to their expression of voltage-gated sodium channels (Rhodes and Llinas, [@B156]). As a result of the morphology of these dendrites, highly proficient action potential initiation in the distal dendrites is possible even when synaptic potentials are quite small (Witkin and Silverman, [@B208]; Witkin et al., [@B207]). Distal portions of the GnRH dendrite, for instance segments located in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (ARC), thus provide synaptic input and can potently affect GnRH hormone secretion (Campbell and Suter, [@B21]; Zoli et al., [@B218]; Herbison, [@B87]).
A great deal of the recent focus on afferent control of GnRH secretion has been on kisspeptin neurons in the hypothalamus, based on the ability of mutations of the kisspeptin receptor to cause hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in humans and animal models (de Roux et al., [@B47]; Seminara et al., [@B172]). Kisspeptin exerts an extremely powerful and long-lasting depolarizing stimulus upon GnRH neurons (Gottsch et al., [@B75]; Han et al., [@B81]; Messager et al., [@B125]; Pielecka-Fortuna et al., [@B149]) and plays a central role in the physiological regulation of GnRH release (Oakley et al., [@B140]; Ohkura et al., [@B141]). Confocal images have shown kisspeptin terminals in direct apposition to GnRH cell bodies (Clarkson and Herbison, [@B36]; Ramaswamy et al., [@B152]). In addition, in the rat and monkey, kisspeptin terminals form close contacts with GnRH terminals in the ME (Krajewski et al., [@B104], [@B105]; Ciofi et al., [@B35]; Decourt et al., [@B49]; Lehman et al., [@B112]). Recent studies on the stimulatory effects of kisspeptin are consistent with actions at both the ME (d'Anglemont de Tassigny et al., [@B45]) and GnRH cell bodies in the POA (Pielecka-Fortuna et al., [@B149]; Moenter and Pielecka-Fortuna, [@B129]). Two populations of kisspeptin neurons exist in the hypothalamus; one is located in the anteroventral periventricular nucleus (AVPV; Smith et al., [@B186]), and the other is located in the ARC. Most ARC kisspeptin neurons co-express neurokinin B (NKB) and dynorphin (Dyn) in rat (Burke et al., [@B18]), mouse (Navarro et al., [@B138]), sheep (Goodman et al., [@B73]), goat (Wakabayashi et al., [@B198]), and possibly human (Rance, [@B153]) leading to these neurons acquiring the moniker of KNDy neurons (Cheng et al., [@B31]). Each of these three neuropeptides has been strongly implicated in the feedback regulation of GnRH neurons (Rance and Young, [@B155]; Sahu and Kalra, [@B163]; Rance and Bruce, [@B154]; Goodman et al., [@B72]; Foradori et al., [@B66]). Since the kisspeptin network is not the focus of this review, readers interested in this topic are referred to some excellent recent publications (Oakley et al., [@B140]; Navarro and Tena-Sempere, [@B139]).
POMC Neurons Link Metabolic and Reproductive Circuits
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POMC neurons innervate reproductive circuits
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Besides kisspeptin neurons, other hypothalamic populations may also provide afferent signals on the hypothalamo-pituitary gonadal (HPG) axis to regulate reproduction. Particularly, recent evidence suggests that hypothalamic sites that regulate energy balance have important inputs to GnRH neurons. One example is POMC neurons in the ARC. POMC neurons have long been believed to be a primary central regulator of energy homeostasis (Huszar et al., [@B90]; Cone, [@B39]). The anorexigenic property of POMC neurons has been well established, as the deletion of POMC gene causes hyperphagia and obesity (Yaswen et al., [@B212]).
Evidence also suggests that POMC neurons innervate the reproductive circuits in the central nervous system (CNS). For example, POMC neurons make direct synaptic contact with GnRH neurons (Leranth et al., [@B114]; Thind and Goldsmith, [@B191]; Chen et al., [@B29]). The major neurotransmitters released from POMC neurons include two POMC gene products: the anorectic peptide α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) and the endogenous opioid β-endorphin (Cheung et al., [@B32]; Broberger et al., [@B13]; Hahn et al., [@B77]; Vrang et al., [@B196]). Fibers specifically immunoreactive for β-endorphin have been identified within the immediate vicinity of GnRH neurons, and based upon electron microscopic evidence, the β-endorphin-immunoreactive terminals synapse on the GnRH neuron soma in the rat (Leranth et al., [@B114]; Chen et al., [@B30]), sheep (Goodman et al., [@B72]), and monkey (Thind and Goldsmith, [@B191]). About 20--30% of POMC neurons in the ARC co-express estrogen receptor-α (ERα; Lehman et al., [@B113]; de Souza et al., [@B48]; Xu et al., [@B211]), and an ERα-positive subpopulation of ARC POMC neurons has been shown to project to the POA, where GnRH neurons are concentrated (Simonian et al., [@B181]). Furthermore, GnRH neurons express receptors for β-endorphin. For example, μ-opioid receptors, have been indentified in GnRH neurons of the guinea pig (Lagrange et al., [@B108]). In addition, δ-opioid receptors have been identified in mouse GnRH neuron-derived GT-1 cells and in a fraction of rat GnRH nerve terminals, including in the ME (Pimpinelli et al., [@B150]). Collectively, these findings indicate that POMC neurons are well positioned to provide synaptic inputs to GnRH neurons.
At the functional level, neurotransmitters released from POMC neurons have been shown to regulate the HPG axis. In both monkeys and rats, β-endorphin and other opioids exert inhibitory effects on GnRH and LH secretion (Bruni et al., [@B14]; Kinoshita et al., [@B98]; Gilbeau et al., [@B70]; Leadem and Kalra, [@B110],[@B109]; Wiesner et al., [@B205]; Leadem and Yagenova, [@B111]; Wardlaw and Ferin, [@B201]; Kalra and Kalra, [@B93]). This inhibitory effects appear to be tonic, as administration of naloxone, an opiate receptor antagonist, to rats increases LH production (Babu et al., [@B1]). Reducing the opioid inhibition also facilitates the production of the GnRH surge on proestrus (Lustig et al., [@B117]; Masotto et al., [@B121]; Hashimoto and Kimura, [@B82]; Zhang and Gallo, [@B214]). This inhibition by opioids can be interpreted as increased overall suppression of GnRH and LH release or as augmentation of steroid negative feedback. Indeed, opioid antagonism can also stimulate GnRH release independent of E~2~ levels (Babu et al., [@B1]; Karahalios and Levine, [@B94]; Goodman et al., [@B74]). However, during the rat estrous cycle, β-endorphin levels fluctuate in the ARC, POA, and ME. The maximum levels are seen during diestrus while the lowest occurs on proestrus leading up to the LH surge (Gallo and Drouva, [@B68]), suggesting a role in negative feedback. While these studies strongly support an inhibitory effect of opioids on GnRH release, genetic evidence is less convincing. Mutant mice lacking the classical endogenous opioids (dynorphin, enkephalin, and endorphin; Konig et al., [@B100]; Rubinstein et al., [@B162]; Sharifi et al., [@B174]) as well as mutants of the three opioid receptors (Matthes et al., [@B122]; Sora et al., [@B187]; Roy et al., [@B159]; Simonin et al., [@B182]; Schuller et al., [@B171]; Zhu et al., [@B216]; Filliol et al., [@B61]) are fertile, although μ-opioid receptor-deficient mice display reduced spermatogenesis and impaired sexual function (Tian et al., [@B192]). Thus, at least when absent during the development of hypothalamic circuitry, opioid inhibition of GnRH release is not required for fertility.
In contrast, it has been demonstrated that α-MSH exerts an excitatory effect on the GnRH system, likely by acting on central melanocortin receptors (MCs; Celis, [@B26]; Backholer et al., [@B2]). A robust connection has recently been demonstrated between MCH neurons, which express MC4 receptors and receive direct input from POMC neurons, and GnRH neurons (Wu et al., [@B210]). Agouti-related peptide (AgRP), an endogenous receptor antagonist of MCs, decreases the magnitude of the LH surges in normally fed rats (Watanobe et al., [@B202]; Schioth et al., [@B167]; Schioth and Watanobe, [@B168]), while anti-AgRP serum partially but significantly enlarges the LH surge (Schioth et al., [@B167]). Indeed, melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) deficient mice exhibit erectile dysfunction and changed sexual behavior in males secondary to obesity (Van der Ploeg et al., [@B194]) and reduced ovulation rates and fertility accompanied by increased follicular atresia by 6 months of age in females (Sandrock et al., [@B164]). Furthermore, *agouti* mice, which congenitally overproduce AgRP, have adult-onset infertility (Granholm et al., [@B76]). Collectively, these findings point to α-MSH as a potential afferent signal to the HPG axis.
In addition to neuropeptides, POMC neurons release classical neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate (Hentges et al., [@B85], [@B86]), both of which have been shown to regulate GnRH neurons (Kusano et al., [@B107]; Shepherd, [@B175]; Spergel et al., [@B189]; Sim et al., [@B179]; Sorra and Harris, [@B188]; Simonian and Herbison, [@B180]; DeFazio et al., [@B50]; Fiala et al., [@B60]; Han et al., [@B80]; Kuehl-Kovarik et al., [@B106]; Ottem et al., [@B147]; Moenter and DeFazio, [@B128]). In addition to direct synaptic inputs, POMC neurons may also influence GnRH neurons via kisspeptin intermediary neurons. Supporting this possibility, kisspeptin fibers have been shown in close apposition with ARC POMC neurons in ewes (Backholer et al., [@B2], [@B4]), and double-label fluorescent immunohistochemistry showed that reciprocal connections exist between kisspeptin neurons and POMC neurons (Backholer et al., [@B3]).
The studies reviewed above emphasize the critical "choice" of POMC neurons to express β-endorphin or α-MSH. The former, possibly acting in concert with other opioids such as dynorphin (via its own kappa-opioid receptor; Navarro et al., [@B138]), is intimately involved in the negative feedback regulation of GnRH release. The latter, through activation of second-order metabolic circuitry, is involved in the gating of fertility during times of energy deprivation. The control of β-endorphin vs. α-MSH production by POMC neurons is an area of ongoing study (Wardlaw, [@B200]).
Leptin and insulin act on POMC neurons to regulate both reproduction and energy homeostasis
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Emerging evidence indicates that POMC neurons respond to metabolic cues to provide coordinated control of metabolism and reproduction. One example of these metabolic cues is leptin. Leptin is a circulating adiposity-related factor that informs the CNS regarding energy stores. Released by adipocytes when stored fat is plentiful, leptin acts in the hypothalamus to suppress body weight gain and to improve insulin sensitivity (Morton et al., [@B132], [@B133]; Balthasar et al., [@B6]; Coppari et al., [@B40]; Dhillon et al., [@B52]; van de Wall et al., [@B193]). Mice lacking leptin or leptin receptors (LepRs) develop hyperphagic morbid obesity, insulin resistant diabetes, and hypothermia (Coleman, [@B38]). Leptin reduces food intake and body weight when administered to leptin-null mice (Campfield et al., [@B22]; Halaas et al., [@B78]; Pelleymounter et al., [@B148]), and brain-specific deletion of LepRs leads to obesity (Cohen et al., [@B37]).
Leptin is also a prerequisite for pubertal development and successful reproduction. Humans and mice carrying leptin gene mutations fail to go through puberty, have low LH levels, and are infertile (Montague et al., [@B131]), and leptin administration, but not weight loss alone, allows pubertal progression and restores their fertility (Barash et al., [@B7]; Chehab et al., [@B28]; Mounzih et al., [@B134]; Ziotopoulou et al., [@B217]). Leptin also overrides the fasting-induced suppression of LH secretion and fertility (Nagatani et al., [@B136], [@B137]; Gonzalez et al., [@B71]; Kohsaka et al., [@B99]). In anorectic females and in athletes with extreme decreases in body adiposity, leptin can increase levels of luteinizing hormone (Licinio et al., [@B115]) and restore the menstrual cycle (Welt et al., [@B203]). Re-expression of LepRs in the brain of LepR-null mice restores fertility completely in males and partially in females (Kowalski et al., [@B103]; de Luca et al., [@B46]). In addition, AAV-induced expression of the LepR gene in the POA or ARC of LepR-null rats normalizes their estrous cycle length and increases GnRH concentrations in the hypothalamus (Keen-Rhinehart et al., [@B95]). Collectively, this evidence indicates that leptin, while primarily acting as a metabolic signal to maintain normal energy and glucose homeostasis, also plays essential roles in reproduction.
Insulin, another circulating factor related to adiposity, is also implicated in the coordinated control of metabolism and reproduction. Insulin levels in the circulation are proportional to adipose tissue in most mammals (Woods et al., [@B209]). Intracerebroventricular (icv) insulin administration results in a dose-dependent reduction in food intake and body weight (Woods et al., [@B209]), and neuron-specific deletion of insulin receptors (IRs) leads to increased body fat deposition (Bruning et al., [@B15]).
A variety of mouse models have demonstrated insulin's essential role in the central control of reproduction. For example, increased circulating levels of insulin during a hyperinsulinemic clamp stimulate LH secretion (Burcelin et al., [@B16]). In addition, mice lacking IRs in the brain exhibit decreased spermatogenesis and follicular maturation, resulting in only 42--46% of matings successfully producing offspring (Bruning et al., [@B15]). The primary deficit in these mice was found to be a reduction in GnRH release and consequent reductions in pituitary gonadotropin secretion and gonadal function. In another study, expression of IRs in liver and pancreas alone was sufficient to maintain fertility in males, but females also required IR expression in the brain (Okamoto et al., [@B143]). Finally, a study of IR substrate 2 (IRS-2) knockout mice found that only 9% of IRS-2^−/−^ females and 89% of IRS-2^−/−^ males were fertile. IRS-2^−/−^ females showed a supranormal response to GnRH, consistent with hypothalamic hypogonadism (Burks et al., [@B19]). These studies show that, particularly in the female, IRs in the brain are required for fertility.
While it is clear that both leptin and insulin could signal the brain to coordinate energy status and reproductive demands, the exact brain sites where these signals are integrated remained unclear. GnRH neurons do not appear to be the direct target of these hormones. For example, double-labeling experiments using *in situ* hybridization and immunohistochemistry have shown few GnRH neurons, if any, to express LepRs in rats (Burcelin et al., [@B16]) and monkeys (Finn et al., [@B64]). Insulin has a direct stimulatory effect on the output of GnRH in hypothalamic cells *in vitro* and *in vivo* (Kovacs et al., [@B102]; Burcelin et al., [@B17]). However, mice lacking IRs specifically in GnRH neurons displayed normal pubertal timing and fertility (Divall et al., [@B53]), suggesting that the insulin responsiveness of GnRH neurons is low. While early reports suggested that 40% of kisspeptin mRNA-expressing cells in the ARC of mice express LepRs (Smith et al., [@B185]), other laboratories have found fewer than 5% of kisspeptin neurons exhibit LepRs (Donato et al., [@B54]; Louis et al., [@B116]). The latter results appear to be borne out by the lack of a reproductive phenotype in mice with a targeted deletion of LepRs from kisspeptin neurons (Donato et al., [@B54]). Similarly, our preliminary data suggest that insulin sensing directly by kisspeptin neurons plays a minor role in mouse fertility (Qiu et al., [@B151]). Thus, leptin/insulin sensing outside of the dedicated reproductive circuitry is likely to play a role in their effects on reproduction.
POMC neurons are well positioned to be a direct target of leptin and insulin signals. POMC neurons express LepRs (Cheung et al., [@B32]; Elmquist et al., [@B57]; Baskin et al., [@B8]) and IRs (Benoit et al., [@B9]). LepRs in POMC neurons mediate a portion of leptin actions on energy homeostasis, as mice lacking LepRs specifically in POMC neurons are mildly obese and hyperleptinemic (Balthasar et al., [@B6]). Although deletion of IRs from POMC neurons does not affect body weight (Konner et al., [@B101]), simultaneous deletion of IRs and LepRs from POMC neurons produces more severe insulin resistance and diabetes than deletion of each individual receptor alone (Hill et al., [@B89]). Therefore, POMC neurons appear to be one important site where insulin and leptin signals interact to regulate energy and glucose homeostasis.
Our recent studies also pinpointed POMC neurons as a target of leptin/insulin actions important for fertility. We have reported that female mice lacking both leptin and IRs in POMC neurons (IR/LepR^POMC^) exhibit lengthened reproductive cycles, follicular arrest, hyperandrogenemia, and infertility. These mice lack IRs and LepRs in POMC-expressing cells in the hypothalamus and pituitary corticotrophs and melanotrophs, but retain them in other cell types and tissues, such as liver and ovary (Hill et al., [@B89]). These results were confirmed by an absence of altered IR and LepR expression in these tissues using qPCR. Despite the expression of POMC in corticotrophs, we found no alteration in corticosterone release. Pup numbers born to experimental females older than 4 months were significantly reduced (Hill et al., [@B89]). These females also showed a lengthened estrous cycle. In addition, the percentage of matings not producing a litter was higher for experimental females across all maternal ages. These reproductive deficits were not caused by abnormal prolactin or E~2~ levels, and no pups born to IR/LepR^POMC^ dams died after birth. While hypothalamic GnRH gene expression was comparable among the groups, LH levels were significantly increased in IR/LepR^POMC^ females. Histological examination of their ovaries showed that double knockout females exhibited more degenerating follicles. Serum testosterone levels were significantly elevated in experimental females, accompanied by a significant elevation in the expression of ovarian 3β-HSD I gene, which produces androstenedione. CYP17 gene expression was also slightly increased (*p* = 0.0530; Hill et al., [@B89]). Interestingly, males also exhibit reduced numbers of successful pairings with wild-type females despite an enthusiastic mounting response and increased testes weights (Figures [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}A--C). In addition, a subset of males exhibited dramatically increased LH levels (Figure [1](#F1){ref-type="fig"}D) with normal FSH concentrations (data not shown). The heterogeneity in these mice may be due to their mixed strain background. Collectively, these results suggest that the absence of leptin and insulin signaling in POMC neurons may reduce the inhibitory opioid tone on GnRH neurons and cause basal LH levels to increase, disrupting reproductive function. Indeed, the absence of leptin and insulin signaling would both be expected to reduce β-endorphin production from its POMC precursor (Wardlaw, [@B200]). Further studies are required to determine whether β-endorphin production in these mice is reduced, and the signaling mechanisms involved.
