The price of gems was the constant topic at this year's Tucson gem show, with prices on many gems up 30% from last year. This looks like a trend we'll have to learn to live with.
But there was a time, not so many years ago, when an astute buyer, waiting at a mine in a remote location in Asia or Africa, could buy newly discovered gems at cheap prices. The miners needed money and didn't really know what the finished gems sold for in America or Europe.
Those days are gone, and probably gone forever. The internet has made prices transparent, and the miners are now fully aware of the value of the gems they find. There are no longer bargains at the mines and the prices on rough stone have risen significantly.
But price transparency is not the only factor driving gem prices higher. New buyers have entered the market, especially from China, and they are everywhere -- at the mines, at gem shows and at dealers' offices around the world. They are paying high prices in order to acquire scarce material, and the result has been a rapid increase in the price of even fairly ordinary gems.
Dealers have to be especially resourceful now to find good gems at reasonable prices. For some dealers, the solution is to maintain prices by stocking lower quality stones. That will never be our strategy. We still buy the best gems we can find, and keep prices as low as possible by cutting the rough material ourselves. We are confident that we offer the lowest prices on fine gems and we are one of the few high end dealers that publish our prices for all the world to see. Indeed, our website has become a de facto pricing authority for many dealers, who come to our site to check current prices on ruby, sapphire, spinel and tourmaline.
In colored gems, as in most products, you get what you pay for (and sometimes less). Given the price of precious metals and the cost of jewelry fabrication, it makes no sense to set an inferior gem in jewelry. Unlike most consumer items, a fine gem will be handed down through generations. Buy quality and value, and the investment you make in gemstones will last many lifetimes.
While gem prices are going up, this month we feature some especially good values from our collection.
A gorgeous pink-orange Imperial Topaz from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Beautifully cut and absolutely clean. The still photo cannot do this gem justice, you have to see the video to appreciate just how fine a gem this is.
Terrific color and excellent cutting in a hard-to-find round. Very good clarity for rubellite. Though under 4 carats, this is an impressive stone at 10.45 mm and will make a gorgeous ring or pendant.
An outstanding example of fine blue zircon from Cambodia -- wonderful color saturation and superb clarity (graded loupe clean). Beautifully cut with nice proportions Really a perfect gem!
A bright golden-green sphene from Madagascar with excellent fire. Exceptionally clean and well cut, this fine gem has the glitter the makes sphene so popular with collectors. Guaranteed natural and untreated.
Danburite is not well known, but it is a good jewelry stone (hardness of 7) that occurs in pale yellow, yellowish brown or light pink. But it is the clean colorless stones which are most popular as gemstones, particularly in larger sizes. This 10.89 ct Danburite ifrom Mexico is loupe clean and nicely cut, at a very affordable price. Completely natural and untreated.
Thailand is famous for the black sapphires with the gold star, but these days all the high quality material has mined, and and most new material has been fracture-filled. We still have a stock in fine untreated stones, including a number of pieces over 10 carats.
Army troops have been deployed to guard a 20 ton jadeite stone discovered in Hpakant in northern Burma. The stone, said to be 5.5 meters (18 feet) long, is half buried underground. It was discovered by a small-scale miner on February 9th. Burma produces the vast majority of the world's jadeite, and the Burmese jade is of the highest quality. Most jadeite is sourced from the Hpakant area, 350 kilometers north of Mandalay, in the mountains of Kachin State.
According to a story in The Guardian, Apple has invested in a manufacturing facility in Arizona to make mobile phone displays from synthetic sapphire. Currently most smartphone screens are made from chemically hardened glasses such as Corning's Gorilla Glass. But sapphire is a much harder material and has been used for high-end watch crystals for years. But it is expensive and difficult to manufacture in very thin slices.
We provide still photos of our gems taken under balanced lighting (5000 Kelvin) against neutral backgrounds. We also provide videos of many of our gems. Though we sometimes receive requests for hand shots, we have never quite understood the point of that. A gem could look quite different depending on the skin color and texture and size of the hand.
Thailand has a fledgling democracy that has been going through growing pains since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. Political rallies are a fact of life for residents here, and protracted street protests seem to happen every few years. Even then daily life in Bangkok seems to go on more or less normally. It has been business as usual for us, even though one of the largest protest sites is located just down Silom Rd. from our office. Unfortunately there have been some isolated violent incidents that have shocked the Thais as well as the international community. But this is not Egypt or Ukraine, and the protests are normally peaceful and the police and military are restrained. We hope the situation will get back to normal soon.


text:
For A Pilot Test Of PISA For Schools In The United States
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) administers tests to fifteen-year-olds in countries around the world every three years. In 2010, we gave OECD funding to design a similar assessment, called PISA for Schools, to be administered at the school, district, and network levels. This grant would fund a pilot of that exam in 100 schools in the United States. The aim is to validate the plan for managing services, costs, and reporting as well as to improve the test's long-term relevance and viability by getting feedback from users. Other likely funders are Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Kern Family Foundation.
www.oecd.org
2, rue André-Pascal Cedex 16, Paris, 75775, France
for refinement and global scale-up of the PISA-based Test for Schools
OECD proposes to advance the PISA-Based Test for Schools pilot through refinements that include shifting to computer delivery of the test and laying the groundwork for its worldwide expansion. Australia, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom/England, and Hong Kong/China have expressed interest in adopting the assessment.
for researching the evidence base on open educational resources
OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation conducts educational research, with an emphasis on emerging trends and issues. The proposed study aims to explore OER's economic, social, and educational benefits and stimulate an international policy dialogue on OER.
for an analytical report on the results of the 2012 PISA test in the United States
OECD will publish results from the 2012 round of its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) this December. The report covers all 65 countries participating in the study and will show international trends. This proposal is to produce an analytical report specifically focused on the United States, to be released on the same day as the PISA international report. The U.S. report would provide a descriptive analysis of U.S. performance in math, reading, and science compared with other participating countries. It would then provide a deeper analysis of math performance by looking into the categories in which U.S. 15-year-old students perform comparatively well and those where they compare less well, in relation to performance patterns in high-performing education systems around the world. Finally, the report would seek to draw conclusions from the analysis that can help inform priorities for the teaching and learning of math in U.S. schools and relate these to the Common Core Standards. Publishing the report at the same time as the PISA international report will help maximize the impact of the findings for the United States and inform the national debate on raising standards in U.S. schools.
4 principles to help educators teach politically charged topics
Landscape Analysis of Professional Learning on Education Issues in the California Legislature: Executive Summary
Twenty years of Open Educational Resources: Building robust networks for innovation

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Three Days is an American television film directed by Michael Switzer and starring Kristin Davis, Reed Diamond and Tim Meadows. It premiered on ABC Family in 2001 as a part of its 25 Days of Christmas programming block and was filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was the last movie produced for Fox Family, as Disney-ABC officially acquired the network in October 2001. The film received a limited Region 2 DVD release, in PAL format. The film had been available on the Disney+ streaming service from launch in 2019 until October 2022.

Summary
Ten years ago, Andrew Farmer (Reed Diamond) married his childhood sweetheart, Beth (Kristin Davis) and the two live in Boston, Massachusetts. Now Andrew is a high-powered literary agent, and his relationship with his wife has not fared as well. After a marital argument about his possible infidelity on Christmas Eve, Beth runs out at midnight and, while trying to retrieve their neighbors' dog in the middle of the street, is killed by a car. An angel, Lionel (Tim Meadows), gives Andrew the chance to relive the last three days as if his wife was alive. However, he cannot change the fate of his wife. There's only one gift he can give to save her life and he only has a very short time to figure out what that gift is. So Andrew spends three days trying to make Beth as happy and figure how to keep her alive, while finding out what he would really be losing.

Cast
 Kristin Davis	...	Beth Farmer
 Reed Diamond	...	Andrew Farmer
 Danielle Brett	...	Kimberly
 Tim Meadows	...	Lionel
 Cedric Smith
 Alexa Gilmour	...	Megan Harrison Hopkins

Production
The original story and teleplay was conceived and written by Robert Tate Miller while living in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. "I was inspired by Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life," Miller said. "I wanted to write a story with heart and, unlike most scripts which take many weeks to hammer out, Three Days came very quickly. It was as if the story wrote itself."

See also
 List of Christmas films
 List of films about angels

External links
 TCM Link
 TV Episode

2001 television films
2001 films
American Christmas films
ABC Family original films
2001 fantasy films
Christmas television films
Saban Entertainment films
American fantasy films
Films directed by Michael Switzer
2000s American films

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


As every parent knows, kids have a lot of energy, which means they need plenty of exercise. That is why kids parties near Doral should incorporate active indoor or outdoor playtime. When you pick a party place to celebrate any special occasion, be sure to pick a venue that gives kids a safe and spacious area to play. Continue reading to learn how outdoor activities, planned events, and fitness classes can help you and your kids stay active together.
Stay fit with the whole family by planning one outdoor activity each week that allows everyone to participate. In the summer, consider adding hiking, biking, or swimming to the schedule. Sledding is always a fun winter activity. If it is too chilly outside, invite the kids to join in an indoor game of hide and seek. Take along some healthy snacks so your kids look forward to these fun times.
If you have kids, you and your friends who are parents are always looking for birthday ideas. In addition to planning your own kids birthdays, offer to pitch in and help plan other birthday parties. Not only will other parents appreciate the help, but it will give you a chance to integrate physical activities to keep everyone fit. Playgrounds and ball pits are fun for the whole family and give kids the chance to burn off extra energy. Birthday party venues often offer help planning a private party to take some of the stress away from planning.
Another idea that will keep you and your little ones active together is signing up for whole family fitness classes. Many fitness clubs and community centers offer yoga, aerobics, and dance classes designed for parents and kids alike. If your little one is too young to participate, consider pushing him or her in a stroller for long walks. There are also many baby and me yoga and pilates classes.


News > Which Color Hardwood Should I Get?
Which Color Hardwood Should I Get?
If you're renovating a house, or remodeling a condo or apartment for rental purposes, deciding which color of hardwood flooring to get can be an intimidating process. One reason selecting the perfect color can seem so overwhelming is due to the sheer number of shades available. From dark oak browns to golden oak colors, to distressed red tones, to beautiful cherry finishes and more, it is great to have options, but narrowing down the benefits of each hue will help you to choose just the right color for your design purposes. Follow these easy guidelines to discover how to select the floor color that will bring both beauty and practicality to your space.
A couple of things to consider when choosing a floor color for a rental home are the need to have a neutral shade that will work well for diverse tastes in design, as well as a color that can hold up to frequent traffic. Many times, college students or busy professionals come and go through their rentals and don't have a lot of time to clean floors. A medium to light shade, such as a light antiqued oak brown will be ideal for rental homes. This shade does not show footprints as much as its darker counterparts, and it is also neutral enough to compliment a variety of design styles.
When you're remodeling a rental home or apartment, it's important to keep in mind that some renters may prefer traditional design themes while others may enjoy modern or industrial styles. The light brown hues will be flexible for many different décor themes, and it will also maintain an attractive appearance in a high-traffic area.
Does my pet shed frequently?
Do I need a floor that will not need to be swept or dust-mopped daily?
Do my pets go in and out a lot?
If your pet sheds on a regular basis, a darker color may not be the best option, unless you're willing to clean the floor several times a week. Darker colors, such as a formal red, dark walnut brown, or a mahogany, will show pet hairs and dusty footprints far more than the lighter shades will reveal. However, if you're someone who daily runs a duster over your floor and you love the darker colors, then this option will still be practical for you. Easy-to-maintain colors for pet owners include light pine, golden oak, and distressed greys. Not only will these shades blend well with numerous types of design styles, but they also help to maintain your sanity if you don't have the time to clean daily.
Will my office have a lot of foot traffic?
Will my office be formal or informal?
What type of atmosphere do I want to set for customers or clients?
Will I have a regular cleaning person or will I be responsible for cleaning and tidying the office at the end of each day?
Do I live in an area where it is dusty or gets a lot of rain?
If your office is going to be a formal office, such as a law, accounting, advertising, or medical business, setting a formal to the semi-formal atmosphere is typical. This formal atmosphere can be enhanced by beautiful cherry or antique coffee-colored floors, and sophisticated grey colors also work well. If you'll have a regular cleaning service, that may help you to determine if you need a low, medium, or high-maintenance color. If someone is designated to clean the floors each day, you can easily get away with a beautiful formal color, and the antique coffee-colored floors are very "in" for offices.
If your office is going to be informal and more relaxed in atmosphere, you'll also want to consider the type of furniture you'll have in your office. If you have dark-colored bookcases and desks, you'll probably want to avoid pine and light oak or bamboo-colored finishes. Grey is a beautiful color for floors that compliments a lot of different furniture, and it also has a modern, urban appeal, making it an ideal shade for business use.
Chestnut hickory or a light oak chestnut offers an attractive blend of warmth and functionality for busy individuals and families. These types of medium-shade colors do not show every footprint, and they work well with traditional, rustic, lodge, and early-American design themes. For more contemporary and urban designs, silver oak, bamboo colors, and acacia blends offer uniqueness and an urban style. No matter which type of style you're shooting for, contacting Loudoun Valley Floors is the first step to take to see your options in hardwoods and to receive professional assistance in selecting premium products that will meet all your flooring needs.


Android Development Tools 17.0.0 Preview4 download by Google android Development Tools (ADT) is a plugin for the Eclipse IDE that is designed to give you a powerful, integrated environment in which to build android applications.
Android Tools 0.04 download by Field Bird android Tools is a lightweight IDE for creating, building, emulating and signing android applications. android Tools includes point and click access to the android commands, documents, directories and files. It also includes a built-in text editor.
AWS SDK for Android 1.4.4 download by Amazon.com, Inc. AWS SDK for android was designed as an open source library that can help you develop android applications that leverage AWS.
The SDK helps users remove the development complexity by providing Java APIs for many AWS services including Amazon S3, Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, and DynamoDB.
Android Unused Resources 1.6.2 download by Scott Kennedy android Unused Resources is a handy application that can be used by the developers of android applications to find unused resources. You can run the application in command line mode in order to scan a specific folder.
This tool is designed to identify the resources that are not associated with your project and occupy precious hard disk space.
PDFViewer SDK 2.07d download by Radaee & GEAR.it PDViewer SDK is a flexible and easy to implement library that you can use to integrate PDF viewing capabilities into your android applications.
With PDViewer SDK, your application will provide users with PDF rendering capacity. The SDK can generate a PDF index structure and integrates text search and selection features.
FT311D Configuration 1.0 download by Future Technology Devices International Ltd. FT311D Configuration is a lightweight utility that was designed to provide a simple means of adjusting descriptor strings for connecting android applications with FT311D chip equipped hardware.
This program will enable you to pair the device and the app as soon as the string configuration is tested and complete.
Easy-to-Use Mobile App Builder 2014 download by IWSolutions Make iOS applications, android applications & BlackBerry applications - multiple goals achieved! No third-party software from other vendors required. URL: http://mobile-app-builder.easy-to-use-solutions.com. Make iOS applications, android applications & BlackBerry applications - multiple goals achieved! No third-party software from other vendors required.
Handcent Smileys Plugin (Andro 1.0 download by handcent_market This is stock android smileys plugin for Handcent SMS ,if you are using some android phone (for example: Droid X ,Droid2,SE X10) that didn't include stock green android smileys icons but you want to use stock green android smileys ,you can download it and apply from handcent settings->application settings->smileys settings.
Qik Video 17.63.0 download by Skype Software SARL Video chat, video mail and video share for free with Qik Video for android phones - download the app today and start streaming live videos with friends and family around the world. * Record and instantly share videos online straight to your favorite social network from your mobile phone.
* Share moments through SMS or email with video mail1.
* Live video streaming from your mobile phone to the web, Facebook, Twitter and more.
The R&A Rules of Golf 1.0 download by The R&A Golf enthusiasts with an android should download The R&A*s Official Rules App, which offers you the complete Rules package, covering every issue that can arise in a round of golf. From on-course behaviour, through a summary of the fundamental Rules, to the complete Rules of Golf (2012 a€" 2015), you*ll soon find the answer you*re looking for.
Aspose.Email for Android 1.0.0.0 download by Aspose Pty Ltd Aspose.Email for android API enables developers to design android apps for managing & manipulating Outlook email file formats without using MS Outlook. It provides tools to create, read & convert Outlook MSG, PST, EML, EMLX, OST & MHT file formats. Email for android API enables developers to design android applications for managing & manipulating Outlook email file formats without using MS Outlook. It provides tools to create, read & convert Outlook MSG, PST, EML, EMLX, OST & MHT file formats.


An investigation is underway Wednesday morning after an overnight fire heavily damaged an abandoned house and chicken coop near the city's rural eastern border.
Ottawa Fire Services was called to 3565 Larmours Rd. near Birchgrove Road by a 2:30 a.m. 911 call reporting smoke and flames.
They discovered the chicken coop and the house in flames.
The coop was gutted but firefighters worked for another couple of hours to save the house. They were clearing the scene by about 5:30 a.m.
Damage is estimated at $40,000. A fire investigator was called to the scene.
Firefighters tackled two blazes in abandoned homes last month, one on Nicolls Island Road in Manotick June 5 and a second on Ogilvie Rd. near Cyrville Road June 16.


text:
package org.scaladebugger.test.threads

/**
 * Used to receive thread start events from the JVM.
 *
 * @note Set a breakpoint on line 10 to prepare to listen to events before they
 *       occur.
 */
object ThreadStart extends App {
  val x = 1 + 1 // Breakpoint here to listen before threads start

  for (i <- 1 to 10) {
    val t = new Thread()
    t.setName("test thread " + i)
    t.start()
  }

  while (true) { Thread.sleep(1000) }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Fig. 33 represents a photo of the author's hand palming coins in three different styles : ordinary, thumb and finger-palm. It is, of course, on rare occasions found necessary to make use of the three at one time, but it is useful to use two of them when, for instance, the performer desires to change secretly some borrowed coins for substitutes. The latter are first of all ordinary or finger-palmed, and the borrowed ones received and thumb-palmed, the duplicates, which the audience imagine to be the borrowed ones, being simultaneously placed in full view. By means of a judicious combination of the above palms a number of excellent tricks will readily suggest themselves to the performer.