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Estrogens act on POMC neurons to regulate both reproduction and energy homeostasis
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Steroid hormones such as E~2~ exert potent feedback at both the neural and pituitary levels to regulate the HPG axis. During much of the female reproductive cycle, E~2~ reduces the GnRH pulse amplitude (Sarkar and Fink, [@B165]; Caraty et al., [@B24]; Chongthammakun and Terasawa, [@B34]; Evans et al., [@B58]) and inhibits LH release via negative feedback actions on the hypothalamus as well as the pituitary gonadotropes (Shupnik et al., [@B178]; Shupnik, [@B177]). A similar mechanism appears to be at work in males via aromatization of testosterone to E~2~ (Veldhuis and Dufau, [@B195]; Finkelstein et al., [@B62],[@B63]; Bagatell et al., [@B5]; Hayes et al., [@B83]; Schnorr et al., [@B170]). In the course of the later stage of the follicular phase, circulating E~2~ levels rise resulting in a biphasic effect on GnRH secretion, causing a noticeable suppression of pulsatile GnRH and LH secretion, followed by an induction of a high amplitude GnRH surge supplementary to the LH surge, a process termed positive feedback (Crowder and Nett, [@B44]; Moenter et al., [@B127]). Lesion studies performed in the rat and hamster (Shander and Barraclough, [@B173]; Wiegand et al., [@B204]) have implicated anatomically distinct brain regions for the conveyance of the positive and negative feedback. These studies localized negative feedback to the ARC and ME and positive feedback to the POA and the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Both positive and negative feedback regulation are primarily mediated by ERα, but not by estrogen receptor-β (ERβ). This is demonstrated by observations that global deletion of ERα in mice abolishes the positive and negative feedback responses, while mice with global ERβ deficiency appear to retain normal feedback responses (Couse et al., [@B42], [@B43]; Wintermantel et al., [@B206]). However, the sites where estrogens act to regulate the HPG axis have not been fully revealed. Wintermantel et al. ([@B206]) demonstrated that female mice lacking ERα only in the brain show blunted positive feedback and impaired fertility. While these findings identified brain ERα as the key mediator for the positive feedback, the exact ERα populations in the brain responsible for this regulation remain unknown. Singh et al. ([@B184]) showed that deletion of ERα in the pituitary LH cells blunts E~2~-induced inhibition on LH secretion and results in infertility in female mice. Therefore, pituitary ERα is at least partly responsible for the negative feedback, but redundant ERα populations likely exist in the brain. Given that GnRH neurons do not appear to express ERα (Shivers et al., [@B176]), interneurons must exist to relay E~2~/ERα signals on GnRH neurons.
Recent evidence suggests that POMC neurons may serve as interneurons mediating E~2~ actions. First, POMC neurons co-express ERα (Miller et al., [@B126]; de Souza et al., [@B48]), suggesting that POMC neurons could be the direct target of estrogenic actions. E~2~ treatment increases POMC expression (Hammer et al., [@B79]; Cheung and Hammer, [@B33]). β-endorphin positive fibers and opioid receptors in the POA also increase upon E~2~ treatment (Hammer et al., [@B79]). In addition, E~2~ regulates the excitability of POMC neurons. Using electron microscopy, Gao et al. ([@B69]) reported that the number of excitatory synaptic inputs to ARC POMC neurons rises as mice enter proestrus when E~2~ levels are high. Further, central E~2~ administration rapidly increases the excitatory synapses on POMC neurons, an effect that is also reflected by increased miniature excitatory postsynaptic current recorded from POMC neurons (Gao et al., [@B69]). Similarly, Malyala et al. ([@B119]) reported that E~2~ administration in hypothalamic slices increases excitability of POMC neurons by rapidly uncoupling GABA~B~ receptors from their G-protein-gated inwardly rectifying K^+^ channels. These studies demonstrated that E~2~ directly acts on POMC neurons and regulates their cellular activity.
The physiological relevance of E~2~ sensing by POMC neurons was further established by our recent findings in mice lacking ERα specifically in POMC neurons. First, we found that mutant females have a modest increase in plasma E~2~, raising the possibility of impaired negative feedback on the HGP axis (Xu et al., [@B211]). Thus, while E~2~ replacement suppresses FSH and LH expression in the pituitary of ovariectomized (OVX) wild-type mice, this E~2~-induced suppression is blunted in OVX mutant mice (Xu et al., [@B211]). Interestingly, only 30% of female mice lacking ERα in POMC neurons successfully delivered pups (Xu et al., [@B211]). The averaged size of litters from these 30% mutant dams was significantly reduced compared to those from control dams (Xu et al., [@B211]). In addition, the mating time required for these mutant females to conceive was significantly increased (Xu et al., [@B211]). These findings indicate that E~2~/ERα signals in POMC neurons are at least partially required to mediate the negative feedback regulation of the HPG axis and to maintain normal fertility.
Besides being a reproductive cue, estrogens also exert important anti-obesity effects in women (Flegal et al., [@B65]; Freedman et al., [@B67]; Carr, [@B25]) and female mammals (Drewett, [@B55]; Blaustein and Wade, [@B11]; Wallen et al., [@B199]; Rogers et al., [@B158]). E~2~ reduces food intake and body adiposity and increase energy expenditure in animals and humans of both sexes through a hypothalamic mechanism (Dubuc, [@B56]; Wade et al., [@B197]; Hess et al., [@B88]; Heine et al., [@B84]). Effects of E~2~ on energy balance are primarily mediated by ERα, as women or female mice with mutations in the ERα gene display hyperadiposity (Heine et al., [@B84]; Okura et al., [@B144]), whereas ERβ-null mice have no body weight phenotype (Ohlsson et al., [@B142]). Interestingly, we recently found that a portion of anti-obesity effects of estrogens are mediated by ERα expressed by POMC neurons. For example, we found that female mice lacking ERα only in POMC neurons develop chronic hyperphagia and increased body weight (Xu et al., [@B211]). In addition, the leptin-induced suppression in food intake was blunted in female mice lacking ERα in POMC neurons (Xu et al., [@B211]). Collectively, these findings indicate that E~2~/ERα signals within POMC neurons are not only important to mediate the negative feedback and maintain normal reproduction, but also are physiologically relevant in the regulation of feeding behavior. Therefore, E~2~ signals within POMC neurons may coordinate the regulation of energy balance and reproductive demands.
SF1 Neurons Link Metabolic and Reproductive Circuits
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SF1 neurons innervate reproductive circuits
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In addition to POMC neurons in the ARC, steroidogenic factor-1 (SF1) neurons, located in the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH) may serve as an important connection point relaying metabolic and reproductive cues.
The physiological relevance of VMH neurons to the regulation of body weight homeostasis is well recognized. Ikeda et al. ([@B91]) discovered that a transcription factor, SF1, is expressed exclusively in the VMH neurons within the brain. SF1 neurons constitute the majority of VMH neurons (Stallings et al., [@B190]). During early development, SF1 is essential for the formation of the VMH architecture, as mice with embryonic deletion of SF1 gene do not form a VMH (Dellovade et al., [@B51]). These SF1 knockout mice develop massive obesity (Majdic et al., [@B118]). It is important to note that SF1 is also abundant in a number of endocrine organs, such as the pituitary gland, the adrenal gland and gonads (Zhao et al., [@B215]). Therefore, the obesity phenotype in global SF1 knockout mice may have been confounded by the dysfunctions of these tissues (Majdic et al., [@B118]). To circumvent this issue, a brain-specific SF1 knockout mouse line was generated to determine the role of VMH SF1 neurons in the context of body weight control (Kim et al., [@B97]). This brain-specific SF1 deletion also leads to disruption of the VMH structure and obesity in mice (Kim et al., [@B97]). Thus, these findings demonstrate that VMH neurons are physiologically important for the regulation of energy homeostasis.
VMH neurons may also regulate the central reproductive circuits. For example, the VMH has well defined projections to the medial central gray and periaqueductal gray regions that have been implicated in lordosis (Canteras et al., [@B23]). In addition, VMH neurons are also found to project to GnRH neurons (Boehm et al., [@B12]; Yoon et al., [@B213]). Further, numerous studies have suggested that VMH neurons regulate sexual behaviors (Blaustein and Feder, [@B10]; Rubin and Barfield, [@B160],[@B161]; Canteras et al., [@B23]; Mani et al., [@B120]; Sinchak et al., [@B183]). Mice with genetic ablation of VMH SF1 neurons show a significantly blunted lordosis quotient and receptivity (Kim et al., [@B96]). The role of the VMH in reproduction may be more extensive than just behavior. For example, the mutant female mice with genetic ablation of VMH SF1 neurons show severely irregular estrus cycles, and are infertile or subfertile (Kim et al., [@B96]). The impaired female fertility is likely due to defective ovulation, as demonstrated by decreased or absent corpora lutea in the ovary (Kim et al., [@B96]). Interestingly, exogenous administration of gonadotropins induced normal ovulation in these mice, demonstrating that the ovaries are functionally intact (Kim et al., [@B96]). Further, when the mutant females were stimulated with a synthetic GnRH agonist after priming, they exhibited markedly reduced LH secretion compared with wild-type littermates, arguing that disorganization in and around the VMH caused by SF1 ablation interferes with the GnRH priming process or gonadotrope LH capacity (Kim et al., [@B96]).
Collectively, these findings indicate that functional VMH SF1 neurons are required to maintain not only normal energy balance but also reproduction. Therefore, these SF1 neurons could serve as an import point of intersection for these two systems.
Estrogens act on SF1 neurons to regulate both reproduction and energy homeostasis
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E~2~ acts in the VMH to regulate energy balance. Abundant ERα is found in the ventrolateral subdivision of the VMH (Osterlund et al., [@B146]; Merchenthaler et al., [@B124]; Schlenker and Hansen, [@B169]). To determine whether ERα in the VMH mediate the anti-obesity effects of estrogens, Musatov and colleagues used shRNA-mediated gene silencing approach to knock-down ERα in the VMH in female rodents. They found that VMH-specific ERα knock-down leads to obesity and metabolic syndrome primarily due to decreased energy expenditure (Musatov et al., [@B135]). We recently crossed ERα floxed mice (Feng et al., [@B59]) to SF1-Cre transgenic mice (Dhillon et al., [@B52]), which resulted in mice lacking ERα specifically in VMH SF1 neurons (Xu et al., [@B211]). This SF1-specific deletion of ERα results in modest body weight gain and hyperadiposity solely due to decreased energy expenditure in female mice (Xu et al., [@B211]). We further demonstrate that both basal metabolic rate and diet-induced thermogenesis in these mice are reduced, while the energy expenditure associated with physical activity is not altered (Xu et al., [@B211]). Interestingly, female mice lacking ERα in SF1 neurons also show increased visceral fat distribution, while the subcutaneous fat distribution is reduced (Xu et al., [@B211]). Consistent with this abdominal obesity, these mice predictably develop glucose intolerance (Xu et al., [@B211]). Collectively, our findings support a model in which E~2~ acts on ERα in VMH SF1 neurons to stimulate energy expenditure and inhibit visceral fat expansion. As we also found that norepinephrine is decreased in mice lacking ERα in SF1 neurons (Xu et al., [@B211]), the effects of E~2~/ERα in SF1 neurons on energy expenditure and fat distribution are presumably mediated by elevated sympathetic outflow.
The actions of E~2~ in VMH neurons are also important for reproduction. For example, administration of E~2~ in the VMH has been shown to modulate female sexual behaviors (Rubin and Barfield, [@B160]). In addition, E~2~ actions in the VMH may mediate induction of progesterone receptors in the VMH (McGinnis et al., [@B123]; Olster and Blaustein, [@B145]; Kalra, [@B92]; Moffatt et al., [@B130]), thereby permitting progesterone to reduce basal GnRH and LH release (Chappell et al., [@B27]). The role of VMH E~2~ sensing in reproduction was further supported by our findings from mice lacking ERα only in SF1 neurons. These mutant female mice have irregular estrus cycles (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}A). Further, most of mutant females (9 out of 10 mice tested) are infertile (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}B). The only mutant dam that successfully conceived and delivered had smaller litter size than controls (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}C). The impaired fertility in these females is likely due to anovulation, demonstrated by the lack of corpora lutea in the ovaries (Figure [2](#F2){ref-type="fig"}D). One caveat of this model is that ERα may also be deleted from SF1 cells in the pituitary, adrenal gland, and gonads, in addition to SF1 neurons in the VMH, which makes it difficult to attribute the fertility and ovarian phenotypes solely to the loss of ERα in SF1 neurons in the VMH. However, we did not found any significant reduction of ERα mRNA in the pituitary, adrenal gland, and ovaries from the mutant mice (Xu et al., [@B211]), which argues that the infertility/subfertility and anovulation phenotypes are likely due to the loss of ERα in VMH neurons. Interestingly, the brain-specific ERα knockout model shows the same fertility and ovarian phenotypes as in our mice lacking ERα in SF1 cells (Wintermantel et al., [@B206]), suggesting that ERα in the brain, such as in VMH SF1 neurons, is required to trigger ovulation in the ovaries. Collectively, these findings support a model in which adequate E~2~ signaling in VMH SF1 neurons is required both for fertility and normal energy balance.
{#F2}
Conclusion
==========
While POMC and SF1 neurons have previously been thought to serve primarily in the control of food intake and energy balance, new genetic rodent models have highlighted their crucial roles in the maintenance of fertility. While additional work is needed to clarify the mechanisms by which these neuronal circuits modulate the GnRH system, these studies highlight the profound integration of reproductive and metabolic control. In particular, POMC and SF1 neurons are emerging as critical sites that both respond to circulating factors and directly interact with reproductive circuitry. Future studies of POMC and SF1 neurons may shed light on the nature of positive and negative steroid feedback as well as integration of signals of adiposity in the control of the reproductive axis.
Conflict of Interest Statement
==============================
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
This work was supported by grants from the NIH (R00DK085330, 1R01DK093587, and P30 DK079638-03 to Yong Xu, and R00HD056491 to Jennifer Wootton Hill), from American Diabetes Association (Yong Xu), from the Naman Family Fund for Basic Research and the Curtis Hankamer Basic Research Fund (Yong Xu).
[^1]: Edited by: Carol F. Elias, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA
[^2]: Reviewed by: Manuel Tena-Sempere, University of Cordoba, Spain; Raul Miguel Luque Huertas, University of Cordoba, Spain
[^3]: This article was submitted to Frontiers in Systems and Translational Endocrinology, a specialty of Frontiers in Endocrinology.
| 2024-07-22T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/8988 |
Habersham County School District
The Habersham County School District is a public school district in Habersham County, Georgia, United States, based in Clarkesville. It serves the communities of Alto, Baldwin, Clarkesville, Cornelia, Demorest, Mount Airy, Raoul, and Tallulah Falls.
Schools
The Habersham County School District has eight elementary schools, three middle schools, and two high schools.
Elementary schools
Baldwin Elementary School
Clarkesville Elementary School
Cornelia Elementary School
Demorest Elementary School
Fairview Elementary School
Hazel Grove Elementary School
Level Grove Elementary School
Woodville Elementary School
Middle schools
North Habersham Sixth Grade Academy (closed 2011)
North Habersham Middle School
South Habersham Sixth Grade Academy (closed 2011)
South Habersham Middle School
Wilbanks Middle School (opened 2011)
High schools
Habersham Ninth Grade Academy
Habersham Central High School (opened 1970)
North Habersham High School (closed 1970)
North Habersham High School was in Clarkesville, Georgia, and originally served the northern part of the county. NHHS's mascot was the Bobcat and its colors were black and gold. This facility was demolished in the late 2000s; the site would be used for the new Habersham County Superior Court courthouse, completed in 2014. It is located on 295 Llewellyn Street in Clarkesville, Georgia.
South Habersham High School (closed 1970)
South Habersham High School was located in Cornelia, Georgia and served the southern part of the county. SHHS's mascot was the Rebels and its colors were red and gray. This facility was demolished in the late 1990s; the site would be used for the new Cornelia Elementary school building completed in the early 2000s.
Habersham Central High School
Habersham Central High School (commonly referred to as Central) was opened in 1970 to consolidate North Habersham High School & South Habersham High School into a central location within the county.
Located in the same city at the time, South Habersham's facilities were still utilized until 1972, as Central's campus initially had no football field, gym, or auditorium.
The students at Central voted silver & blue to be the school colors and The Raider (a pirate) to be the school mascot.
The first classes at Central began in the late summer of 1970. Central graduated its first class in June 1971.
Changes
Construction of the on-campus football field and the auditorium were completed in 1972.
Habersham Central's first head football coach Fred McManus was an Auburn University fan, as one of his former players was a coach at the university in Alabama in the early 1970s. It is believed but not confirmed that a deal was made with the university and in 1972, Habersham Central High School received a donation of some orange and blue equipment. Even though orange was never officially added to the school colors, it has managed become more prominent over the years in uniforms & apparel, and is arguably the dominant color. That being said, the official colors are still silver and blue, as seen in the Alma Mater.
The original HCHS facility was remodeled sometime between 1981–1988 to better accommodate the increasing number of students. This eliminated the courtyard areas, included a new library section, a new technology section, a new band room, and created a closed hallway linking the gym & the auditorium to the rest of the school. The area of the rear parking lot was also increased.
Ground was broken in 2009 for a new high school building across Camp Creek Road from the previous facility. The new facility houses grades 10–12. It opened in 2011, graduating its first class in May 2012. The older facility was renovated during the summer of 2011 and currently houses the 9th grade.