text:
Archive for June 18th, 2009
DorobekInsider: Women In Technology – Government Leaders at the Helm: A New Era — the liner notes
For the past few days on Federal News Radio 1500 AM's Daily Debrief with Chris Dorobek and Amy Morris, we have had an ongoing feature — Women In Government. It has been an opportunity to look at government in a different way. Those reports were leading up to an event tonight hosted by Women In Technology called Government Leaders at the Helm: A New Era. Qwest's Deirdre K. Murray pulled together a stellar panel:
Linda Cureton, the NASA Goddard CIO
Cindy Moran, DISA's Director of Network for Services
Lisa Schlosser, Director of EPA's Office of Information Collection
Kathleen Turco, GSA's chief financial officer
Kate Hudson Walker, President, Young Government Leaders and Senior Analyst for Strategic Issues, GAO
Molly Wilkinson, Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, Minority Staff Director, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
Lisa Wolfe, the program director for Federal News Radio 1500 AM, was slated to be the moderator, but literally hours before the event, she lost her voice — she got laryngitis. So Wolfe asked me if I could step in… and I was honored to be a part of the program.
We had a wide-ranging discussion — from cloud computing to leadership to the government hiring and workforce issues. Federal News Radio's Jason Miller was there and he will be filing a report in the coming days.
Over all — Wow! What a remarkable group of people — each one of them with unique skills.
* Cloud computing: We had a good discussion about cloud computing and what it means for government. There still seems to be some question about what will be the ultimate driver of cloud computing. In general, most agencies are interested in the potential cost savings, but Moran noted that it also enables agencies to be much more agile There was a question from the audience about whether the government was going to set cloud standards so industry could know what to propose and build. Cureton pushed back suggesting that setting a cloud standard isn't the point. The goal is to have a better tool that helps agencies carry out their missions, and that a federal standard — which would likely take… a long time — would delay that shift.
* Workforce: A lot of discussion about workforce issues, particularly younger people and how to attract them into government jobs. Kate Hudson Walker noted that USAjobs.gov, the federal government job posting site, is… not up to speed. And she said that OPM Director Barry has met with YGL and other groups to get their insights on what can — and needs — to be fixed. (This is the second event I have moderated where we have had a young government leader — the other was the AFFIRM emerging issues round-table that included PTO's Jonathan Bennett — and in both cases, these young feds have added significantly to the discussion and added dimentions that would not have been discussed otherwise.)
There was much more, but… but I'll have to see if there is time later.
One quick aside: Turco mentioned that her father, who lives in California, had sent her a note asking about the WIT conference. Turco asked how he knew about it. Apparently he follows me on Twitter… and I had posted about it.
Meanwhile, links of some of the items mentioned during the session:
Cureton's always remarkable blog
Federal News Radio 1500 AM's Women In Government series
Improving the government hiring process: I mentioned that on Federal News Radio 1500 AM's Daily Debrief, we spoke to Steve Ander, who as of this month has graduated from Harvard's Kennedy School, but… as part of his graduate program, he wrote a report on the government hiring process, From Brain Drain to Brain Gain. Hear our conversation with Ader here.
Drupal.org: Official homepage of the open source content management system; See also more information about Drupal… and Wikipedia's Drupal page…
Federal News Radio Book Club "meeting" for July: Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation by by James P. Andrew with Obama CTO Aneesh Chopra. Read more here…
Federal News Radio Book Club March "meeting": What Would Google Do?
EPA's Schlosser mentioned Jeremy Ames of the Environmental Protection Agency, who worked to get EPA to sponsor the creation of radon public service announcements. That, in turn, spurred the development of a radon social networking group — government as a platform. Read more here.
If I promised other links, let me know and I'll get them posted.
Posted in CIOs, Executives, Government Groups, innovation, Management, procurement, strategy, Technology
@KevinLKlose @WDWToday He's also a sweet and loving person. Proud to be his father. 2 hours ago


2012-05-22 Robert Nagy vf_yadif: Fixed potential access violation on EOF.
2012-05-06 Robert Nagy yadif: Add yuva444p to format list.
2012-04-18 Robert Nagy Reset pts_correction state on codec flush.
2012-04-17 Robert Nagy yadif: Improve pts calculation for is_second.
2012-04-15 Robert Nagy yadif: fixed missing error handling for poll_frame.


text:
Episode 5 — Newgrounds.com
"A living history of the internet." Tom Fulp wasn't wrong when he said that Newgrounds.com was just that.
Tom is the true pioneer to online content creation. His first webspace was up and running in 1995, but four years earlier, at the tender age of 13, Tom sought to bring people together (even if it wasn't initially intended for the web).
Some of the Internet's first truly viral content was created by Tom himself, including a flash game using the likeness of the childhood horror show the Teletubbies that earned him a pretty lawsuit courtesy of PBS. Inside Edition reached out at a time to cover another game — Assassin, a flash game that was uploaded around the same time as Club a Seal — that prompted Tom to purchase the domain name Newgrounds.com, and thus a surviving relic of the early internet was born.
Seriously though, I could not be more excited about the opportunity I had to drop by Newgrounds HQ while I was on vacation in Philadelphia. I honestly tweeted Tom on a whim. Literally. (Also, this was pre-280 characters. How did we even live?)
@TomFulp Hey Tom! I'm producing a podcast &I feel like you would be a perfect candidate for my show! Can you follow me back so I can DM you?
— katykakes (@katy__kakes) September 22, 2017
Learning that The Behemoth has just released a new game, that Newgrounds is developing it's first official title, as well as the things that NG is doing to preserve the extensive collection of content created from the last 20 years now that flash is being laid to rest in 2020 was just a bit mind blowing.
Newgrounds has quite the list of veterans to boast: the creators of games such as Super Meat Boy, Binding of Isaac (God tier, honestly), Rogue Legacy, in addition to the Cyanide & Happiness creators. If these titles are foreign to you, please do some research. Thanks.
Nightmare Cops is the newest title being developed by Tom and the crew over at Newgrounds and you can keep up with the dev team over at the game's official Twitter:
Downtown Destruction on the overworld map 🏢💥🏣🔥🤙 pic.twitter.com/dotHQ7sTo4
— NightmareCops (@NightmareCops) August 17, 2017
Tom asked, really, for just one thing. To realize that Newgrounds still exists and is doing great things.
The reality is that NG has probably influenced your internet and gaming experience in some fashion — whether that be Castle Crashers or the adult games section of the website that absolutely none of us have ever gone to.
https://episodes.castos.com/5eebdf7d0ea462-71969107/848461-newgrounds-com.mp3
Seriously guys, just give the show a listen. You can find a link to download the show or listen on the web here: KakeBytes episode 5!
You can also find the show on Spotify, iTunes, GooglePlay, Stitcher, Overcast, Podcast Addict, TunerFM, and literally most of these million podcatchers. If you're having trouble finding the show on your preferred app please email me at katy@kakebytes.com.
Be sure to find KakeBytes all over the web: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Playing 'Till the Cows Come Home: Why Stardew Valley is the Game of the Decade | Tech Nug	 December 25, 20193:22 am	 Reply
[…] I played a lot of computer games in the 90's, most of which I could purchase at the local computer-related store in my hometown and were educational in some form with the Jump Start! series, Math Blaster, Arthur's Reading Race, Humongous Entertainment (Putt Putt, Pajama Sam, Sly Fox, etc.). This ventured onto games like Zoo Tycoon which gave me a love for simulation games that survives to this day (I'm looking at you, Planet Zoo). There was also so much Neopets in my childhood that I have to force myself to leave you with this single sentence reference, but browser and flash games were a big part of my technology-connected adolescence. (Getting to chat with Tom Fulp from Newgrounds for KakeBytes was a teenage dream come true.) […]


We place great emphasis on Street Light Pole quality, craftsmanship.
Street Light Pole body using a molding, steel rods (Q235) welds shall be smooth, the entire weld rod protruding portion of the rod formation error should not be greater than ± 1mm. Poles treated with preservatives for the hot-dip galvanizing. Zinc coating surface is smooth and beautiful, shiny consistency. Pole surface spray thickness ≧ 100um.
1, Adhesion test, cross of marks with a special adhesive tape vertical stick 12 times without peeling.
2, Zinc coating thickness of the test: either take 30 points, the arithmetic mean is greater than 86um.
3, Resistant to salt spray test: 5% Nacl, 35℃, 96 hours without yellow rust.
4, Zinc coating thickness uniformity test, copper dipping test six times without hanging copper phenomenon.


text:
6 Years Ago September 29, 2014
Holiday Treasure (Melody Anne) Release Date
The book Holiday Treasure (Melody Anne) is already released on Kindle in the USA and UK.
!Report Date / Submit Product
Report Date / Submit Product
September 29, 2014Confirmed
TRACK0
Holiday Treasure (Melody Anne)
Mega wealthy Tanner Storm has it all – great looks, wealth, and nothing holding him down. Then, his father decides to play games with him and his siblings, handing him an apartment complex in downtown Seattle that Tanner wants nothing to do with. When the conditions of his father's terms ensure that he do something with this building or lose his inheritance, he at first thinks, so what. But, then it becomes a challenge that he has to accept, because he's never before backed down. He decides to tear down the building and start fresh with something far more appealing that will add to his already fat wallet. The only problem is that the residents don't want to leave, and under the contract with his father, he can't force them out. When he ends up before Judge Kragle from all the complaints made against him, the judge decides the best punishment for him will be two weeks of living in the very apartment complex he despises and two weeks of community service, playing Santa Claus at the mall. Perfect! This is not the Christmas of his dream.
Melody Anne
Billionaire Bachelors
© 2021 Releases


text:
from django.dispatch.dispatcher import receiver
from django.db.models.signals import post_save

from django_fsm.signals import post_transition

from bluebottle.bb_donations.donationmail import (
    new_oneoff_donation, successful_donation_fundraiser_mail)
from bluebottle.orders.models import Order
from bluebottle.utils.utils import StatusDefinition
from bluebottle.wallposts.models import SystemWallpost