In July 2014, Construction of the agriculture building began beside the practice field. This building was created for shows, having both an indoor and outdoor sections.
On November 17, 2015, the Habersham County Board of Education approved proposed plans for AstroTurf installation and a new track up to date with competition regulations. The scoreboard will also be replaced with a new one with a large screen. Construction will begin before the end of the year. This will be the biggest change the stadium has gone through since its construction in 1972.
The new field was used for the first time on April 15, 2016 for that year's Special Olympic Games. The AstroTurf field was complete, but the new track was only half way completed.
Alma Mater
Sung to the tune of "Dedicatory Overture" (1:38 - 2:55) composed by Clifton Williams, 1964.
High in the hills of Habersham
Silver and Blue our colors fly,
Honored with love and loyalty
Your name shall never, never die.
Central O Monument of glory
We love you more and more each day.
Tears will flow when we leave these halls
Central, your name shall never die.
Trivia
The graduating class of 2016, the 45th graduating class from HCHS since 1971, was the first class to celebrate their graduation on the renovated field.
The original date of the 2016 graduation ceremony was scheduled for May 20th. The day fell on a Friday, which had been a HCHS tradition for decades. Due to poor weather conditions, the graduation ceremony was postponed until the next day, Saturday the 21st.
References
External links
Habersham County School District
Category:School districts in Georgia (U.S. state)
Category:Education in Habersham County, Georgia | 2024-04-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7923 |
Q:
Excel how to fill all selected blank cells with text
Is it possible to select all the bank cells in an excel sheet and put the same value in all the cells?
I just want to populate them with "null"
I have Excel student 2010
A:
To put the same text in a certain number of cells do the following:
Highlight the cells you want to put text into
Type into the cell you're currently in the data you want to be repeated
Hold Crtl and press 'return'
You will find that all the highlighted cells now have the same data in them.
Have a nice day.
A:
OK, what you can try is
Cntrl+H (Find and Replace), leave Find What blank and change Replace With to NULL.
That should replace all blank cells in the USED range with NULL
A:
Here's a tricky way to do this - select the cells that you want to replace and in Excel 2010 select F5 to bring up the "goto" box. Hit the "special" button. Select "blanks" - this should select all the cells that are blank. Enter NULL or whatever you want in the formula box and hit ctrl + enter to apply to all selected cells. Easy!
| 2023-09-11T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5715 |
Elevated resistive index in the hepatic artery as a predictor of fulminant hepatic failure in patients with acute viral hepatitis: a prospective study using Doppler ultrasound.
To assess the sensitivity and specificity of the resistive index of the hepatic artery, which is related to the vascular resistance of the artery, for the prediction of fulminant hepatic failure, we performed Doppler ultrasonography examinations on the hepatic arteries of 72 patients with acute viral hepatitis (25 of whom developed fulminant hepatic failure and 47 of whom recovered without developing fulminant hepatic failure) as well as the hepatic arteries of age- and sex-matched controls. The mean resistive index of the hepatic arteries in patients who developed fulminant hepatic failure was significantly larger than that of patients who recovered without developing fulminant hepatic failure (P < 0.01). When a resistive index cutoff level of 0.74 was used, an 84% sensitivity and a 94% specificity were obtained for the prediction of fulminant hepatic failure. An elevated resistive index of the hepatic artery may be useful for predicting the patient's clinical outcome and determining the need for a liver transplantation in patients with acute viral hepatitis. | 2024-03-03T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3532 |
/*
* This file is part of RskJ
* Copyright (C) 2017 RSK Labs Ltd.
*
* This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.
*
* 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. See the
* GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
* along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/
package co.rsk.peg;
import co.rsk.core.RskAddress;
import java.util.*;
/**
* Representation of a given state of the election
* of an ABI function call by a series of known
* and authorized electors.
*
* @author Ariel Mendelzon
*/
public class ABICallElection {
private AddressBasedAuthorizer authorizer;
private Map<ABICallSpec, List<RskAddress>> votes;
public ABICallElection(AddressBasedAuthorizer authorizer, Map<ABICallSpec, List<RskAddress>> votes) {
this.authorizer = authorizer;
this.votes = votes;
validate();
}
public ABICallElection(AddressBasedAuthorizer authorizer) {
this.authorizer = authorizer;
this.votes = new HashMap<>();
}
public Map<ABICallSpec, List<RskAddress>> getVotes() {
return votes;
}
public void clear() {
this.votes = new HashMap<>();
}
/**
* Register voter's vote for callSpec
* @param callSpec the call spec the voter is voting for
* @param voter the voter's key
* @return whether the voting succeeded
*/
public boolean vote(ABICallSpec callSpec, RskAddress voter) {
if (!authorizer.isAuthorized(voter)) {
return false;
}
if (!votes.containsKey(callSpec)) {
votes.put(callSpec, new ArrayList<>());
}
List<RskAddress> callVoters = votes.get(callSpec);
if (callVoters.contains(voter)) {
return false;
}
callVoters.add(voter);
return true;
}
/**
* Returns the election winner abi call spec, or null if there's none
* The vote authorizer determines the number of participants,
* whereas this class determines the number of votes that
* conforms a win
* @return the winner abi call spec
*/
public ABICallSpec getWinner() {
for (Map.Entry<ABICallSpec, List<RskAddress>> specVotes : votes.entrySet()) {
if (specVotes.getValue().size() >= authorizer.getRequiredAuthorizedKeys()) {
return specVotes.getKey();
}
}
return null;
}
/**
* Removes the entry votes for the current winner of the election
*/
public void clearWinners() {
ABICallSpec winner = getWinner();
if (winner != null) {
votes.remove(winner);
}
}
private void validate() {
// Make sure all the votes are authorized
for (Map.Entry<ABICallSpec, List<RskAddress>> specVotes : votes.entrySet()) {
for (RskAddress vote : specVotes.getValue()) {
if (!authorizer.isAuthorized(vote)) {
throw new RuntimeException("Unauthorized voter");
}
}
}
}
}
| 2024-06-06T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4567 |
Q:
JSON Web Signature (Ninbus-JOSE-JWT)
I want to do a project with JSON Web Signature (JWS) and i want to send the public key of the certificate used for the signature so that the message can be validated once received with this public key. I am using the Ninbus JOS JWT library. I can sign the JSON object and I can see the public key, but i can not validate it correctly.
This is the code:
// Create RSA-signer with the private key
JWSSigner signer = new RSASSASigner(_signatureKey_); // PrivateKey
com.nimbusds.jose.util.Base64 b64 = new com.nimbusds.jose.util.Base64(_x509certificate.toString()); // X509Certificate
ArrayList<com.nimbusds.jose.util.Base64> certificados = new ArrayList<com.nimbusds.jose.util.Base64>();
certificados.add(b64);
RSAPublicKey _rsaPublicKey = (RSAPublicKey)_x509certificate.getPublicKey(); // Get the public key of the X509Certificate
RSAKey jwk = new com.nimbusds.jose.jwk.RSAKey.Builder( new Base64URL( _rsaPublicKey.getModulus().toString()), new Base64URL( _rsaPublicKey.getPublicExponent().toString()))
.x509CertChain(certificados)
.build();
JWSHeader _jwsHeader = new JWSHeader.Builder(JWSAlgorithm.RS256).
x509CertChain(certificados).
jwk(jwk).
build();
// Prepare JWS object with simple string as payload
JWSObject jwsObject = new JWSObject(_jwsHeader, new Payload(_jsonObject));
// Compute the RSA signature
jwsObject.sign(signer);
// Validation OK : This validation works
JWSVerifier verifier = new RSASSAVerifier(_rsaPublicKey);
boolean signatureValid = jwsObject.verify(verifier); // ---> True, OK
// Now I want to validate the JWSObject getting the public key from the same JWSObject. This validation Fails
JWK _jwk = jwsObject.getHeader().getJWK();
RSAKey _rsakey = (RSAKey)_jwk;
RSAPublicKey _rsaPublicKey2 = _rsakey.toRSAPublicKey();
JWSVerifier verifier2 = new RSASSAVerifier(_rsakey.toRSAPublicKey());
boolean verificado2 = jwsObject.verify(verifier2); // False!
// Another option, this fails too
RSAKey __rsaKey2 = new com.nimbusds.jose.jwk.RSAKey.Builder( _rsakey.toRSAPublicKey() ).x509CertChain(_jwk.getX509CertChain()).build();
JWSVerifier verifier3 = new RSASSAVerifier(__rsaKey2);
boolean verificado3 = jwsObject.verify(verifier3); // False!
The _rsaPublicKey is: "Sun RSA public key, 2048 bits", but when i get it from the JWK (_rsaPublicKey2), I get "Sun RSA public key, 3696 bits" and i don't know why.
Thanks!
A:
On the recipient side, do you validate the X.509 certificate issuer, subject and chain before trusting the key? Signature validation must not be attempted before the recipient is certain that it can trust the certificate included in the JWS.
Another note: Do not include the public JWK in the JWS header. This should only be used for ephemeral public keys in ECDH (a different alg used for JWE). Passing the certificate chain in the JWS header is sufficient, but you must validate it / find out if the certificate can be trusted, before using its public key.
The library will not validate / find out if the certificate can be trusted for you!
If the second signature validation fails, then probably the key used to sign the JWS and the one that came with the X.509 certificate are not the same (as suggested by the different reported lengths - 2048 bits vs. 3696 bits).
| 2024-01-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1405 |
This is the blog of First Psychology Assistance in which we will keep you posted on topics relating to wellbeing and performance at work.
Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Workplace stress – How to manage your stress levels in a pressured job.
There’s no denying that people are feeling much more pressure in the workplace than ever have before. Headcount reductions mean that businesses often need to achieve more with fewer staff and this can increase the stress placed on workers.
A 2013 study in America found that more than one-third of working Americans reported experiencing chronic work stress and more than double that number believed their employer provided inadequate support for employees to help them manage stress in the workplace. There is evidence to suggest that the figures would be similar in this country too.
This month is stress awareness month, so we’ve pulled together some tips, advice and guidance to help you manage your stress while in the workplace – or to manage your return to work after a period of stress-related illness.
When it comes to feeling stressed at work – try these three simple tips to help you regain control of your emotions, become more centered and think rationally, so that your stresses don’t get the better of you.
Don’t react – act!
When we’re under undue stress we start to make emotional decisions, rather than rational ones. If you feel that this could be an issue for you, make a conscious decision not to react to and be influenced by the stressors around you. Write things down so it’s easier to explore things rationally and definitely don’t make any rash decisions when backed into a corner. Buy some time, and move to step 2…
Breathe…
If you feel things are getting on top of you, don’t be afraid to take stock – and breathe! It takes only a minute or two of deep, mindful thinking to bring a clarity to your thoughts and a calmer response mechanism. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
Switch off once in a while
There are so many different pulls on our time during the working day, that it takes a strong person not to feel overwhelmed. We never switch off – emails, mobile phones, multiple screens – they even follow us home. Make a conscious effort to have an hour at work each day when you are able to concentrate wholly on the tasks in hand, without the interruptions. Feeling like you’ve accomplished something during your working day is a great way of reducing stress.
Returning to work
Going back to a stressful work environment can be daunting for anyone – whether you’ve been off for a few weeks annual leave or a little longer, due to illness.
The health and safety executive are a great source of advice for people looking to return to work after a long period of absence and there is lots of support that employees can request to make their transition back to work as stress-free as possible. We’ve also pulled together some tips designed to help:
Set boundaries
The lines between work and home can easily get blurred. When you return to work it’s important that you are clear about the need to switch off. Make a deal with yourself not to check email in the evening – if that’s not as easy as it sounds, leave your phone in the car overnight or switch it off as soon as the working day is over.
Relax and recharge
Build time into each day that is just for you. Take up a new hobby, spend time doing something you enjoy, switch off completely. The more you have to look forward to outside of work, the less likely you are to spend time disecting what you’re going through at work and thus, the less stress you’ll feel under.
Share the load
Talking to people really does help you keep your workplace stresses in perspective. Very often stress is borne from a tendency to overthink scenarios and situations – we go over and over things in our minds only for them to start to feel insurmountable. By talking about what we’re experiencing and the challenges we’re facing – whether it’s to colleagues, management or even your friends and family – what we’re essentially doing is keeping things in perspective so that it’s easier for us to manage.
About First Psychology
First Psychology Scotland is a Scottish company that specialises in high quality psychological therapy for individuals, couples, families and organisations. We offer counselling, CBT, psychotherapy, couples counselling and coaching for a whole range of issues and problems including anger, depression/low mood, stress, anxiety, low self-confidence, bereavement, relationship issues, abuse, eating disorders and much more. Our services for organisations and businesses are provided by our First Psychology Assistance brand. Services include: EAP packages, psychological assessments and reports, executive support, training and consultancy and employee coaching, We currently offer services in six locations: Edinburgh (south side and west end), Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness and Galashiels (Scottish Borders). | 2024-07-12T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7036 |
Cyclooxygenase-2 mediates increased renal renin content induced by low-sodium diet.
We hypothesized that neuronal nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2, which both exist in the renal cortex, predominantly in the macula densa, play a role in the control of renal renin tissue content. We studied the possible role of neuronal nitric oxide synthase in regulating renal renin content by using mice in which the neuronal nitric oxide synthase gene has been disrupted (nNOS-/-) compared with its two progenitor strains, the 129/SvEv and the C57BL/6, to determine if the absence of neuronal nitric oxide synthase would result in decreased renal renin content or blunt the increase observed during low sodium intake. Renal renin content from cortical slices was determined in adult mice from all three strains maintained on a normal sodium diet. Renal renin content was significantly reduced in the nNOS-/- mice compared with the 129/SvEv and the C57BL/6 mice (3.11 +/- 0.23 versus 5.66 +/- 0.50 and 7.55 +/- 1.17 micrograms angiotensin l/mg dry weight, respectively; P < .005), suggesting that neuronal nitric oxide synthase may stimulate renal renin content under basal conditions. Neither selective pharmacological inhibition of neuronal nitric oxide synthase using 7-nitroindazole or disruption of the neuronal nitric oxide synthase gene affected the increase in renal content observed during dietary sodium restriction. The influence of cyclooxygenase-2 on renal renin content through a macula densa-mediated pathway was studied using a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor, NS398, in 129/SvEv mice. A low-sodium diet increased renal renin content from 6.97 +/- 0.52 to 11.59 +/- 0.79 micrograms angiotensin l/mg dry weight (P < .005); but this increase was blocked by NS398. In addition, treatment with NS398 reduced renin mRNA in response to a low-sodium diet. Thus, increased renal renin content in response to dietary sodium restriction appears to require the induction of cyclooxygenase-2, while neuronal nitric oxide synthase appears to affect basal but not stimulated renal renin content. | 2023-10-25T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9966 |
Introduction {#s1}
============
Birds of prey or "raptors" (Accipitridae: hawks, kites, and eagles; Falconidae; Pandionidae: the osprey; and Strigiformes: owls) are among the most familiar and geographically widespread of all vertebrates. They are admired for their predatory ability, but surprisingly little is known about the patterns of physical interaction between predator and prey during capture and dispatch.
It has often been assumed that raptors mainly use their sharp talons (a specific term referring only to the claws of birds of prey) to kill their prey [@pone.0007999-Goslow1]. This misconception is rooted in the difficulty of tracking and observing aerial predators after a prey item has been captured [@pone.0007999-Rudebeck1]--[@pone.0007999-Csermely1]. Even with modern technology, observation of post-capture predator-prey interaction in the wild is still largely opportunistic; consequently, prey immobilisation behaviour is greatly understudied. The term "immobilisation" (where the victim is no longer capable of movement or retaliation) is preferred to "killing" because in some accipitrids at least, if the prey is suitably immobilised and subdued, the raptor will commence feeding even before the death of its victim [@pone.0007999-Harris1]--[@pone.0007999-Hertel1].
From the limited number of published reports, it is apparent that a combination of the initial strike impact, constriction by the feet, attacks from the predator\'s beak, dismemberment, and piercing of vital organs by talons are variably employed by raptors to immobilise prey [@pone.0007999-Goslow1], [@pone.0007999-Harris1], [@pone.0007999-Bond1], [@pone.0007999-Csermely2]. Experiments in which caged wild raptors were offered live laboratory mice as prey [@pone.0007999-Harris1], [@pone.0007999-Csermely2]--[@pone.0007999-Csermely6] found that if the initial strike does not kill a prey item outright, the long, recurved talons are not then used to deliver the killing blow. Rather, the mouse is precisely grasped with one or both feet, targeting the victim\'s head and torso to avoid retaliatory bites and kicks [@pone.0007999-Harris1]. The raptor\'s elongate digits are wrapped around the victim; the talons help to restrain the animal and prevent escape. The toes squeeze strongly (either constantly: Falconini; or intermittently: Accipitridae), causing thoracic compression and death by asphyxiation [@pone.0007999-Goslow1], [@pone.0007999-Csermely2]. Squeezing may force talons into the flesh, piercing internal organs and hastening death (especially in *Accipiter* [@pone.0007999-Bond2]), although this is not commonly observed [@pone.0007999-Csermely2]. During asphyxiation, occasional blows to the head are delivered to attempt to damage the central nervous system, or to the neck (in the case of Falconini) in order to break it. Falconini might even attempt beak attacks mid-air, if the prey item is held onto in flight [@pone.0007999-Bond1].
Recent studies of raptor predatory functional morphology have included skull morphometrics [@pone.0007999-Hertel1], pes tendon systems [@pone.0007999-Einoder1], musculoskeletal mechanics [@pone.0007999-Sustaita1], and the hindlimb as a whole [@pone.0007999-Goslow2], [@pone.0007999-Ward1] Claw morphology has received virtually no attention at all, which is surprising given its importance to predatory success [@pone.0007999-Harris1]. Indeed, little literature considers claw morphology for any birds. In the most detailed study, Einoder and Richardson [@pone.0007999-Einoder2] took foot measurements (including claws) from a range of extant Australasian raptors, looking for ecological links with prey choice, size, "hunting-killing technique", and phylogeny. Csermeley and Rossi [@pone.0007999-Csermely7] investigated whether the D-I and III claws of raptors could be differentiated from non-raptors. The few other studies on claws were primarily concerned with ecological analogues of non-raptor fossil birds, usually only taking measurements for D-III [@pone.0007999-Peters1]--[@pone.0007999-Glen1]. Most of these previous analyses made the *a priori* assumption that their choice of measured claw or claws was the most important, which may not be true for all taxa (indeed, our study shows that it is not true; see Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Consequently, the authors were not able to note any patterns of interdigital claw size distribution occurring within or among taxa. Studies in which all claws were considered either only measured claw curvature [@pone.0007999-Peters1] or used only toe-to-claw length ratios (not considering curvature) [@pone.0007999-Einoder2], and so were unable to note many of the patterns we describe here, or their possible functional correlates.
In an initial survey of specimens, we found that claw size distributions vary conspicuously and consistently among families of raptors ([Figure 1](#pone-0007999-g001){ref-type="fig"}), an observation which has gone largely unnoticed in previous studies (although see Einoder and Richardson, 2007 [@pone.0007999-Einoder2]. Indeed, in many illustrated guides [@pone.0007999-Grzimek1] claw morphology and relative size is often incorrectly illustrated, being overlooked in favour of plumage. To investigate further, we necessarily took a more complete approach than in previous analyses, measuring each claw of each digit, and also lengths of the toes and tarsometatarsus. These data were then assessed alongside new and published observations of raptor predatory activity to look for consistent patterns of behaviour that correlated with variation in talon and foot morphology at the family level. Our method is preferable to those of previous workers as it encompasses a full range of measurements, treating the foot as a whole, and because previously published qualitative accounts of predatory behaviour did not consider the influence of variation in talon morphology, necessitating reinterpretation which we present here.
{#pone-0007999-g001}
Materials and Methods {#s2}
=====================
Previous authors [@pone.0007999-Ward1], [@pone.0007999-Csermely7] have considered Falconidae and Accipitridae together as Falconiformes (or equivalent), but recent molecular phylogenetic analyses suggest that this single grouping is paraphyletic [@pone.0007999-Ericson1], [@pone.0007999-Hackett1], [@pone.0007999-Livezey1], [@pone.0007999-Livezey2]. Regardless of whether or not this is the case, distinct variation in predatory morphology between the two families renders their treatment as a single group inappropriate for this study; thus, they are referred to separately throughout this paper. Where appropriate, we follow the higher level molecular phylogeny for birds presented by Hackett et al [@pone.0007999-Hackett1].
Recently published molecular phylogenies for Falconidae [@pone.0007999-Griffiths1] and Accipitridae [@pone.0007999-Griffiths2] necessarily presented new definitions of raptor taxonomic nomenclature (since some traditionally recognized subfamilies of Accipitridae were found to be paraphyletic). We follow the new taxonomic nomenclature of Griffiths et al [@pone.0007999-Griffiths1], [@pone.0007999-Griffiths2] for Falconidae (Herpetotherinae and Falconinae = Caracarini + Falconini) and Accipitridae (Accipitrinae = Elanini, Gypaetini: Gypaetina + Pernina, Accipitrini: Harpiita + Aquita + Accipitrita, including subclades of Accipitrita: Buteonines (1), Buteonines (2), Sea Eagles, and 'Accipitrines and *Circus*') with the exception that we retain the genera *Pandion* and *Sagittarius* within their own monospecific families (Pandionidae and Sagittariidae, respectively) rather than as the basalmost members of the Accipitridae. This slightly less inclusive usage facilitates greater clarity when discussing family-level trends in relative claw size, and retains a monophyletic Accipitridae. A list of observed taxa arranged in a phylogenetic context can be found in Supporting Information [Table S3](#pone.0007999.s003){ref-type="supplementary-material"}.
As a consequence of lack of previous studies, it has never been demonstrated that raptor talon morphology varies as a result of either gender or ontogeny. Initial observations of specimens showed unequivocally that gross claw morphology does not vary due to these factors, and that general family-level trends are consistent regardless of gender, ontogenetic stage (only post-hatchlings were observed), whether the foot measured is a right or left, and overall body size of the individual bird or species.
A total of 1244 specimens (223 raptors and 1021 non-raptors) and 223 photographs (177 raptor, 46 non-raptor) were studied with regards to claw size proportions. A subset of precisely measured specimens was analysed for quantitative assessment of the observed trends.
In order to take precise measurements of all four digits it is essential to have feet preserved with each of the toes splayed apart, with good lateral views of each claw for photographing. This precludes most preserved skins and mounts for measurement purposes. We surveyed hundreds of preserved skins and mounts held at the Dept. of Ecology (Montana State university, Bozeman, MT), and selected for measurement all raptor specimens where each talon could be photographed adequately for accurate measurement. We also included 26 isolated feet with splayed toes, held at the Museum of the Rockies, (Montana State University, Bozeman, MT), and 4 additional specimens of exotic species were sampled from collections held at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. In total, we measured 34 feet, from 24 species of raptor. We also measured 10 non-raptor taxa in order to represent claw size distributions amongst non-raptors.
Specimens that could not be photographed adequately for precise measurement were used to assess the validity and consistency of size distribution trends inferred from measured specimens. We observed 775 skins (113 raptor & 662 non-raptor), 409 mounts (65 raptor 344 non-raptor), 15 skeletons (11 raptor & 4 non-raptor), and 223 photographs where relative claw sizes were clearly visible (177 raptor, 46 non-raptor).
A variety of measurements was taken for each claw of every digit on each foot sampled (following the method of Pike and Maitland [@pone.0007999-Pike1], [Figure 2](#pone-0007999-g002){ref-type="fig"}). Length and angle measurements were taken on close-up photographs of the claws using the measure tool in Adobe® Photoshop®. Additional data (digit length, tarsometatarsus length, gender, maturity, body weight at death) were recorded when possible. In the 4 specimens where talons lacked their keratin sheaths, the bony core alone was measured, with a reconstructed tip if broken. Although this reduced linear measurements and curvature compared to sheathed claws, relative size and curvature among digits should not be affected (this was confirmed by measurement of claws with removable sheaths). In total over 1500 individual measurements were taken (see Supporting Information [Table S1](#pone.0007999.s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"}).
{#pone-0007999-g002}
Claw curvature radii were calculated for both inner and outer curvature from the angle of curvature and the length of the chord created by the line drawn from claw base to tip. Previous workers have used either outer or inner curvature for their analyses, but we took both sets of measurements in case one later proved more informative than the other. The radius and angle of claw curvature were subsequently used to calculate claw "size": the arc length (ALo for outer measurements, Ali for inner measurements, [Figure 2](#pone-0007999-g002){ref-type="fig"}, see Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"} for calculation formulae) of the claw. Comparison of AL between taxa was assessed by either comparison relative to other talons (ie. which digit bears the largest talon, and by what magnitude), or relative to the toe length of the foot. To remove the effect of body size, measurements were standardised to ratios relative to the talon size of D-III and IV (see Supporting Information [Table S1](#pone.0007999.s001){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). The D-IV ratio was used for most comparisons, because it is the smallest claw in nearly all taxa measured, and has less variation in relative size among taxa.
We reinterpreted previously published qualitative accounts of predatory behaviour based on insight gained from our analysis of talon morphology. These are complemented by behaviour data taken from our observation of over 170 video sequences showing raptors and prey during capture, immobilisation, and ingestion (Supporting Information [Table S2](#pone.0007999.s002){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Behaviour data are much more widely available for North American and European taxa, so our inferences for family-level predatory behaviour should be treated as tentative for taxa from other geographic areas.
Family-level trends in relative toe and claw dimensions that were noted during visual examination were confirmed with two-sample t-tests and paired t-tests, assuming equal or unequal variances where appropriate. T-tests were used rather than ANOVAs so that we could statistically test the exact combination of measurements and taxa that evoked a visually observed trend, instead of testing all characters at once and having to filter the important trends from minor variations.
Correspondence analyses were run using the R language and environment for statistical computing (version 2.7.1 for Mac OSX: [www.R-project.org](http://www.R-project.org); [@pone.0007999-Ihaka1]) to determine whether relative claw sizes can be used to separate specimens into discrete family-level clusters. Correspondence analysis was used rather than principal components analysis because correspondence analysis is better for ecological data, being less susceptible to the distorting effects of outliers and nonlinear distribution of data points. To eliminate the effects of bodysize, raw measurements of claw dimensions were converted into ratios. Various combinations of relative size and curvature measurements were input into a total of 14 correspondence analyses, beginning with the full data set and then testing subsets to remove measurement ratios that produced noise, until we found the fewest number of ratios needed to produce clear clustering. Optimal clustering occurred when outlines of family groups had little or no overlap with each other. Analyses with the tightest clustering also had the highest eigenvalues for the first three axes. The final result, [Figure 3](#pone-0007999-g003){ref-type="fig"}, yields similar clusters to our earlier analyses but with tighter clustering and fewer outliers. Detailed explanations of the vetting process and removal of specimens and measurements from the final correspondence analysis are in the Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}.
{#pone-0007999-g003}
Results {#s3}
=======
In most birds, the claw of D-III exhibited the least curvature. Paired tailed t-tests confirm that the claw of D-III is significantly less curved than D-I (*t* ~43~ = 6.872, *p* = 0.000), II (*t* ~43~ = 6.851, *p* = 0.000), and IV (*t* ~43~ = 5.579, *p* = 0.000). The opposite was found in the flicker, *Colaptes auratu*s (Picidae). This is probably because the zygodactyl feet of Picidae are specialized for trunk-climbing such that only D-II and D-III (the most curved claws) project anteriorly; these two claws must grip and gain purchase on the trunk when climbing.
Within non-raptor perching birds, D-I and III bear the largest claws (D-I/D-IV mean = 1.455, σ = 0.398; D-II/D-IV mean = 1.081, σ = 0.086, D-III/D-IV mean = 1.294, σ = 0.089; [Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}), and D-I is, on average, 12.5% larger than D-III. In general, D-IV bears the smallest claw; the order of size therefore being (greatest first): I, III, II, IV. In non-raptor ground birds, the D-I claw varies in size, but the relative sizes of claws among D-II, III, and IV are the same as with perching birds.
10.1371/journal.pone.0007999.t001
###### Mean and standard deviation of claw sizes (outer arc lengths) of D-I, II, and III relative to D-IV, and D-II relative to D-III.
{#pone-0007999-t001-1}
D-I/D-IV D-II/D-IV D-III/D-IV D-II/D-III
---------------- ---- ---------- ----------- ------------ ------------ ------- ------- ------- -------
Accipitridae 15 1.803 0.266 1.653 0.154 1.196 0.074 1.387 0.162
Falconidae 4 1.273 0.120 1.127 0.083 1.105 0.012 1.019 0.070
Pandionidae 1 0.951 \- 0.899 \- 0.922 \- 0.975 \-
Strigiformes 9 1.045 0.060 1.191 0.044 1.158 0.055 1.030 0.051
Non-raptors 8 1.308 0.439 1.084 0.076 1.286 0.091 0.847 0.082
perching birds 6 1.455 0.398 1.081 0.086 1.294 0.089 0.840 0.094
ground birds 2 0.867 0.192 1.093 0.053 1.263 0.130 0.867 0.047
n = number of individuals, σ = standard deviation. For specimens where both feet were measured, the average of those measurements are used here.
Raptors (other than the osprey) can be distinguished from non-raptors by a D-II claw that is larger than D-III (the opposite is true for non-raptors; [Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}). Within raptors, Accipitridae, Falconidae, Pandionidae, and Strigiformes show consistent talon size distributions at the family level and can be distinguished from each other by this alone ([Figure 3](#pone-0007999-g003){ref-type="fig"}, [4](#pone-0007999-g004){ref-type="fig"}; [Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}). Use of other measured variables (claw curvature, tarsometatarsus length) can aid in their identification, and differentiation from non-raptors.
{#pone-0007999-g004}
Multiple correspondence analyses were run for the entire dataset, and several vetted subsets that removed potential problematic taxa (see Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}). Despite the removal of taxa, the results of all analyses were very similar, with each demonstrating distribution of raptor species into separate family clusters. The optimal correspondence analysis included all measured specimens except juveniles and specimens lacking keratin claw sheaths. The tightest clustering and highest eigenvalues resulted from 10 measurement ratios: size of claws I/IV, II/IV, III/IV; length of toes I/IV, II/IV, III/IV; and size of claws I, II, III, and IV relative to length of toe III.
Correspondence analysis of the vetted data set ([Figure 3](#pone-0007999-g003){ref-type="fig"}) produced the tightest clustering of raptor species into family groups, and also explained the most amount of variance along the first two axes. The x-axis (which explains 58.12% of the variance) is controlled by the sizes of all claws relative to toe 3. The y-axis (25.50% of total variance) is mainly driven by the sizes of claws 1 and 2 relative to claw 4 and toe 3, with relative toe sizes also influencing taxa distribution. Along the x-axis Strigiformes and Falconidae are clearly separated and cluster tightly amongst themselves. Accipitridae cluster together near the center of the x-axis, yet are the only group on the negative side of the y-axis, suggesting that the morphological characters that are driving variation along the y-axis (size of claws I and II relative to other claws) are highly useful in distinguishing Accipitridae from other bird groups.
Accipitridae {#s3a}
------------
Accipitrids ([Figure 1A, B](#pone-0007999-g001){ref-type="fig"}) are characterised by strikingly hypertrophied talons on D-I and II ([Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}) significantly larger than in all other raptor families (D-I/D-IV *t* ~21~ = 8.998, *p*≪0.001; D-II/D-IV *t* ~23~ = 10.615, *p*≪0.001). D-III and IV talons are more "normal" in absolute size (although in the bald eagle D-III and IV are larger and more curved than expected: D-III inner curvature *z* = 2.561, *p* = 0.005; D-IV inner curvature *z* = 2.002, *p* = 0.023). There is some evidence to suggest that members of the genus *Accipiter* have more narrow toes than is typical for Accipitridae (consistent with the findings of Einoder and Richardson [@pone.0007999-Einoder2].
Falconidae {#s3b}
----------
Falconidae ([Figure 1C](#pone-0007999-g001){ref-type="fig"}) can be differentiated from other raptors by smaller, subequally sized talons on each digit ([Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}), and an elongate D-III toe excluding the talon. However, their relative talon sizes are comparable to those observed in passerines, making it difficult to distinguish between them based on claw size distribution alone (also noted for D-I and III by Csermeley and Rossi [@pone.0007999-Csermely7]).
We found evidence that Falconidae can be weakly separated from passerines ([Figure 3](#pone-0007999-g003){ref-type="fig"}, [4](#pone-0007999-g004){ref-type="fig"}) by a number of factors. Their D-I and II talons relative to the length of the respective toes are significantly larger than in passerines (claw1/toe1 *t* ~7~ = 3.175, *p* = 0.008, claw2/toe2 *t* ~7~ = 3.808, *p* = 0.003). In Falconidae, the talon of D-II is usually as large as or larger than in D-III, but in passerines, the claw of D-II is always smaller than D-III ([Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}). Passerines also have significantly less curved claws than do Falconidae, which possess the overall greatest claw inner curvature of raptors (D-I *t* ~5~ = 2.015, *p* = 0.050; D-II *t* ~5~ = 3.409, *p* = 0.010; D-III *t* ~7~ = 1.369, *p* = 0.107; D-IV *t* ~7~ = 2.702, *p* = 0.015; [Figure 4B](#pone-0007999-g004){ref-type="fig"}). Falconidae have relatively narrow toes compared to other raptors.
Strigiformes (Owls) {#s3c}
-------------------
Strigiformes ([Figure 1D](#pone-0007999-g001){ref-type="fig"}) are characterised by near uniform large talons on each digit ([Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}), and shorter, robust toes relative to all other raptors, especially on digits 3 and 4 (Claw-I/Toe-I *t* ~29~ = 1.731, *p* = 0.047; Claw-II/Toe-II *t* ~29~ = −1.241, *p* = 0.112; Claw-III/Toe-III *t* ~29~ = 4.976, *p* = 0.00001; Claw-IV/Toe-IV *t* ~11~ = 3.627, *p* = 0.002). Strigiformes generally have a lower inner claw curvature than other raptors, with the difference highly significant (99.8%) for D-II (Strigiformes mean = 92.256 degrees, σ = 17.220; Accipitridae + Falconidae + Pandionidae mean = 112.823, σ = 15.964; *t* ~29~ = −3.185, *p* = 0.002). Strigiformes can rotate D-IV so that D-II and D-III oppose D-I and the reversed D-IV (respectively): a functionally zygodactyl foot.
Pandionidae (The Osprey) {#s3d}
------------------------
Pandionidae ([Figure 1E](#pone-0007999-g001){ref-type="fig"}) are characterised by talons that are of nearly uniform large size ([Table 1](#pone-0007999-t001){ref-type="table"}); each digit has strong outer and inner curvature (outer mean = 166.0, σ = 6.405; inner mean = 155.9, σ = 9.067). D-IV bears the largest talon in Pandionidae and can rotate laterally so that it projects posteriorly (functionally zygodactyl) instead of antero-laterally.
Given the time taken to precisely measure each claw (approximately 20 mins), and the lack of availability of feet with splayed toes, it is not feasible to exhaustively measure each of the world\'s raptor species. However, examination of 223 specimens and 177 photographs of raptors (representing 59 different species; Supporting Information [Table S3](#pone.0007999.s003){ref-type="supplementary-material"}) failed to find a single specimen that does not conform to the family-level trends we describe here (Accipitridae: hypertrophied D-I and D-II talons; Falconidae: subequally sized talons on each digit, elongate D-III toe; Strigiformes: near uniform large-sized, but weakly curved talons on each digit, short toes; Pandionidae: near uniform large-sized, strongly curved talons on each digit). Ontogeny, gender, and whether the foot was left or right, did not affect the observations described. From this we conclude that our observations apply to all raptor taxa, and that it is most parsimonious that this is related to variation in predatory behaviour among families.