@receiver(post_save, sender=Order)
def _order_status_post_save(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    """
    - Update amount on project when order is in an ending status.
    """

    if instance.status in [StatusDefinition.SUCCESS, StatusDefinition.PENDING,
                           StatusDefinition.PLEDGED, StatusDefinition.FAILED]:

        # Process each donation in the order
        for donation in instance.donations.all():
            # Update amounts for the associated project
            donation.project.update_amounts()

@receiver(post_transition, sender=Order)
def _order_status_post_transition(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    """
    - Get the status from the Order and Send an Email.
    """

    if instance.status in [StatusDefinition.SUCCESS, StatusDefinition.PENDING,
                           StatusDefinition.PLEDGED, StatusDefinition.FAILED]:
        # Is order transitioning into the success or pending state - this should
        # only happen once.

        first_time_success = (
            kwargs['source'] not in [StatusDefinition.PLEDGED,
                                     StatusDefinition.SUCCESS,
                                     StatusDefinition.PENDING]
            and kwargs['target'] in [StatusDefinition.PLEDGED,
                                     StatusDefinition.SUCCESS,
                                     StatusDefinition.PENDING])

        # Process each donation in the order
        for donation in instance.donations.all():
            # Send mail / create wallposts if status transitions in to
            # success/pending for the first time and only if it's a
            # one-off donation.
            if first_time_success and instance.order_type == "one-off":
                if not donation.anonymous:
                    author = donation.order.user
                else:
                    author = None

                successful_donation_fundraiser_mail(donation)
                new_oneoff_donation(donation)

                # Create Wallpost on project wall
                post = SystemWallpost()
                post.content_object = donation.project
                post.related_object = donation
                post.donation = donation
                post.author = author
                post.ip = '127.0.0.1'
                post.save()

                # Create Wallpost on fundraiser wall (if FR present)
                if donation.fundraiser:
                    fr_post = SystemWallpost()
                    fr_post.content_object = donation.fundraiser
                    fr_post.related_object = donation
                    fr_post.donation = donation
                    fr_post.author = author
                    fr_post.ip = '127.0.0.1'
                    fr_post.save()


Primary School Teaching Assistant post/s at The King's School Witney from January 2015. £7.43-£7.93 per hour depending on qualifications and experience. Term time only. Closing date Wed 9th December. Please contact office@tkswitney.org.uk or phone 01993 778463 for further details and to arrange a visit.


Meet Andrea, a California Gal who loves to shop in SoHo. Though hats of all shapes and sizes are having a moment this season, Ameroa particularly loves the versatility of the wide-brim chapeaux that are popping up on celebrities like Elizabeth Olsen and Diane Kruger. Paired with anything from a leather jacket to a t-shirt and jeans, the wide-brim hat gives her look an utterly polished and stylish finish.