During the preparation of this manuscript, in the character matrix for the phylogenetic analysis of Livezey and Zusi [@pone.0007999-Livezey1], [@pone.0007999-Livezey2], a hypertrophied D-II talon was coded (without further comment) as present for *Accipiter* but absent for *Falco*, *Pandion*, *Strix*, *Otus*, and *Gyps* (all species unspecified). This further confirms the observations we describe herein.
In order to facilitate interpretation of traits in a phylogenetic context, the observed family-level trends were plotted onto a cladogram of bird relationships ([Figure 5](#pone-0007999-g005){ref-type="fig"}). Literature used in construction of the cladogram include the most recent molecular phylogenetic analyses for Falconidae [@pone.0007999-Griffiths1], Accipitridae [@pone.0007999-Griffiths2], and birds as a whole [@pone.0007999-Hackett1].
![Phylogenetic diagram plotting occurrence of morphologic traits.\
Numbered traits in parentheses are present only in selected taxa within the clade (see main text). 1. D-II talon as large or larger than D-III; 2. short tarsometatarsus; 3. hypertrophied D-I and D-II talons; 4. elongate toes; 5. highly recurved talons on all digits; 6. subequally large talons on each digit. General arrangement of families after Hackett et al [@pone.0007999-Hackett1]. Nomenclature and arrangement of Falconidae and Accipitridae after Griffiths et al [@pone.0007999-Griffiths1], [@pone.0007999-Griffiths2] respectively (see main text for exceptions).](pone.0007999.g005){#pone-0007999-g005}
Discussion {#s4}
==========
When arranged on a cladogram ([Figure 5](#pone-0007999-g005){ref-type="fig"}), the various morphologic trends identified here show expected alignment with family-level clades. Some traits represent unusual departures for a given group, and these can be linked to adaptations related to atypical predatory behaviours (elongate toes in Falconini and *Accipiter*; highly recurved talons on each digit in Pandionidae and fishing eagles; elaborated upon later in [discussion](#s4){ref-type="sec"}). The possession of a talon on D-II that is as large or larger than D-III (which separates raptor from non-raptor taxa) is demonstrated as being independently evolved in Falconidae, Strigiformes, Pandionidae, and Accipitridae, and is presumably related to the predatory behaviour in these clades. The short metatarsus of Falconidae and Strigiformes is also a possible case of convergence, although it is also possible that the elongate tarsometatarsus of Accipitridae is the derived condition.
The observed variation in talon size distribution could simply be the result of phylogenetic inertia: i.e., the tendency for related species to have similar traits because of inheritance from the common ancestral population, rather than it being of adaptive significance. However, given that other variable elements of the foot perform clear functional roles [@pone.0007999-Einoder1], [@pone.0007999-Sustaita1], [@pone.0007999-Ward1], and that there is correlation between claw morphology and function in terrestrial through arboreal birds [@pone.0007999-Glen1], [@pone.0007999-Hopson1], it is likely that raptor talon morphology does indeed vary dependent on function, since raptor feet are so important for prey capture and manipulation.
We first considered whether talon morphology was primarily affected by diet, but the strong overlap in typical prey choice among raptor families (see Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}) which exhibit disparate talon and foot morphologies led us to conclude that talon morphology is generally not indicative of diet. One exception may be found in that Falconini and the accipitrid genus *Accipiter* are both avivores, and both have independently evolved elongate/narrow toes ([Figure 5](#pone-0007999-g005){ref-type="fig"}). This was also noted by Einoder and Richardson [@pone.0007999-Einoder2]. We also found exception in piscivorous taxa, where all four talons are used to impale fish. In piscivorous taxa, claws are subequally sized, characteristically large, and highly curved. This is seen in the osprey (*Pandion haliaetus*, [Figure 1E](#pone-0007999-g001){ref-type="fig"}), the bald eagle (*Haliaeetus leucocephalus*, which possesses talons on D-III and IV that are larger and more curved than expected for Accipitridae), and possibly at least one species of fishing owl (*Ketupa zeylonensis*: the brown fish owl [@pone.0007999-Blanford1]). The convergence of talon morphology among unrelated piscivorous taxa supports our hypothesis that talon morphology corresponds to feeding behavior, and is not merely a phylogenetic artifact.
Variation in hunting technique indirectly affects talon morphology. Falconini strike prey at high velocity, the impact of which may immobilise or seriously impair the victim. The prey of accipitrids and Strigiformes are taken by ambush attacks on or near the ground; as such, they are less likely to be seriously wounded or dead upon capture, being able to struggle against their captor more vigorously. Compared to falconids, accipitrids and Strigiformes must therefore have enhanced ability to restrain struggling prey, and this is partly accounted for by variation in talon and foot morphology. However, in order to fully understand this, variation in prey size must first be considered.
We found that prey restraint and immobilisation strategy changed as prey increased in size, which has only been briefly considered prior to this study [@pone.0007999-Csermely4], [@pone.0007999-Csermely8]. This necessarily occurs across the hypothetical boundary between those prey that can be constricted, and those that are too large to fit within the foot, hence an alternative strategy must be sought. For the purposes of clarity, here we define "small" and "large" to be relative terms that depend on the bodysize of both raptor and prey. "Small" prey are those small enough to be contained entirely within the foot of the raptor (typically encircled by D-III [@pone.0007999-Csermely7]). "Large" prey are those which cannot be contained entirely within the foot. Thus the same prey item might be considered "large" for a small raptor species (e.g., a kestrel), but "small" for a large raptor species (e.g., a peregrine falcon). An intermediate size category does not exist since the terms as defined are discrete not continuous.
Experiments offering laboratory mice to caged raptors [@pone.0007999-Harris1], [@pone.0007999-Csermely2]--[@pone.0007999-Csermely6] elicited predatory behaviour which we consider specific only to small prey (confirmed by our video observations and also observed for small bird and reptile prey [@pone.0007999-Bond1]). Here, both immobilisation (constriction) and prevention of escape (containment within the foot) are conducted by the feet, and assisted by beak attacks. Talons are employed only as an aid to prevent escape. This general behaviour is consistently observed in all raptors, with some variation. Falconini have evolved "tomial" or "false teeth" on the beak to help immobilise prey more quickly by severing the spinal cord, or crushing the head [@pone.0007999-Hertel1], [@pone.0007999-Bond1], [@pone.0007999-Einoder1]. Strigiformes are also known to occasionally perform a twist at the base of the prey\'s neck, probably also attempting to break it [@pone.0007999-Csermely9]. Accipitrids lack "tomial teeth" and have a weaker bite-force than falconids [@pone.0007999-Sustaita1]; they therefore have greater reliance on constriction to immobilise small prey.
For small prey, methods of restraint and immobilisation do not appear to have significant influence on talon morphology in accipitrids and falconids, but are important in Strigiformes, which feed mainly on small prey. Strigiformes have specialised towards maximizing grip strength (increasing their constriction ability) to a greater extent than seen in other raptors [@pone.0007999-Ward1], which accounts for their unusually enlarged and weakly curved talons. Our measurements show that while overall digit length (including the talon) is similar between Strigiformes and accipitrids of comparable bodysize, Strigiformes\' greater claw size (especially of D-III and IV) means that the talon contributes a higher proportion of the overall digit length than in other raptors. Given that the flexor tendons attach to the tubercle at the proximal end of the ungual, short toes combined with extra talon length in owls effectively reduces the lever length of the flexor, thus increasing grip force production, but maintaining the reach of the digit, and approximately the same size enclosable fist. An overall lower curvature for owl talons supports the hypothesis that their increased size is to maintain the reach of the toe. Grip ability and strength is further exacerbated in Strigiformes by the short tarsometatarsus, presence of sesamoids [@pone.0007999-Ward1], specialized tendon locking mechanism [@pone.0007999-Einoder3] and the zygodactyl foot (which may account partially for Strigiformes\' more uniform talon-size distribution: giving a more even grip [@pone.0007999-Einoder2]). Specialising in constriction, Strigiformes rarely take large prey, this being seen more commonly in falconids, and especially accipitrids.
Our analysis found that variation in talon morphology between falconids and accipitrids is most strongly correlated with the change in restraint and immobilisation strategy evident as prey increase in size: recorded here in detail for the first time. When prey are too large to be completely enclosed within the foot, constriction is no longer a viable immobilisation strategy, and because the prey cannot be fully grasped, the raptor must alter its method for preventing escape. We found that for large prey, escape is prevented by the raptor standing atop its victim, using its body weight to pin it down, while holding on with its talons. During the initial energetic struggles that occur immediately after capture of large prey, the additional grip provided by the hypertrophied talons of D-I and II of accipitrids is vital as the raptor tumbles about while keeping latched into its prey, flapping vigorously, trying to gain the upper hand and pin it to the ground. Accipitrids will often use their enhanced grip to drag prey to a new location, to help prevent its escape or conceal the commotion from other predators. Once the prey is suitably immobilised, the raptor proceeds to remove feathers or fur. Accipitrids tend to pluck the back or belly area and will start feeding while the prey is still alive, so long as it does not protest too vigorously. In this prolonged and bloody scenario, prey eventually succumb to massive blood loss or organ failure, incurred during dismemberment. As the prey of accipitrids are often consumed while still alive, a firm grip is constantly required to maintain immobilisation until the prey is dead, further emphasising the importance of the hypertrophied talons of D-I and II. By contrast, Falconini will quickly pluck the neck area and attempt to kill prey swiftly by breaking the neck with a bite attack using the tomial teeth, reducing the necessity for large talons. Falconids also have stronger feet (tarsometatarsus+foot) than accipitrids (which have quicker, more agile feet [@pone.0007999-Sustaita1], [@pone.0007999-Goslow2]; see Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}), and their prey is more likely to be partially injured already from their different hunting strategy. The greater ability of accipitrids to subdue large struggling prey likely accounts for their generally higher rate of predation on large prey than falconids.
Average prey size (ie. the "typical" prey taken by a given raptor species) may represent an important selective pressure driving the morphological evolution of raptor feet. The tendency for Strigiformes to take only relatively small prey has influenced the evolution of their specialized feet. The persistence of a more cosmopolitan, or generalist approach with regards to prey size, has meant that accipitrids and falconids require a more adaptable foot morphology, one that can immobilise both large and small prey, or require adaptations outside of the foot to compensate for possible shortcomings (e.g. the tomial tooth of Falconidae). However, all raptors (potentially excluding specialist piscivores) possess the ability to immobilise small prey, and so it would appear that immobilisation of large prey might represent the strongest selection pressure for mixed-prey-size predators, even if large prey constitute a smaller proportion of the diet (which is subject to many other factors, see Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}).
Talons are used in manipulating prey during feeding. Unlike owls, which usually swallow prey whole, falconids and accipitrids dismember prey before or during consumption [@pone.0007999-Bond1]. As observed in the videos, prey (especially small prey) are typically pinned down between the feet by the claws of both left and right D-II, while D-I, III and IV contact the ground, steadying the bird for feeding. To feed, the raptor reaches down between its feet, grabbing tissue in the hooked beak, then pulls upwards, plucking away the feathers or tearing off strips of flesh. We observed two videos in which accipitrines used the enlarged talon of D-II to prise open the body cavity of prey, giving access to the nutritious internal organs.
Additional discussion can be found in Supporting Information [Text S1](#pone.0007999.s004){ref-type="supplementary-material"}.
Conclusion {#s4a}
----------
In volant birds, the hindlimb is freed from a primarily cursorial role, allowing specialisation towards perching or foraging. Within all birds of prey, physical attributes of the feet trade off against each other to attain great strength, but it is the variable means by which this is achieved that distinguishes them ecologically. Consequently each taxon has a typical prey and predatory strategy to which it is primarily adapted, but operates within a broad envelope of possible behaviours that may overlap significantly with other taxa.
Our findings show that interdigital talon morphology varies consistently among raptor families, and that this is correlative with variation in their typical prey capture and restraint strategy. We further suggest that change in prey size necessarily causes change in restraint and immobilisation strategy, and that this is the primary factor influencing claw morphology.
This study has important implications for claw functional morphology of fossil bird and non-avian dinosaur taxa that possess proportionally similar claws as those described here. This is currently under investigation by the authors (Fowler et al, in prep).
Supporting Information {#s5}
======================
######
Table of all measurements taken, ratios calculated from measurements and used for statistical analysis and comparison.
(0.24 MB XLS)
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
List of behaviour videos, categorised observations and general summaries of important behaviours observed.
(0.06 MB XLS)
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
List of observed taxa, arranged phylogenetically.
(0.03 MB XLS)
######
Click here for additional data file.
######
Additional background information, results and discussion.
(0.06 MB DOC)
######
Click here for additional data file.
For access to specimens and their associated metadata, we thank Cynthia Marshall Faux, Ellen Lamm, and Jack Horner (MOR); Jay Rotella (MSU Ecology); Peg Hart and Paul Sweet (AMNH Ornithology); and Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Ohio. Thanks also to The Montana Raptor Conservation Center for donating the MOR specimens used in this study. Sara Hallager (USNM) provided useful reference materials. This work was enhanced by discussions with Davide Csermely, Chris Glen and Robert Kambic, and benefited greatly from editing by Kevin Padian and Jack Horner. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers whose comments improved the manuscript.
**Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
**Funding:**Support for the Museum of the Rockies graduate student fund was provided by Damaris Waggoner and David Sands. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
[^1]: Conceived and designed the experiments: DWF EAF. Performed the experiments: DWF EAF JBS. Analyzed the data: DWF EAF. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DWF EAF JBS. Wrote the paper: DWF EAF.
| 2023-09-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9590 |
Nolan Reimold
Detroit Tigers closer Joe Nathan walks off the field after blowing a save opportunity in the ninth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday in Toronto.
(AP Photo)
TORONTO -- Tigers closer Joe Nathan is staying put.
Tigers manager Brad Ausmus told reporters Saturday that Nathan will remain the team's closer for the foreseeable future.
Ausmus made the announcement during his postgame media session after Nathan blew his sixth save opportunity this season, which matched a career high for the 39-year-old.
"Joe is the closer," Ausmus said when asked why he elected to call upon Nathan in the ninth inning with the Tigers carrying a 2-1 lead against the Blue Jays.
The decision proved costly as Jose Reyes singled off Nathan to lead off the ninth, then stole second before advancing to third base on Melky Cabrera's fly ball.
Nathan intentionally walked Jose Bautista to set up the double play with one out for Navarro, who hit a game-tying grounder past a diving Miguel Cabrera at first.
Asked if Ausmus will continue to feel comfortable calling on Nathan in the ninth inning down the road, the first-year manager kept his answer brief.
"Yep," he said.
Nathan, who has made five appearances in the last 10 days, said fatigue may have played a small role in his ninth-inning implosion.
"The last week, I've thrown a lot of pitches," Nathan said. "I've only got in one game (in New York), but every game was close. It seemed like every game, I was up and getting hot because we had a chance in every game. No excuse, though."
Asked why he brought Nathan back out on Saturday after the six-time All-Star needed to throw 26 pitches Friday and narrowly escaped with his fifth straight save, Ausmus cited Nathan's success as the team's closer since the All-Star break.
"Recently, he's done very well for us closing games," Ausmus said.
Nathan struggled mightily in the first half of the season, blowing five saves en route to a 5.61 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP. However, he had converted five straight saves and nine of his last 10 prior to Saturday's meltdown.
"I felt good. I felt very confident going out there," Nathan said. "I can't look too deep into this. I just have to keep going out and stay positive, like I have."
Nathan entered his appearance Saturday with a 3.38 ERA in eight innings pitched since the All-Star break. But he got knocked around Saturday.
Nathan threw just 13 of his 28 pitches for strikes and gave up two hits and walked two batters. He was lifted in favor newly acquired reliever Joakim Soria after he issued a walk to Colby Rasmus to load the bases with one out.
"This isn't a job where you're going to be perfect all the time," said Nathan, who has converted 365 saves during his 14-year career. "I think, sometimes, people look at it like we better be perfect. And that's not always realistic."
-- Download the Detroit Tigers on MLive app for iPhone and Android.
-- Like MLive's Detroit Tigers Facebook page. | 2023-09-17T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4203 |
Tag Archives: obesity
New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) is on a roll, and we’re only 11 days in to the New Year. Earlier today we reported that he wants to install mandatory breathalyzers in New Yorkers’ automobiles by 2015, and now we get wind that he’s proposing a tax on kids’ rice cakes and video entertainment.
Ortiz has noticed that kids are getting kind of fat, so he’s slapping a wee little tax—one quarter of one percent—on sales of all the foods listed as sweets or snacks in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, plus a tax on sale and rentals of video games and movies and game controllers. (A faint silver lining: Reading this bill taught me what DVD stands for. Digital Versatile Disk, apparently. Who knew?) That money goes to an “Childhood Obesity Prevention Program Fund.” But the tax fails to distinguish between good and bad snack, and good and bad video games. So in the name of obesity prevention, education games will get hit, as will these USDA-listed snacks …
Here’s another blooper from Ortiz’ proposed ‘anti-obesity’ tax: Kids and adults intent on purchasing Nintendo’s Wii ‘Fit’ games would be penalized with a sin tax. According to People magazine, First Lady Michelle Obama encourages her two girls to engage in Wii’s virtual physical fitness games on a regular basis.
Got some advice for Ortiz before his next attempt to legislate the behaviors and eating habits of New Yorkers both young and old? Contact his office.
Pepsi is moving out of Baltimore due to the city's burdensome soda tax.
Nanny state bureaucrats in Baltimore, Md., are responsible for adding another 75 of the struggling city’s workers to the unemployment ranks, courtesy of their war against obesity. Pepsi-Cola announced it will no longer produce soda in ‘Charm City’ as a result of the recently passed two cent per container soda tax.
“In the case of Baltimore, as you may know, there was a beverage tax that was passed here and in this case, it did not help in the decision in terms of keeping the Baltimore plant open,” said Pepsi spokesperson Mark Dollins.
Baltimore grocers also report that the soda tax has had an adverse affect on their bottom lines as shoppers are traveling outside of city limits to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages.
“I’m just shocked that [Pepsi’s] pulling out and I asked them if there was anything we could do at the city level with Baltimore Development Corporation and try to offer some kind of incentive and they said it was too far down the line,” said City Council President Jack Young.
This is what happens, Jack, when big government over-regulates and over-burdens private businesses, both large and small, with needless taxes that eliminate any economic incentives keeping them in your city versus somewhere else with fiscally responsible leaders who would be more than happy to make ample accommodations that might help shrink their unemployment rosters and boost their economies in these difficult times.
The Orlando Sentinel’s in-house anti-obesity crusader, Linda Shrieves, went to bat yesterday for a radical animal ‘rights’ group that is attempting to replace the USDA’s food pyramid with a vegan substitute that eliminates all meat and dairy products.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the St. Paul school district will make all public schools “sweet-free zones” by the end of the school year. Opponents of the plan say “there is little proof such policies work” and that “it’s a school’s role to teach — not force — students to eat healthy.”
The school district’s unproven and experimental anti-obesity crusade is being fueled by “a series of state and federal grants, the largest of which will end this school year.”
Agree or disagree with St. Paul Public Schools’ crusade to rid all “sweet, sticky, fat-laden [and] salty treats” from kids’ lunchboxes and cafeteria trays?
Contact Superintendent Valeria S. Silva if you think parents, not bureaucrats, should determine what’s best for their own children to consume in school cafeterias:
Michelle Malkin just released her “Big Nannies of the Year” list and Reason.tv recently held its annual red carpet ‘awards gala.’ Find out who made the cut and let us know if a notorious nanny state nincompoop has been overlooked.
Monet Parham is a proud foot soldier in big government's crusade to prohibit parents from determining what's best for their kids to eat. Send her an email: monet.parham-lee@cdph.ca.gov
While countless media outlets continue to herald a ‘mother of two children’ who jointly filed a class-action lawsuit against McDonald’s intended to force a nationwide ban on Happy Meal toys, one big fact is ominously missing from most, if not all, news stories: Monet Parham is also an overzealous food cop employed by the California Department of Public Health.
Overlawyered.com’s Walter Olsen writes in the NY Daily News that Parham is anything buy a “random (if oddly well-informed) California mom,” as reporters interviewing her insist. He and fellow blogger Ira Stoll reveal that Parham “works on a federally funded program that campaigns to exhort people to eat their vegetables and that sort of thing.”
Stoll notes that in wake of her participation in the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s lawsuit against McDonald’s, Parham’s name “has been scrubbed from the website of Champions for Change, the Network for a Healthy California.” Despite attempts to preserve her identity as just ‘some ordinary mom,’ Parham’s participation in so-called ‘health eating’ conferences is still in plain sight (be quick before that disappears, too).
“She presents herself as an ordinary mother. She is not,” Olsen says. “She is an advocate, and an employee of a California agency tasked with advocating the eating of vegetables. To the extent that Monet Parham-Lee has EVER taken her daughter to a McDonald’s, she should have known better.”
Here’s a look at how the major media outlets are describing Parham. Some reporters have clearly and cleverly been duped by Parham while other ‘journalists’ are complicit in portraying her as an innocent mom whose two young children have been victimized by a greedy corporate food giant and its mind-controlling two-cent trinkets:
"Congratulations on one of our final acts of sabotaging democracy and freedom together!"
Here’s something to chew on that you’ll be hard-pressed to find in the State-Run Media’s news buffet: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released “precise” new data last week that “thoroughly refute the misleading claims of alarmists advocating for vastly expanding federal regulation of the food supply.”
The House recently passed its version of the Food Safety bill using exaggerated CDC numbers from 1999 to create the aura of a crisis in Americans’ minds, reports the Heritage Foundation. On Sunday evening, the Senate pushed ahead in turning myths in to reality by agreeing to pass the ‘junk science’ legislation with a voice vote, despite the CDC’s new report released last Wednesday showing significant drops in food-borne illnesses and related deaths.
Just another instance of big government bureaucrats neglecting to take the time to read anything pertinent to the issue at hand before ‘passing the bill‘ and screwing American citizens with needless reforms for the sake of “change.” | 2024-06-13T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5898 |
---
abstract: 'We point out in this short communique, that be it a s-wave or d-wave superconductor, in a non equalibrium situation(i.e. in presence of excess unpolarised/polarised quasi-particles maintained by an injection current) the superconducting gap suppresion by the presence of same amount excess quasi-particles, can at best differ by a factor of 2, for a conventional BCS superconductor. For the high $T_c$ superconductors on the other hand, there is a huge difference in gap suppresion between upolarised/polarised quasiparticle injection, as observed in the experiments[@gold]. We argue that this this large anomaly has a natural explanation within the [*Interleyer tunneling mechanism*]{} of Wheatley, Hsu and Anderson[@and], and is due to the excess polarised quasiparticles blocking the interlayer pair tunneling process. We also point out that spin polarised quasi-particle injection in a superconductor is a very easy way to distinguish between a s-wave or an anisotropic gap superconductor.'
address: ' Materials Science Division, IGCAR, Kalpakkam 603102, India'
author:
- Satadeep Bhattacharjee and Manas Sardar
title: 'Spin polarised carrier injection into high $T_c$ superconductors : A test for the superconductivity mechanism ?'
---
0.5cm Keyword: High $T_c$ superconductors, Spin polarised tunneling, Interlayer pair tunneling. 0.5cm
Spin polarised electron tunneling from ferromagnetic metals to superconductors [@gold] or strongly correlated metals have recently generated much interest. The focus is on trying to understand spin dependent transport properties of electrons, spin relaxation and possible superconducting devices. One is also interested in the mechanisms of superconductivity suppression(like reduction in critical currents) due to tiny injected tunneling currents(unpolarised/polarised) across an insulating junction into the superconductor.
Though original experiments on spin polarised tunneling in superconductors were carried out in the seventies by Tedrow and Meservey[@ted] and first theoretical attempt was made by Aronov[@aronov] recently this subject has caught the attention of the physics community due to discovery of lanthanam manganite( CMR materials). In these materials the degree of polarisation of the charge carriers is close to unity(almost perfect ferromagnetic metal).
Both these experiments[@gold] are done in the 3-layer structure like, HSTC/I/Manganite, where a high $T_c$ superconductor(HSTC) thin film is separated from a ferromagnetic metallic underlayere(Manganite) by an insulating(I) layer. The critical current of the HSTC film is found to drop precipitously as a function of a tiny injection current pushed from the ferromagnetic metal through the insulating junction into the HSTC film. When Manganite is replaced by Au(an ordinary paramagnetic metal) , then it is found that for the same amount of injected current the drop in the critical current of the HSTC film is much smaller. The fractional change in critical current for polarised and unpolarised injection currents( over the same injection current interval)differs by an order of magnitude.
The mechanism determining the critical current of a superconducting film is very complex. However critical current suppresion should be related to the order parameter suppresion and the puzzle is why spin polarised injected carriers are so damaging to superconductivity in the high $T_c$ materials.
In this paper we try to show that the large difference between polarised/unpolarised injection current is very special only to the high $T_c$ superconductors. We predict that if the high $T_c$ superconductor is replaced by an ordinary BCS superconductor then the relative difference in superconducting gap suppresion in the two cases is not at all that striking(differs by at most a factor of 2 !!). This is our main result. In other words spin polarised electron tunneling into high $T_c$ superconductors can be used to understand the mechanism of superconductivity in the high $T_c$ materials.
The suppression of superconducting gap due to unpolarised quasiparticle overpopulation( a non-equilibrium situation) was first investigated theoretically by Owen and Scalapino [@sca]. They examined a simple model of an electron gas containing both Cooper pairs and excited quasi-particles with the ratio of paired to unpaired electrons being artificially specified, instead of being uniquely determined by the temperature, as is usual, in the thermal equilibrium situation for an isolated superconductor. The system is considered as being in thermal equilibrium although the paired and unpaired electrons are not in chemical equilibrium. It is assumed that for small amount of excess injected carriers, the time for pair recombination is much larger that the time for the injected quasiparticles to thermalize with the lattice. This is achieved by introducing a chemical potential for the quasiparticles different from the pair chemical potential.
The free energy of the superconductor $F_s$ is given by, $$F_s= 2\sum_k \vert \epsilon_k-\mu)\vert (f_k -2f_kv_k^2 +v_k^2)
-\sum_{k,k^{\prime}}V_{k,k^{\prime}}u_kv_ku_{k^{\prime}}v_{k^{\prime}}
(1-f_k)(1-f_{k^{\prime}}) \linebreak[5]
-T\sum_k \lbrack f_k{\rm log}f_k +(1-f_k){\rm log}(1-f_k) \rbrack$$ where $u_k~{\rm and}~v_k$ has their usual meaning, and $f_k=\langle
\gamma_{k,\sigma}^{\dagger}\gamma_{k,\sigma} \rangle $ is the fermi function for the superconducting quasiparticles and $\epsilon_k$ is the dispersion of the electrons in the normal state. However in addition to the usual constrain equation for the total number of electrons $\sum_{k,\sigma}\langle c_{k,\sigma}^{\dagger}
c_{k,\sigma}\rangle=N$ which is enforced by proper choice of the chemical potential $\mu$, an additional constrain on quasi-particle excitation number will be imposed, $\sum_{k,\sigma}f_{k,\sigma}=n<<N$. This can be done by introducing an extra chemical potential[@koll] $\mu^*$ so that now, $f_k=[1+e^{\beta(E_k-\mu^*)}]^{-1}$. The modified BCS gap equation is now, $$\Delta_k=\sum_{k^{\prime}}^{\prime}{ V_{k,k^{\prime}}\Delta_{k^{\prime}}
\over 2E_{k^{\prime}}}
(1-f_{k^{\prime}\uparrow}-f_{-k^{\prime}\downarrow})
~=~\sum_{k^{\prime}}^{\prime}{ V_{k,k^{\prime}}\Delta_{k^{\prime}}
\over 2E_{k^{\prime}}}
{\rm tanh}\beta/2 (E_{k^{\prime}}-\mu^*)$$
Asuming a momentum independent $V_{k,k^{\prime}}$( s-wave superconductor) and going from monentum summation to energy integration with a cut-off $\omega_D$, we get, $${1\over N(E_F)V}=\int_{-\omega_D}^{\omega_D}{d\epsilon \over 2E} {\rm
tanh}{1\over 2}\beta(E-\mu^*)$$ The number of excess quasi-particles is, $$n= 2\sum_k[f(E_k-\mu^*)-f(E_k)]=4N(E_F)\int_0^{\infty} {d\epsilon
\over e^{\beta(E-\mu^*)}+1}$$ the factor of 2 before the momentum summation is because of two spin species.
Defining $n_0={n\over 4N(E_F)\Delta_0}$, where $\Delta_0$ s the gap at $T=0$ and $\mu^*=0$, we can easily solve for the gap value at any $T$ and $n$ from the above two equations. In the limit of zero temperature the gap value can be determined from the algebraic equation, $${\Delta_0 \over \Delta}= \lbrack n_0 {\Delta_0 \over \Delta} ~+~\sqrt{1+
n_0^2 {\Delta_0^2 \over \Delta^2}} \rbrack^2$$ This is the result of Owen and Scalapino, for excess unpolarised quasiparticles.
For spin polarised quasiparticle injection, we introduce a different chemical potential, for [*only the up spin quasiparticles*]{}, i.e. assuming complete spin polarisation of electrons in the ferromagnet. The gap equation (2) will be modified to, $$\Delta_k=\sum_{k^{\prime}}^{\prime} {V_{k,k^{\prime}}\Delta_{k^{\prime}}
\over 2E_{k^{\prime}}}{1\over 2}\lbrack
{\rm tanh}\beta/2 (E_{k^{\prime}}-\mu^*)+{\rm tanh}\beta/2
E_{k^{\prime}}\rbrack$$ Corresponding equation for the number of excess quasiparticles will be, same as equation (3) with the factor of 2 missing before the momentum summation, because excess quasiparticles are of only one spin species. In the limit of zero temperature we get the folowing algebraic equation for the normalise gap value,
$${\Delta_0 \over \Delta}= \lbrack 2n_0 {\Delta_0 \over \Delta}
~+~\sqrt{1+
4n_0^2 {\Delta_0^2 \over \Delta^2}} \rbrack^2$$
In figure.1 we show the normalized gap versus extra quasiparticles for a s-wave superconductors(solutions of equations 3 & 4). We find that for, s-wave superconductors, a first order phase transition to normal metal occurs, for $n=0.15;~ \Delta= 0.63\Delta_0$, and $n=0.08;~ \Delta= 0.58\Delta_0$ for unpolarised and polarised quasiparticle injections. Beyond this critical concentration of injected carriers, the free energy of the perturbed superconductor becomes larger than normal state free energy. Notice though that, for the same amount of injected carriers, the relative gap suppresion in unpolarised/polarised carriers differs by at most by a factor of 2.
Just as at finite temperatures quasi-particle excitations interfere with the pairing interaction and eventually destroy superconductivity at $T_c$, when an excess number of quasi-particles are injected into the superconductor, it basically reduces the phase space for BCS pair scattering process and reduce the gap value. BCS interaction scatters pairs $(k\uparrow,-k\downarrow)->(k^{\prime}\uparrow,-k^{\prime}\downarrow)$ accross the fermi surface. So any excess quasiparticle occupying these states limits the phase space for the BCS interaction. It is obvious that when the injected quasi-particles are polarised(all of one spin) they interfere with BCS interaction more severly and hence the gap value falls faster with quasi-particle over -population, compared to the unpolarised injection current.
We next investigate the effect of quasi-particle injection on superconductors with anisotropic gap, specifically gaps of d-wave symmetry. The dispersion of electrons is chosen to be of the form $$\epsilon (k) ~~ = ~~ -2t~(~cos k_x~+cos k_y~)~~+~~
4t^{\prime}~cosk _x~cos k_y~~-2t^{\prime \prime}(\cos 2k_x+\cos 2k_y),$$ with $t$ = 0.25 eV ,${t^{\prime} \over t}$ = 0.45 $, {t^{\prime
\prime}\over
t}=0.2$. We also choose $\epsilon_F$ = -0.45 eV corresponding to a Fermi surface which is closed around the $\Gamma$ point. These choices are inspired by band structure calculations [@band] for the YBCO compound at optimal doping concentration. The cut off the pairing interaction is chosen to be $\omega_D=30 ~meV$, and the pairing interaction strength $V_{k,k^{\prime}}=V_0f_kf_{k^{\prime}}$ with $f_k=\cos(k_x)-\cos(k_y)$ and $V_0=2.8 ~meV$. With this choice of parameters the $T_c$ comes out to be $30^0K$.
In figure.2 we plot the normalised momentum averaged value of the superconducting gap magnitude, $\Delta(n,T)/\Delta(0,T)$ versus $n$(quasi-particle over population) for different temperatures. There are some interesting features to be noticed here.
\(1) Notice the crossing of curves, for $T=5~{\rm and}~25^0K$. The origin of this can be seen by looking at the gap equation(2). States of energy $E_k$ less that $\mu^*$ interferes with the pairing process by giving a negative contribution to the binding. At low temperatures and small injection currents, the extra carriers occupy the states near the deep gap nodes, where the denominator $E_k$ is also small giving rise to large reduction in binding energy. At larger temperatures(for same amout of injected carriers) on the other hand the quasi-particles are distributed over a larger range of energies(larger denominator) leading to smaller suppresion of binding(and hence larger gap values). Larger concentration of injected carriers, of course will ultimately be more damaging to superconductivity, because of larger number of thermally excited quasi-particles that are already present. This leads to the crossing of curves as seen in fig 2. This will be a generic feature for any superconductor with deep gap nodes, and should be easily seen in spin injection experiments.
\(2) Notice also that the critical concentration of excess quasi-particles that destroy superconductivity is not a monotonic function of temperature and goes through a maximum around $T_c/2$.
\(3) Though it is not shown in the plot, injected current suppreses superconductivity more in the d-wave superconductors, than for a s-wave superconductor having same critical temperature, as one would expect for gap functions with deep nodes.
In figure.3, we have plotted the normalised momentum averaged gap magnitude of a d-wave superconductor, with a $T_c$ of $90^0K$ versus for both unpolarised/polarised quasi-particle over population( we go upto $n=0.15$ only). The difference in the reduction of gap values in the unpolarised/polarised tunneling is the range of $2.5-5.0\%$(i.e a factor of 2 only). Clearly the large anomaly observed while tunneling into the high $T_c$ superconductor, as seen in the experiments[@gold] has its origin in the superconducting mechanism in the high $T_c$ materials itself.
We shall explore here the [*interlayer tunneling model*]{} of superconductivity[@and; @chak].
We begin by writing the gap equation for interlayer tunneling model with unpolarised injected carriers as, [@chak], $$\Delta_k = T_J(k) {\Delta_k \over 2E_k}
{\rm tanh} {\beta (E_k-\mu^*) \over 2} + ~ \sum_{kk^{\prime}}^{\prime}
V_{kk^{\prime}}~
{\Delta_k^{\prime} \over 2E_{k^{\prime}}} {\rm tanh}
{\beta (E_{k^{\prime}}-\mu^*) \over 2},$$ For polarised carrier injection, this equation has to corrected as shown in equation (5).