text:
K-12 Schools Redland
2021 High Schools with the Best Teachers in RedlandAbout this List
Explore the public high schools with the best teachers serving your area. Ranking based on student and parent ratings of teachers, teacher salaries, teacher absenteeism, teacher tenure, student-teacher ratio, and the Niche Academics Grade for the school. Read more on how this ranking was calculated.
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Richard Montgomery High School
Montgomery County Public Schools, MD
#12 Best Public High School Teachers in Maryland
Parent: My daughter graduated from Richard Montgomery and she got an excellent education! RM is our zoned school but she tested into and was accepted into the IB programme. The teachers were exceptional and compassionate. The administrators were receptive to parental input. We have an amazingly involved PTSA that advocates for staff and students. My daughter applied to eight universities and was accepted to seven. My daughter is now in her freshman year and has transitioned well as she has a strong foundation. The school is diverse and there are extracurricular activities for almost any interest. The students are encouraged to provide input for change. Overall, it's a great environment and my daughter really thrived
18:1 Student-Teacher Ratio
Rockville High School
Parent: High school is never easy, but Billie Jean Bensen is phenomenal and the attitude of the administration trickles down to the staff and the students and makes for a great atmosphere at Rockville HS.
Teachers at Rockville are the absolute best; I feel so fortunate that my kids have had so many wonderful teachers. (This is the kids' opinion, too.) The English department is flawless, and I can only think of 3 teachers (in 7 years) who haven't been great. Extracurriculars are very well run (drama, yearbook, literary mag) but the music/band department lost some great teachers since we started.
Rockville is the smallest high school in the district, so it has fewer course choices than most, and sometimes they combine classes which can be frustrating. And the career counselor needed to retire easily 10 years ago. The IB/AP program is good. They do great work with/for teens, and it's a tough age. I've volunteered often and like what I see. RHS is a haven with teachers who really care. A+!
Col. Zadok Magruder High School
Senior: Magruder has been a thrilling experience. It is a lot smaller than other schools in the county so it was nice to get more one on one time with the teachers who really cared about how the students were doing mentally and academically. The activities were fun and created a sense of togetherness, we did things like the battle of the classes, float, and powderpuff which really brought our classes together and created a friendly competition. We had fundraisers from selling baked goods to the mulch sale where students genuinely wanted to contribute too. We had really helpful programs like ACES that helped us figure out what we want in the future and how to work towards it. One thing I would say needs to improve is the building itself. I believe the size of the school and the number of students don't go well together, it's very packed to the point where it gets difficult to get around. Overall, my experience at Magruder High School was memorable.
Gaithersburg High School
#106 Best Public High School Teachers in Maryland
Senior: The building is nice and the negative attention we've gotten from misguided news sources is not true at all. There are fights at our school just like there are fights at any other school. Most students and teachers I know think that fighting is not as common as those news sources implied.
I think the only thing about our school that needs to change is that this recent year there has been a lot of restrictions placed on students that aren't needed. There has been the locking of bathrooms to avoid students skipping in them during the day. While it might be effective for that, it's disrupting class time for students who are trying to use the bathroom between classes quickly so they don't miss lessons. Students sometimes have resorted to going to entirely different floors to use the bathroom and end up missing a substantial amount of class time.
Regional Institute for Children & Adolescents (RICA) School
Niche User: This school has done a lot for my little brother and has helped him a lot with his behavioral and mental health. Also, the teachers really seem to care about the students. The only thing I will say as a negative is that this school is seriously in need of a renovation.
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Montgomery County Alternative Programs
Senior: This school is like a family. Everyone is constantly checking in on each other and helping with whatever you need. The teachers and staff are excellent and the classes are amazing for college prep.
MCPS Transitions School
Senior: MCPS is one of the United States most diverse county. Each and every student makes a difference. We are all acknowledged for our hard work, dedication and commitment. The staff and faculty members are always here for their students.
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Fairfax Christian School
Parent: A very physically appealing and well located school. The work is advanced in the sense they are ahead of the public schools but this is primarily accomplished with copious amounts of homework. The High School is top notch and a prep-school (for college), however, the lower school (elementary) is not impressive at all. It is very obvious the administration is heavily focused on the upper years and the lower years suffer as a result. There are no breaks, limited lunchtime and tons of homework for such young kids. The clubs are few for younger years (again better in upper). Bible is mandatory but otherwise relatively moderate. Communication overall is average so you have to be engaged. Most teachers are very good but a few are overly strict. In closing, If you have younger children I would highly recommend waiting until they reach middle school or higher before coming here. If you have upper year school children then you have a great prep-school waiting.
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text:
Cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review protocol
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7896-9458Na Eun Kim1,2,
Dominique Vervoot3,
Ahmad Hammouri4,
Cristiana Riboni5,
Hosni Salem6,
Caris Grimes2,7,
Naomi Jane Wright8
1 Department of General Surgery, Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
2 King's College London, London, UK
3 Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
4 Department of Internal Medicine, Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation, Bethlehem, Palestine, State of
5 University of Pavia, Pavia, Lombardia, Italy
6 Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
7 Department of Surgery, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, Gillingham, Kent, UK
8 King's Centre for Global Health and Health Partnerships, King's College London, London, UK
Correspondence to Dr Na Eun Kim; naeun.kim{at}Bmc.org
Introduction Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of death in children under 5 years old globally (591 000 deaths reported in 2016). Over 95% of deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). It is estimated that two-thirds of the congenital anomaly health burden could be averted through surgical intervention and that such interventions can be cost-effective. This systematic review aims to evaluate current evidence regarding the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs.
Methods and analysis A systematic literature review will be conducted in PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scielo, Google Scholar, African Journals OnLine and Regional WHO's African Index Medicus databases for articles on the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs. The following search strings will be used: (1) congenital anomalies; (2) LMICs; and (3) cost-effectiveness of surgical interventions. Articles will be uploaded to Covidence software, duplicates removed and the remaining articles screened by two independent reviewers. Cost information for interventions or procedures will be extracted by country and condition. Outcome measurements by reported unit and cost-effectiveness ratios will be extracted. Methodological quality of each article will be assessed using the Drummond checklist for economic evaluations. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Effective Health Care Program guidance will be followed to assess the grade of the studies.
Ethics and dissemination No ethical approval is required for conducting the systematic review. There will be no direct collection of data from individuals. The finalised article will be published in a scientific journal for dissemination. The protocol has been registered with PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews).
Conclusion Congenital anomalies form a large component of the global health burden that is amenable to surgical intervention. This study will systematically review the current literature on the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs.
PROSPERO registration number CRD42020172971.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
What is already known on this topic?
Congenital anomalies are a large component of the global health burden, recently rising to become the fifth leading cause of death in children under 5 years globally.
Over 95% of deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Surgical interventions have been shown to be cost-effective in reducing the burden of disease for some congenital anomalies.
What this study hopes to add?
To provide an evidence-based summary of the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs to direct future interventions and investments.
To identify specific congenital conditions that are most cost-effective in LMICs.
Congenital anomalies constitute a large global health burden, accounting for an estimated 591 000 deaths worldwide in 2016.1 The burden of disease from congenital anomalies falls most heavily on low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), where over 95% of the deaths from congenital anomalies occur.2 3 The burden of disease, traditionally expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), represents a health gap in a population due to early mortality and years of healthy life lost. As an example of this health gap, an estimated 140 154 DALYs are potentially avertable by neonatal surgery in Uganda; however, only 3.5% of the need is currently being met by the health system.4 A study of four low-income countries, Nepal, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda, showed 62% of the paediatric population had at least one unmet surgical need, approximating to 3.7 million children who need surgical care. These surgical conditions included congenital anomalies, along with masses, wounds, burns and abdominal pain. This study reported congenital anomalies were less likely to be treated compared with wounds, burns and extremity conditions.5 The higher burden in LMICs may also be attributed to a higher disease incidence related to a higher rate of micronutrient and macronutrient deficiencies, exposure to teratogens, intrauterine infections, and self-medication. In addition, elective pregnancy termination following prenatal diagnosis is less available in LMICs compared with high-income countries (HICs).6
Mortality rates for many congenital anomalies in LMICs are high. For example, gastroschisis mortality has been reported as 75%–100% in many paediatric surgical centres across Sub-Saharan Africa compared with less than 4% in HICs.6–8 Disturbingly, published high mortality rates from congenital anomalies may even be an underestimate of the true burden of disease due to sizeable hidden mortality. Children who do not reach health facilities and die at home or in transit are traditionally not accounted for.9 10 In 2014 the rate of facility-based delivery averaged 43% in developing countries and 48% in Sub-Saharan Africa.11 Barriers to facility-based delivery include social and cultural factors, distance to the facility, and cost of delivery.12 EUROCAT national estimates show that infant mortality from congenital anomalies could be up to 29% higher than that reported by the WHO.13 Furthermore, it is difficult to estimate the true burden of congenital anomalies in LMICs due to a lack of congenital anomaly registries and deficient research.
Traditionally, surgical care for neonates has been perceived as too complex and expensive to be prioritised or even implemented in LMICs, amidst competing public and global health priorities. However, a growing body of literature has arisen evaluating the potential of surgical interventions to reduce the burden of disease due to congenital anomalies in LMICs.14–17 Of DALYs caused by cleft lip and palate, congenital heart anomalies, and neural tube defects, 57% are potentially amenable to surgical care in LMICs.14 Among patients with gastroschisis in Uganda, up to 58.7 DALYs could be avertable per patient if appropriate surgical care was available.18 Despite this high unmet need that can be prevented with surgical care, the burden of surgical disease in the paediatric population remains high in LMICs. Many surgical conditions are congenital, yet surgical care in LMICs is often delayed, worsening outcomes due to presenting with more advanced disease processes.15 19 In Kenya, only 13.5% of the required surgical interventions were performed for common congenital conditions requiring surgical care.17
Surgical care has been found to be cost-effective in LMICs across various fields, including paediatric surgery.20–22 Treating congenital anomalies such as cleft lip and palate, anorectal malformation, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, and congenital heart defects can have significant economic impact by adding to lifetime individual income and quality life lived.16 23–25 In addition, untreated conditions such as hydrocephalus in infants can exact a large economic burden, whereas treating them has been shown to have a favourable cost:benefit ratio.26 Much has been added to the literature recently on the cost-effectiveness of surgery for paediatric conditions, including the systematic review by Saxton et al 22 in 2016 on the cost-effectiveness of surgery for paediatric conditions in LMICs. However, a systematic review of the cost-effectiveness studies for congenital anomalies in LMICs has not been conducted. Neonatal surgery is often deemed expensive due to the involvement of neonatal intensive care unit resources and specialists trained in neonates. Neonatal surgery uses a different set of resources and healthcare professionals compared with general paediatric surgery.
It is important to specifically analyse neonatal surgery independent of paediatric surgery and to fully understand the economic burden and the cost-effectiveness of surgical interventions for congenital anomalies to improve outcomes. This study aims to systematically review existing literature on the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for the management of congenital anomalies in LMICs.
The study aims to conduct a systematic review that identifies and analyses cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgical interventions for congenital anomalies in LMICs.
To systematically identify studies on cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs.
To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs.
To provide an evidence-based summary of cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs to direct future interventions and investments in neonatal surgery.
To critically appraise the quality of the studies included in the systematic review.
A systematic literature review will be conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols guidelines (online supplementary file 1). Any amendments to the protocol will be reported in the publication of the results.
[bmjpo-2020-000755supp001.pdf]
Inclusion/exclusion criteria
Conditions: abdominal wall defect, aganglionosis, anal atresia, anorectal malformation, anorectal stenosis, apple peel syndrome, biliary atresia, birth defects, bladder exstrophy, branchial tag, branchial vestige, bronchopulmonary sequestration, cervicoaural fistula, choledochal cyst, cleft lip, cleft palate, clubfoot, colonic atresia, congenital abnormalities, congenital anomalies, congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation of lung, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, congenital heart defects, congenital hydronephrosis, congenital malformation, conjoined twins, cryptorchidism, diaphragmatic eventration, Down syndrome, duodenal atresia, duodenal obstruction, duodenal web, epispadias, exomphalos, fetal malformation, gastroschisis, Hirschsprung's disease, hydrocoele, hypospadias, ileal atresia, imperforate anus, imperforate hymen, indeterminate sex, intestinal atresia, jejunal atresia, jejuno-ileal atresia, malrotation, neural tube defects, oesophageal atresia, omphalocoele, orofacial clefts, pectus excavatum, pes cavus, phimosis, polycystic kidney disease, polydactyly, preauricular sinus, redundant neck fold, spina bifida, syndactyly, tongue tie, tracheo-oesophageal fistula, umbilical hernia, undescended testicle, volvulus and webbed neck.
Age: neonatal.
Place: LMICs (as defined by World Bank 2019 classification).
Intervention: surgical or operative interventions performed in the antenatal setting and within the first 28 days of life.
Conditions: all conditions not listed in the inclusion criteria.
Age: greater than 28 days of life.
Place: HICs.
Intervention: any procedure performed after the first 28 days of life.
A systematic literature search will be conducted using the following search strings: (1) congenital anomalies; (2) LMICs; and (3) cost-effectiveness of surgical interventions (table 1). The following databases will be used: PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scielo, Google Scholar, African Journals OnLine and Regional WHO's African Index Medicus. The search will include English, French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic articles and will be restricted to human studies. There will be no restrictions on publication date or study design (online supplemental file 2).
Published, peer-reviewed journal articles will be included. Any study without explicit cost data or health outcomes data will be excluded. Case reports, editorials, letters to the editor and literature reviews will be excluded. Abstracts without available full text will be excluded.
Methodological quality
The studies will be assessed for their methodological quality of economic evaluations using the Drummond 10-point checklist27 (table 2). The results will be summarised in a table format in the results section. In addition to the Drummond checklist, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Effective Health Care Program guidance will be followed to assess the grade of the studies. The domains included in this assessment are risk of bias, consistency, directness and precision. The strength of evidence will be categorised into high, moderate low and insufficient groups.28
Drummond checklist
Study screening
Articles will be uploaded to Covidence software (Melbourne, Australia), duplicate articles will be removed and the remaining articles will be screened by two independent reviewers. All potential eligible articles will be screened in full text for final selection by two independent reviewers. The reference lists of the included articles will be screened to identify further eligible studies. Conflicts between the two reviewers' assessments will be resolved by a consensus meeting of all authors.
The following data will be extracted: study type or design, study population, study period, country, year of publication, journal, author name(s), number of patients, patient demographics, type of condition, type of intervention, type of healthcare system, gestational age, weight, time from birth to presentation, costs incurred during treatment and outcome of intervention (mortality and morbidity which will be reported using the Clavien-Dindo scoring system).29
Main outcomes will be the cost of surgical interventions and health outcomes. The effectiveness method of DALYs, health-adjusted life years and quality-adjusted life years will be extracted. Reported incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and/or potential gains in life expectancy will be extracted. Studies without a comparison with a prior intervention and reporting only a cost-effectiveness ratio will also be included in our study. Data reported for different countries or procedures will be extracted as separate results.
The WHO-CHOICE guidelines will be used to determine the interventions' cost-effectiveness category. Cost-effective intervention thresholds will be defined by the WHO based on the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita per DALY averted. Those that cost less than the GDP per capita per DALY averted will be categorised as very cost-effective, interventions that cost one to three times the GDP per capita per DALY as cost-effective, and those that cost more than three times the GDP per capita per DALY will be determined as not cost-effective.30
Data synthesis
The data will be organised into author(s), year of publication, intervention or procedure, country or site of intervention, GDP, costs per outcome, outcome unit, and currency.
Cost data will be organised into cost to the provider and cost to the patient. The cost will be converted to US dollars, calculated by the currency year. Quantitative analysis will be undertaken by calculating the median values and IQR for the intervention or procedures. Meta-analysis will likely not be feasible due to the limited availability of data. If our search results in appropriate data, a meta-analysis will be conducted. Appropriate data is defined as two or more homogeneous studies comparing the cost and outcomes of a specific surgical procedure with another non-surgical intervention. The meta-analysis will be conducted in Stata 15.1.
The GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations) system will be used to rate the quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations.
While we recognise the importance of public and patient involvement in research, on this occasion it has not been feasible to incorporate this into the design of the study due to difficulty engaging with patients and their families affected by congenital anomalies within LMICs in such a project. We will endeavour to ensure that a summary of the results of the study is provided in lay language and disseminated for public viewing.
No ethical approval was required for conducting the systematic review. There was no direct collection of data from individuals. The finalised article will be published in a scientific journal for dissemination.
The studies may have been conducted in different settings, such as government facilities, non-profit hospitals and surgical mission trips, which may limit direct comparisons. Costs may also be reported that vary in the components included. In addition, the health outcome calculations will be different by study, which may or may not include age weighting or discounting. The search engines used may not identify all articles. Lastly, it is unlikely that the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio will be directly comparable among studies as the alternative comparison may be different for each study.
Congenital anomalies are reported to account for approximately 62.9 million or 2.4% of global DALYs in 2016.31 Published literature from LMICs commonly describes the burden of disease from congenital disease in terms of mortality instead of DALYs, emphasising the difference in mortality rates compared with those from HICs. Reducing infant mortality due to congenital anomalies will help to meet the Sustainable Development Goal to reduce preventable deaths in neonates to as low as 12 per 1000 live births by 2030.32 Current literature has shown that surgical care for congenital anomalies can reduce the burden of disease in a cost-effective manner.16 21 23 24 33 An estimated two-thirds of the burden of disease related to congenital anomalies can be averted through surgical care.34 Despite this potential, the burden of surgical disease in this neonatal population remains high in LMICs.
There is a growing body of literature on the cost-effectiveness of surgical interventions for congenital anomalies, but to our knowledge there has been no systematic analysis consolidating these studies. The most recent literature review by Stolk et al 33 was completed in 2000 reporting two complete economic evaluations of the cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies which were not done in the context of LMICs.35 36 This project will provide a crucial addition to the literature by providing a systematic review on current literature of cost-effectiveness analysis of neonatal surgery for congenital anomalies in LMICs.
. Disease burden and mortality estimates, 2016. Available: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimates/en/ [Accessed 6 Mar 2020].
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. Congenital anomalies in the context of global surgery. Semin Pediatr Surg 2016;25:15–18.doi:10.1053/j.sempedsurg.2015.09.004 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26831133
. Mortality statistics, 2012. Available: http:// apps. who. int/ healthinfo/ statistics/ mortality/who. htm [Accessed 7 Jul 2019].
Badrinath R ,
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. Outcomes and unmet need for neonatal surgery in a resource-limited environment: estimates of global health disparities from Kampala, Uganda. J Pediatr Surg 2014;49:1825–30.doi:10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2014.09.031 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25487493
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. Epidemiology of pediatric surgical needs in low-income countries. PLoS One 2017;12:e0170968. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170968 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28257418
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Maraka J , et al
. Cost-effectiveness of surgery in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review. World J Surg 2014;38:252–63.doi:10.1007/s00268-013-2243-y pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24101020
Saxton AT ,
Ozgediz D , et al
. Economic analysis of children's surgical care in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review and analysis. PLoS One 2016;11:e0165480. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165480 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27792792
Poley MJ ,
Brouwer WBF ,
Busschbach JJV , et al
. Cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery: first greeted with scepticism, now increasingly accepted. Pediatr Surg Int 2008;24:119–27.doi:10.1007/s00383-007-2045-0 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17985140
Cardarelli M ,
Vaikunth S ,
Mills K , et al
. Cost-effectiveness of humanitarian pediatric cardiac surgery programs in low- and middle-income countries. JAMA Netw Open 2018;1:e184707. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.4707 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30646368
Stolk EA ,
Langemeijer RA , et al
. The cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery and subsequent treatment for congenital anorectal malformations. J Pediatr Surg 2001;36:1471–8.doi:10.1053/jpsu.2001.27025 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584391
Warf BC ,
Alkire BC ,
Bhai S , et al
. Costs and benefits of neurosurgical intervention for infant hydrocephalus in sub-Saharan Africa. J Neurosurg Pediatr 2011;8:509–21.doi:10.3171/2011.8.PEDS11163 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22044378
Drummond MF ,
Sculpher MJ ,
Claxton K , et al
. Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes. 4 edn. Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2015.
Owens DK ,
Lohr KN ,
Atkins D , et al
. AHRQ series paper 5: grading the strength of a body of evidence when comparing medical interventions--agency for healthcare research and quality and the effective health-care program. J Clin Epidemiol 2010;63:513–23.doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2009.03.009 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19595577
Dindo D ,
Demartines N ,
Clavien P-A
. Classification of surgical complications: a new proposal with evaluation in a cohort of 6336 patients and results of a survey. Ann Surg 2004;240:205–13.doi:10.1097/01.sla.0000133083.54934.ae pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15273542
Edejer TT
. Making choices in health: WHO guide to cost-effectiveness analysis, 2003: 8.
. Global health estimates 2016: disease burden by cause, age, sex, by country and by region. Geneva, 2016.
. Sustainable development goals, 2015. Available: https://sustainabledevelopment. un. org/ me nu= 1300[Accessed 26 Jan 2016].
Post HA ,
Rutten FF , et al
. Cost-effectiveness of neonatal surgery: a review. J Pediatr Surg 2000;35:588–92.doi:10.1053/jpsu.2000.0350588 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10770388
Debas HT ,
Donkor P ,
Gawande A , et al
. Disease control priorities. 3 edn. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015.
Roberts TE
. Economic evaluation and randomised controlled trial of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation: UK Collaborative trial. The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation economics Working group. BMJ 1998;317:911–5.doi:10.1136/bmj.317.7163.911 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9756807
Hackam DJ ,
Superina RA ,
Pearl RH
. Single-stage repair of Hirschsprung's disease: a comparison of 109 patients over 5 years. J Pediatr Surg 1997;32:1028–32.doi:10.1016/S0022-3468(97)90392-4 pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9247227
Twitter @PaedsSurgeon
Contributors All authors contributed to the design of the systematic review and drafted the manuscript including its revisions. All authors gave final approval of the version to be published and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work and ensure that questions related to the accuracy of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Funding NJW receives funding from the Wellcome Trust to undertake a Clinical PhD in Global Health at King's Centre for Global Health and Health Partnerships, King's College London (funder reference: 203905/Z/16/Z).
Data availability statement Data sharing not applicable as no data sets generated and/or analysed for this study. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. Data availability is not applicable for the systematic review protocol as no data will be collected. All data gathered during the systematic review will be made available with the publication of the results.
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