This gap equation can be obtained by considering two close Cu-O layers as in YBCO coupled by a Josephson tunneling term of the form $$H_J~~ = ~~ -{1 \over t}
\sum_{k}~~t^{2}_{\perp}(k)~~(~c^{\dag}_{k\uparrow}
c^{\dag}_{-k\downarrow} d_{-k\downarrow} d_{k\uparrow} + {\rm
h.c.}~)~~,$$ where $t_{\perp}(k)$ is the bare single electron hopping term between the two coupled layers $c$ and $d$ and $t$ is a band structure parameter in the dispersion of electrons along the Cu-O plane. Finally, $T_J(k)$ in the right hand side of equation (1) is given by $T_J(k) =
{t^2_{\perp}(k)
\over t}$. where $t_{\perp}(k)={t_{\perp}\over 4}({\rm cos}(kx)-{\rm
cos}(ky))^2$. The dispersion of electrons along the Cu-O plane is is given by equation 5. Note that the Josephson coupling term in $H_J$ conserves the individual momenta of the electrons that get paired by hopping across the coupled layers. This is as opposed to a BCS scattering term which would only conserve the center of mass momenta of the pairs. This is the origin of all features that are unique to the interlayer tunneling mechanism. This term has a local $U(1)$ invariance in $k$-space and cannot by itself give a finite $T_c$. It needs an additional BCS type non local interaction in the planes which could be induced by phonons or residual correlations. Here we assume the inplane pairing interaction to be d-wave kind i.e, $V_{kk^{\prime}}=V_0~f_kf_{k^{\prime}}$ with $f_k=\cos k_x -\cos k_y$. $T_J(k)$ can be infered from electronic structurecalculations. As shown in reference[@band], it is adequate to choose $t_{\perp}(k)=
{t_{\perp}^2\over 4}(\cos k_x -\cos k_y)^2$, with $t_{\perp}/t\equiv
1/3~{\rm to}~1/5$. According to Anderson, it is the $k$-space locality that leads to a scale of $T_c$ that is linear in interlayer pair tunneling matrix element. He finds that in the limit $T_J > V_{kk^{\prime}}$, $k_BT_c
\approx {T_J\over 4}$ and in the other limit, $k_B T_c\approx \hbar
\omega_D
e^{-{1\over \rho_0 V_0}}$, where $\omega_D$ $\rho_0$ and $V_0$ are Debye frequency, density of states at the fermi energy, and fermi surface average matrix element $V_{kk^{\prime}}$. The important point being that even with a little help from the in plane pairing interaction the interlayer tunneling term can provide a large scale of $T_c$. In this model the gap value is mainly controlled by the interlayer tunneling amplitude, rather than the inplane pairing interaction, though the symmerty of the gap function is determined overwhelmingly by the inplane BCS kind of interaction strength $V_{k,k^{\prime}}$. and the gap value is very sensitive to the interlayer pair tunneling amplitude[@manas].
In figure.4, we plot the normalised momentum averaged gap values versus both unpolarised/polarised quasi-particle over population upto $n=0.085$. We find that for $n=0.085$, the reduction in gap value for unpolarised injection current is about 5%, whereas for the polarised carrier injection is about 35%( that is a factor of 7 !).
The large difference between the two situations(as observed in the experiments[@gold] also) now shows up. We argue that when polarised carriers are injected, then, over and above the usual dynamical pair breaking(due phse space blocking of BCS interaction)in the planes like in usual BCS superconductors, there is an added inhibition of interlayer pair tunneling. This is so, because there are much less number of extra singlets near the fermi surface, to tunnel from plane to plane. This effect is absent when unpolarised quasiparticles enter the planes. In this mechanism ,[*extra quasiparticles directly affect the interlayer pairing tunneling process, which is the main source of superconducting condensation energy gain*]{}. This is over and above the interference in the binding process in the individual layers that we have discussed earlier in usual BCS superconductors.
The introduction of an extra chemical potential $\mu^{\star}$ to tackle the nonequilibrium superconductivity, in presence of artificially maintained quasiparticles, is a reasonable starting point, when the excess quasiparticles thermalize with low energy phonons more often than they recombine into pairs. In these limit the quasiparticles are in steady state at $T$ but have an excess number denoted by the increased chemical potential $\mu^{\star}$. One important ingradient of Anderson et al’s[@and] mechanism is that, in the normal state the electrons are spin-charge separated and no quasiparticles in the fermi liquid sense exists. We have assumed here that, below the superconducting Tc somehow spin-charge separation is absent. This seems to be the case from photoemission experiments which show clear signal of well defined quasiparticles on the fermi surface.In the superconducting state how exactly it happens, is still not clear.
At the present moment all that we can say is that, because of spin-charge separation in the normal state, the single particles(which are not even well defiend properly) cannot tunnel from plane to plane in a coherent fashion. On the other hand there are indications from some earlier theoretical attempts[@muthu] that electrons can tunnel in pairs. In other words spin-charge separation itself is responsible for pair tunneling. We believe that when some BCS type of pairing interaction is introduced, this anomolous self energy actually leads to weaking of spin charge separation, and electrons recover fermi liquid type quasi-particles below Tc, as it is observed in the photoemission experiments. We have implicitly assumed this while working with the interleyer tunneling mechanism. Clearly a more carefull analysis of this problem is needed within this mechanism.
Throughout this analysis, we have assumed that, (1) the London penetration depth is lesser that the superconducting film thickness, so that direct magnetic field of the ferromagnetic metal does not penetrate the superconductor much. (2) The spin diffusion length is much larger that the SC film thickness, so that no spatial variation of the gap has to be taken into account. This is certainly true when there are no magnetic impurity or for small spin orbit interaction, for the then extra spin density relaxes slowly.
We have also not taken into account the case of finite recombination time for the excess quasiparticles.
It would be interesting to see if, the presence of extra spin polarised quasiparticles will give rise to polarisation field, that will be felt by the nuclear magnetic moment through the contact hyperfine interaction. This will significantly affect the NMR relaxation rate and ESR linewidths.
Recently N. C. Yeh et al[@yeh],have observed an initial, actual increase in critical current for low enough injection currents, when the insulating barrier thickness is small. They argue that, some up spin quasiparticles in the superconductors can diffuse into the magnetic materials, creating spin imbalance in the superconductor(more of down spin quasiparticles). On the other hand when the injection current is switched on, then up spin electrons starts coming into the superconductor, nullifying the spin imbalance in the superconductor. That is why Tc increases for small injection currents. For larger injection currents of course Tc falls drastically as is seen in experiments, and as we have argued to be natural within the Interlayer tunneling mechanism of Anderson et al.
While this maybe the case, we would also like to point out, that this initial increase can also happen, when there are some (1) magnetic impurity inside the superconductor or (2) spin-orbit interaction is important. Because the injected polarised carriers will give an internal magnetic field which will polarise the magnetic impurities, so that, they become less effective in breaking pairs. Spin orbit interaction can similarly be counteracted by the internal magnetic field due to spin imbalance in the material, though the spin orbit interaction might be absent in the cuprate superconductors.
A. M. Goldman et al, Phys. Rev. Letters 78, 1134(1997); T. A. Venkatesan et al, Appl. Phys. Letters 71, 1718(1997).
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A. G. Aronov, JETP Lett. 24, 32(1976) ; Sov. Phys. JETP 44, 193(1976) C. S. Owen and D. J. Scalapino, Phys. Rev. Letters 28, 195(1962). D. Koller et al, J.Appl.Phys. 83, 6774(1998) S. Madidda, J. Yu and A. J. freeman, Physica C 152, 251(1988). O. K. Andersen et al, Phys. Rev B49, 4145(1993) and Jour of Phys. Chem Solids, 56, 1573(1995).
J. M. Wheatley, T. C. Hsu and P. W. Anderson, Phys. Rev. B 37, 5897(1988).
S. Chakraborty and P. W. Anderson, Phys. Rev. Letters, 72, 3859(1994).
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N.-C. Yeh et al, Phys. Rev. B 60, 10522 (1999)
2.5cm
| 2024-02-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/9899 |
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to communication networks. In particular, the invention relates to an enhanced functionality of a transport layer protocol entity.
2. Description of the Related Art
The TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a set of rules (protocol) used along with the Internet Protocol (IP) to send data in the form of message units between computers over the Internet. While IP takes care of handling the actual delivery of the data, the TCP takes care of keeping track of the individual units of data (called segments, datagrams or packets) that a message is divided into for efficient routing through the Internet.
For example, when an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) file is sent to you from a Web server, the TCP program layer in that server divides the file into one or more packets, numbers the packets, and then forwards them individually to the IP program layer. Although each packet has the same destination IP address, it may get routed differently through the network. At the other end (the client program in your computer), the TCP reassembles the individual packets and waits until they have arrived to forward them to you as a single file.
The TCP is known as a connection-oriented protocol, which means that a connection is established (port is opened) and maintained until such time as the message or messages to be exchanged by the application programs at each end have been exchanged. The TCP is responsible for ensuring that a message is divided into the packets that IP manages and for reassembling the packets back into the complete message at the other end.
The TCP comprises four intertwined algorithms: slow start, congestion avoidance, fast retransmit, and fast recovery. The state variable (sstresh) determines whether the slow start or congestion avoidance algorithm is applied.
Slow start is an algorithm, which operates by observing that the rate at which new packets should be injected into the network is the rate at which the acknowledgments are returned by the other end.
Slow start takes an advantage of a window in the TCP, namely, the congestion window, called ‘cwnd’. When a new connection is established with a host on another network, the congestion window is initialized to one segment (i.e., the maximum segment size announced by the other end typically approximately 1500 bytes or the default, 536 or 512 bytes). Each time an acknowledgement message (ACK) is received, the congestion window is increased by one segment. The sender can transmit up to the minimum of the congestion window and the advertised window (the window size advertised by the receiver). The congestion window is flow control imposed by the sender, while the advertised window is flow control imposed by the receiver. The former is based on the sender's assessment of perceived network congestion; the latter is related to the amount of available buffer space at the receiver for this connection.
The sender starts by transmitting one segment and waiting for its ACK. When that ACK is received, the congestion window is incremented from one to two, and two segments can be sent. When each of those two segments is acknowledged, the congestion window is increased to four. This provides an exponential growth, although it is not exactly exponential because the receiver may delay its ACKs, typically sending one ACK for every two segments that it receives.
At some point the capacity of the Internet can be reached, and an intermediate router will start discarding packets. This tells the sender that its congestion window has gotten too large.
During congestion avoidance, cwnd is incremented by 1 full-sized segment per round-trip time (RTT). Congestion avoidance continues until congestion is detected. One formula commonly used to update cwnd during congestion avoidance is given by equation Cwnd+=SMSS*SMSS/cwnd. This adjustment is executed on every incoming non-duplicate ACK. The equation provides an acceptable approximation to the underlying principle of increasing cwnd by 1 full-sized segment per RTT.
Another acceptable way to increase cwnd during congestion avoidance is to count the number of bytes that have been acknowledged by ACKs for new data. A drawback of this implementation is that it requires maintaining an additional state variable. When the number of bytes acknowledged reaches cwnd, then cwnd can be incremented by up to SMSS (Sender Maximum Segment Size) bytes. Note that during congestion avoidance, cwnd must not be increased by more than the larger of either 1 full-sized segment per RTT, or the value computed using the aforementioned equation.
When a TCP sender detects segment loss using the retransmission timer, the value of ssthresh (slow start threshold) must be set to no more than the value given in the following equation: ssthresh=max (FlightSize/2, 2*SMSS).
Furthermore, upon a timeout cwnd must be set to no more than the loss window, LW, which equals 1 full-sized segment (regardless of the value of IW (initial window)). Therefore, after retransmitting the dropped segment the TCP sender uses the slow start algorithm to increase the window from 1 full-sized segment to the new value of ssthresh, at which point congestion avoidance again takes over.
The TCP, however, includes a few unfavourable features. It is extremely scalable to different bit rates, but implicitly assumes “fat pipes” of large bandwidth*delay-products. The TCP implies high latency for the first segments and low link capacity (or flow capacity) in the early state of the traffic flow ramp-up. In the beginning of the communication flow, there are typically many small messages exchanged between client and server applications, such as registration, authentication and initiation messages which require delivery of segments before the data really is available. Trying to probe the network capacity by such determined messages is not truly data behavior and does not execute the slow start properly. Thus, when the data delivery starts, the slow start will begin. As the data amount may itself be small, it may happen that the slow start does not even have time to ramp up the link before the available data in the transmitter buffer is empty and after a pause for the next data burst, the slow start will begin again. This kind of path would unnecessarily be struggling always in the slow start.
Soon after the ramp-up, there is a possibility of radical fallback because of the congestion behavior or because of a packet loss in the wireless transmission. When the slow start is in the period of ramping up the link throughput, it may happen that a wireless link provides an erroneous packet (relying on the TCP to correct it) so that either the packet or the acknowledgement is missed. This causes the congestion avoidance to radically decrease the slow start threshold value and start with a slow start again.
A major disadvantage of the TCP is that it is completely unaware of the transmission bandwidth available on a path for a flow. TCP extensions improve performance over large bandwidth*delay product paths. TCP performance depends on the product of transfer rate and the round-trip delay. This bandwidth*delay product is the buffer space required at the sender and receiver to obtain maximum throughput. TCP performance problems arise when the bandwidth*delay product is large. This path is referred to as the “fat pipe”. Packet losses can have a catastrophic effect on the throughput, as it may cause the data pipe to drain with every packet loss and require a slow start.
When considering, for example, mobile radio links, the end-to-end path is typically a combination of a wireless radio bearer link (defined for moderate bit rate) with packet error probability and the path through routing network having a “fat pipe”. Thus probing the fat pipe is not possible, and probing the wireless part of the path is not efficient.
When mobile end-to-end applications are getting higher fraction of the traffic, paths of TCP flows are more determined by the radio link bandwidth configured for the radio bearer in the radio network and on the other hand by the terminal capabilities, than the routing network itself. Over the wireless radio interface probing of the TCP flow capacity is not necessarily favorable. For the end-to-end flow over several networks, anyway, it would be likely that it is the radio interface that determines the probing result of the TCP slow start and congestion algorithms.
Furthermore, the loss of packets due to congestion and due to packet errors in the wireless transmission are indistinguishable by the TCP. This is a drawback as the congestion and packet errors have very different origins and would require different actions.
FIG. 1 discloses one solution for determining a context in a mobile communications network. FIG. 1 discloses a plurality of different network elements between user equipment 10 and a server computer 18: a base station (BTS) 12, a radio network controller (RNC) 14, a serving GPRS support node (SGSN) 16, and a gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) 16. A set of different protocol stacks is used between the network elements. In order to send packets to external data networks, the user equipment 10 has to have a special address, that is, a Packet Data Protocol (PDP) address. Furthermore, a PDP context is created between the user equipment 10 and the gateway GPRS support node 16. The PDP context determines the type of the PDP, the PDP address, information on Quality of Service (QoS), and the address of the gateway GPRS support node 16. The PDP context is stored in the user equipment, serving GPRS support node, and gateway GPRS support node. The solution disclosed in Figure, however, does not provide an end-to-end solution between the user equipment 10 and an external data network entity.
Based on the above, there is an obvious need for a solution that would provide well-bounded and balanced operation during data transmission. | 2023-09-10T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/3802 |
A fifth-generation Iowan, Cindy grew up in a tight-knit family on the south side of Des Moines. Cindy’s childhood included weekends and summers spent on her maternal grandparents’ farm in Warren County, 4-H activities, and playing 6-on-6 basketball for the Valley High Tigers. Her parents raised Cindy and her sisters to speak their minds and not be afraid to take on tough fights – even when it was uncomfortable. That is the principle that has defined Cindy’s adult life – from holding state government accountable to the people it serves, to advocating for all-day kindergarten for every child in West Des Moines, to fighting to stop a local government plan to use state park land and private property to build an unnecessary new road.
Following her graduation from the University of Iowa, Cindy worked in strategic planning and leadership development for the Tribune Company in Chicago and earned an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. She and her husband John later moved to Wisconsin, where they started their small business. When their sons were 3 and 1, Cindy and John moved back to Iowa to raise their family in her hometown.
In 2007, when her older son started kindergarten, Cindy learned that full-day kindergarten was not available to every child in West Des Moines public schools, with eligibility determined by a lottery. Cindy was outraged at the inequity of the system and concerned that students were being shortchanged. She spent the following academic year advocating and negotiating with principals, the school board and the superintendent. After nearly a year, her efforts paid off and full-day kindergarten was made available to all students in the district.
From 2005 to 2014, Cindy worked for the State of Iowa, helping over twenty different state agencies deliver government services more effectively and efficiently for taxpayers. Since then, she has focused on growing the digital design firm she runs with her husband John.
Cindy is active in her church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and serves as a mentor with the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center at the University of Iowa. She lives in West Des Moines with John and their teenage sons. | 2024-03-24T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4928 |
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Roseburg-Sutherlin Christmas Bird Count--Dec 16, 2017
Thirty-five eager participants counted birds for this year's Roseburg-Sutherlin CBC! It was exciting and fun to have some new faces join us this year! Thank-you Kelly B, Ken/Linda/Melissa B, Eric C, Lori D, Bill and Nancy F, Shawn H, Kevin K, Sidney P, and Greg Z for your efforts!!! Also new this year: Mark Hamm and his helper Kelby Fujii organizing the count for the first time, as well as the countdown meeting location "The Roost," a room owned by Mark. And it just gets better: in addition to Serge Queant's fabulous seafood chowder, several others brought chili, fresh veggies, bread/rolls, wine, and desserts. All told it was a fabulous count and countdown gathering!
We were fortunate to not have rain on count day, but the fog was thick in most places until a short break in the afternoon before it again returned for the evening. Temperatures were in the 40s.
During the countdown event we tallied 110 species, but additional tally sheets came in and we ended up with 116 species for this year's count, one of the highest ever (maximum 120, average 110). Birders counted and/or tallied 39,149 birds for this year's Roseburg-Sutherlin CBC, almost half of which were AMERICAN ROBINS (17,985).
One new species was detected for the count, a BARRED OWL along Oakhill Road, by Keith Phifer. Before sunrise, Keith had been calling for a variety of owls and, hearing nothing, got in his car and began turning around. In his headlights he noticed an owl perched on a nearby wooden fence post. Keith saw it was a Barred Owl and was able to get a photo to verify the first record for the Roseburg-Sutherlin CBC. There are undoubtedly a dozen or perhaps several dozen of this species within the count circle, but they are not as vocal or responsive as some owls to recorded calls. Even though the owl did not make a sound, Keith's efforts, diligence, and awareness paid off.
Barred Owl photo by Keith Phifer
Species detected that have been recorded 10 or fewer times over the 44 years of the count, include AMERICAN BITTERN (4th time), AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN (4th), THAYER'S GULL (7th), SORA (10th). Other unusual species observed this year (occurring on fewer than 1/3 of counts) include CHIPPING SPARROW, BARROW'S GOLDENEYE, SAY'S PHOEBE, and ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER.
Record high counts tallied this year include PEREGRINE FALCON (6), SPOTTED TOWHEE (354), YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER (423), WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH (39), and AMERICAN ROBIN (17,985).
Record (or tied) low counts this year include LESSER SCAUP (2), WESTERN SCREECH-OWL (1), and WHITE-THROATED SPARROW (1).
Species missed that have been recorded on more than two-thirds of previous counts include (and number of counts in which recorded): PILEATED WOODPECKER (36), AMERICAN PIPIT (32), and GREEN HERON (31).
With new faces participating in organizing the CBC, counting birds, and bringing food to the count, and a new location, I think this CBC is going in a good direction. Thank-you to everyone who participated this year and/or contributed in some way. Building bird data and building friendships is a good way to spend a winter day!!!
Thank-you again to Jeannie Pollock for entering everyone's tally sheet
data into her spreadsheet and eventually to the national CBC database! The variability in people's writing
is tremendous and Jeannie conquers this challenge and gets it all
entered!!! | 2023-12-21T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/6054 |
Teetotal Recall - Recap
The episode begins with Fitz feeling like Genghis Kahn after winning the elections. Its Fitz’s first day at office. He enters a council meeting and mentions how he needs the sanction to open his bar. He is told by the head of the council in other words the mayor that, they are deadlocked on some other resolutions and hence all new resolutions will only be entertained after the ones at hand are resolved. Basically, he is told his petition would be heard in 3 years time. Later, Larry and Dot try to pacify Fitz in their respective ways. Fitz who is extremely frustrated fires Dot telling her that, being friends with her did not do him much good.
Dot isn’t too happy with getting fired and threatens Fitz before leaving. Larry expresses his happiness at Dot being fired, but Fitz informs him that he too is fired. Larry who is hurt, talks to Josh about it. Josh suggests Larry get even with Fitz and takes out his big book of “Revenge Plots”. Larry feels the suggestions in the book are a bit extreme. He says he doesn’t want revenge, but Josh threatens him into taking revenge on Fitz. Fitz on the other hand speaks his mind to Ali. She asks him to stick to what he is good at. Fitz doesn’t really know what he is good at, but Ali reminds him that he is a born salesman. Ali suggests that if Fitz wants his job done, he should “go after the mayor”. Ali mentions how the mayor doesn’t “have a backbone” and also has “a drinking problem”.
Then suddenly they are both turned on and begin making out. Later, Fitz meets up with the mayor Barry Andrews, at a strip-joint. Fitz offers him a drink and although he initially refuses, he is later on hooked. The drinks then keep rolling in, and Fitz gives Barry a few lessons on how he should do his job. Eventually it seems, like the mayor is sold to Fitz’s ways. Larry tells Dot he is going to apologize to Fitz and ask for his job back, as he feels his actions will teach Fitz the power of forgiveness. She feels that won’t really help. Dot instead suggests Larry crush Fitz, so he comes crawling back to him. At the strip joint, the mayor and Fitz are enjoying lap dances.
While they are at it, Fitz brings up his ordinance that he needs passed. The mayor is enjoying so much that, he immediately agrees to pass the ordinance. Just then, Larry enters the joint and apologizes to Fitz. While Larry is at it, he is shocked to see that it’s Iris who is giving Fitz a lap dance. Fitz reveals that it was he who put Iris up to the task of befriending Larry. Larry is hurt and angry that despite Fitz knowing how he feels about Iris, Fitz opted for Iris to give him a lap dance. Larry in rage, storms out of the joint. Fitz and Barry go back to the council meeting, where Barry appoints Fitz the deputy mayor. Fitz’s ordinance is then passed by the mayor. The two then head back to the strip joint.
Larry who is done apologizing meets up with Dot, Ruptal 1 and Chester, who are planning to bring down Fitz. “We have the resources, we have the manpower, now we just need a plan” Dot says. Larry says he has a plan. “We will hit Fitz where it hurts” he says. Later, Dot and Larry meet up with the mayor. Dot basically offers to have wild sex with the mayor, if he does her bidding. The mayor seems sold to the idea. “We have a by-law to pass” she then tells him. Later an ordinance is passed, making Coverton a dry town. Basically, prohibition is declared in Coverton. Which in other words means Fitz shall never be able to open a bar in the town. Later, Fitz has a talk with the mayor and asks him to “repeal prohibition”.
The mayor doesn’t seem too sure about it, so Fitz gives him one of his pep talks. Just then Dot and Larry rushes into the mayor’s office and urges him to not listen to Fitz. The mayor seems confused, but Fitz rushes the mayor out of his office and to the town city council. Chester wants Ali to come back to him. Ali tries to convince him that they have broken up, but Chester will hear none of it. In the end, Ali left with no other option admits to Chester that the baby is Fitz’s. Later at the council meeting a livid Chester, confronts Fitz about it. Fitz makes sure he is removed from the meeting. Larry then enters the meeting and makes his case with a heartfelt speech which seems to work.
The mayor as a result declares a state of emergency, and passes an order to make sure “prohibition sticks”. Later Larry and Fitz have a chat. He makes it clear to Larry that it was he who hired Iris to keep Larry, company. Larry is moved to hear this and feels Fitz did this because he cares about him. Fitz though, says he did it to stop Larry from screwing up his campaign. Larry still feels it was nice gesture on Fitz’s part. Fitz doesn’t care what Larry feels as he is too hurt and enraged. Fitz as a result, gets into his car and drives away. The mayor on the other hand is suffering from pangs of guilt, for betraying his good friend Fitz.
Fitz sees on the news that the mayor has met with an accident and his life is now “hanging by a thread”. Therefore Fitz, who is the deputy mayor, shall now be the acting mayor of the town. Fitz is overjoyed at this sudden turn of events. The episode ends at this point. | 2024-04-15T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/7899 |
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Behind in polls, Onorato works the campaign trail
August 6, 2010
Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania Governor may be trailing in the polls but he’s been busy trolling for any votes he can get.
In the blistering heat yesterday, you might expect to find Dan Onorato at a lakeside cottage, resting for the fall campaign. Instead he was in a crisply-pressed suit at a West Philadelphia business center, chatting up workers and business owners, many of whom hadn’t a clue who he was. For his efforts, Onorato met a few dozen voters, and he drew a handful of local reporters. Was it worth it?
Polls show him trailing his Republican opponent, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, and Onorato says it’s a must to spend time in the Philadelphia area.
“Tom and I are both from the West – they know me in the west, and I’m in the Northeast and Erie,” he says. “Philadelphia and the Philadelphia region are going to be key to turning around the economy. And yes, I’m here cause I want the people to get to know who I am, and what I stand for.”
Villanova University Assistant Professor of Political Science Lara Brown says the candidates are running different kinds of campaigns.
“Onorato is looking out to kind of engage the voters and run a grassroots campaign,” she says. “I think Corbett is running a smart campaign. He’s kind of staying off trail and lying low but raising money. And really kind of riding the favorable wave that he’s already on.”
With just months to go, the race to replace Ed Rendell is far from a done deal: polls show Onorato within eleven points with many voters still undecided. | 2023-08-04T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/4853 |
Increase in PGE2 and TXA2 in the saliva of common migraine patients. Action of calcium channel blockers.
PGE2 and TXA2 levels and their modulation by nicardipine, a calcium blocking agent, have been studied in patients suffering from migraine. The levels of both metabolites were determined in saliva obtained during the migraine attacks, during the intervals between attacks, and after 2 months of treatment with nicardipine (20 mg every 8 h.) or placebo. The therapeutic response was evaluated on the basis of the number of migraine attacks. The results show a significant increase in the levels of both eicosanoids during the migraine attacks. In contrast to the placebo group, the number of migraine attacks and the levels of both arachidonic acid metabolites are markedly lower in the nicardipine group. Our results suggest calcium entry into the cytosol as an explanation for the increase in PGE2 and TXA2. Nicardipine interferes with calcium mobilization, thereby inhibiting arachidonic acid metabolite synthesis. | 2024-07-23T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5166 |
This collection challenges the popular but abstract concept of nudging, demonstrating the real-world application of behavioral economics in policy-making and technology. Groundbreaking and practical, it considers the existing political incentives and regulatory institutions that shape the environment in which behavioral policy-making occurs, as well as alternatives to government nudges already provided by the market. The contributions discuss the use of regulations and technology to help consumers overcome their behavioral biases and make better choices, considering the ethical questions of government and market nudges and the uncertainty inherent in designing effective nudges. Four case studies - on weight loss, energy efficiency, consumer finance, and health care - put the discussion of the efficiency of nudges into concrete, recognizable terms. A must-read for researchers studying the public policy applications of behavioral economics, this book will also appeal to practicing lawmakers and regulators.
Contents
Foreword
- Tyler Cowen, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Introduction: Regulation versus Technology as Tools of Behavior Change
- Sherzod Abdukadirov, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
PART I: THEORY
Chapter 1: Overview of Behavioral Economics and Policy
- Mark D. White, College of Staten Island, CUNY
Chapter 2: The Four Pillars of Behavioral Paternalism
- Mario J. Rizzo, New York University
Chapter 3: Failing Better: What We Learn by Confronting Risk and Uncertainty
- Adam Thierer, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Chapter 4: Behavioral Nudges and Consumer Technology
- Steve Wendel, Morningstar, Inc.
Chapter 5: Private-Sector Nudging: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertain
- Jodi N. Beggs, Northeastern University
Chapter 6: Who Should Nudge?
- Sherzod Abdukadirov, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
PART II: CASE STUDIES
Chapter 7: Weight-Loss Nudges: Market Test or Government Guess?
- Michael Marlow, California Polytechnic State University
Chapter 8: Nudging in an Evolving Marketplace: How Markets Improve Their Own Choice Architecture
- Adam C. Smith, Johnson & Wales University
- Todd Zywicki, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Chapter 9: One Standard to Rule Them All: The Disparate Impact of Energy Efficiency Regulations
- Sofie E. Miller, George Washington University
- Brian F. Mannix, George Washington University
Chapter 10: Nudges in Health Care
- Robert Graboyes, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
- Jessica Carges, Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Chapter 11: Conclusion: Behavioral Economics and Policy Interventions
- Richard Williams, Mercatus Center at George Mason University | 2024-03-01T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1960 |
Q:
Package APPX in APPXBUNDLE
I currently have one UWP app submitted in the Windows Store, now I want to publish an update. This update is based on Electron, so its not an UWP app anymore.
I just wanted to submit the Electron Application to the Windows Store, but I am getting this error message:A previous submission for this app was released with a Windows 10 .msixbundle or .appxbundle. Subsequent submissions must continue to contain a Windows 10 .msixbundle or .appxbundle.
The Electron app is packaged with electron-builder and the resulting file is an appx file. Previously I packaged the app with Visual Studio and the resulting file was an appxbundle.
According to this error message I must submit an .msixbundle or .appxbundle file. Can I just create an .appxbundle that contains the Electron .appx file and then submit the app to the Windows Store?
Thanks
A:
Here is the promised answer to my own question.
As I already mentioned you must stick with the bundle format you initially submitted your App to the Microsoft App Store. So .appxbundle in my case.
I am using electron-builder which spits out an .appx which I then bundle into an .appxbundle using an afterAllArtifactBuildHook
Here is the afterAllArtifactBuildHook.js located in the build/hooks folder of my electron project. It automatically utilizes the already cached winCodeSign tools from electron-builder so it ensures everything matches.
Note: This is geared towords macOS and a functional Parallels desktop installation with Windows 10 already setup to build .appx files
var path = require("path"),
fs = require("fs"),
glob = require("glob"),
childProcess = require('child_process');
exports.default = function(buildResult) {
buildResult.artifactPaths.forEach(function(appxPath) {
if (appxPath.endsWith(".appx")) {
convertAppx2AppxBundle(appxPath);
}
});
};
/**
* Converts a Unix Path to a Windows conforming path by replacing any "/" with "\"
* @return {string}
*/
String.prototype.windowsify = function windowsify() {
return this.replace(/\//g, "\\");
}
/**
* Converts the given appx to an appxbundle used for Windows Store submission
* @note This function utalizes the parallels desktop tool "prlctl" to execute windows commands via macOS
* @param appxPath
*/
function convertAppx2AppxBundle(appxPath) {
try {
console.log("Converting Appx to Appxbundle...")
// We'll use electron-builder's winCodeSign tools which are conveniently already available in the following dir
var electronBuilderDir = path.join(process.env.HOME, "Library/Caches/electron-builder"), // Don't use "~" it will just not work, trust me...
// Will use the first matching windowsCodeSigning path as we may have multiple versions installed
makeAppX = glob.sync(path.join(electronBuilderDir, "winCodeSign", "winCodeSign-*", "windows-10", "x64", "makeappx.exe"))[0],
appxBundleMapFile = // This file is required by the makeappx.exe to generate the appxbundle
'[Files]\n' +
'"\\\\Mac\\AllFiles' + appxPath.replace(/\//g, "\\") + '"\t\t"Loxone.appx"';
// Save the generated AppxBundle.map file to the filesystem to make it available for the Windows VM
fs.writeFileSync(path.join(__dirname, "..", "AppxBundle.map"), appxBundleMapFile, { flag: "w" });
var prlctlArgs = [
'exec',
'"Windows 10"', // the name of the specific Windows VM
'--current-user', // We want to execute the following command with the current user
// From this point on its the default Windows CLI command for converting an .appx to an .apppxbundle
// Its important to know that these parts must conform to the Windows style, hence the windowsify function
// We also need to use double quotation for the network shares due to how childProcess.execSync works...
'"\\\\\\Mac\\AllFiles' + makeAppX.windowsify() + '"',
'bundle',
'/f',
'"\\\\\\Mac\\AllFiles' + (__dirname.replace("/hooks", "") + "/AppxBundle.map").windowsify() + '"',
'/p',
'"\\\\\\Mac\\AllFiles' + appxPath.windowsify() + 'bundle"',
'/o'
];
// Now just execute the command to convert the appx to an appxbundle
childProcess.execSync('prlctl ' + prlctlArgs.join(" "), { stdio: 'inherit' });
console.log("Done converting Appx to Appxbundle");
} catch (e) {
console.warn("Couldn't convert appx two appxbundle!");
console.error(e);
}
}
| 2023-12-28T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/5655 |
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter is so concerned about the NSA spying scandal that he thinks it has essentially resulted in a suspension of American democracy.
“America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy,” he said at an event in Atlanta on Tuesday sponsored by the Atlantik Bruecke, a private nonprofit association working to further the German-U.S. relationship. The association's name is German for “Atlantic bridge.”
Carter’s remarks didn't appear in the American mainstream press but were reported from Atlanta by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, whose Washington correspondent Gregor Peter Schmitz said on Twitter he was present at the event. The story doesn't appear in the English-language section of the Spiegel website and is only available in German.
The 39th U.S. president also said he was pessimistic about the current state of global affairs, wrote Der Spiegel, because there was “no reason for him to be optimistic at this time.” Among the developments that make him uneasy, Carter cited the “falling of Egypt under a military dictatorship.” As president, Carter managed to get then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin to sign the Camp David peace agreements in 1979.
Carter said a bright spot was “the triumph of modern technology,” which enabled the democratic uprisings of the Arab Spring; however, the NSA spying scandal, Carter said, according to Der Spiegel, endangers precisely those developments, “as major U.S. Internet platforms such as Google or Facebook lose credibility worldwide.” | 2024-01-11T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/1422 |
Trace Metals in the Urine and Hair of a Population in an Endemic Arsenism Area.
There have been few investigations of trace elements in the urine and hair of populations exposed to high levels of arsenic (As) in drinking water. Therefore, concentrations of selected metals in urine and hair samples from a population in a study area where arsenism was endemic and a control area were determined. It was found that the median concentrations of barium (Ba), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), and As in the urine samples from the population in the study area were 3.87, 0.47, 0.50, 61.84, 26.82, 1.33, 128.45, 7.05, 1.10, 233.75, and 339.63 μg/L, respectively. The corresponding values in the urine samples from a population in the control area were 29.08, 0.19, 0.21, 27.77, 10.32, 4.61, 14.01, 2.19, 3.90, 113.92, and 20.28 μg/L, respectively. In the study area, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn excreted in the urine were likely to be mainly derived from drinking water with high levels of arsenic. The median concentrations of Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Zn, and As in the hair samples from the study area were 4.16, 0.03, 0.09, 1.09, 6.54, 1.97, 0.06, 0.53, 1.64, 144.28, and 1.67 mg/kg, respectively. The corresponding values from the control area were 4.76, 0.03, 0.02, 1.41, 8.31, 1.34, 0.07, 0.39, 0.86, 154.58, and 0.29 mg/kg, respectively. Significant positive correlations were observed between As and Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mo, Ni, Pb, and Zn in the urine in the study area. However, As was not positively associated with these metals in the hair samples. Exposure to high levels of As in drinking water increased the accumulation of Ba and Mn in the hair and the excretion of Cd, Cu, and Mo in the urine in the study area. The population in the study area might experience Cu and Mo deficiencies for an increasing excretion of Cu and Mo. | 2023-10-06T01:26:59.872264 | https://example.com/article/2324 |
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