We have now arrived home safely and are slowly adapting to being back on British soil. That last week went by so quickly! Monday to Thursday induced an array of emotions as we conducted the last sessions in Beit Sahour and Dar al Kalima schools; the children said goodbye to us and each other, as those groups can't continue in exactly the same way. We had seen approx. 130 children every week, but there just isn't enough time in the day for staff to continue at that level, so only the children in most need of extra music time will carry on.
Our first group at Beit Sahour were very aware of the ending, and played a sensitive, almost continuous reflective improvisation for 30 minutes. Other, younger children appeared less aware but their behaviour told us they knew something was up. The Kindergarten session was wonderful, with nearly 30 children joining it at one point, along with 3 or 4 adults.
Dar al Kalima was humming as always; we said goodbye to six groups of children, and even had time for an impromptu musical improvisation with a student who asked to sit with us as she waited to be collected early by her mother as she felt poorly. All our trainees ran a final session, and year 6 sang Ki-lay-lay as they left the room and walked up the stairs, as is their custom. The last falafel sandwich was eaten, the last feedback given, and the last 'Bye Bye' was sung. On Thursday afternoon we were invited to share the staff outing to the local YMCA for swimming, zumba, sauna and steam, which was a lovely way to finish. We ate apples and drank lemon and mint ice crush which was amazingly delicious!
Friday was a day off, so we went to Bethlehem for final bits of shopping and to pay for the ocean drum that was to be delivered. We also bought Dar al Kalima a xylophone so it could stay in the office of the social worker, along with other instruments especially for therapy.
On Friday evening at 6pm we were collected from our little white house by Beit Sahour's deputy head, and taken to a beautiful restaurant for a farewell dinner, the filling in of questionnaires and awarding of certificates. To our delight, the entertainment for the evening was a Dabkah dance group, recent graduates from Beit Sahour school, who provided wonderful dancing and music and made us want to be part of the culture. Later, during a break in the meal, our trainees started a spontaneous singing of Ki-lay-lay around the table, to include management staff who've never been to a music session at all! It was a good evening, with everyone having an opportunity to speak about their feelings on the project, receiving certificates and cards we had made each person (with their own photo on the front, playing instruments in music sessions) and a message of thanks for their hard work and commitment inside. We in turn were given presents from all three schools and the church – olive wood nativity scenes, an embroidered bag each, painted mugs and candles to name a few!
Saturday was spent organising and packing, with a lovely lunch at a friend's house to make the day more cheerful. In the evening we had plans to go out, but a heavy cold knocked Hazel out of the running, so Teleri flew solo and enjoyed one final evening of dancing and Arabic music. On Sunday morning we re-packed (bags too heavy!) and said final, rather emotional goodbyes before being picked up by our airport taxi. Having recovered a mislaid passport, and experiencing a rather thorough security check, we finally departed Palestine at half seven on Sunday evening.
We were sad to leave but hope to be back for the next phase of the project in the Spring..... Inshallah!


Join us for our tenth-annual celebration of the short story, as we dedicate the month of May to short fiction.
We believe one simple thing: Fiction Matters! If you do, too, we hope you'll consider supporting us.
Our 2015 fundraiser in underway. Help us keep the digital lights on!
Slice magazine co-founders and co-publishers Maria Gagliano and Celia Blue Johnson discuss the highs of running their literary magazine, the origin of its name, what's new at the magazine, and what's to come.


text:
News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
Non-UK
GM Fringe
Buxton Fringe
Children/YPT
MT Awards
Merry Christmas, Holly & Ivan
Reporter: Peter Lathan
No rivalry here! Washington born siblings Christina Berriman Dawson (actor and playwright) and Richard Dawson (video games developer and sci-fi writer) have joined with Newcastle's Alphabetti Theatre to create an animated Christmas tale of a sister, a brother and a dog.
Merry Christmas, Holly & Ivan was originally performed live as part of Alphabetti's Christmas Cabaret in 2018 and has now been animated by Jack Holden Music and performed by Christina.
'Twas the '90s and Christmas Eve! Once upon a time in a town like this, snowfall blanketed Christmas, and a dog was for life. But this year our dog needs a knee replacement and that's a present too far even for Santa's magic. An animated Christmas adventure with Holly and Ivan as Santa takes them through a mysterious night of discovery to find the true meaning of Christmas.
The film is now available to watch for free (although donations to the theatre are very welcome) on Alphabetti's web site. It is suitable for ages 7+, runs for 20 minutes and will be available indefinitely.
© 2021 British Theatre Guide


text:
public class Word implements Comparable<Word> {
	String name;
	int count;

	public Word(String n, int ct) {
		name = n;
		count = ct;
	}

	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}

	public void setName(String n) {
		name = n;
	}

	public int getCount() {
		return count;
	}

	public void setCount(int ct) {
		count = ct;
	}

	public void increment(int ct) {
		count += ct;
	}

	@Override
	public String toString() {
		return name + "=" + count;
	}

	@Override
	public int compareTo(Word arg0) {
		if (arg0.count < count) {
			return 1;
		} else if (arg0.count > count) {
			return -1;
		} else {
			return 0;
		}
	}

	@Override
	public boolean equals(Object obj) {
		Word temp = (Word) obj;
		return name.equals(temp.name);
	}
}


text:
Q: Написал функцию, которая удаляет повторы в массиве. Но массив двумерный, и она удаляет повторы там, где не надо Я накидал функцию (код ее ниже), которая удаляет у массива повторяющиеся значения, если они идут друг за другом, оставляя при этом только первое значение.
Есть массив до обработки:
Array
(
    [Понедельник, 10 Декабря] => Array
        (
            [13:00] => "Принцесса де Монпасье" Мелодрама 16+
            [15:20] => "Боец" Драма 16+
            [17:20] => "Роден" Драма 18+
            [19:20] => "Шесть жен Генри Лефэя" Драма 16+
            [21:00] => "Принцесса де Монпасье" Мелодрама 16+
            [23:20] => "Боец" Драма 16+
            [01:20] => "Роден" Драма 18+
        )

    [Вторник, 11 Декабря] => Array
        (
            [09:20] => "Роден" Драма 18+
            [11:20] => "Шесть жен Генри Лефэя" Драма 16+
            [13:00] => "Безумные деньги" Комедия 16+
            [14:40] => "Мистер Штайн идет в онлайн" Комедия 16+
            [16:25] => "Железный занавес" Драма 12+

Обратите внимание на строки [01:20] => "Роден" Драма 18+ и [09:20] => "Роден" Драма 18+. Они в разных днях, но как бы идут друг за другом. Если применить мою функцию, то [09:20] => "Роден" Драма 18+ удалится, и Вторник начнется с [11:20] => "Шесть жен Генри Лефэя" Драма 16+, а это нехорошо. Как предотвратить удаление значения, если оно есть в конце одного дня и в начале следующего? То есть, мне нужно, чтобы функция работала в пределах одного дня, но для каждого дня недели...
function deleteReps($week){
    if( /* $_POST['deleteReps'] &&  */$week ){
        foreach($week as $date => $day){
            foreach($day as $time => $show){
                if($show == $rep){
                    unset($week[$date][$time]);
                }
                $rep = $show;
            }
        }
    }
    return $week;
}

Тут бы как-нибудь сравнить $date для $show и $date для $rep, но как выдернуть $date, если $show и $rep так глубоко в двумерном массиве? Спасибо!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Margaret Atwood Is Writing Her Own 'Handmaid's Tale' Sequel
Filed Under:Fred Thornhill, Margaret Atwood, MV2, The Handmaid Tale, wochit entertainment
Canadian author Margaret Atwood announced that she's writing a sequel to her best-selling dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale." She made the announcement on Twitter, writing: "Yes indeed to those who asked: I'm writing a sequel to The #HandmaidsTale." The book, called "The Testaments" is set to be published in September 2019 by Penguin Random House, says Reuters. The novel will be set 15 years after the events depicted in "The Handmaid's Tale" and will be narrated by three female characters.


text:
Home Dumbo Feather Magazine
Dumbo Feather Magazine (Digital Version)
4 Digital Issues
Dumbo Feather is an iconic Australian magazine. Published quarterly for seven years, and hailed around the world as a design leader, it is a magazine like no other. Our readers are people who want to be told a different story than the one they hear every day. Each quarterly issue features five extended (20 page) profiles of people worth knowing, across enterprise, education, science, sport, politics, fashion and the arts. Whether they've touched millions, or just those around them, we take the time to get to know these people, and ask them to tell us their stories.
Digital - Magazine Print Magazine
Want a print magazine ship to your doorstep, CLICK HERE
Dumbo Feather Pty Ltd
The Dumbo Feather Magazine in its British edition is an all round magazine for the urban woman. Get the most gripping features on relationships and careers, with expanded reporting on fashion and beauty, health and fitness, published with glamour and guts. With its gutsy, intimate and blatantly honest articles on women issues, the Cosmopolitan Magazine is the ultimate guide for all women. Expect the magazine to help you with advice on personal issues, given from the industry's most influential women. Combine that with high street fashion must-haves from the streets of UK, stunning make-up tips, career news and intimate interviews with some of your favourite celebrities and you get an epitome of everyday women guide. One of the best selling magazines in our store, the Cosmopolitan UK is a must-have for all women and is available on various subscription offers at our store online www.magazinecafestore.com or in our store located in New York called Magazine Cafe Store.
You're reviewing: Dumbo Feather Magazine


text:
package types

// StopWords type alias.
//
// https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-specification/blob/4ca0cc05d3ae3fa06c2cd7be91905b656a474334/specification/_types/analysis/StopWords.ts#L20-L26
type StopWords []string


text:
Q: Passing utf-16 string to a Windows function I have a Windows dll called some.dll with the following function:
void some_func(TCHAR* input_string)
{
...
}

some_func expects a pointer to utf-16 encoded string.
Running this python code:
from ctypes import *

some_string = "disco duck"
param_to_some_func = c_wchar_p(some_string.encode('utf-16'))  #  here exception!

some_dll = ctypes.WinDLL(some.dll)
some_dll.some_func(param_to_some_func)

fails with exception "unicode string or integer address expected instead of bytes instance"
The documentation for ctypes and ctypes.wintypes is very thin, and I have not found a way to convert a python string to a Windows wide char and pass it to a function.

A: According to [Python 3.Docs]: Built-in Types - Text Sequence Type - str (emphasis is mine):

Textual data in Python is handled with str objects, or strings. Strings are immutable sequences of Unicode code points.

On Win they are UTF16 encoded.
So, the correspondence between CTypes and Python (also visible by checking the differences between):

*

*[Python 3.Docs]: ctypes - Fundamental data types

*[Python 2.Docs]: ctypes - Fundamental data types

╔═══════════════╦══════════════╦══════════════╗
║    CTypes     ║   Python 3   ║   Python 2   ║
╠═══════════════╬══════════════╬══════════════╣
║   c_char_p    ║    bytes     ║     str      ║
║   c_wchar_p   ║     str      ║   unicode    ║
╚═══════════════╩══════════════╩══════════════╝

Example:

*

*Python 3:

>>> import sys
>>> import ctypes as ct
>>>
>>> sys.version
'3.7.6 (tags/v3.7.6:43364a7ae0, Dec 19 2019, 00:42:30) [MSC v.1916 64 bit (AMD64)]'
>>>
>>> text_ascii = b"Dummy"
>>> text_unicode = "Dummy"
>>>
>>> ct.c_char_p(text_ascii)
c_char_p(2563882450144)
>>>
>>> ct.c_wchar_p(text_ascii)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unicode string or integer address expected instead of bytes instance
>>>
>>> ct.c_char_p(text_unicode)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: bytes or integer address expected instead of str instance
>>>
>>> ct.c_wchar_p(text_unicode)
c_wchar_p(2563878400656)

*Python 2 (note that str <=> unicode conversions are performed automatically):

>>> import sys
>>> import ctypes as ct
>>>
>>> sys.version
'2.7.17 (v2.7.17:c2f86d86e6, Oct 19 2019, 21:01:17) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)]'
>>>
>>> text_ascii = "Dummy"
>>> text_unicode = u"Dummy"
>>>
>>> ct.c_char_p(text_ascii)
c_char_p('Dummy')
>>>
>>> ct.c_wchar_p(text_ascii)
c_wchar_p(u'Dummy')
>>>
>>> ct.c_char_p(text_unicode)
c_char_p('Dummy')
>>>
>>> ct.c_wchar_p(text_unicode)
c_wchar_p(u'Dummy')

Back to your situaton:

>>> import ctypes as ct
>>>
>>> some_string = "disco duck"
>>>
>>> enc_utf16 = some_string.encode("utf16")
>>> enc_utf16
b'\xff\xfed\x00i\x00s\x00c\x00o\x00 \x00d\x00u\x00c\x00k\x00'
>>>
>>> type(some_string), type(enc_utf16)
(<class 'str'>, <class 'bytes'>)
>>>
>>> ct.c_wchar_p(some_string)  # This is the right way
c_wchar_p(2508534214928)
>>>
>>> ct.c_wchar_p(enc_utf16)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unicode string or integer address expected instead of bytes instance

As a side note, TCHAR varies (it's a typedef) on _UNICODE (not) being defined. Check [MS.Docs]: Generic-Text Mappings in tchar.h for more details. So, depending on the C code compilation flags, the Python code might also need adjustments.
You could also check [SO]: Python 3 Concat Single Byte with String Bytes (@CristiFati's answer).


Excluding Jen and myself, this is only the 2nd time in Watkins Landmark history that we celebrate an employee's 10th anniversary with our company. That is 10 consecutive years Tori, sorry. 10 years ago today, Oscar Iniguez was hired to do the Heights custom home development. The Heights turned out to be a train wreck / dumpster fire of a project. Despite that result, we have kept Oscar employed. After much persistence, Oscar is now a Senior Superintendent and one of the leaders in our San Diego office. He has also cut down his driving complaints to once a year. We are hoping the last complaint will be stretched over the next two years. Everybody take a moment to congratulate Oscar on this achievement. For everybody that took Dean's bet that " No f&$^ing way will Oscar will make his 10 year anniversary!", Dean will be begrudgingly be paying off by the kegerator at 4:00 PM today. Congratulations to Oscar!


text:
Nature Materials - Issue - nature.com science feeds
Nature Materials journal covers a range of topics within materials science, from materials engineering and structural materials (metals, alloys, ceramics, composites) to organic and soft materials (glasses, colloids, liquid crystals, polymers).
Linking in situ charge accumulation to electronic structure in doped SrTiO3 reveals design principles for hydrogen-evolving photocatalysts
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00868-2Understanding the origin of unprecedented solar-to-hydrogen efficiencies in doped SrTiO3 has proved challenging. Linking in situ charge accumulation to electronic structure in this system now reveals design principles for hydrogen-evolving photocatalysts.
Tuning electrochemially driven surface transformation in atomically flat LaNiO3 thin films for enhanced water electrolysis
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00877-1Structure–activity relationships built on descriptors of surfaces can help to design electrocatalysts, but their identification for electrochemically driven surface transformations is challenging. The composition of LaNiO3 thin film surfaces can now dictate surface transformation...
Unfavourable interactions enable stability
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00889-xUse of polymer and small-molecule semiconductors with relatively poor miscibility helps the long-term stability of the morphology and photovoltaic performance of bulk heterojunction films used in organic solar cells.
Restriction boosts piezoelectricity
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00890-4Large reversible shear strain has been achieved by electric-field-driven bipolar switching in a hybrid ferroelectric, facilitating development of shape-memory-type actuators with outstanding figures of merit.
Direct imaging of atomistic grain boundary migration
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00879-zThe atomic process of grain boundary migration has been directly observed by scanning transmission electron microscopy, revealing transformations between different stable or metastable grain boundary structures.
A molecular interaction–diffusion framework for predicting organic solar cell stability
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00872-6Studies on the morphology stability of polymer donor–small-molecule acceptor blends relevant to solar cell stability reveal relationships between their intermolecular interactions and the thermodynamic, kinetic, thermal and mechanical properties.
Living materials with programmable functionalities grown from engineered microbial co-cultures
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00857-5A symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast is used to fabricate bacterial cellulose-based living materials that respond to external cues and adapt their structural and functional properties, with implications for sensing and catalytic applications.
Ferroelastic-switching-driven large shear strain and piezoelectricity in a hybrid ferroelectric
Nature Materials, Published online: 11 January 2021; doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00875-3Reversible strains are widely used in high-technology systems, with piezoelectrics showing fast response but low strain. Here, ferroelectric C6H5N(CH3)3CdCl3 is shown to produce a strain of 21.5%, two orders of magnitude larger than other piezoelectrics, due to organic...


Application modeling using dynamic dataflow graphs is wellsuited for multi-core platforms. However, there is often a mismatch between the fine granularity of the application and the platform. Tailoring this granularity to the platform promises performance gains by (a) reducing dynamic scheduling overhead and (b) exploiting compiler optimizations. In this paper, we propose a throughput-optimizing compilation approach that uses Quasi-Static Schedules (QSSs) to combine actors of static dataflow subgraphs. Our proposed approach combines core allocation, QSSs, and actor binding in a Design Space Exploration (DSE), optimizing the throughput for a number of available cores. During the DSE, each implementation candidate is compiled to and evaluated on the target hardware-here an Intel i7 and an ARM Cortex-A9. Experimental results including synthetic benchmarks as well as a real-world control application show that our proposed holistic compilation approach outperforms classic DSEs that are agnostic of QSS as well as a DSE that employs QSS as a post-processing step. Amongst others, we show a case where the compilation approach obtains a speedup of 9.91 x for a 4-core implementation, while a classic DSE only obtains a speedup of 2.12 x.
Schwarzer, T., Falk, J., Glaß, M., Teich, J., Zebelein, C., & Haubelt, C. (2015). Throughput-optimizing compilation of dataflow applications for multi-cores using quasi-static scheduling. In Proceedings of the 18th International Workshop on Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems (SCOPES) (pp. 68-75). St. Goar, DE: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Schwarzer, Tobias, et al. "Throughput-optimizing compilation of dataflow applications for multi-cores using quasi-static scheduling." Proceedings of the 18th International Workshop on Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems, SCOPES 2015, St. Goar Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2015. 68-75.


text:
Lake Griffin ist ein See im Lake County und im Marion County im US-Bundesstaat Florida.

Der See hat eine Fläche von 37 km². Am Ufer liegen die Städte Fruitland Park und Leesburg. Im See liegen die Inseln Picciola Island und Treasure Island. Der See ist durch den Haines Creek mit dem Lake Eustis verbunden.

Weblinks

Griffin
Griffin
SGriffin
Lake County (Florida)


text:
Viewing The King of Average
The King of Average
Author(s): Gary Schwartz
Audience: children, adults
Website: http://www.gary-schwartz.com/writing
James isn't the world's greatest kid, but he's not the worst, either: He's average! When he decides to become the most average kid in the entire world, James is transported to another world where he meets Mayor Culpa, a well-dressed talking scapegoat who recruits him to become the new King of Average.
Joined on his quest by a professional Optimist and his grouchy companion, an equally professional Pessimist called Kiljoy, James sets out on a journey of self-discovery that leads him all the way from Lake Inferior to Mount Impossible, the highest peak in the Unattainable Mountains. When he stumbles upon a Shangri-la called Epiphany, James uncovers the secret about who he really is.
Join James on his hilarious, adventure-packed journey to find self-worth in this heartfelt middle grade novel The King of Average by Gary Schwartz.


With food and gasoline costs surging, household budgets worldwide are feeling the pinch. But how people feel about the economy -- and how they are coping financially -- varies by country and region, The Economist recently reported.
Consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, for example, are more inclined to save than to splurge if they have spare money, while Russian consumers pump their extra cash into expanding their wardrobe, according to Nielsen.
Meanwhile, people in Nordic countries continue to spend money on travel and vacations, while Brazilians are happy to stay home.
Discretionary income has also become increasingly scarce in countries throughout Europe and North America, according to Nielsen. One-fifth of those surveyed by Nielsen in Britain, Germany, and France -- and a quarter of Americans -- have eliminated spending money for pleasure, The Economist noted.
Still, some small luxuries have remained immune to the economic gloom: 80% of Americans are continuing to shell out $10-$12 per ticket to catch movies on the big screen, Nielsen found.


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Glass for table tops .
A staircase or deck rail, tempered glass is no problem and our prices are very competitive.
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The most common is a bathroom renovation. A new mirror can bring a new dimension to a room that will be the focus of the start of your day.
Mirrors for an exercise room can give you that uplifting feeling.
Beveled mirrors can be custom made to your specifications.
From windshields to back glasses we replace them all.
Don't want to make and insurance claim....ask us for a price... you will be pleased.
Windshield small crack and chip repairs are done in shop with a high success rate.
Shower shelves and custom made soap dishes.